we sat there in the boat about a hundred feet from shore and watched collins and the fat man floundering around on the bank. we could just see them, but gradually it got lighter and lighter until we could make them out as plainly as they could us. most of the time mark was laughing to himself.

“what you laughing at?” i asked him.

“at the way we r-r-ran,” says he.

“it wasn’t any laughin’-matter,” says i.

“you don’t think they’d have h-h-hurt you, do you?”

“i don’t think anything else.”

“shucks!” says he. “they only come after us l-l-like they did because they were s-s-startled. we s-s-scared ’em.”

“and they scared us,” i says, sharp-like.

“they might ’a’ mauled us a l-l-little,” says mark, “but nothin’ more.”

“well,” says plunk, “what we goin’ to do now?”

“nothin’ for a bit,” says mark. “when they clear out we’ll go home.”

“but what we goin’ to do about what we heard?” tallow wanted to know.

mark looked disgusted. “why,” says he, as sarcastic as could be, “we’re g-g-goin’ to write it down on paper and b-b-bury it where nobody can ever f-find it.”

collins and jiggins had been sitting with their heads together while we talked. just after mark got through speaking collins came close to the water and yelled at us.

“hey, fellows,” says he, pleasant-like, “come on a-shore. what ails you, anyhow?”

“n-n-nothin’,” says mark. “we’re sittin’ here, gittin’ ready to f-f-f-fish.”

“what made you run when we came?”

“what made you chase us?”

“that was just for fun. we thought maybe we’d scare you.”

“you did,” says mark.

“we knew you were hiding down there. that’s why jiggins and i made that joke in the wagon. we knew we’d get you all excited.”

“what joke?” mark asked, with his face as dumb and foolish as a pumpkin lantern.

“didn’t you hear what we said?” i could see collins was beginning to feel relieved.

“i hain’t heard no j-j-joke this morning,” says mark.

collins turned to jiggins and said, low, but not so low we couldn’t hear him across the water, “there, i told you they couldn’t have heard.”

“i ain’t so sure,” says jiggins, looking hard at mark. “that fat kid don’t appear to me like his ears were wadded with cotton.”

collins shrugged his shoulders. “they wouldn’t understand if they did hear,” he says. “they’re only kids.”

jiggins snorted. “i guess, friend collins,” says he, “you don’t know much about boys.” with that he got up and started back toward the wagon. “come on,” says he, emphatic-like. “we got something to do, and we got to do it quick.”

collins turned and laughed and called good-by to us; then he followed after jiggins. mark was laughing again.

“now what?” i asked him. he was always seeing things to laugh at none of the rest of us saw, and sometimes it made me a little mad.

“they’re goin’ to be d-d-disappointed again,” says he. “jiggins is headin’ for uncle hieronymous.”

it was funny. there the fat man was hurrying off to uncle’s cabin so he could get there and buy his mineral rights before we could come to warn him. and when he got there uncle would be somewhere else. it didn’t look as if the firm of jiggins & collins was having very much good luck.

“let ’em go,” says i. “it may do them good, and they can’t do any harm.”

“they might get track of your uncle,” says tallow.

“i dun’no’ how,” says i. “nobody knows where he is but us fellows. if they knew what he was gone for it wouldn’t be very easy to find him.”

“just the s-s-same,” says mark, “we got to f-find him, and we mustn’t lose any t-t-time about it.”

“how’ll we do it?” i asked.

“i dun’no’ now,” says he, “but i’ll think it out. let’s s-s-start for home.”

we rowed the boat to shore and fastened it; then we started for uncle hieronymous’s cabin. i own up i felt sort of shaky about going back there just then, for there wasn’t a doubt jiggins and collins were there, but mark said there wasn’t any danger, so along we went. i guess tallow and plunk figured the same way i did, and that was to think no fat boy in michigan could show he had more nerve than i did.

sure enough, the men were there, sitting on the doorstep, when we turned the corner into the clearing. mark never even hesitated, so we kept right at his heels.

“hello!” says he. “what you d-d-doin’ here?”

“came to see mr. bell,” says collins. “he seems to be out.”

jiggins was screwing his face around as if he didn’t like things very well. all of a sudden he shook a pudgy finger at mark and said, “young feller, if you know as much as you look as if you don’t know, king solomon could take lessons in law of you.”

mark let on he didn’t understand, but i knew he was tickled. it always tickled him to have folks let on they thought he was smart. he thought he was smart, all right, though he never was disagreeable about it.

“i dun’no’ nothin’ about law,” he said, as vacant as a deserted house. “what d’you mean about solomon?”

