CHAPTER XI

Huck, posing as “Sarah Williams,” visits a woman who invites him in. She chatters about local news and eventually recounts Huck’s supposed murder, the town’s shifting suspicion from Pap to Jim, and the posted rewards. She reveals some think Jim is hiding on Jackson’s Island and that her husband will search it after midnight.

Nervous, Huck slips and gives a different name. The woman grows suspicious and tests him, observing his awkward needle-threading, how he catches a thrown weight, and how he throws at rats. Convinced he is a boy, she kindly confronts him.

Huck drops the pretense and claims to be a runaway apprentice named George Peters. Mrs. Judith Loftus offers advice on better disguises, warns him about the rocky road, and keeps his secret, telling him to head for Goshen while her husband goes to the island that night.

Huck departs, doubles back to his canoe, and races to Jackson’s Island. He lights a decoy fire at the old camp, then reaches Jim and urgently warns him. Without questions, Jim helps load all their belongings onto the raft, extinguishes their fire, and they push off.

Keeping to the shadows and speaking none, Huck and Jim drift silently past the island’s foot before the searchers arrive, escaping the imminent capture.