The two boys were our escort, and the way at first was rough enough. Thick forest was on the outskirts of the farm, and under the forest trees were stones uncovered by moss or lichen. The little steer picked his way over these cannily enough, but the sledge would only follow if assisted, and so one or other of us had constantly to tail on behind to keep it in the paths of rectitude. And then we had to pass across the swampy valley. Logs had been laid down here to make some sort of a footway, but it was more than the steer could do to make the passage across these with the sledge bumping and sheering in his wake. So we had to unyoke, and drag the sledge over ourselves; and when we got to the other side, we found that the vehicle showed distinct signs of disintegration. It was pinned together by wooden pegs, and these had got dry and were falling out; and so there was nothing for it but to unload, and sink the sledge in a pool of water till it swelled and tightened, and in the meanwhile rest as philosophically as we could in the worst stew of mosquitoes we had yet met in the Arctic Lapland. It was one of the heaviest hours of torment I ever lived through.
Still at last the sledge swelled sufficiently, and we got limbered up again, and this time the procession set off in more real earnest.
First came Tom Sawyer, high-booted, one-braced, preternaturally solemn and important. He marched with knapsack on back, axe over shoulder, and coat slung to knapsack, though of course he might just as well have put these impedimenta on the sledge. He "blazed" unnecessary trees, and peered into every thicket. He was evidently on the look-out for the local story-book equivalent for "Injuns." He was inexpressibly funny. Then came the little liver-and-white steer, half maddened by the mosquitoes, rushing under every foliage tree on the way to brush off the intolerable insects. At its heels the sledge bumped and swerved, and beside the sledge stalked Huckleberry Finn, with the check-rope in his hand and words of direction on his lips. And behind the tail-board of the sledge came us two foreigners, ready to lend a hand when the sledge threatened to capsize, which it did some four times every three minutes.