you may think it would be an easy thing to sneak out of uncle hieronymous’s cabin without being seen. to anybody who doesn’t know just how things were it would seem as if there wouldn’t be any trouble about it at all, but there was, just the same. in the first place, the cabin was little—only three rooms. all the door there was opened out of the back, and the two men were guarding that. on the side of the cabin at the right of the door there wasn’t a window, and there was only one at the end opposite. there were two windows on the left-hand side and one alongside the door. this was the window uncle used to feed martha and mary through. you see right away there were two sides we couldn’t get out of—the one with no windows in it and the one where the door was. as soon as collins came back they fixed the back end so we couldn’t escape there, and it wasn’t any trick at all—they just nailed the window down on the outside.
“collins n-n-never thought of that,” says mark tidd. “it was the f-f-fat feller.”
“huh!” i grunted, because i knew just what he was thinking. he had it all figured out. jiggins must be smart just because he was fat. “i guess skinny folks has some brains,” i says.
“anyhow,” says he, “these folks have f-f-fixed it so we’re goin’ to have to use our b-b-brains to git out. let’s think things over.”
he sat down and began pulling at his fat cheek the way he always does when he’s studying hard, and his little eyes were almost shut. but you should have seen how they twinkled—what you could see of them. the other three of us sat down and thought too, but nobody seemed to have much luck at it.
“the s-s-savages,” says mark, “have stopped up one openin’ to this c-c-cavern.” he meant the end where jiggins nailed down the window. “then,” says he, “there’s nothin’ but solid rock on that s-s-side. if we g-g-git out it must be through the reg’lar openin’ [he meant the door] or over on th-th-this side. but,” says he, “they’re w-w-watchin’ there.”
just then we heard a hammering, and when we looked there was jiggins nailing up the windows on the left side.
mark shook his head and acted like he was actually proud of jiggins. “that’s what i’d ’a’ d-d-done myself,” says he. “now we got to g-g-git out right at that end where they’re w-w-watchin’.”
we all went to the back window and looked out.
“it’s goin’ to be a reg’lar siege,” i says, for collins was just putting up a little tent.
“they’ll never let us g-git away with the jewel,” says mark; and he took that old door-knob out of his pocket and looked at it as if it was worth a million dollars.
the tent wasn’t a regular tent. it was just a square of canvas. collins stretched a rope between two small trees that grew about ten feet from the door and threw his canvas over it. then he staked down the edges and had a good shelter to sleep in.
“how many s-s-savages do you count?” mark asked.
“two,” says tallow, without thinking.
“two!” snorted mark. “you must be b-b-blind. i see two war parties with fifty in each of th-them. that makes a hundred, don’t it?”
“sure,” says tallow. “i wasn’t thinkin’.”
“if we d-d-don’t git out ’fore night,” says mark, “i got a scheme for givin’ ’em a s-scare, anyhow.”
“what is it?” plunk wanted to know; but mark wouldn’t tell him. mark always was that way. if he had a plan he wouldn’t tell it to a soul till he had to. i guess he was naturally good at keeping a secret. you couldn’t get anything out of him he didn’t want to tell if you offered him the wicksville bank and all the money in it.
“let’s th-th-think of dinner,” says mark. “it’s twelve o’clock. we haven’t eaten f-f-for two hours.”
collins and jiggins were cooking their dinner over a fire outside. they saw us looking out at them, and jiggins called:
“not hungry, boys? oh no! certainly not! if your appetites get to stirring around let us know. you will, won’t you? to be sure.”
“we c-can lend you some c-c-canned stuff,” says mark, “if you haven’t all you n-need.”
that sort of made collins’s face fall, but jiggins went on grinning.
“no matter,” says he. “can’t starve you out, eh? don’t care. keep you shut up, just the same. can’t get out, eh? windows stuck. stuck tight. how d’you s’pose that happened?”
“i c-c-could tell you somethin’ else to do,” says mark, “but i guess i won’t.”
“what’s that? what’s that?” jiggins was paying attention. you could see by his face he had considerable respect for mark. “guess i’ll study over it a bit,” says he. “study does it. sure.” then he began singing his tune again, “tee-dum-dee. deedle-deedle-dum.”
“there’s a way to do everything,” says mark, “even to get out of this cabin.”
