Discover Moses and the bulrushers -- Our gang's dark oath -- We ambuscade the A-rabs -- Hair-ball oracle -- Pap starts in on a new life -- Pap struggles with the death angel -- I fool pap and get away -- I spare Mis Watson's Jim -- House of death floats by -- What comes of handlin' snake-skin -- They're after us! -- "Better let blame well alone" -- Honest loot from the "Walter Scott" -- Was Solomon wise? -- Fooling poor old Jim -- Rattlesnake-skin does the work -- Grangerfords take me in -- Why Harney rode away for his hat -- Duke and the Dauphin come aboard -- What royalty did to Parkville -- An Arkansaw difficulty -- Why the lynching bee failed -- Orneriness of kings -- King turns parson -- All full of tears and flapdoodle -- I steal the king's plunder -- Dead Peter has his gold -- Overreaching don't pay -- I light out in a storm -- Gold saves the thieves -- You can't pray a lie -- I have a new name -- Pitiful ending of royalty -- We cheer up Jim -- Dark deep-laid plans -- Trying to help Jim -- Jim gets his witch pie -- "Here a captive heart busted" -- Tom writes nonamous letters -- Mixed-up and splendid rescue -- "Must 'a 'been sperits" -- Why they didn't hang Jim -- Chapter the last, nothing more to write -- Afterword.

A young boy living in mid-nineteenth century Missouri relates the many adventures that he and his friend Jim, an escaped slave, experience as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.