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Chapter XXV
THERE comes a time in every rightly-
constructed boy's life when he has a
raging desire to go somewhere and dig for
hidden treasure.
This desire suddenly came upon Tom one
day.
He sallied out to find Joe Harper, but
failed of success.
Next he sought Ben Rogers; he had gone
fishing.
Presently he stumbled upon Huck Finn the
Red-Handed.
Huck would answer.
Tom took him to a private place and opened
the matter to him confidentially.
Huck was willing.
Huck was always willing to take a hand in
any enterprise that offered entertainment
and required no capital, for he had a
troublesome superabundance of that sort of
time which is not money.
"Where'll we dig?"
said Huck.
"Oh, most anywhere."
"Why, is it hid all around?"
"No, indeed it ain't.
It's hid in mighty particular places, Huck
--sometimes on islands, sometimes in
rotten chests under the end of a limb of
an old dead tree, just where the shadow
falls at midnight; but mostly under the
floor in ha'nted houses."
"Who hides it?"
"Why, robbers, of course--who'd you
reckon?
Sunday-school sup'rintendents?"
"I don't know.
If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it; I'd
spend it and have a good time."
"So would I.
But robbers don't do that way.
They always hide it and leave it there."
"Don't they come after it any more?"
"No, they think they will, but they
generally forget the marks, or else they
die.
Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets
rusty; and by and by somebody finds an old
yellow paper that tells how to find the
marks--a paper that's got to be ciphered
over about a week because it's mostly
signs and hy'roglyphics."
"Hyro--which?"
"Hy'roglyphics--pictures and things, you
know, that don't seem to mean anything."
"Have you got one of them papers, Tom?"
"No."
"Well then, how you going to find the
marks?"
"I don't want any marks.
They always bury it under a ha'nted house
or on an island, or under a dead tree
that's got one limb sticking out.
Well, we've tried Jackson's Island a
little, and we can try it again some time;
and there's the old ha'nted house up the
Still-House branch, and there's lots of
dead-limb trees--dead loads of 'em."
"Is it under all of them?"
"How you talk!
No!"
"Then how you going to know which one to
go for?"
"Go for all of 'em!"
"Why, Tom, it'll take all summer."
"Well, what of that?
Suppose you find a brass pot with a
hundred dollars in it, all rusty and gray,
or rotten chest full of di'monds.
How's that?"
Huck's eyes glowed.
"That's bully.
Plenty bully enough for me.
Just you gimme the hundred dollars and I
don't want no di'monds."
"All right.
But I bet you I ain't going to throw off
on di'monds.
Some of 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece-
-there ain't any, hardly, but's worth six
bits or a dollar."
"No!
Is that so?"
"Cert'nly--anybody'll tell you so.
Hain't you ever seen one, Huck?"
"Not as I remember."
"Oh, kings have slathers of them."
"Well, I don' know no kings, Tom."
"I reckon you don't.
But if you was to go to Europe you'd see a
raft of 'em hopping around."
"Do they hop?"
"Hop?--your granny!
No!"
"Well, what did you say they did, for?"
"Shucks, I only meant you'd SEE 'em--not
hopping, of course--what do they want to
hop for?--but I mean you'd just see 'em--
scattered around, you know, in a kind of a
general way.
Like that old humpbacked Richard."
"Richard?
What's his other name?"
"He didn't have any other name.
Kings don't have any but a given name."
"No?"
"But they don't."
"Well, if they like it, Tom, all right;
but I don't want to be a king and have
only just a given name, like a ***.
But say--where you going to dig first?"
"Well, I don't know.
S'pose we tackle that old dead-limb tree
on the hill t'other side of Still-House
"I'm agreed."
So they got a crippled pick and a shovel,
and set out on their three-mile ***.
They arrived hot and panting, and threw
themselves down in the shade of a
neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke.
"I like this," said Tom.
"So do I."
"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here,
what you going to do with your share?"
"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda
every day, and I'll go to every circus
that comes along.
I bet I'll have a gay time."
"Well, ain't you going to save any of it?"
"Save it?
What for?"
"Why, so as to have something to live on,
by and by."
"Oh, that ain't any use.
Pap would come back to thish-yer town some
day and get his claws on it if I didn't
hurry up, and I tell you he'd clean it out
pretty quick.
What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-
'nough sword, and a red necktie and a bull
pup, and get married."
"Married!"
"That's it."
"Tom, you--why, you ain't in your right
mind."
"Wait--you'll see."
"Well, that's the foolishest thing you
could do.
Look at pap and my mother.
Fight!
Why, they used to fight all the time.
I remember, mighty well."
"That ain't anything.
The girl I'm going to marry won't fight."
"Tom, I reckon they're all alike.
They'll all comb a body.
Now you better think 'bout this awhile.
I tell you you better.
What's the name of the gal?"
"It ain't a gal at all--it's a girl."
"It's all the same, I reckon; some says
gal, some says girl--both's right, like
enough.
Anyway, what's her name, Tom?"
"I'll tell you some time--not now."
"All right--that'll do.
Only if you get married I'll be more
lonesomer than ever."
"No you won't.
You'll come and live with me.