“huh!” snorted jiggins.

“where’s your uncle?” collins asked me.

“he hain’t got back yet,” i told him.

“hasn’t got back from where?”

“why,” says i, trying to make out i was as imbecile-like as mark let on to be—“why, from where he went to.”

“can you beat that?” collins says to jiggins, and his face was funny to look at. “what is this, anyhow? a home for the feeble-minded?”

jiggins began to sing to himself—a way he had, i found out afterward, when he was provoked or thinking hard. “diddle-dee-dum,” says he, in a squawky voice. “diddle-dee-dum. diddle-diddle-dum-dum.” then he stopped sudden and asked, “when’s he coming back?”

“d-d-don’t b’lieve he’s comin’ to-night,” says mark.

“it isn’t any use,” collins says to jiggins. “they don’t know, or if they do they haven’t got brains enough to tell. though where their brains went to i don’t know. last time i saw them they seemed to have plenty.”

“they did, eh?” says jiggins, sharp-like. “oh-ho, they did, eh? um. him. diddle-diddle-dee. diddle-dee-dee-dum.” and he went on singing for a couple of minutes. “look here, young feller,” says he to mark, “you ain’t fooling me. i’m onto you, and don’t you forget it. i take off my hat to you, i do. all the way off.” he turned to collins. “i’d give a dollar,” says he, “to know what that kid’ll be when he grows into a man.”

now when you come to think of it that was a sort of a compliment.

“come on,” says collins. “we might as well get along. when your uncle comes back tell him we just dropped in. it wasn’t anything important. just visiting.”

“i’ll tell him,” says i.

they turned and went off. as they got to the road jiggins stopped and twisted his pudgy head on his fat neck to look at us again, and he had the sort of expression a boy wears just before he sticks out his tongue. if he hadn’t been a man i bet he would have stuck out his tongue. somehow that made me mad, and right then and there i did the biggest fool thing i ever expect to do in my life.

“ho!” i yelled. “think you’re smart, don’t you? well, we heard you in that wagon, all right, and we know where uncle is. you needn’t think you can smouge him while we’re around. we’re goin’ to go to him as quick as we can and tell—” then mark clapped his hand over my mouth, and all of a sudden i knew what i’d done.

“git into the h-h-house, quick!” he stuttered. “q-q-quick!”

both collins and jiggins were coming toward us on the run. we didn’t wait, but went pell-mell through the door and slammed it after us. mark locked it. then he looked at me.

“binney,” says he, slow and deliberate and cutting, “if i had a yaller dawg that didn’t know b-b-b-better than to d-d-do sich a thing i’d s-s-skin him and use his h-h-hide for a r-r-rope to hang him with.”

i didn’t have a word to say, and i can tell you i felt pretty mean. who wouldn’t, i’d like to know? just by being fresh i’d got us all into a peck of trouble that nobody could see the end of, and maybe fixed it so collins and jiggins would get uncle’s mine, after all. i felt like crying.

collins or jiggins pounded on the door, but it was collins who called to us to open. we didn’t say a word, just kept perfectly quiet. we could hear them talking outside, but couldn’t make out what they said.

“will they bust in?” plunk asked, his teeth already beginning to chatter.

“’tain’t l-likely,” says mark. “what good would it d-d-do them? eh? well, folks with sense don’t g-g-generally do things unless there’s some g-good to be got out of it.”

“what’ll we do?” this was tallow.

“looks like we’ll stay right here.”

collins pounded on the door again. “tell us where your uncle is,” says he, “and we won’t hurt you.”

“you won’t h-h-hurt us, anyhow,” says mark.

“where is he?”

“he’s where you won’t ever find him,” i says.

“guess we’ll wait for him, then. maybe you won’t like staying in the house till he comes. might get hungry, eh?” i know he was thinking of mark when he said that.

“j-just what i thought,” says mark. “it was their only chance. they’re g-g-g-going to keep us shut up so’s we c-c-can’t git to binney’s uncle to warn him.”

“yes,” says i, “but s’pose he comes home and finds them besiegin’ us? what then? we could holler to him.”

mark sniffed. “’twon’t take m-more than one of them to guard us. the other can g-g-go lookin’ for uncle hieronymous.”

“but they’d never find him,” says i.

