isfied we got to feeling,
and  the  more  we got to liking the desert, and then loving it. So we had
cramped  the speed down, as I was saying, and was having a most noble good
lazy time, sometimes watching through the glasses, sometimes stretched out
on the lockers reading, sometimes taking a nap.
   It  didn't  seem  like  we was the same lot that was in such a state to
find  land and git ashore, but it was. But we had got over that-clean over
it.  We  was  used  to the balloon now and not afraid any more, and didn't
want  to be anywheres else. Why, it seemed just like home; it 'most seemed
as if I had been born and raised in it, and Jim and Tom said the same. And
always  I had had hateful people around me, a-nagging at me, and pestering
of  me,  and  scolding,  and finding fault, and fussing and bothering, and
sticking to me, and keeping after me, and making me do this, and making me
do  that and t'other, and always selecting out the things I didn't want to
do, and then giving me Sam Hill because I shirked and done something else,
and  just  aggravating the life out of a body all the time; but up here in
the  sky  it  was so still and sunshiny and lovely, and plenty to eat, and
plenty  of  sleep,  and  strange  things  to  see,  and  no nagging and no
pestering,  and  no  good  people,  and just holiday all the time. Land, I
warn't  in no hurry to git out and buck at civilization again. Now, one of
the  worst  things  about civilization is, that anybody that gits a letter
with  trouble  in  it  comes and tells you all about it and makes you feel
bad, and the newspapers fetches you the troubles of everybody all over the
world,  and  keeps you downhearted and dismal 'most all the time, and it's
such  a  heavy  load  for  a  person.  I  hate them newspapers; and I hate
letters;  and if I had my way I wouldn't allow nobody to load his troubles
on  to other folks he ain't acquainted with, on t'other side of the world,
that  way.  Well,  up  in  a balloon there ain't any of that, and it's the
darlingest place there is.
   We  had  supper,  and that night was one of the prettiest nights I ever
see.  The moon made it just like daylight, only a heap softer; and once we
see  a lion standing all alone by himself, just all alone on the earth, it
seemed like, and his shadder laid on the sand by him like a puddle of ink.
That's the kind of moonlight to have.
   Mainly  we laid on our backs and talked; we didn't want to go to sleep.
Tom  said  we was right in the midst of the Arabian Nights now. He said it
was  right along here that one of the cutest things in that book happened;
so  we looked down and watched while he told about it, because there ain't
anything  that  is  so  interesting  to look at as a place that a book has
talked  about. It was a tale about a camel-driver that had lost his camel,
and he come along in the desert and met a man, and says:
   "Have you run across a stray camel to-day?"
   And the man says:
   "Was he blind in his left eye?"
   "Yes."
   "Had he lost an upper front tooth?"
   "Yes."
   "Was his off hind leg lame?"
   "Yes."
   "Was he loaded with millet-seed on one side and honey on the other?"
   "Yes,  but  you needn't go into no more details-that's the one, and I'm
in a hurry. Where did you see him?"
   "I hain't seen him at all," the man says.
   "Hain't seen him at all? How can you describe him so close, then?"
   "Because  when a person knows how to use his eyes, everything has got a
meaning  to  it; but most people's eyes ain't any good to them. I knowed a
camel  had  been  along, because I seen his track. I knowed he was lame in
his  off  hind  leg because he had favored that foot and trod light on it,
and his track showed it. I knowed he was blind on his left side because he
only  nibbled  the  grass  on the right side of the trail. I knowed he had
lost  an  upper  front  tooth  because  where  he  bit  into  the  sod his
teeth-print  showed  it.  The  millet-seed sifted out on one side-the ants
told  me that; the honey leaked out on the other-the flies told me that. I
know all about your camel, but I hain't seen him."
   Jim says:
   "Go on, Mars Tom, hit's a mighty good tale, and powerful interestin'."
   "That's all," Tom says.
   "ALL?" says Jim, astonished. "What 'come o' de camel?"
   "I don't know."
   "Mars Tom, don't de tale say?"
   "No."
   Jim puzzled a minute, then he says:
   "Well!  Ef  dat  ain't de beatenes' tale ever I struck. Jist gits to de
place  whah  de  intrust is gittin' red-hot, en down she breaks. Why, Mars
Tom,  dey  ain't  no  SENSE in a tale dat acts like dat. Hain't you got no
IDEA whether de man got de camel back er not?"
   "No, I haven't."
   I see myself there warn't no sense in the tale, to chop square off that
way  before  it  come to anything, but I warn't going to say so, because I
could  see  Tom was souring up pretty fast over the way it flatted out and
the  way Jim had popped on to the weak place in it, and I don't think it's
fair  for  everybody  to  pile  on  to a feller when he's down. But Tom he
whirls on me and says:
   "What do YOU think of the tale?"
