At the beginning of the book, Huck is skeptical of Jim, Miss Watson’s slave. When Huck runs away from his father he encounters Jim. Jim was running away from Miss Watson after listening to her talk about selling him to a different plantation that would’ve been far more horribly brutal to him and he would be separated from his wife and kids. Huck decides to team up with Jim even though he is uncertain about the legal actions that could be brought onto him since he is helping a runaway slave. They find an island to camp out at and one day sees a house floating past the island. Huck and Jim decide to loot the house, finding a shot dead man’s body. Jim doesn’t let Huck see the dead man’s face which confuses Huck.
After a while, they are forced to leave the blissful island after Huck heard a woman gossip about how her husband saw smoke coming from the island and knows Jim is hiding there. Apparently, there was a reward being offered for Jim’s capture. Huck was willing to protect not only himself but Jim as well. So after learning of this gossip, Huck and Jim immediately hitched a ride on a steamboat and traveled several days past St. Louis, even coming to a close encounter with robbers on another steamboat. After they escaped from the robbers they took all of their possessives.
One night they encounter a group of men searching for escaped slaves like Jim, but Huck lied to the men and tells the men that his father is suffering from smallpox on their boat.
The men give Huck money and run away from them so they wouldn’t catch the disease. They continue to go down the river until the next night another steamboat crashes into the raft, separating Huck and Jim.
Huck ended up in a nice home of the Grangerfords. The Grangerfords were in a ridiculous feud with their neighbors, the Shepherdsons. One of the daughters of the Grangerfords was in love with the son of the Shepherdsons leading to a battle that many of the family members dead. During the feud, Jim appears with a repaired raft for him and Huck and take off down the river.
The pair rescue two men that are pursued by armed fugitives. The men are obviously con artists, telling Huck and Jim that claim to be an English duke and the forgotten dauphin. Jim and Huck feel too weak to tell them to leave, so they continue on their way. While going downthe river the con artists create little scams in towns along the river getting Jim and Huck into trouble most of the time. After a few scams, the men try to sell Jim to a local farmer, informing the farmer that Jim is a runaway with a hefty reward being offered. Huck is determined to get
Jim back and finally finds out where he is being kept. Turns out that the people holding Jim are Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle and Huck pretends to be Tom visiting them. Eventually, Tom and Huck intercept and Tom creates a crazy plan to rescue Jim. The plan fails and Jim ends up back in chains. The next morning, Tom informs Huck that Jim is actually a free man and has been all along since Miss Watson made a change to her will to free Jim since she died two months earlier. Tom made up the escape plan all as a game and was planning on paying Jim for his troubles. Suddenly Tom’s aunt shows up and realizes that “Tom” and “Sid” are actually Huck and Tom. Jim reveals to Huck that the body they had found in the house from the island was Huck’s father. Huck is offered to be adopted by Tom’s aunt but refuses and sets out with Jim for the West.
At the beginning of the story, Huck is very concerned about trusting Jim since he is a black slave. When they both intercept in each other’s paths to escape, they gradually start to trust each other and sacrificing themselves for each other’s safety. Huck no longer feels threatened or uncertain about Jim anymore making them a great team.
