You just keep mum about it. All along I've been wanting to be
a robber, but I knew I'd got to have a thing like this, and where to
run across it was the bother. We've got it now, and we'll keep it
quiet, only we'll let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers in--because of course
there's got to be a Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style about it.
Tom Sawyer's Gang--it sounds splendid, don't it, Huck?"
"Well, it just does, Tom. And who'll we rob?"
"Oh, most anybody. Waylay people--that's mostly the way."
"And kill them?"
"No, not always. Hive them in the cave till they raise a ransom."
"What's a ransom?"
"Money. You make them raise all they can, off'n their friends; and
after you've kept them a year, if it ain't raised then you kill them.
That's the general way. Only you don't kill the women. You shut up the
women, but you don't kill them. They're always beautiful and rich, and
awfully scared. You take their watches and things, but you always take
your hat off and talk polite. They ain't anybody as polite as robbers
--you'll see that in any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and
after they've been in the cave a week or two weeks they stop crying and
after that you couldn't get them to leave. If you drove them out they'd
turn right around and come back. It's so in all the books."
"Why, it's real bully, Tom. I believe it's better'n to be a pirate."
"Yes, it's better in some ways, because it's close to home and
circuses and all that.
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