the next day we didn’t do much but fuss around. plunk and tallow tried fishing for trout with angleworms, but they got only one, and he was a rainbow. mark found a shady spot and read all the time he wasn’t cooking or eating, and i got out uncle hieronymous’s draw-shave and found a piece of seasoned hickory he had stowed away. first off i didn’t know what i’d make of it, but after i’d figured a spell i decided it would be a bow and arrow. i was pretty handy with tools, and this wasn’t the first bow i ever made, by any means. it took me all day to finish it and half a dozen arrows, so my time was filled up all right.
“tell you what let’s do,” says i, at the supper-table. “uncle said there was a lake about a mile off with bass and perch in it. what’s the matter with digging some worms and hiking there early in the morning? maybe we can catch a mess for dinner.”
“g-g-good idea,” says mark. “then let’s get there by daylight.”
we took a spade and went out back of the barn to dig worms. the ground was pretty dry, but by digging over about an acre we got a half a canful.
“think it’s enough?” i asked.
“all you can g-g-get has got to be enough,” says mark, which was perfectly true. anyhow, if we got one fish for every worm we would have more than we could eat.
uncle had an old alarm-clock that would still run considerable. i wouldn’t go so far as to say it would run just right, but it had two hands and a face, and it ticked. that ought to be enough for any clock. and it did alarm. i should say it did! it went off like the crack of doom.
“what time’ll i set her for?” i asked.
“’bout two o’clock,” says tallow.
mark grunted. “two n-n-nothin’,” he stuttered. “three’s plenty early.”
then we went to bed. we didn’t seem to be as nervous that night as we had been the night before, which was pleasant. i don’t like to be scared. it is one of the most disagreeable things that happen to me. i was just dozing off when mark spoke to me.
“those f-f-fellers was here to-day,” he says.
“what fellers?” i asked, cross-like, because i didn’t like being roused up.
“c-c-christopher columbus and george w-w-w-washington,” he says, disgusted. “who’d you think?”
“you mean collins and the fat man?”
he grunted: “uh-hup. while you was back of the barn whittlin’,” he says. “they went off disappointed. seems like that f-f-fat feller don’t care much for walking.”
“what did you tell them?”
“told ’em your uncle wouldn’t be b-b-back ’fore night.”
“oh, go on to sleep,” tallow snorted, from his bed; and so mark and i kept quiet, and the first thing i knew i was being waked up by the worst racket i ever heard. it scared me so i jumped out of bed way into the middle of the room. for a minnit i couldn’t make out what was going on. it might have been a bear tearing down the house or an attack by indians, for all i could make out. then i got really waked up and recognized it was the old alarm-clock. it didn’t seem like i’d been to sleep at all, and it was so dark a black cat would have looked sort of gray if it had come into the room. the other fellows were stirring around.
“time to get up,” i says.
“doggone that clock,” says tallow.
i guess that’s what we all thought, but nobody was willing to be the first one to back out, so we lighted a lamp and dressed. my, but it was chilly! when we opened the door and started outside it was like to frost-bite our ears. and everything was wet with dew; my feet were soaked before i’d gone a hundred feet.
i don’t know what time it really was. maybe it was three o’clock, but if it was, three is a heap earlier than i ever imagined it could be. why, it was as dark as midnight. we stumbled around and found the road. it was about a mile up the road to the bridge, and maybe a half a mile across the stream to the lake. we came near missing it altogether in the dark, and we would have if it hadn’t been for the sound of a frog splashing into the water. we turned off and fumbled down to the shore, and there we were. we might as well have been home, for we never could find the boat uncle told me about in that blackness, so we just sat down and grumbled. it was pretty uncomfortable, i want to tell you. all the fun there is crouching down in the dark on the shore of a lake you can hardly see, with your feet wet and shivers chasing each other up and down your back, can be put in your ear.
“who thought of this?” tallow growled.
“binney,” says plunk.
“who wanted to get up at two?” i asked right back, and they didn’t have another word to say.
we huddled around, all fixed to quarrel. it got a little lighter, but not enough to do any good, and by that time we were hungry. tallow mentioned he was, and mark—the only one in the crowd to think ahead—pulled a bag out of his pocket with sandwiches and store-cookies in it. we gobbled them and felt a bit better.
just as it began to get sort of grayish we heard wagon-wheels in the road. right off mark started a game. he figured we’d feel better if we had something to think about, i guess.
“hist!” says he. “the p-p-pirates!”
we all kept so still you couldn’t even hear us breathe.
“if they f-f-find us here in their lair,” says mark, “it’ll be all day with us. have you got the diamonds s-s-safe, binney?” he whispered.
“yes,” says i, feeling of some pebbles in my pocket, “i got ’em.”
“maybe they’ll pass without seein’ us,” tallow guessed.
but the wagon stopped. it stopped right alongside of where we were, and somebody spoke.
“fine time of the day to get a man out,” he says. “might have had four hours’ sleep yet.”
“never mind,” says another voice, sort of laughing; “you’ll be all right as soon as they start biting.... that boat larsen told us about ought to be right near here.”
“let it stay,” grumbled the other man. “i ain’t going to stir out of this wagon till it’s light enough for me to see to get around without busting my neck. a man of my size ain’t a cat, to run along on the top of a fence.”
“here, have a smoke. that’ll cheer you up. it’ll be plenty light in fifteen minutes, jiggins.”
mark nudged me. i thought the voices were familiar, but as soon as that name jiggins was mentioned i knew it was mr. collins and the fat man.
