reckon?” 

 “No, sir, I don’t. I ain’t a bit satisfied about the way this one acts. I’ve a blame good notion it’s a bogus one—I have, as sure as I’m a-sitting here. Because, if it—Huck!” 

 “Well, what’s the matter now?” 

 “You can’t see the bushes through it!” 

 “Why, Tom, it’s so, sure! It’s as solid as a cow. I sort of begin to think—” 

 “Huck, it’s biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, they don’t chaw—they hain’t got anything to chaw with. Huck!” 

 “I’m a-listening.” 

 “It ain’t a ghost at all. It’s Jake Dunlap his own self!” 

 “Oh your granny!” I says. 

 “Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?” 

 “No.” 

 “Or any sign of one?” 

 “No.” 

 “Mighty good reason. Hadn’t ever been any corpse there.” 

 “Why, Tom, you know we heard—” 

 “Yes, we did—heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don’t. And we seen four men run, then this one come walking out and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap his own self, and it’s Jake Dunlap now. He’s been and got his hair cropped, the way he said he would, and he’s playing himself for a stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum!—he’s as sound as a nut.” 

 Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was powerful glad he didn’t get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which he would like the best—for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom 

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