However he was owned by Miss Watson and one day he overheard that she was going to sell him in order to get the eight hundred dollars that a slave seller said he was worth. Although Jim says that the Miss Watson was pretty rough on him at times, he still did not want to be sold into another unpredictable group of circumstances, so he ran off and made his way to Jackson Island where he eventually ran into Huck and their adventure ensued.
Huck and Jim's friendship grows and evolves throughout the course of the novel as Huck changes his perceptions on colored people, and as Jim asserts himself intellectually and emotionally. As the novel progresses Jim asserts himself to the reader through his intelligence. In one of many of Huck and Jim's conversations, they were discussing how French people speak French which was a ludicrous concept to Jim. Huck's argument was that a cats and cows have their own independent language that humans do not understand so it is only natural that a Frenchman should speak differently from them. Jim's line of reasoning puts Huck's to shame as his retort is that if a Frenchman is a man then all men should be able to understand what their saying. His "one-up" was so beyond Huck's that he quits speaking. This shows Jim's wit and intellect that a black man of a lower slave stature can have a better argument than a white man. Next, Jim must affirm himself with Huck as someone who possesses feelings and .
capabilities to be offended and hurt when treated poorly. Huck gets lost in fog and loses the raft with Jim on it. Gradually he finds his way back and finds Jim asleep on the raft. As he wakes him up he tricks and lies to Jim that the whole thing did not happen and tells him that he dreamed it up. Jim coos over Huck's return and rejoices because he was so scared to lose him, but he also turns on him, saying that it was trash what he did and it made him ashamed.