MINERVA

k like a cat?” “No, dey don’t.” “It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?” “’Course.” “And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from _us?_” “Why, mos’ sholy it is.” “Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk different from us? You answer me that.” “Is a cat a man, Huck?” “No.” “Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?” “No, she ain’t either of them.” “Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?” “Yes.” “_Well_, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he _talk_ like a man? You answer me _dat!_” I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit. CHAPTER XV. We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble. Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn’t anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn’t hardly do anything with them. As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right down the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went, but the tow-head warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea which way I was going than a dead man. Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the bank or a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it’s mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I warn’t heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of it—and not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and t’other, but it was going straight ahead all the time. I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I hears the whoop _behind_ me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around. I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept ch