The Rescue and a Terrible Discovery — The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

For three days St. Petersburg mourns while searchers hunt the cave. Tom and Becky are found alive on Tuesday, and the whole town erupts in joy. Church bells ring and mothers weep with relief at the ferry landing.

Tom tells how he spotted a tiny speck of daylight through a hole in the rock. He made Becky keep going even when she wanted to stop. They reached the Mississippi River and crawled to safety at last.

Tom learns that Huck has been seriously ill with fever while the town searched the cave. Injun Joe's partner was found drowned in the river. Both children spend days in bed recovering from the cave ordeal.

When Tom visits Judge Thatcher two weeks later, he hears shocking news about the cave and its new iron doors.

The judge has ordered the cave sealed with iron doors to keep anyone else from getting lost. Tom's face goes white because Injun Joe is still hiding inside the dark passages.

Tom blurts out the secret, and the town races back to the cave with torches and tools. Tom knows he may have sent Joe to his death, but he could not let a man starve alone behind locked iron doors.