“Of course it does. It don’t make any difference what happens, we got to keep mum. We’d drop down dead—don’t you know that?”
“Yes, I reckon that’s so.”
They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up a long, lugubrious howl just outside—within ten feet of them. The boys clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright.
“Which of us does he mean?” gasped Huckleberry.
“I dono—peep through the crack. Quick!”
“No, you, Tom!”
“I can’t—I can’t do it, Huck!”
“Please, Tom. There ’tis again!”
“Oh, lordy, I’m thankful!” whispered Tom. “I know his voice. It’s Bull Harbison.” *
[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of him as “Harbison’s Bull,” but a son or a dog of that name was “Bull Harbison.”]