Along the way, Huck and Jim help out two men thrown off a riverboat, a pair who claim to be the Duke of Bilgewater and Louis XVII, the rightful king of France.

They are actually down-on-their-luck actors and con men who see an opportunity when they spot a notice promising a $1000 reward for an escaped slave matching Jim’s description.

Moving on the next town, the Duke and Dauphin enlist Huck’s aid in a plot to swindle two bereaved young women, Susan and Mary Jane Wilkes, out of a fortune by pretending to be their long-lost uncles.

Captain Brandy, the best friend of the deceased, quickly sees through the masquerade, although the guileless Susan and Mary Jane refuse to believe the men are impostors.

While Huck recovers at the Wilkes home, Captain Brandy is forced to send Jim back to St. Petersburg to stand trial for murder.

Although flooding and rough waters make the journey perilous, the boat arrives in the nick of time and Huck saves Jim from a would-be lynching party.

B. R. Crisler of The New York Times felt that the picture was "more Mickey than Huckleberry" and called it an "average, workmanlike piece of cinematic hokum" that "affords little, if any, insight into the realistic boyhood world of which old Mark wrote with such imperishable humor.

"[4] Film Daily called the treatment of the story "very flat and mechanical and uninteresting," adding, "Mickey Rooney does his best, and his fans may accept him as he appears and think he is great.

"[6] John Mosher of The New Yorker called it "a perfunctory, commonplace job, pretty creaky and in the manner of those revival pieces some think quaint ... Aside from being a step for Mr. Rooney, this picture accomplishes nothing.