According to a couple of articles that I cut out of the Toronto
_Globe and Mail_ in 1991, the story of the Huck ms. goes something
like this:
    At the request of James Fraser Gluck, a Buffalo lawyer, Twain gave
the second half of the ms. to the Buffalo and Erie County Public
Library in 1885.  At the time, Twain himself could not find the first
half; but two years later, Gluck wrote Twain that the first half had
arrived.  This first half apparently stayed in Gluck's (rather than
the library's) possession, however, and did not resurface until 1990,
whe two of Gluck's grandaughters found it in a steamer trunk in an
attic in Hollywood (it is believed that Gluck's daughter took the ms.
from Buffalo to Hollywood in the 1920s).
   As of 1991, the library was arguing that since the ms. had orignially
been offered to them by Twain, it was their property; the sisters
initially were willing to surrender the ms. for a charitable deduction
on their income tax, but (reading between the lines, and taking into
account Twain's pessimism about human morality!) but changed their minds
when they realized its value (about 1.5 million).  The articles report
that Sotheby's auction house, who holds the ms. itself, has asked the
District Court to settle the dispute between the sisters and the library.
I have no idea how the court battle turned out, or how Random House came
into the picture--perhaps someone else could fill in the next chapter?

Nick Mount
Dalhousie