   Of  course,  then, I had to come out and make a clean breast and say it
did  seem  to  me,  too,  same  as it did to Jim, that as long as the tale
stopped  square  in the middle and never got to no place, it really warn't
worth the trouble of telling.
   Tom's  chin  dropped  on  his  breast,  and  'stead  of being mad, as I
reckoned  he'd  be, to hear me scoff at his tale that way, he seemed to be
only sad; and he says:
   "Some people can see, and some can't-just as that man said. Let alone a
camel,  if  a  cyclone  had  gone by, YOU duffers wouldn't 'a' noticed the
track."
   I  don't know what he meant by that, and he didn't say; it was just one
of  his irrulevances, I reckon-he was full of them, sometimes, when he was
in a close place and couldn't see no other way out-but I didn't mind. We'd
spotted  the  soft  place  in that tale sharp enough, he couldn't git away
from  that  little  fact.  It graveled him like the nation, too, I reckon,
much as he tried not to let on.


        Chapter VIII. THE DISAPPEARING LAKE

   WE  had  an early breakfast in the morning, and set looking down on the
desert,  and  the weather was ever so bammy and lovely, although we warn't
high  up.  You  have  to  come  down  lower and lower after sundown in the
desert,  because  it  cools off so fast; and so, by the time it is getting
toward dawn, you are skimming along only a little ways above the sand.
   We  was watching the shadder of the balloon slide along the ground, and
now and then gazing off across the desert to see if anything was stirring,
and  then  down  on  the  shadder again, when all of a sudden almost right
under  us we see a lot of men and camels laying scattered about, perfectly
quiet, like they was asleep.
   We  shut  off the power, and backed up and stood over them, and then we
see  that  they  was all dead. It give us the cold shivers. And it made us
hush  down,  too,  and talk low, like people at a funeral. We dropped down
slow and stopped, and me and Tom clumb down and went among them. There was
men,  and  women,  and  children.  They  was dried by the sun and dark and
shriveled and leathery, like the pictures of mummies you see in books. And
yet  they  looked  just  as human, you wouldn't 'a' believed it; just like
they was asleep.
   Some  of  the people and animals was partly covered with sand, but most
of them not, for the sand was thin there, and the bed was gravel and hard.
Most  of  the clothes had rotted away; and when you took hold of a rag, it
tore with a touch, like spiderweb. Tom reckoned they had been laying there
for years.
   Some  of  the  men  had  rusty guns by them, some had swords on and had
shawl belts with long, silvermounted pistols stuck in them. All the camels
had  their  loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted and spilt the
freight out on the ground. We didn't reckon the swords was any good to the
dead  people  any more, so we took one apiece, and some pistols. We took a
small box, too, because it was so handsome and inlaid so fine; and then we
wanted  to bury the people; but there warn't no way to do it that we could
think  of,  and  nothing  to do it with but sand, and that would blow away
again, of course.
   Then  we  mounted high and sailed away, and pretty soon that black spot
on  the  sand  was out of sight, and we wouldn't ever see them poor people
again  in  this  world.  We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to guess how
they  come  to  be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn't
make it out. First we thought maybe they got lost, and wandered around and
about  till  their  food and water give out and they starved to death; but
Tom  said  no  wild  animals nor vultures hadn't meddled with them, and so
that  guess  wouldn't do. So at last we give it up, and judged we wouldn't
think about it no more, because it made us low-spirited.
   Then we opened the box, and it had gems and jewels in it, quite a pile,
and some little veils of the kind the dead women had on, with fringes made
out  of  curious gold money that we warn't acquainted with. We wondered if
we  better go and try to find them again and give it back; but Tom thought
it  over  and said no, it was a country that was full of robbers, and they
would  come  and steal it; and then the sin would be on us for putting the
temptation  in their way. So we went on; but I wished we had took all they
had, so there wouldn't 'a' been no temptation at all left.
   We  had  had  two  hours  of  that  blazing weather down there, and was
dreadful thirsty when we got aboard again. We went straight for the water,
but  it  was  spoiled  and bitter, besides being pretty near hot enough to
scald  your  mouth.  We couldn't drink it. It was Mississippi river water,
the  best  in  the  world,  and we stirred up the mud in it to see if that
would  help,  but  no,  the mud wasn't any better than the water. Well, we
hadn't  been  so very, very thirsty before, while we was interested in the
lost  people,  but  we was now, and as soon as we found we couldn't have a
drink,  we  was more than thirty-five times as thirsty as we was a quarter
of  a  minute  before. Why, in a little while we wanted to hold our mouths
open and pant like a dog.