“to be sure,” says jiggins. “no doubt. but find it, my boy. find it. that’s the difficulty, eh? easy to say, not easy to do.”
we went back in the other room after we had our dinner, and mark read to us out of a book he had in his satchel. it was a dandy book, and the name of it was kidnapped. there was a fellow in it by the name of alan breck who was a hummer. i liked him better than i did the real hero of the book, who seemed to me to be a dumb-headed sort of fellow. maybe that was because he was scotch. plunk smalley is scotch, and sometimes we have the hardest time getting things into his head.
there wasn’t anything else to do, so we read all the afternoon, taking turns. mark said the same man who wrote that book was the author of a lot more. right there i made up my mind i’d read every one of them, and so did the other fellows.
you’d be surprised to hear how quickly the afternoon went past. if ever you have a dull day on your hands just get a book by that man; his name is stevenson; and—well, there’s no use telling about it, you never will understand until you do it.
we didn’t even want to stop for supper, but mark said it was our duty to eat. maybe it was; anyhow, nobody ever heard of mark tidd shirking that particular sort of duty.
after we were through mark had tallow get on a chair and haul down a long cane fish-pole uncle hieronymous had laying across nails driven in the wall. he took his knife and cut off the small end.
“what you doin’?” i asked him. “maybe uncle wants that pole.”
“calc’late,” says he, “your uncle would want his mine worse. wouldn’t he?”
i didn’t answer back, but stood and watched to see what he was up to. when he had the pole cut off he went into the kitchen and got the knife uncle used to clean fish. it was a heavy knife, and sharp. why, you could have shaved with it, i bet.
“git some st-st-strong twine,” says mark to me.
i rummaged around until i found a whole ball of it. mark took it as calm as could be without even saying “much obliged.” then what should he do but begin to lash the fish-knife to the end of the fish-pole. all the time he never said a word. he was that way always—liked to get you all worked up and curious. if you asked a question he wouldn’t tell you a thing. he was almost mean about it.
when he had the knife fastened he laid the whole thing down on the floor. it looked like a spear. from one end to the other it was about twenty feet long, and i’ll bet any savage would have been glad to get hold of it, for it would have been a weapon like he never imagined.
“goin’ to spear ’em?” tallow asked.
“nope,” says mark; “this is to k-k-kill mosquitoes.”
we knew it wasn’t any use to bother him any more. he’d tell us about it when he was ready, and not a minnit before. it didn’t matter how mad we got. when he took it into his head the time to tell had come he’d tell, and horses couldn’t drag it out of him before.
“i don’t see any sense to it,” i told him, because i thought possibly i could make him mad and so get him to tell, but it didn’t work.
“you ain’t expected to,” was all he said.
we lighted the lamp and read some more kidnapped. mosquitoes were buzzing around, and a couple of times i felt like telling mark it was time to begin on them with his spear, but i didn’t. sometimes it’s safer not to make remarks to him. he’s fat and he stutters, but that doesn’t keep him from thinking as quickly as anybody else. the fellow that goes monkeying with mark tidd is apt to get a little better than he gives.
once or twice mark got up to look out of the window at the camp of the enemy. “the f-f-fat chief is on guard,” he says. “i can’t see the thin one. maybe he’s layin’ in a-a-ambush in case we t-t-try to make a rush.”
another time he reported: “they’ve g-got a smudge to keep off mosquitoes. bet they’re bitin’ out there.”
“wonder if they’ll keep guard all night?” asked tallow.
mark just looked at him. then he says, sarcastic-like: “naw; ’course not. they know we’re afraid of the d-d-dark, don’t they? what’s the use of keepin’ g-g-guard?”
the third time he went to the window he stayed quite a while.
“what is it?” i asked.
he motioned with his hand for me to keep quiet; then in a few minnits he came back and sat down without a word.
“what was going on?” plunk wanted to know.
“i guess the f-f-fat chief has turned in. the thin one is k-keeping watch.” you see, it had to be a game all the time. what was actually going on wasn’t enough for mark. if we really were besieged by white savages in the middle of africa with a big jewel in our hands that we’d stolen, he would have up and played we were in a cabin up near the source of the père marquette river, watched by a couple of men who wanted to keep us from warning uncle hieronymous. i never could see the sense to a lot of his games, but, after all, we had a lot of fun. not as much as he did, though.
“it’s dark,” says mark. then he grinned at us and looked at his spear. “’most time to git after those m-m-mosquitoes,” says he.
he picked up the spear and looked careful at the way the knife was fastened onto the end of it; then he felt of the edge of the knife to be sure it was sharp. all this time he never said a word, though he knew we were so interested we could hardly keep from rolling off our chairs onto the floor.
