The voices grew louder. Then the boys saw three figures coming toward them!

Huck was terrified. He closed his eyes and started to pray. But Tom couldn’t help but look on.

“Shh!” he said. “They’re not spirits. They’re people. One of those voices is old Muff Potter’s. Muff’s drunk, same as usual. And I know another one of those voices—it’s Injun Joe!”

Tom and Huck hid quietly in the shadows and watched the men. Muff Potter pushed a wheelbarrow. Injun Joe carried a rope and two shovels. The third man was Doc Robinson. He was paying Potter and

Joe to rob Hoss Williams’s grave!

Muff and Joe started digging. The doctor held up the lantern.

“Hurry!” Doc Robinson ordered in a low voice.

Potter and Joe growled an answer, then went back to their digging. Soon a shovel hit the coffin. The two men lifted up the box and pried open the lid.

They put Hoss’s body into the wheelbarrow and covered it with a blanket. Potter tied the whole bundle down with a long rope. He cut the end of the rope with a sharp knife.

Then Potter said, “Give us more money, Doc. Or the deal’s off.”

“Yeah,” Joe added. “Pay up or else!” He shook his fist in the doctor’s face. Quick as lightning, Doc Robinson hit Joe!

Potter dropped his knife and ran to help his friend. He shoved the doctor to the ground. But Potter was too drunk to do any harm.

Joe picked up the knife while the doctor hit Potter on the head with a rock. Potter fell to the ground, unconscious.

Joe rushed forward and plunged Potter’s knife into the doctor’s chest. Doc Robinson staggered back a few steps and collapsed.

The boys could hardly believe their eyes. They tore out of the graveyard as if the spirit of Hoss Williams was on their tail!

In the dark every tree stump looked like an enemy.

“We gotta make it to the old barn!” gasped Tom between breaths.

Huckleberry’s hard pantings were the only reply. The boys ran on and finally burst through the open barn door. They hid in the shadows, exhausted.

Finally Tom whispered, “Huckleberry, what do you think will happen?”

“There will be a hanging if Doc Robinson dies,” said Huck. “If anyone finds out what we saw, Injun Joe will kill us for sure.”

“But Muff Potter can’t tell,” said Tom. “He was whacked on the head.