   Tom said to keep a sharp lookout, all around, everywheres, because we'd
got  to  find an oasis or there warn't no telling what would happen. So we
done  it.  We  kept the glasses gliding around all the time, till our arms
got  so  tired  we couldn't hold them any more. Two hours-three hours-just
gazing and gazing, and nothing but sand, sand, SAND, and you could see the
quivering heat-shimmer playing over it. Dear, dear, a body don't know what
real  misery  is  till he is thirsty all the way through and is certain he
ain't  ever  going to come to any water any more. At last I couldn't stand
it  to  look  around on them baking plains; I laid down on the locker, and
give it up.
   But  by  and by Tom raised a whoop, and there she was! A lake, wide and
shiny,  with  pa'm-trees leaning over it asleep, and their shadders in the
water just as soft and delicate as ever you see. I never see anything look
so  good.  It was a long ways off, but that warn't anything to us; we just
slapped  on  a  hundredmile  gait,  and  calculated  to  be there in seven
minutes;  but  she  stayed  the  same  old distance away, all the time; we
couldn't seem to gain on her; yes, sir, just as far, and shiny, and like a
dream;  but  we  couldn't get no nearer; and at last, all of a sudden, she
was gone!
   Tom's eyes took a spread, and he says:
   "Boys,  it  was  a  MYridge!"  Said  it  like he was glad. I didn't see
nothing to be glad about. I says:
   "Maybe.  I  don't care nothing about its name, the thing I want to know
is, what's become of it?"
   Jim  was  trembling  all  over, and so scared he couldn't speak, but he
wanted to ask that question himself if he could 'a' done it. Tom says:
   "What's BECOME of it? Why, you see yourself it's gone."
   "Yes, I know; but where's it gone TO?"
   He looked me over and says:
   "Well,  now,  Huck  Finn,  where  WOULD it go to! Don't you know what a
myridge is?"
   "No, I don't. What is it?"
   "It ain't anything but imagination. There ain't anything TO it. "
   It warmed me up a little to hear him talk like that, and I says:
   "What's  the  use  you talking that kind of stuff, Tom Sawyer? Didn't I
see the lake?"
   "Yes-you think you did."
   "I don't think nothing about it, I DID see it."
   "I tell you you DIDN'T see it either-because it warn't there to see."
   It  astonished  Jim to hear him talk so, and he broke in and says, kind
of pleading and distressed:
   "Mars  Tom,  PLEASE don't say sich things in sich an awful time as dis.
You  ain't  only  reskin' yo' own self, but you's reskin' us-same way like
Anna Nias en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah-I seen it jis' as plain as I sees you
en Huck dis minute."
   I says:
   "Why,  he seen it himself! He was the very one that seen it first. NOW,
then!"
   "Yes,  Mars  Tom,  hit's  so-you  can't deny it. We all seen it, en dat
PROVE it was dah."
   "Proves it! How does it prove it?"
   "Same  way  it  does  in de courts en everywheres, Mars Tom. One pusson
might  be  drunk,  or  dreamy  or suthin', en he could be mistaken; en two
might,  maybe;  but  I  tell  you,  sah, when three sees a thing, drunk er
sober,  it's  SO.  Dey  ain't no gittin' aroun' dat, en you knows it, Mars
Tom."
   "I  don't  know  nothing  of  the kind. There used to be forty thousand
million  people  that  seen  the  sun move from one side of the sky to the
other every day. Did that prove that the sun DONE it?"
   "Course  it  did. En besides, dey warn't no 'casion to prove it. A body
'at's got any sense ain't gwine to doubt it. Dah she is now-a sailin' thoo
de sky, like she allays done."
   Tom turned on me, then, and says:
   "What do YOU say-is the sun standing still?"
   "Tom  Sawyer,  what's  the  use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody
that ain't blind can see it don't stand still."
   "Well,"  he  says, "I'm lost in the sky with no company but a passel of
low-down  animals  that  don't  know  no  more  than  the  head  boss of a
university did three or four hundred years ago."
   It warn't fair play, and I let him know it. I says:
   "Throwin' mud ain't arguin', Tom Sawyer."
   "Oh,  my  goodness,  oh,  my  goodness  gracious, dah's de lake agi'n!"
yelled Jim, just then. "NOW, Mars Tom, what you gwine to say?"
   Yes,  sir,  there  was  the  lake again, away yonder across the desert,
perfectly plain, trees and all, just the same as it was before. I says:
   "I reckon you're satisfied now, Tom Sawyer."
   But he says, perfectly ca'm:
   "Yes, satisfied there ain't no lake there."
   Jim says:
   "DON'T  talk  so,  Mars  Tom-it sk'yers me to hear you. It's so hot, en
you's so thirsty, dat you ain't in yo' right mine, Mars Tom. Oh, but don't
she  look good! 'clah I doan' know how I's gwine to wait tell we gits dah,
I's SO thirsty."
