Jim and I figured out that in three more days we would come to the town of Cairo, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi.
There we could sell our raft and buy tickets for a steamboat going up the Ohio River.
It would take us to the North, where there was no slavery, and where Jim would be safe.
The next night, a fog rolled in. We looked for a place on the riverbank to tie up our raft.
I went ahead in the canoe with the raft's towline.
I looped the line around a small tree and tied it tight, but the raft tore the tree out by the roots and kept on going.
Now I was alone in the canoe, surrounded by a thick white blanket of fog.
After a time, I heard a voice yelling.
I paddled as fast as I could toward the sound, but when I heard the voice again, it seemed to be coming from another direction.
I paddled some more. At last I was so tired that I fell asleep in the canoe.
When I woke up, the fog had lifted.
Ahead of me, I saw the raft, and there was Jim, asleep.
I got on the raft and stretched out beside him.
I said, "Hey, Jim, have you been asleep?"
"Is that really you, Huck?" Jim exclaimed. "I thought you had drowned for sure!"
I decided to play a joke on Jim.
I told him that I'd been on the raft all along and that he had dreamed everything that happened in the fog.
He said that if it was a dream, everything in it must mean something.
The riverbank with the trees, he explained, was a man trying to help us, but the river current that pulled the raft away was a man trying to harm us.
The fog meant all kinds of troubles that we'd have to steer away from.
"And what do these things stand for?" I said, pointing to the leaves and trash that had collected on the raft in the fog.
Jim looked at them for a long time, and then he said slowly, "I fell asleep because I was so tired from calling for you.
I thought you were dead, and my heart was almost broken.
When I woke up and saw you alive, I was full of joy.
But you were only thinking about how you could make a fool of me with a lie.
So what that trash stands for is people who make fun of their friends."
I felt ashamed, and I told Jim I was sorry.
I never played any mean tricks on him again.
The next night, as we floated down the river, we talked again about the town of Cairo.
I was worried we might pass it in the dark.
Jim said that if we found Cairo, he'd soon be a free man, but if we missed it, we'd still be in the South, where black people are slaves.
He talked about the things he would do when he reached the North.
He'd get a job and save all his money.
Then he would buy his wife from the man who owned her, so they could live together again.
When we saw lights ahead, we tied up the raft on the riverbank.
Then I took the canoe and paddled toward the town.
I came to a man in a rowboat, and I asked him if the town ahead was Cairo. He told me it wasn't.
Jim was very disappointed, but we set out on the raft again.
Later that night we passed another town that was on high ground.
We knew there was no high ground around Cairo, so we kept going.
When daylight came, we could see the clear water of the Ohio River near the shoreline,
so we knew we had passed the place where the clear Ohio and the muddy Mississippi join together.
"Maybe we passed by Cairo that night in the fog," I said.
"Let's not talk about it, Huck," he said. "It's just bad luck.
I always thought that snakeskin wasn't done with us yet."
"I'm so sorry I touched it, Jim!" I said.
He told me not to blame myself.
Now we had to turn around and go back upriver.
The floating raft couldn't go upriver, so we would have to go in the canoe.
We slept all day on the shore under the trees, but when we went back to the raft in the evening, the canoe was gone!
Neither of us said a word for a long while.
We both thought it was the snakeskin bringing us more bad luck.
Finally, we decided that we would have to keep going downriver on the raft.
Maybe we'd come to a town where we could buy another canoe.
We set off into the night, but the snakeskin wasn't finished with its work yet.
The fog closed in around us. We could hear a big steamboat coming in the other direction, with its huge stern wheel churning and pounding.
We lit our lantern, but the steamboat was headed right for us.
Jim jumped overboard off one side of the raft, and I jumped off the other.
The steamboat tore into our raft and kept going.
When I came to the surface, I called to Jim, but I couldn't hear any answer.
Finally I swam to shore. Then I started walking and I came to a big log house.
Suddenly a pack of dogs jumped out of the darkness, howling and barking at me.