Chapter 16 Summary

Huck and Jim are off to a town named Cairo. When they get there, Jim will be free. And as Huck ponders this, he begins to realize that, at that point, Huck will be responsible for this "terrible crime." Worse, Jim tells him that if he can't buy his children from their new owner, he will get an abolitionist to get them back. To Huck, this is just a terrible sin. Jim has reached his morale nadir by daring to even think that. Huck decides to turn Jim in. But when the opportunity comes and some men want to search the raft, he tells them that his Pappy is sick and basically suggests that he has smallpox, thereby saving Jim. But after some further traveling and the sky become thick and gray, they realize they have probably missed Cairo. While they are still...