   "Well,  you'll  have  to  wait;  and  it  won't do you no good, either,
because there ain't no lake there, I tell you."
   I says:
   "Jim, don't you take your eye off of it, and I won't, either."
   "'Deed I won't; en bless you, honey, I couldn't ef I wanted to."
   We  went  a-tearing  along  toward  it, piling the miles behind us like
nothing,  but  never gaining an inch on it-and all of a sudden it was gone
again! Jim staggered, and 'most fell down. When he got his breath he says,
gasping like a fish:
   "Mars  Tom,  hit's a GHOS', dat's what it is, en I hopes to goodness we
ain't  gwine to see it no mo'. Dey's BEEN a lake, en suthin's happened, en
de  lake's  dead,  en  we's  seen its ghos'; we's seen it twiste, en dat's
proof.  De  desert's  ha'nted,  it's ha'nted, sho; oh, Mars Tom, le''s git
outen  it;  I'd  ruther  die  den have de night ketch us in it ag'in en de
ghos'  er dat lake come a-mournin' aroun' us en we asleep en doan' know de
danger we's in."
   "Ghost,  you gander! It ain't anything but air and heat and thirstiness
pasted together by a person's imagination. If I-gimme the glass!"
   He grabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right.
   "It's  a  flock  of  birds," he says. "It's getting toward sundown, and
they're  making  a  bee-line  across  our  track for somewheres. They mean
business-maybe  they're  going  for  food or water, or both. Let her go to
starboard!-Port your hellum! Hard down! There-ease up-steady, as you go."
   We  shut  down  some of the power, so as not to outspeed them, and took
out  after  them.  We went skimming along a quarter of a mile behind them,
and  when  we  had followed them an hour and a half and was getting pretty
discouraged, and was thirsty clean to unendurableness, Tom says:
   "Take  the  glass,  one of you, and see what that is, away ahead of the
birds."
   Jim  got the first glimpse, and slumped down on the locker sick. He was
most crying, and says:
   "She's  dah  ag'in,  Mars Tom, she's dah ag'in, en I knows I's gwine to
die,  'case when a body sees a ghos' de third time, dat's what it means. I
wisht I'd never come in dis balloon, dat I does."
   He wouldn't look no more, and what he said made me afraid, too, because
I  knowed  it  was  true, for that has always been the way with ghosts; so
then  I  wouldn't look any more, either. Both of us begged Tom to turn off
and  go  some  other  way,  but  he  wouldn't,  and  said  we was ignorant
superstitious blatherskites. Yes, and he'll git come up with, one of these
days,  I says to myself, insulting ghosts that way. They'll stand it for a
while, maybe, but they won't stand it always, for anybody that knows about
ghosts knows how easy they are hurt, and how revengeful they are.
   So  we  was all quiet and still, Jim and me being scared, and Tom busy.
By and by Tom fetched the balloon to a standstill, and says:
   "NOW get up and look, you sapheads."
   We  done it, and there was the sure-enough water right under us!-clear,
and  blue,  and  cool,  and  deep, and wavy with the breeze, the loveliest
sight  that  ever was. And all about it was grassy banks, and flowers, and
shady  groves of big trees, looped together with vines, and all looking so
peaceful and comfortable-enough to make a body cry, it was so beautiful.
   Jim DID cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was so thankful and out
of  his  mind for joy. It was my watch, so I had to stay by the works, but
Tom and Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and fetched me up a lot,
and  I've  tasted  a  many  a good thing in my life, but nothing that ever
begun with that water.
   Then  we went down and had a swim, and then Tom came up and spelled me,
and  me and Jim had a swim, and then Jim spelled Tom, and me and Tom had a
foot-race  and  a  boxing-mill,  and I don't reckon I ever had such a good
time  in  my  life.  It  warn't  so  very  hot, because it was close on to
evening,  and  we hadn't any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enough in
school,  and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain't no sense in them
when  there ain't no civilization nor other kinds of bothers and fussiness
around.
   "Lions a-comin'!-lions! Quick, Mars Tom! Jump for yo' life, Huck!"
   Oh,  and  didn't  we!  We never stopped for clothes, but waltzed up the
ladder  just so. Jim lost his head straight off-he always done it whenever
he got excited and scared; and so now, 'stead of just easing the ladder up
from the ground a little, so the animals couldn't reach it, he turned on a
raft  of power, and we went whizzing up and was dangling in the sky before
he  got his wits together and seen what a foolish thing he was doing. Then
he  stopped her, but he had clean forgot what to do next; so there we was,
so  high  that  the lions looked like pups, and we was drifting off on the
wind.
