Because James and Huck cannot find trotlines and have no fishing line of their own, they decide to catch a catfish by dogging, with James reaching into an undercut bank while Huck stands by to help. James understands the method in theory but has never done it, and he is frightened not only of a large catfish but also of whatever else might be hiding in the muddy hole. Huck warns James not to grab the fish wrong because of its poisonous spines, but James remains deeply uneasy.

After a long wait, James feels the fish test his fingers and then clamp onto his wrist and forearm. When James tries to pull free, the fish’s strength drags him forward, and Huck is unable to help because the water is too deep for him. James has poor footing and weakened strength from earlier abuse and near-drowning, so the struggle quickly turns dangerous as the fish twists and pulls him under the muddy Mississippi.

Submerged and unable to see or orient himself, James fights panic and thinks of Norman, Sammy, Lizzie, and Sadie. Those memories sharpen James’s will to survive because he wants to live long enough to reach his family again. In the midst of the struggle, James imagines John Locke speaking to him and justifying slavery as the result of conquest in a state of war; James turns that logic back on itself and concludes that if he is in a war, then he has the right, and perhaps the duty, to fight and kill those who would enslave or kill him.

Driven by that realization, James forces himself upward, breaks the surface, and pulls the fish free of its hole. He and Huck get the enormous catfish onto the bank, and Huck kills it with a stick, thrilled by the catch. James, however, feels no triumph after the ordeal. Watching Huck’s boyish excitement, James reflects that he told Huck the truth about the world less for Huck’s sake than for his own need to make sure Huck had a genuine moral choice.