"Never , Jim ."
"Well, I ... I ran away. "
"Oh, Jim , whatever made you do that ?"
"It was like this , Huck. I'd seen a trader coming to the house and I'd wondered what he'd come for. Then one night I heard Miss Watson tell Widow Douglas that she was going to sell me . She didn't want to , she said , but she could get eight hundred dollars for me and she needed the money . Widow Douglas told her not to sell but she didn't seem ready to listen . I made up my mind to run away before I was sold . "
"For a night and a day I hid in a barn . I daren't move out because I knew they'd send the dogs after me . And if I stole a boat to cross the river , they'd miss it and know where I'd landed on the other side . The best way , I tought , was to wait for a raft to come down the river at night , to swim out to it , board it secretly . That's what I did . I managed to climb on the raft , unknown to the men on board . I calculated that by daybreak I'd be twenty-five miles down the river, where I'd swim ashore and hide in the woods.