   But  Tom  he  shinned  up and went for the works and begun to slant her
down,  and  back  toward  the lake, where the animals was gathering like a
camp-meeting,  and I judged he had lost HIS head, too; for he knowed I was
too  scared  to  climb,  and  did  he want to dump me among the tigers and
things?
   But  no,  his  head  was level, he knowed what he was about. He swooped
down  to  within  thirty or forty feet of the lake, and stopped right over
the center, and sung out:
   "Leggo, and drop!"
   I  done  it,  and  shot down, feet first, and seemed to go about a mile
toward the bottom; and when I come up, he says:
   "Now  lay  on your back and float till you're rested and got your pluck
back, then I'll dip the ladder in the water and you can climb aboard."
   I done it. Now that was ever so smart in Tom, because if he had started
off somewheres else to drop down on the sand, the menagerie would 'a' come
along, too, and might 'a' kept us hunting a safe place till I got tuckered
out and fell.
   And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting out the clothes, and
trying  to  divide them up so there would be some for all, but there was a
misunderstanding about it somewheres, on account of some of them trying to
hog  more  than  their  share;  so there was another insurrection, and you
never  see  anything  like  it  in the world. There must 'a' been fifty of
them,  all mixed up together, snorting and roaring and snapping and biting
and  tearing,  legs  and tails in the air, and you couldn't tell which was
which,  and  the  sand  and fur a-flying. And when they got done, some was
dead.  and  some was limping off crippled, and the rest was setting around
on  the battlefield, some of them licking their sore places and the others
looking  up  at  us  and seemed to be kind of inviting us to come down and
have some fun, but which we didn't want any.
   As  for  the clothes, they warn't any, any more. Every last rag of them
was  inside  of the animals; and not agreeing with them very well, I don't
reckon,  for  there was considerable many brass buttons on them, and there
was  knives  in the pockets, too, and smoking tobacco, and nails and chalk
and  marbles  and  fishhooks and things. But I wasn't caring. All that was
bothering  me  was, that all we had now was the professor's clothes, a big
enough  assortment,  but  not suitable to go into company with, if we came
across any, because the britches was as long as tunnels, and the coats and
things according. Still, there was everything a tailor needed, and Jim was
a  kind of jack legged tailor, and he allowed he could soon trim a suit or
two down for us that would answer.


        Chapter IX. TOM DISCOURSES ON THE DESERT

   STILL,  we  thought  we  would drop down there a minute, but on another
errand.  Most  of the professor's cargo of food was put up in cans, in the
new  way  that  somebody  had  just invented; the rest was fresh. When you
fetch  Missouri  beefsteak  to the Great Sahara, you want to be particular
and stay up in the coolish weather. So we reckoned we would drop down into
the lion market and see how we could make out there.
   We  hauled  in  the  ladder and dropped down till we was just above the
reach  of  the animals, then we let down a rope with a slip-knot in it and
hauled  up a dead lion, a small tender one, then yanked up a cub tiger. We
had to keep the congregation off with the revolver, or they would 'a' took
a hand in the proceedings and helped.
   We  carved  off  a  supply from both, and saved the skins, and hove the
rest  overboard.  Then  we  baited  some of the professor's hooks with the
fresh  meat  and  went a-fishing. We stood over the lake just a convenient
distance  above  the  water, and catched a lot of the nicest fish you ever
see.  It  was  a most amazing good supper we had; lion steak, tiger steak,
fried fish, and hot corn-pone. I don't want nothing better than that.
   We  had  some  fruit  to finish off with. We got it out of the top of a
monstrous  tall  tree.  It was a very slim tree that hadn't a branch on it
from  the  bottom  plumb  to  the  top,  and  there  it bursted out like a
featherduster.  It  was  a pa'm-tree, of course; anybody knows a pa'm-tree
the  minute he see it, by the pictures. We went for cocoanuts in this one,
but  there  warn't  none.  There was only big loose bunches of things like
oversized  grapes,  and  Tom  allowed they was dates, because he said they
answered  the  description  in  the Arabian Nights and the other books. Of
course  they  mightn't  be,  and they might be poison; so we had to wait a
spell,  and  watch  and see if the birds et them. They done it; so we done
it, too, and they was most amazing good.
   By  this  time monstrous big birds begun to come and settle on the dead
animals. They was plucky creturs; they would tackle one end of a lion that
was  being  gnawed at the other end by another lion. If the lion drove the
bird away, it didn't do no good; he was back again the minute the lion was
busy.
   The big birds come out of every part of the sky-you could make them out
with the glass while they was still so far away you couldn't see them with
your  naked  eye. Tom said the birds didn't find out the meat was there by
the smell; they had to find it out by seeing it. Oh, but ain't that an eye
for  you!  Tom  said  at  the  distance of five mile a patch of dead lions
couldn't  look  any  bigger  than  a person's finger-nail, and he couldn't
imagine how the birds could notice such a little thing so far off.
