It is at this point where Huck begins his journey of moral progression. .
Huck encounters his first major dilemma when he comes across the wrecked steamboat and three criminals. When Jim and Huck take the skiff for themselves, leaving the three robbers stranded, Huck realizes that he has, in essence, left them to die. .
"Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men- I reckon I hadn't time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it?"(Twain, 67).
This is the first time that Huck questions the effects of what he has done on other people. After he realizes that he could now be considered a murderer, he makes a plan to get a captain to go investigate the wreck in order to save the men's lives. Even though the men he would be saving are murderers and robbers, he can not justify being responsible for their death, and makes it a point to correct what he has done wrong. This is the first major step in Huck's moral progression. At that point, he establishes a set of ethics that deems leaving the men to die as morally wrong. Throughout the book there is the recurring theme of Friend v. Society. This is a main moral decision that Huck is forced to make a few times in his journey. .
Huck's independent decision making skills are made more evident in the incident with the King and the Duke, where he stands up against those who immorally steal from people. Before telling Mary-Jane, one of Wilkes" daughters of the deceitful plan, he remarks to himself "I"ll up and tell the trith this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you"ll go" (Twain 169). Despite the fact that Huck is aware that if he exposes himself and tells the truth the result can be disastrous, he proceeds to tell Mary-Jane.
