James is relieved to send Huckleberry Finn to the mainland in disguise because the trip could shift suspicion away from James and from Huck's supposed murder, and it might also bring news of James's family. After watching Huck hide the canoe and disappear inland, James returns to the cave, eats, and sleeps deeply as his strength slowly returns from the snakebite.

While Huck is gone, James judges that the venom will not kill him, but he remains alert about the wound and about the danger of discovery. As he recovers, James keeps the fire going, gathers catfish, dries food for future travel, and prepares for the possibility that he and Huck will soon need to move through the back country. By the second day, James grows anxious enough to strengthen the cave's concealment and improvise both a lookout and a rough escape device from branches.

During this waiting, James reconsiders his earlier choice not to tell Huck that the corpse in the drifting house was likely Huck's father. James thinks the truth might free Huck from fear of Pap, but he also worries that the news could either crush Huck or anger him for having been kept in the dark. That private debate reveals how James measures every decision against the risk of betrayal and capture.

At dusk on the third day, James sees smoke on the far side of the island and fears that hunters or searchers have arrived. He hears footsteps and prepares to run, but Huck appears and explains that he set the fire himself to mislead men he thought might be following him. Accepting that they cannot risk staying, James and Huck gather their food, cross the island under cover through floodwater, freeze when they hear voices in the woods, and finally push the canoe out while staying low in the water until the current carries them away.