   It was strange and unnatural to see lion eat lion, and we thought maybe
they  warn't  kin.  But Jim said that didn't make no difference. He said a
hog  was  fond  of  her own children, and so was a spider, and he reckoned
maybe  a  lion  was pretty near as unprincipled though maybe not quite. He
thought  likely a lion wouldn't eat his own father, if he knowed which was
him,  but  reckoned  he  would  eat  his brother-in-law if he was uncommon
hungry,  and  eat  his  mother-in-law any time. But RECKONING don't settle
nothing.  You can reckon till the cows come home, but that don't fetch you
to no decision. So we give it up and let it drop.
   Generly it was very still in the Desert nights, but this time there was
music.  A  lot  of other animals come to dinner; sneaking yelpers that Tom
allowed  was jackals, and roached-backed ones that he said was hyenas; and
all  the  whole  biling of them kept up a racket all the time. They made a
picture  in  the moonlight that was more different than any picture I ever
see.  We  had  a  line  out and made fast to the top of a tree, and didn't
stand  no  watch,  but  all turned in and slept; but I was up two or three
times to look down at the animals and hear the music. It was like having a
front seat at a menagerie for nothing, which I hadn't ever had before, and
so it seemed foolish to sleep and not make the most of it; I mightn't ever
have such a chance again.
   We  went  a-fishing again in the early dawn, and then lazied around all
day  in  the  deep  shade on an island, taking turn about to watch and see
that  none of the animals come a-snooping around there after erronorts for
dinner.  We  was  going  to  leave  the next day, but couldn't, it was too
lovely.
   The  day after, when we rose up toward the sky and sailed off eastward,
we  looked  back  and watched that place till it warn't nothing but just a
speck  in  the  Desert,  and  I  tell you it was like saying good-bye to a
friend that you ain't ever going to see any more.
   Jim was thinking to himself, and at last he says:
   "Mars Tom, we's mos' to de end er de Desert now, I speck."
   "Why?"
   "Well,  hit  stan'  to  reason  we  is.  You  knows  how long we's been
a-skimmin'  over  it.  Mus'  be mos' out o' san'. Hit's a wonder to me dat
it's hilt out as long as it has."
   "Shucks, there's plenty sand, you needn't worry."
   "Oh, I ain't a-worryin', Mars Tom, only wonderin', dat's all. De Lord's
got  plenty  san',  I  ain't  doubtin' dat; but nemmine, He ain't gwyne to
WAS'E  it  jist  on  dat  account; en I allows dat dis Desert's plenty big
enough  now,  jist de way she is, en you can't spread her out no mo' 'dout
was'in' san'."
   "Oh,  go  'long!  we  ain't  much  more than fairly STARTED across this
Desert yet. The United States is a pretty big country, ain't it? Ain't it,
Huck?"
   "Yes," I says, "there ain't no bigger one, I don't reckon."
   "Well,"  he says, "this Desert is about the shape of the United States,
and  if you was to lay it down on top of the United States, it would cover
the  land  of  the  free  out of sight like a blanket. There'd be a little
corner  sticking  out,  up  at  Maine  and  away up northwest, and Florida
sticking  out  like a turtle's tail, and that's all. We've took California
away from the Mexicans two or three years ago, so that part of the Pacific
coast  is ours now, and if you laid the Great Sahara down with her edge on
the Pacific, she would cover the United States and stick out past New York
six hundred miles into the Atlantic ocean."
   I say:
   "Good land! have you got the documents for that, Tom Sawyer?"
   "Yes, and they're right here, and I've been studying them. You can look
for yourself. From New York to the Pacific is 2,600 miles. From one end of
the  Great  Desert  to  the  other  is  3,200.  The United States contains
3,600,000  square  miles, the Desert contains 4,162,000. With the Desert's
bulk you could cover up every last inch of the United States, and in under
where  the edges projected out, you could tuck England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, Denmark, and all Germany. Yes, sir, you could hide the home of the
brave and all of them countries clean out of sight under the Great Sahara,
and you would still have 2,000 square miles of sand left."
   "Well,"  I  says,  "it clean beats me. Why, Tom, it shows that the Lord
took  as much pains makin' this Desert as makin' the United States and all
them other countries."
   Jim  says:  "Huck, dat don' stan' to reason. I reckon dis Desert wa'n't
made  at  all. Now you take en look at it like dis-you look at it, and see
ef I's right. What's a desert good for? 'Taint good for nuthin'. Dey ain't
no way to make it pay. Hain't dat so, Huck?"
   "Yes, I reckon."
   "Hain't it so, Mars Tom?"
   "I guess so. Go on."
   "Ef a thing ain't no good, it's made in vain, ain't it?"
   "Yes."