“wonder if i c-c-could git up into the attic?” he says.
in the dining-room ceiling was a square place to get up into the loft, but there wasn’t any way to reach it.
“wish we had a step-ladder,” says i.
“might as well w-w-wish for a pair of st-st-stairs,” says he. “we got to find some other way.”
we left it to him; he was better than we were at finding ways; and, most likely, if one of us had found a way he wouldn’t have used it, no matter how good it was. he was pretty fond of thinking up things himself. he liked to astonish folks.
not that this was very difficult. all he did was have the table moved under the opening and a chair put on it. by standing on the chair it was easy for an ordinary boy to get up into the loft. it wasn’t quite so easy for mark, but he got around that part of it by piling a box on the seat of the chair and getting on top of that. when he stood there his shoulders were through the opening. he got his arms in and began to wriggle through. it was a tight fit, and there’s no doubt it was mighty funny to watch. mark wriggled and squirmed. his legs thrashed around and sawed the air, but he kept at it. he grunted and groaned and tugged and pulled. for a while it looked as though he was too big for the hole and would stick in it till we hauled him down by the legs, but after ten minutes of hard work he pushed and hunched himself up.
for a while he sat with his legs dangling and panted. when he was rested he called down to us, cautious-like, and says: “pass up the spear. and k-keep quiet. one of you c-can come up. the others better s-s-sneak to the back window and watch. but keep still. d-don’t breathe.”
i was up on the table and half through the hole before the other fellows had a chance to object, so they had to go to the back window.
mark crawled to the back of the house, careful and slow. you had to be careful, whether you wanted to or not, because there wasn’t any floor—just joists with lath and plaster between. i followed him as close as i could. there was a little window about a foot square that overlooked the tent where the enemy were, and mark was making for it.
“wonder if it’ll c-c-come out?” he whispered.
“dun’no’,” says i.
we tried it, but it didn’t seem to want to open. mark studied it awhile and fussed around with it. it was hot and dusty and uncomfortable up there, and i hoped he would be able to let a bit of air in before long. just then the window gave with a little creak, and came back in mark’s hands.
“whee!” he whispered. “now p-pass me the spear.”
i handed it to him and he poked it out of the window a little at a time, not making a sound. i didn’t know what he was up to, but somehow the darkness and the stillness and one thing and another made me so excited i could hardly breathe. i crowded as close to mark as i could and looked over his shoulder. i could see the tent below us, with collins leaning against a tree not five feet away from it. mark didn’t move, but just held out his fish-pole spear and waited.
after quite a while collins got up and went over to the tent. he stooped and reached inside. it looked as if he couldn’t reach what he wanted, so he crawled in careful-like, so as not to wake jiggins. mark chuckled.
then he reached out with the knife on the end of his fish-pole and brought it down kersnap on the rope that held up the tent. the rope was tight, and the knife was sharp. he didn’t have to whack it again. we could hear the rope snap; then the tent just sort of plumped down on collins and jiggins. mark hauled in his spear quick, and we waited to see what would happen. a lot did happen quick.
we could see a floundering and flapping around under the canvas. collins let out a startled yell. jiggins was waked up suddenly, and didn’t like it very well, i guess, for he yelled, too. then the canvas began to roll and jump and wabble in the funniest way you ever saw. both men yelled and hollered and kicked and thrashed around until jiggins got his head out at one end. i laughed out loud when i saw him crawl from under. he looked as though he’d been trying to butt through a cyclone, and he looked scared. in a minnit collins worked out of the other end. they just looked at each other.
“you put up that tent,” said jiggins. “you did. of course you did. nobody else.” he was mad clear through.
“what made it come down?” collins asked, bewildered-like.
they both walked over to the nearest tree and felt of the rope. jiggins pulled the loose end to him and looked at it. he chuckled, and his chuckle sounded sort of like mark’s.
“should have known better,” he said. “fat boy. nobody’s fool. might have known. snipped the rope. don’t know how. he found a way. look out for that boy. look out for him, eh? you bet.”
he turned toward the house and grinned. “you’re all right, fat kid,” says he. “that scores one for you.”
mark and i started to get down again. i managed all right, but he had quite a time of it. when we were down we went to the back window with plunk and tallow. collins and jiggins were moving their tent about ten feet farther from the house.
“well,” says i to him, “that was fun, all right, but what good did it do?”
he pointed to the tent. “it m-moves them another t-ten feet away,” says he. “that may be important p-p-pretty soon.”
