CHAPTER VI. PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS 

WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated in, the time we set him free, and here come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and there was the lights of the house, too; so we warn't afeard any more, and was going to climb over, but Tom says: 

"Hold on; set down here a minute. By George!" 

"What's the matter?" says I. 

"Matter enough!" he says. "Wasn't you expecting we would be the first to tell the family who it is that's been killed yonder in the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about the di'monds they've smouched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine, and have the glory of being the ones that knows a lot more about it than anybody else?" 

"Why, of course. It wouldn't be you, Tom Sawyer, if you was to let such a chance go by. I reckon it ain't going to suffer none for lack of paint," I says, "when you start in to scollop the facts." 

"Well, now," he says, perfectly ca'm, "what would you say if I was to tell you I ain't going to start in at all?" 

I was astonished to hear him talk so. I says: 

"I'd say it's a lie. You ain't in earnest, Tom Sawyer?" 

"You'll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted?" 

"No, it wasn't. What of it?" 
Did anyone greet them?
so we warn't afeard any more,