   "NOW, den! Do de Lord make anything in vain? You answer me dat."
   "Well-no, He don't."
   "Den how come He make a desert?"
   "Well, go on. How DID He come to make it?"
   "Mars  Tom, I b'lieve it uz jes like when you's buildin' a house; dey's
allays a lot o' truck en rubbish lef' over. What does you do wid it? Doan'
you  take en k'yart it off en dump it into a ole vacant back lot? 'Course.
Now,  den, it's my opinion hit was jes like dat-dat de Great Sahara warn't
made at all, she jes HAPPEN'."
   I  said it was a real good argument, and I believed it was the best one
Jim  ever made. Tom he said the same, but said the trouble about arguments
is,  they  ain't nothing but THEORIES, after all, and theories don't prove
nothing,  they  only  give  you  a place to rest on, a spell, when you are
tuckered  out butting around and around trying to find out something there
ain't no way TO find out. And he says:
   "There's  another trouble about theories: there's always a hole in them
somewheres,  sure, if you look close enough. It's just so with this one of
Jim's. Look what billions and billions of stars there is. How does it come
that there was just exactly enough starstuff, and none left over? How does
it come there ain't no sand-pile up there?"
   But Jim was fixed for him and says:
   "What's  de  Milky Way?-dat's what I want to know. What's de Milky Way?
Answer me dat!"
   In  my  opinion  it  was just a sockdologer. It's only an opinion, it's
only  MY  opinion and others may think different; but I said it then and I
stand to it now-it was a sockdologer. And moreover, besides, it landed Tom
Sawyer.  He  couldn't  say  a  word.  He had that stunned look of a person
that's  been shot in the back with a kag of nails. All he said was, as for
people  like  me  and Jim, he'd just as soon have intellectual intercourse
with a catfish. But anybody can say that-and I notice they always do, when
somebody  has  fetched  them a lifter. Tom Sawyer was tired of that end of
the subject.
   So  we  got back to talking about the size of the Desert again, and the
more  we compared it with this and that and t'other thing, the more nobler
and  bigger  and grander it got to look right along. And so, hunting among
the  figgers,  Tom found, by and by, that it was just the same size as the
Empire  of China. Then he showed us the spread the Empire of China made on
the  map, and the room she took up in the world. Well, it was wonderful to
think of, and I says:
   "Why,  I've  heard  talk about this Desert plenty of times, but I never
knowed before how important she was."
   Then Tom says:
   "Important!  Sahara important! That's just the way with some people. If
a  thing's big, it's important. That's all the sense they've got. All they
can  see is SIZE. Why, look at England. It's the most important country in
the  world;  and yet you could put it in China's vest-pocket; and not only
that, but you'd have the dickens's own time to find it again the next time
you  wanted  it. And look at Russia. It spreads all around and everywhere,
and  yet  ain't  no more important in this world than Rhode Island is, and
hasn't  got half as much in it that's worth saving." Away off now we see a
little  hill,  a-standing  up just on the edge of the world. Tom broke off
his  talk, and reached for a glass very much excited, and took a look, and
says:
   "That's it-it's the one I've been looking for, sure. If I'm right, it's
the one the dervish took the man into and showed him all the treasures."
   So  we  begun to gaze, and he begun to tell about it out of the Arabian
Nights.


        Chapter X. THE TREASURE-HILL

   TOM said it happened like this.
   A  dervish  was  stumping  it  along  through  the Desert, on foot, one
blazing hot day, and he had come a thousand miles and was pretty poor, and
hungry,  and  ornery  and  tired,  and along about where we are now he run
across  a camel-driver with a hundred camels, and asked him for some a'ms.
But the cameldriver he asked to be excused. The dervish said:
   "Don't you own these camels?"
   "Yes, they're mine."
   "Are you in debt?"
   "Who-me? No."
   "Well,  a  man that owns a hundred camels and ain't in debt is rich-and
not only rich, but very rich. Ain't it so?"
   The camel-driver owned up that it was so. Then the dervish says:
   "God  has  made  you rich, and He has made me poor. He has His reasons,
and  they  are  wise, blessed be His name. But He has willed that His rich
shall help His poor, and you have turned away from me, your brother, in my
need, and He will remember this, and you will lose by it."
   That  made  the  camel-driver  feel shaky, but all the same he was born
hoggish after money and didn't like to let go a cent; so he begun to whine
and  explain,  and  said  times  was hard, and although he had took a full
freight  down  to  Balsora  and  got a fat rate for it, he couldn't git no
return  freight,  and so he warn't making no great things out of his trip.
So the dervish starts along again, and says:
   "All  right,  if  you want to take the risk; but I reckon you've made a
mistake this time, and missed a chance."
