



Produced by David Widger





HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By Mark Twain

Part 4.



CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a
monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.  She had
four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty
men, likely.  She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open
camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end.  There was a
power of style about her.  It AMOUNTED to something being a raftsman on
such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got
hot.  The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both
sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.  We talked
about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it.  I
said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but about a
dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit up, how
was we going to know we was passing a town?  Jim said if the two big
rivers joined together there, that would show.  But I said maybe we might
think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old
river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too.  So the question was, what
to do?  I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell
them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green
hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo.  Jim
thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited