Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone | Page 4

the path, around the garden
fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other
side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and
hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't
wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a
trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees
again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time
Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that,

every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said
they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his
back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and
he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would
come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than
any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their
mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.
Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire;
but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such
things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout
witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.
Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and
said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told
him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he
wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was
he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim
anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they
wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was
most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having
seen the devil and been rode by witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away
down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling,
where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling
ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad,
and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper
and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old
tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile
and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to
keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the
thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on
our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the
cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty
soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a
hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all

damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:
"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his
name in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band,
and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any
boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his
family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had
killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of
the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that
mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be
killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he
must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the
ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with
blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on
it and be forgot