“p-p-pickles,” stuttered mark, as disgusted as could be.

we all crowded to the window and looked out. i half expected to see the men getting ready to batter down the door, but mark was right, after all. they weren’t doing anything violent, and they didn’t look as if they would. that was some comfort. collins was standing with his back to us, talking to jiggins, who sat on the ground with his back to a tree. we could hear him singing all the time in that funny way of his: “dum-diddle-diddle-dee-diddle,” and so on. it made you want to throw something at him.

after a while they agreed on something, and collins started out of the clearing.

“wonder where he’s going?” tallow says.

“s-s-supplies,” says mark. “the enemy’s goin’ to settle down for a s-s-siege.”

there he was off at a game again. it didn’t seem to matter what came up, mark had to pretend something. this time we found out we were a party of explorers who had run onto a mysterious tribe of white men in the middle of africa. these white men didn’t want to be discovered at all, so they were after us hot and heavy. we’d made a bully fight, mark said, but there were too many of them for us, so we sought refuge in a cavern where they could come at us only one at a time.

“we g-g-got to sell our lives dear,” says mark.

“can’t we make a rush for it?” i suggested.

“’twouldn’t be no use. there’s th-th-thousands of ’em all around us. you d-don’t think they’d let us g-git away with the s-s-sacred jewel, do you?”

“oh,” says i, “we got the sacred jewel, did we? i thought we were chased out before we got hands on it.”

mark shook his head and then wagged it from side to side. i really think he believed what he said and thought for the minnit that we were really what we were playing we were.

“no,” says he, puffed-up-like, and proud as a pigeon. “while you fellows was fightin’ ’em off i made a g-g-grab for the jewel and got it. see!” he held up a white door-knob he’d found some place. “it’ll make us all rich,” says he, “maybe—who knows? but if we take it to some king or queen or somethin’ they’ll m-m-make dukes or e-earls of us.”

“bully,” says plunk. “i want to be a markiss.”

“you’re m-more like to git burned at the stake,” says mark.

we took another peek out of the window. jiggins was still sitting under his tree, not ten feet from the door, and it did look as if his eyes were shut.

“hus-ss-sh!” whispered mark. “maybe we can git the door open and sneak out. if we can g-g-git to the canoe we’re all right. then we can p-p-paddle down-stream till we find your uncle. still, n-n-now.”

we edged to the door quiet and drew the bolt. mark went first. he opened it a teeny crack, then a little more. he was just ready to pull it way back when jiggins up and sort of chuckled.

“i been expectin’ some caper,” says he. “now you git back into the house like good boys. we don’t aim to hurt you any, but we can’t have you rampaging around the country. ’twouldn’t do, now, would it? if you were me you wouldn’t stand for it, would you? ’course not. now go on back and behave.”

“how long we got to stay cooped up here?” i asked him, sharp-like.

“well,” says he, “that depends. you see, mr. collins and me have business with your uncle. from what i heard you yell a spell back there’s something you want to tell him. did i hear right? i shouldn’t be a mite surprised if i did. um. well, mr. collins and me we don’t want any bad impressions given. not we. we want folks to think well of us. if you was to tell your uncle what you want to tell him it ain’t likely he’d have anything to do with mr. collins and me—now, is it?” then he began to sing again, “diddle-diddle-de-dum-diddle-dee.”

he did seem like a jolly sort of fat man. i liked collins, too. even after i found out he was trying to get uncle hieronymous’s mine away from him i couldn’t help liking him. the other fellows told me afterward they felt a whole lot the same way i did. somehow i never could believe they were very bad men. they wouldn’t have stolen anything or hurt anybody. but, mark says, they figgered out this was a business deal that they were getting the best of. lots of folks can’t see just honest when their business is mixed up in what they do.

“you’re beat, anyhow,” i says to him. i didn’t say it mean, but just as if i believed it.

“maybe so,” says he. “maybe so, but we hain’t given up yet.”

“we’ll git away,” says tallow.

“more’n likely,” says he, “but collins and me we’ll do our best to keep you.”

“what if uncle hieronymous should come and find you keepin’ us pris’ners?” says i. “he’d sort of suspect somethin’, wouldn’t he?”

“i calc’late he would, now. but collins and me we hain’t aiming to let him discover us keeping you prisoners. one of us is going to find him.”

“huh!” says i. “you can’t do it.”

“maybe not,” says he. “can’t never tell. but we’ll try. now, boys, go on back in the house like i said. i don’t want to get harsh with you, not a mite. but you got to mind.”

we went. once inside, and mark locked the door again.

“we want to look out for that fat man,” says he. “he’s cunnin’. you can’t f-f-fool him easy. don’t you think you can.”

“i don’t think anything about it,” says i. “now let’s git somethin’ to eat. i’m starvin’.”