But why don't you want it known ?" Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he knew anything against him for the whole world--he would be killed for knowing it, sure.
The old man promised secrecy once more, and said: "How did you come to follow these fellows, lad?
Were they looking suspicious ?" Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply.

Then he said: "Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,--least everybody says so, and I don't see nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, on account of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way of doing.

That was the way of it last night.

I couldn't sleep, and so I come along up-street 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed up agin the wall to have another think.

Well, just then along comes these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it.