As James and Huck continue down the wide river at night, Huck eagerly retells the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud and speaks admiringly of the Grangerfords, especially Sophia. James listens with little interest, and the conversation underscores how differently the two understand the violence they have just escaped.

Later, after tying up the raft near a towhead, James and Huck go to a sandy beach at a creek mouth to swim and clean themselves. There they discover an old hidden canoe, filthy but still usable. Huck, excited by the find and still shaken by the feud, decides to take the canoe up the creek on a small adventure while James stays behind to tend the trotlines.

Alone, James reflects on how close violence always is in enslaved life and thinks again about Young George, who was beaten after giving James a pencil. James studies the pencil, resolves to use it carefully, and considers taking the stamped name "FABER" as a surname. Exhausted, James falls asleep and dreams of arguing with John Locke about slavery, hypocrisy, and the moral evasions used to justify it.

Huck suddenly returns in the canoe with two frightened white men, and the sound of pursuing dogs makes James act at once to get the canoe and raft back into the current. Once they are safely moving, the strangers begin explaining themselves. The younger man says he is fleeing townspeople angered by a tooth-cleaning paste that stripped enamel, while the older man says he escaped after running a temperance revival and being caught secretly drinking.

As the raft carries them on, the two men reveal themselves as obvious confidence men. The younger proposes that he and the older work together, and both brag about past frauds in medicine, printing, acting, phrenology, and preaching. Then the younger claims he is the rightful Duke of Bridgewater, and the older tops him by claiming he is Louis XVII, the lost Dauphin and rightful King of France. Huck is dazzled by the performance, while James sees through them; still, James realizes that the pair are now aboard and cannot easily be gotten rid of.