Now stir out of this and we'll go to
digging."
They worked and sweated for half an hour.
No result.
They toiled another half-hour.
Still no result.
Huck said:
"Do they always bury it as deep as this?"
"Sometimes--not always.
Not generally.
I reckon we haven't got the right place."
So they chose a new spot and began again.
The labor dragged a little, but still they
made progress.
They pegged away in silence for some time.
Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed
the beaded drops from his brow with his
sleeve, and said:
"Where you going to dig next, after we get
this one?"
"I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree
that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of
the widow's."
"I reckon that'll be a good one.
But won't the widow take it away from us,
Tom?
It's on her land."
"SHE take it away!
Maybe she'd like to try it once.
Whoever finds one of these hid treasures,
it belongs to him.
It don't make any difference whose land
it's on."
That was satisfactory.
The work went on.
By and by Huck said:
"Blame it, we must be in the wrong place
again.
What do you think?"
"It is mighty curious, Huck.
I don't understand it.
Sometimes witches interfere.
I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble
now."
Witches ain't got no power in the
daytime."
"Well, that's so.
I didn't think of that.
Oh, I know what the matter is!
What a blamed lot of fools we are!
You got to find out where the shadow of
the limb falls at midnight, and that's
where you dig!"
"Then consound it, we've fooled away all
this work for nothing.
Now hang it all, we got to come back in
the night.
It's an awful long way.
Can you get out?"
"I bet I will.
We've got to do it to-night, too, because
if somebody sees these holes they'll know
in a minute what's here and they'll go for
it."
"Well, I'll come around and maow to-
night."
"All right.
Let's hide the tools in the bushes."
The boys were there that night, about the
appointed time.
They sat in the shadow waiting.
It was a lonely place, and an hour made
solemn by old traditions.
Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves,
ghosts lurked in the murky nooks, the deep
baying of a hound floated up out of the
distance, an owl answered with his
sepulchral note.
The boys were subdued by these
solemnities, and talked little.
By and by they judged that twelve had
come; they marked where the shadow fell,
and began to dig.
Their hopes commenced to rise.
Their interest grew stronger, and their
industry kept pace with it.
The hole deepened and still deepened, but
every time their hearts jumped to hear the
pick strike upon something, they only
suffered a new disappointment.
It was only a stone or a chunk.
At last Tom said:
"It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong
again."
"Well, but we CAN'T be wrong.
We spotted the shadder to a dot."
"I know it, but then there's another
thing."
"What's that?".
"Why, we only guessed at the time.
Like enough it was too late or too early."
Huck dropped his shovel.
"That's it," said he.
"That's the very trouble.
We got to give this one up.
We can't ever tell the right time, and
besides this kind of thing's too awful,
here this time of night with witches and
ghosts a-fluttering around so.
I feel as if something's behind me all the
time; and I'm afeard to turn around, becuz
maybe there's others in front a-waiting
for a chance.
I been creeping all over, ever since I got
here."
"Well, I've been pretty much so, too,
Huck.
They most always put in a dead man when
they bury a treasure under a tree, to look
out for it."
"Lordy!"
"Yes, they do.
I've always heard that."
"Tom, I don't like to fool around much
where there's dead people.
A body's bound to get into trouble with
'em, sure."
"I don't like to stir 'em up, either.
S'pose this one here was to stick his
skull out and say something!"
"Don't Tom!
It's awful."
"Well, it just is.
Huck, I don't feel comfortable a bit."
"Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and
try somewheres else."
"All right, I reckon we better."
"What'll it be?"
Tom considered awhile; and then said:
"The ha'nted house.
That's it!"
"Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses,
Tom.
Why, they're a dern sight worse'n dead
people.
Dead people might talk, maybe, but they
don't come sliding around in a shroud,
when you ain't noticing, and peep over
your shoulder all of a sudden and grit
their teeth, the way a ghost does.
I couldn't stand such a thing as that,
Tom--nobody could."
"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel
around only at night.
They won't hender us from digging there in
the daytime."
"Well, that's so.
But you know mighty well people don't go
about that ha'nted house in the day nor
the night."
"Well, that's mostly because they don't
like to go where a man's been murdered,
anyway--but nothing's ever been seen
around that house except in the night--
just some blue lights slipping by the
windows--no regular ghosts."
"Well, where you see one of them blue
lights flickering around, Tom, you can bet
there's a ghost mighty close behind it.
It stands to reason.
Becuz you know that they don't anybody but
ghosts use 'em."
"Yes, that's so.
But anyway they don't come around in the
daytime, so what's the use of our being
afeard?"
"Well, all right.
We'll tackle the ha'nted house if you say
so--but I reckon it's taking chances."
They had started down the hill by this
time.
There in the middle of the moonlit valley
below them stood the "ha'nted" house,
utterly isolated, its fences gone long
ago, rank weeds smothering the very
doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin,
the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the
roof caved in.
The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to
see a blue light flit past a window; then
talking in a low tone, as befitted the
time and the circumstances, they struck
far off to the right, to give the haunted
house a wide berth, and took their way
homeward through the woods that adorned
the rearward side of Cardiff Hill.