“lay low,” says mark, “and listen. that’s the pirate chief.”
we listened.
“we want to get back to larsen’s by nine o’clock,” said jiggins. “our friend with the name ought to be home by this time, and i don’t want to hang around this forsaken hole in the woods all summer.”
“hieronymous alphabet bell,” says collins. “that is quite some name. wonder where he got it?”
“don’t care where he got it. what i’m worrying about is, will we get him?”
“sure,” says collins. “he’s probably forgotten he ever owned forty acres in the northern peninsula, and if he remembers it he won’t think about retaining the mineral rights when he sold it.”
“you never can tell about these old codgers. some of ’em are wiser than they look.”
“well,” says collins, “we’ve got to land him. it means considerable to you and me, eh? to think of the old codger living here in the backwoods when he is the owner of one of the finest bits of copper property in the state! i don’t suppose there’s any telling what that land is worth as it stands.”
“you can bet it’s worth considerable, or the company wouldn’t be so anxious to get hold of it. anyhow, it would be enough to make our friend hieronymous richer than he ever dreamed of being.”
“well, he won’t ever know it. seems kind of mean, sometimes, to gouge an old fellow, but i suppose business is business. he’s as happy without it, likely.”
“we haven’t got it yet,” snapped jiggins, “and you want to move pretty cautious. remember, you’re a friend of a farmer who bought that piece to farm on. remember he’s a peculiar old fellow who wants to feel nobody else has any right whatever in the land he lives. that’s why he wants to get the mineral rights mr. hieronymous alphabet owns. remember that. it ought to fool him, all right, but you can’t ever tell. we mustn’t offer him too much, or he’ll get to thinking. two hundred is the highest, i should say.”
“two hundred’s plenty. there’s no need to waste money, anyhow.”
mark tidd was holding onto my arm. as collins and jiggins went on talking i could feel him getting more and more excited by the way his fingers dug into me. i hadn’t any idea he was so strong in the hands, but i began to think he’d take a chunk right out of me.
“quit it,” i says, in a whisper.
“d-d-did you hear?” he asked, stuttering so he could hardly get the words out.
“yes,” says i.
just then plunk smalley, who always was doing something at the wrong minnit, had to lean forward suddenly and bang his head against a stump.
“ouch!” he hollered.
the talk in the wagon stopped in a second, and i heard somebody leap to the ground and come jumping toward us. of course, it was collins, because the fat man never could have moved so fast. we were in a nice place—all sitting on the ground, without the slightest idea where to run without getting mired or tangled up in the underbrush. but we did our best. everybody took a different direction, and you could hear folks floundering wherever you listened. the fat man had got down and was coming after us too.
“who was it?” he yelled to collins.
“i don’t know,” collins yelled back, “but i’m going to get them, anyhow.” his voice sounded like he meant it, too.
mark and tallow and plunk and i began getting together again, and, all in a crowd, we plunged ahead without looking where we were going. it was starting to get light now—light enough so you could see things dim-like and indistinct. all at once i splashed into the water. water was in front of us, so we turned to the left. there was water, too. and water was behind us.
“we’re nabbed,” i says to mark; “we’ve run out on a point of land.”
well, sir, it did look as if we were goners. all collins and jiggins had to do was come and get us. but they hadn’t discovered the little peninsula yet and were wallowing around maybe a hundred feet off.
mark was moving around slow and cautious. finally i heard him sort of chuckle. “here’s the boat,” he whispered. “i thought this was like the place your uncle said it would be.”
we were as quiet as could be getting to where it was, but collins and jiggins heard us and yelled. we jumped into the boat and started to push off, but before we were away from the shore collins loomed up out of the murkiness and grabbed at the stern.
“i got you,” he said, business-like as anything. somehow i didn’t like the sound of his voice.
he missed us first grab and took a step into the water. just as he reached for us again the most unearthly sound i ever heard came wavering over the water. it was a horrid kind of a sound. a mysterious, shuddery sound that made you draw all together and wish you were in the house by a warm fire.
“ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” it came. weird? why, weird was no name for it! it was the craziest, awfulest laugh in the world. collins stopped and straightened up like he’d been shot.
“shove,” says mark, who wasn’t so scared but he could take advantage of what was going on. i was almost paralyzed, and so were plunk and tallow, but we shoved, and the boat glided off out of collins’s reach.
then came that laugh once more. “ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha!” it was half laugh and half shriek. all of it was crazy—plum lunatic crazy.
“what is it?” i whispered. i couldn’t have spoken out loud to save my neck.
mark chuckled. “git to r-r-rowin’,” says he.
we did.
“but what’s making that noise?” i asked.
before the words were out of my mouth the laugh came shrieking at us again.
“sounds awful, don’t it?” says mark.
“let’s git out of this,” says tallow. “something’s loose. i don’t like it.”
mark chuckled again. then he started to laugh so he shook all over.
“well,” i says, as mad as could be, “what’s so funny about it?”
“don’t you know what that l-l-laugh was?” he asked back at me.
“if i did,” says i, “maybe i wouldn’t be so all-fired scared.”
“likely not,” he says. “the thing that made that laugh is the craziest thing in the world, folks say. when you w-w-want to tell how c-c-crazy a person is you say it’s as crazy as the th-th-th-thing that’s making that laugh.”
