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- 7526
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T02:35:49.961Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 7442
- text
- When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said:
“They won’t tell—and I won’t. But why don’t you want it known?”
Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too
much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he knew
anything against him for the whole world—he would be killed for knowing
it, sure.
The old man promised secrecy once more, and said:
“How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking
suspicious?”
Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said:
“Well, you see, I’m a kind of a hard lot,—least everybody says so, and
I don’t see nothing agin it—and sometimes I can’t sleep much, on account
of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way of
doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn’t sleep, and so I
come along upstreet ’bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I
got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed
up agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes
these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their
arm, and I reckoned they’d stole it. One was a-smoking, and t’other one
wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit up
their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard,
by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t’other one was a
rusty, ragged-looking devil.”
“Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?”
This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said:
“Well, I don’t know—but somehow it seems as if I did.”
“Then they went on, and you—”
“Follered ’em—yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up—they sneaked
along so. I dogged ’em to the widder’s stile, and stood in the dark and
heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard swear he’d
spile her looks just as I told you and your two—”
“What! The _deaf and dumb_ man said all that!”
Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep
the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might be,
and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble in spite of
all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of his scrape,
but the old man’s eye was upon him and he made blunder after blunder.
Presently the Welshman said:
“My boy, don’t be afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head for
all the world. No—I’d protect you—I’d protect you. This Spaniard is
not deaf and dumb; you’ve let that slip without intending it; you can’t
cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard that you want
to keep dark. Now trust me—tell me what it is, and trust me—I won’t
betray you.”
Huck looked into the old man’s honest eyes a moment, then bent over and
whispered in his ear:
“’Tain’t a Spaniard—it’s Injun Joe!”
The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said:
“It’s all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and
slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because
white men don’t take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That’s a
different matter altogether.”
During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man
said that the last thing which he and his sons had done, before going
to bed, was to get a lantern and examine the stile and its vicinity for
marks of blood. They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of—
“Of _what_?”
If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more
stunning suddenness from Huck’s blanched lips. His eyes were staring
wide, now, and his breath suspended—waiting for the answer. The Welshman
started—stared in return—three seconds—five seconds—ten—then replied:
“Of burglar’s tools. Why, what’s the _matter_ with you?”
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