After escaping the island, James and Huck lie down in the canoe and talk while trying to get dry. James asks first about his family, and Huck says he saw them only from a distance but that they looked sad. Huck then recounts his trip ashore: a tall woman in a shack questioned him, townspeople first suspected Pap Finn of murdering Huck, then suspected James, then returned to blaming Pap after Pap disappeared.

Huck adds that Pap now has a two-hundred-dollar bounty on him, while James carries a three-hundred-dollar reward. Huck says he tried to find Tom Sawyer for help, but the town’s children were being kept inside because a killer was thought to be loose. Huck slept in Miss Watson’s shed, stole candles and matches from the kitchen, lost some food, hid in the woman’s barn, and finally returned after thinking men were following him.

Hearing that his wife and baby daughter looked sad, James grieves and silently promises himself that he will come back for his family. After reaching shore, James and Huck hide in the woods through the next morning. They eat berries and catfish, save their dried fish and stolen biscuits, and build a small raft with a lean-to cover, which they lash to the boat so they can travel more safely and rest by day.

As they prepare to move only at night, Huck asks James why Pap hates him. James explains that Pap hates James partly because James is enslaved, though Huck insists Pap has a more personal hatred as well. The exchange deepens Huck’s awareness of the racial order James lives under and shows how their partnership is forcing Huck to question what he has accepted.

At dusk, James and Huck set out in fog on the flooded Mississippi. The current, debris, and poor visibility make the trip dangerous, and passing riverboats rock their top-heavy craft so badly that they must keep bailing water. When the fog lifts, they spot Fourmile Island, and James feels the distance from his family even more sharply.

Suddenly a nearly silent riverboat bears down on them. James and Huck paddle desperately toward shore, feel the river pull them toward the larger vessel, then brace for the inevitable wake after barely avoiding collision. A wall of water tears away part of their shelter and nearly swamps them, but they cling to the craft and bail until the danger passes. Their escape confirms both the physical peril of the river and their growing dependence on each other.