When Huck first loses the raft that he has tied up and knows he may have lost Jim - what does Huck's behavior symbolize?Does his fear of having...

When Huck and Jim investigate the wrecked steamboat in
Chapter XII, Huck realizes that two men intend to kill the third, so he runs to the
water to tell Jim that they must notify the Sherriff; however, Jim moans that their raft
is gone.  Nevertheless, Huck manages to locate the skiff of the thieves, and they
retrieve the raft although they are too late to help anyone on board the wreck which
sinks.  In this first loss of the raft, nothing occurs between Jim and
Huck.

As they drift along with the booty of the thieves,
Huck tells Jim about royalty, demonstrating again Twain's delightful satire.  During
their conversations Jim is somewhat petulant because he is too old for all Huck's
childish games; instead, he greatly desires to reach Cairon, Illinois, so he can get on
the Ohio River and reach freedom.  But, as they approach the point where the Mississippi
meets the Ohio river, a dense fog rises and when Huck reaches land with the canoe and
strings the rope around young saplings, the current is so strong that the rope breaks
and carries off the raft.  Jumping back into the canoe Huck pursues it, loses any sight
of it in the fog and cannot determine from where Jim's "whoopes" emanate.  Exhausted,
Huck falls asleep for a time, then wakes and spots a "black speck on the
water."

When Huck finally reaches the raft, Jim is asleep,
holding to the steering oar.  In his prankish way, Huck lies under him so that when Jim
wakes up he is right there.  Huck convinces Jim that he has simply had a bad dream; Jim
feels then that he should "'terpret" it since it was set for a warning. After Jim speaks
for a while, Huck tells him that is enough, but asks, "...what does
these things stand for?" showing him the debris which has collected on the
raft. Jim realizes he has been tricked:

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When he did get the thing straightened around,
he looked at me steady, without ever smiling, and
says:

"What do dey stan' for?  I's gwyne to tell you.  When
I got all wore out wid work, en wid de cllin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz
mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no mo' what become er me en de far'. 
En when I wake up en fine you back agin', all safe en soun', de ters come en I could a
got down on my knees en kiss' yo; foot I's so thankfu.  En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout
wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie.  Dat truck dah is
trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey
fren's en makes 'em
ashamed."

With the emotion of
Jim's reaction, Huck is ashamed of himself.  He narrates that he felt "so mean I could
almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back."

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It was fifteen minutes before I could work
myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger--but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry
for it afterwards, neither.  I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done
that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that
way.

Perhaps for the first
time, Huck begins to understand that Jim feels all the deep emotions of the most
sensitive of human beings.  And, without completely realizing it, Huck loves Jim
equally, for he feels terrible after Jim tells him how distraught he has been about
Huck's safety.  Henceforth, he treats Jim as an equal for he knows that Jim loves him. 
From spending time intimately with Jim, Huck learns that although Jim is a slave, he is
yet a man with all the yearnings and feelings of a man.