Tom hears good news on Friday morning: The Thatcher family has returned from their family vacation. Tom spends most of the day with Becky, and she talks her mother into the promised picnic for the next day.
Invitations are sent out, and everyone gathers the next morning for the chartered ferryboat. Mrs. Thatcher decides that, because it will be late, Becky should stay with a friend near the ferry landing. Tom talks Becky into joining him for ice cream at the Widow Douglas’ house after the ride, and Becky reluctantly agrees.
Three miles down river, the ferry boat stops, and everyone plays until someone shouts that it is time to try McDougal’s cave, a “vast labyrinth of crooked aisles.” Everyone knows some of the cave—and Tom knows as much as anyone did—but no one alive knows the entire cave. After much wandering about, the group finally leaves the cave to discover that it is almost dark, and the ferryboat is anxious to make the trip home.
That night, while Huck watches “Number Two,” the door opens, and two men brush past him. Because he does not have enough time to give Tom Sawyer the signal, Huck carefully follows the men, who go to the quarry. When the men stop, Huck hides and listens. He overhears Injun Joe planning revenge: Some years earlier, Judge Douglas, Widow Douglas’s late husband, had Injun Joe horsewhipped in public. To get even, Injun Joe plans “to slit [the widow’s] nostrils and notch her ears like a sow.”
The two men see a light in the Widow’s house and, thinking that she has company, decide to wait until later in the night. Huck silently creeps away and runs frantically to the Welshman’s house, which is close by. He tells what he has heard and makes the Welshman and his sons promise not to tell who told them. They all leave for the sumac bushes with Huck lingering behind. When he hears shots, he waits no longer and runs back to town as quickly as possible.
As soon as it is daylight, Huck goes back to the Welshman’s house. The Welshman is glad to welcome Huck into his house because of Huck’s courage and because he prevented the Widow from being mutilated. Huck hears how the Welshman and his sons hid behind a spot in the sumac bushes and were only fifteen feet away from Injun Joe when an unfortunate sneeze came upon the Welshman. The robbers ran away. The Welshman and his men fired after them and pursued Injun Joe and his partner, but the men escaped capture.
Huck explains to the Welshman how he had seen the two robbers and had followed them and overheard them talking about mutilating the Widow Douglas’ face. Under pressure, he reveals the identity of Injun Joe, and the Welshman promises to protect him from this vicious man. A loud knock at the door causes Huck to jump almost out of his skin. It is the Widow Douglas and a group of citizens who want to express their gratitude to the Welshman. Mr. Jones (the Welshman), in turn, tells the widow that “There’s another that you’re more beholden to el but he don’t allow me to tell his name.”
At church that morning, Mrs. Thatcher discovers that Becky is missing. Shortly after that, Aunt Polly discovers that Tom is also missing. The people realize that they are still in the cave. Two hundred men are gathered, and they immediately go to the cave to begin the search. On Monday, the many men return, and Huck is found sick with a high fever. The Widow Douglas comes to care for him. When Huck hears a discussion about the Temperance Tavern break-in, he jumps up from his fever and asks if anything had been found. He is told that only whiskey had been found. When he asks about Tom Sawyer, they keep Tom’s disappearance from him.
The search for Tom and Becky continues for three days. They find a hair-ribbon and the children’ names lettered on the wall—proof that they are still in the cave. Despair settles in when the men no longer have either hope or energy to keep looking.
