It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see, by the stars. I looked away down stream, and seen a black speck on the water. I took out after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a couple of saw-logs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering oar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and begun to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"
"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain'—dead you ain' drownded—you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too good for true. Lemme look at you, chile, lemme feel o' you. "No, you ain' dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"
"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a drinking?"
"Drinkin'? Has I ben a drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a drinkin'?"
"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I talk wild?"
"How? why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"
"Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hain't you ben gone away?"
"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?"
"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat's what I wants to know?"
"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a tangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I? Well you answer me dis. Didn't you tote out de line in de canoe, fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"
