Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone | Page 5

forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it
out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had
it.
Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that told
the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote
it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout
him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used
to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in
these parts for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of
anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready
to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss
Watson--they could kill her. Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I
made my mark on the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--"
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary," says
Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are
highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on,
and kill the people and take their watches and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's
considered best to kill them--except some that you bring to the cave
here, and keep them till they're ransomed."
"Ransomed? What's that?"
"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of
course that's what we've got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"
"Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books?
Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get
things all muddled up?"

"Oh, that's all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are
these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to
them? --that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it
is?"
"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,
it means that we keep them till they're dead."
"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said
that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a
bothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying
to get loose."
"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a
guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"
"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's got to set up all night and
never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness.
Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get
here?"
"Because it ain't in the books so--that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you
want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea. Don't you
reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct
thing to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything? Not by a
good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular
way."
"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we
kill the women, too?"
"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill
the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You
fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and
by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any
more."
"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.

Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and
fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the
robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing