Part 2 (1/2)
”Oh, lordy, that's one of them! They're aboard sure--I just knowed it. I sort of hoped I had got away, but I never believed it. Go on.”
Presently when Tom was describing another mangy, rough deck pa.s.senger, he give that s.h.i.+ver again and says:
”That's him!--that's the other one. If it would only come a good black stormy night and I could get ash.o.r.e. You see, they've got spies on me.
They've got a right to come up and buy drinks at the bar yonder forrard, and they take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me--porter or boots or somebody. If I was to slip ash.o.r.e without anybody seeing me, they would know it inside of an hour.”
So then he got to wandering along, and pretty soon, sure enough, he was telling! He was poking along through his ups and downs, and when he come to that place he went right along. He says:
”It was a confidence game. We played it on a julery-shop in St.
Louis. What we was after was a couple of n.o.ble big di'monds as big as hazel-nuts, which everybody was running to see. We was dressed up fine, and we played it on them in broad daylight. We ordered the di'monds sent to the hotel for us to see if we wanted to buy, and when we was examining them we had paste counterfeits all ready, and THEM was the things that went back to the shop when we said the water wasn't quite fine enough for twelve thousand dollars.”
”Twelve-thousand-dollars!” Tom says. ”Was they really worth all that money, do you reckon?”
”Every cent of it.”
”And you fellows got away with them?”
”As easy as nothing. I don't reckon the julery people know they've been robbed yet. But it wouldn't be good sense to stay around St. Louis, of course, so we considered where we'd go. One was for going one way, one another, so we throwed up, heads or tails, and the Upper Mississippi won. We done up the di'monds in a paper and put our names on it and put it in the keep of the hotel clerk, and told him not to ever let either of us have it again without the others was on hand to see it done; then we went down town, each by his own self--because I reckon maybe we all had the same notion. I don't know for certain, but I reckon maybe we had.”
”What notion?” Tom says.
”To rob the others.”
”What--one take everything, after all of you had helped to get it?”
”Cert'nly.”
It disgusted Tom Sawyer, and he said it was the orneriest, low-downest thing he ever heard of. But Jake Dunlap said it warn't unusual in the profession. Said when a person was in that line of business he'd got to look out for his own intrust, there warn't n.o.body else going to do it for him. And then he went on. He says:
”You see, the trouble was, you couldn't divide up two di'monds amongst three. If there'd been three--But never mind about that, there warn't three. I loafed along the back streets studying and studying. And I says to myself, I'll hog them di'monds the first chance I get, and I'll have a disguise all ready, and I'll give the boys the slip, and when I'm safe away I'll put it on, and then let them find me if they can. So I got the false whiskers and the goggles and this countrified suit of clothes, and fetched them along back in a hand-bag; and when I was pa.s.sing a shop where they sell all sorts of things, I got a glimpse of one of my pals through the window. It was Bud Dixon. I was glad, you bet. I says to myself, I'll see what he buys. So I kept shady, and watched. Now what do you reckon it was he bought?”
”Whiskers?” said I.
”No.”
”Goggles?”
”No.”
”Oh, keep still, Huck Finn, can't you, you're only just hendering all you can. What WAS it he bought, Jake?”
”You'd never guess in the world. It was only just a screwdriver--just a wee little bit of a screwdriver.”
”Well, I declare! What did he want with that?”
”That's what I thought. It was curious. It clean stumped me. I says to myself, what can he want with that thing? Well, when he come out I stood back out of sight, and then tracked him to a second-hand slop-shop and see him buy a red flannel s.h.i.+rt and some old ragged clothes--just the ones he's got on now, as you've described. Then I went down to the wharf and hid my things aboard the up-river boat that we had picked out, and then started back and had another streak of luck. I seen our other pal lay in HIS stock of old rusty second-handers. We got the di'monds and went aboard the boat.
”But now we was up a stump, for we couldn't go to bed. We had to set up and watch one another. Pity, that was; pity to put that kind of a strain on us, because there was bad blood between us from a couple of weeks back, and we was only friends in the way of business. Bad anyway, seeing there was only two di'monds betwixt three men. First we had supper, and then tramped up and down the deck together smoking till most midnight; then we went and set down in my stateroom and locked the doors and looked in the piece of paper to see if the di'monds was all right, then laid it on the lower berth right in full sight; and there we set, and set, and by-and-by it got to be dreadful hard to keep awake. At last Bud Dixon he dropped off. As soon as he was snoring a good regular gait that was likely to last, and had his chin on his breast and looked permanent, Hal Clayton nodded towards the di'monds and then towards the outside door, and I understood. I reached and got the paper, and then we stood up and waited perfectly still; Bud never stirred; I turned the key of the outside door very soft and slow, then turned the k.n.o.b the same way, and we went tiptoeing out onto the guard, and shut the door very soft and gentle.