Question: > 
> “A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody’s got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that’s foolishness. Why can’t a body **take a club** and ransom them as soon as they get here?”
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I have no idea what "take a club" means here. I checked online. It doesn't seem to be an idiom.

Note that the English variant is kinda old. Here is the modern version:

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> “A guard! Well, that IS a good idea. So someone has got to stay up all night and never get any sleep, just to keep an eye on them. I think that’s ridiculous. Why can’t we just **take a club** and ransom them as soon as they get here?”
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This is from *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*. Here is the linked to it: <https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/huckfinn/chapter-2/page_3/>

Answer: 
"Take a club" in this case means exactly what Kate Bunting and SoronelHaetir have suggested: to pick up a [club](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/club#Noun), a "heavy stick intended for use as a weapon or plaything." The verb [**to take**](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/take#Verb) has 55 main meanings listed at Wiktionary, and the meaning here is the very first one:

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> 1. (*transitive*) To get into one's hands, possession or control, with or without force.  
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> *They **took** Charlton's gun from his cold, dead hands.*
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The confusing part is the implication that the club *itself* will be used to "ransom" the people who have been kidnapped and brought to the cave. The speakers—Tom Sawyer and Ben Rogers and the rest of the Gang—don't actually know what that word means! They assume it has something to do with *killing* the people, and Ben Rogers suggests that they "ransom" the people with a club. He thinks this means they will beat the people with the club until they are dead.

But of course the verb [**to ransom**](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ransom#Verb) does *not* mean that! It means "3. To exact a ransom (payment) in exchange for the freedom of." But the boys do not know the correct meaning and they misuse the word, which makes for some humorous dialogue.
I would read it as to threaten the prisoner with being hit with a club unless they (or someone on their behalf) pays up, that the "take" simply means to "hold onto" (a shortened form of "take-in-hand").

Normally I would read "take a club" as meaning someone actually got hit, as in "I've no desire to take a club", or more likely "he took a club to the head", but that meaning doesn't really make sense in the cited sentence. And note that if this is a translated work something may well be getting lost from the original.