   Of  course the camel-driver wanted to know what kind of a chance he had
missed,  because maybe there was money in it; so he run after the dervish,
and  begged  him  so hard and earnest to take pity on him that at last the
dervish gave in, and says:
   "Do  you  see that hill yonder? Well, in that hill is all the treasures
of  the  earth,  and I was looking around for a man with a particular good
kind heart and a noble, generous disposition, because if I could find just
that  man, I've got a kind of a salve I could put on his eyes and he could
see the treasures and get them out."
   So  then the camel-driver was in a sweat; and he cried, and begged, and
took  on,  and went down on his knees, and said he was just that kind of a
man,  and  said  he could fetch a thousand people that would say he wasn't
ever described so exact before.
   "Well,  then,"  says  the  dervish,  "all right. If we load the hundred
camels, can I have half of them?"
   The driver was so glad he couldn't hardly hold in, and says:
   "Now you're shouting."
   So they shook hands on the bargain, and the dervish got out his box and
rubbed  the  salve  on  the driver's right eye, and the hill opened and he
went  in,  and  there, sure enough, was piles and piles of gold and jewels
sparkling like all the stars in heaven had fell down.
   So  him  and the dervish laid into it, and they loaded every camel till
he  couldn't  carry  no  more;  then  they said good-bye, and each of them
started  off  with  his  fifty.  But  pretty  soon  the  camel-driver come
a-running and overtook the dervish and says:
   "You  ain't  in society, you know, and you don't really need all you've
got. Won't you be good, and let me have ten of your camels?"
   "Well,"  the dervish says, "I don't know but what you say is reasonable
enough."
   So  he  done  it,  and they separated and the dervish started off again
with  his forty. But pretty soon here comes the camel-driver bawling after
him again, and whines and slobbers around and begs another ten off of him,
saying  thirty  camel  loads  of  treasures  was  enough  to see a dervish
through,  because  they  live very simple, you know, and don't keep house,
but board around and give their note.
   But  that  warn't the end yet. That ornery hound kept coming and coming
till  he had begged back all the camels and had the whole hundred. Then he
was  satisfied, and ever so grateful, and said he wouldn't ever forgit the
dervish as long as he lived, and nobody hadn't been so good to him before,
and  liberal.  So they shook hands good-bye, and separated and started off
again.
   But  do  you  know,  it  warn't  ten  minutes till the camel-driver was
unsatisfied  again-he  was the lowdownest reptyle in seven counties-and he
come  arunning  again.  And  this  time the thing he wanted was to get the
dervish to rub some of the salve on his other eye.
   "Why?" said the dervish.
   "Oh, you know," says the driver.
   "Know what?"
   "Well, you can't fool me," says the driver. "You're trying to keep back
something  from me, you know it mighty well. You know, I reckon, that if I
had  the  salve  on  the  other  eye  I could see a lot more things that's
valuable. Come-please put it on."
   The dervish says:
   "I wasn't keeping anything back from you. I don't mind telling you what
would  happen  if I put it on. You'd never see again. You'd be stone-blind
the rest of your days."
   But  do  you  know  that  beat  wouldn't believe him. No, he begged and
begged,  and whined and cried, till at last the dervish opened his box and
told  him  to  put  it  on,  if he wanted to. So the man done it, and sure
enough he was as blind as a bat in a minute.
   Then  the dervish laughed at him and mocked at him and made fun of him;
and says:
   "Good-bye-a man that's blind hain't got no use for jewelry."
   And he cleared out with the hundred camels, and left that man to wander
around  poor  and  miserable  and  friendless  the rest of his days in the
Desert.
   Jim said he'd bet it was a lesson to him.
   "Yes,"  Tom  says,  "and  like a considerable many lessons a body gets.
They  ain't  no  account, because the thing don't ever happen the same way
again-and  can't.  The  time Hen Scovil fell down the chimbly and crippled
his  back  for life, everybody said it would be a lesson to him. What kind
of  a  lesson?  How was he going to use it? He couldn't climb chimblies no
more, and he hadn't no more backs to break."
   "All  de  same, Mars Tom, dey IS sich a thing as learnin' by expe'ence.
De Good Book say de burnt chile shun de fire."
   "Well, I ain't denying that a thing's a lesson if it's a thing that can
happen  twice  just  the  same  way. There's lots of such things, and THEY
educate  a  person, that's what Uncle Abner always said; but there's forty
MILLION  lots  of  the  other kind-the kind that don't happen the same way
twice-and  they ain't no real use, they ain't no more instructive than the
small-pox.  When  you've got it, it ain't no good to find out you ought to
been vaccinated, and it ain't no good to git vaccinated afterward, because
the  small-pox  don't  come  but once. But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner
said  that  the  person  that  had took a bull by the tail once had learnt
sixty  or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and said a person
that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that
was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to