“i dun’no’,” says mark tidd, while we were building a fire and getting breakfast, “whether it’s m-more dangerous to be ahead or b-b-behind the enemy.”
“why?” i asked, for it looked to me like we were a lot less likely to be caught when we were behind.
“well,” says he, “if we’re ahead we can always t-try to escape by p-paddlin’, but if we’re behind and run on to ’em sudden, what can we do? we can’t paddle up-stream against this c-current, can we?”
“we’ll have to go perty careful and keep our eyes open,” i says.
we had some coffee and a little bacon. mark allowed he felt a lot better when it was down, and i’ll admit i wasn’t half as worried. mark says eatin’ is one of the most important things there is.
“why,” says he, “the emperor napoleon told his folks an army travels on its stomach. what he meant was an army of h-h-hungry men wasn’t any good to him at all.”
we washed up our coffee-pot and frying-pan and packed things away in the canoe. then we launched her and started out to follow collins and jiggins down the river. if it hadn’t been for mark and his games it wouldn’t have been very exciting, but right off he started to be father marquette again, and i was louis joliet, a fur-trader. as near as i could get at it, mark was to preach to the indians and convert them while i was swapping two-cent beads for ten-dollar pelts.
“the f-farther we go,” says mark, “the wilder and savager the natives get. a couple of days from now i b-bet we run into cannibals l-like those that passed in the boat.”
collins and jiggins had got promoted to cannibals now.
we went cautious, i can promise you. between being honestly worried about the men ahead of us and being make-believe afraid of indians we came pretty close to having our hands full. every time we came to a curve we had to go slow and back water so as not to come swinging around on jiggins & co. unexpected, and once or twice when the current was strong we did sweep around kerflip. as luck had it, they weren’t there waiting for us, but it would have been just the same if they had.
the current was swift all the time, but sometimes it was swifter than others. whenever the stream got narrower it crowded the water together so it seemed to shoot through; and then it went so smooth and purring-like it almost frightened you. it acted strong. it was lucky we knew a little about a canoe, or we would have tipped over or smashed ashore fifty times. even as it was we brushed a tree that had toppled into the water and grazed a stump that came just to the surface. if we’d hit that square mark would have had some use for his canvas and paint.
it began to get hot after a while, and we began to get tired. there isn’t anything so tiresome to your back as riding in a canoe when you aren’t used to it. i wished mark would say something about taking a rest, but he didn’t. i suppose he was wishing i would. folks get into lots of trouble, off and on, by being afraid to be the first to give in. all the same, i wasn’t going to admit i couldn’t stand as much as he could.
once he saw a sort of dilapidated shanty back a ways from the river, and there was a man standing in front of it. mark said to go ashore and question him.
“he’s a p-peaceful indian,” says mark. “i can tell by his p-paint.”
we ran the canoe to shore and got out. the man walked toward us, and he was funny-looking as all-git-out. with one side of his face he was sort of scowling, and with the other side he came pretty close to grinning good-natured.
“howdy-do,” says mark; and the man nodded with a jerk.
“f-f-fine day,” says mark.
“if you like it hot,” says the man.
“live here?” asked mark, polite as could be.
the man scowled harder with the scowling side, and kind of wrinkled up the good-natured side of his face. then he gave the end of his nose a little twist like he wanted to make sure it wouldn’t fly off unbeknownst to him while his mind was taken up with other things. then he cleared his throat and coughed and scratched his head.
“wa-al,” says he, “i sleep here, and i eat here. some folks that hain’t afraid of stretchin’ the truth might go so far’s to say i live here. pers’nally it don’t look to me like i done a great amount of livin’, so to speak.”
“f-f-farm?” asked mark.
“don’t calc’late to,” says the man.
“well,” says mark, sort of puzzled, “what do you do?”
“right now, young feller, about all i do is hope. ’tain’t a payin’ business, though comfortin’. i calc’late to work a mite and fish a mite and loaf consid’able. doorin’ the fall and winter i hunt some and trap and read up in the papers what happens durin’ the summer. also”—he stopped and twisted his nose again—“also i git so energetic-like that i’ve been knowed to shove a fish-shanty on to the ice and spear.”
“s-s-see many folks goin’ down the river?” asked mark.
“’tain’t what you’d call crowded. no. couldn’t go so far’s to say people was jostlin’ one another.”
“did you happen to see a b-b-boat with two men go past this mornin’?”
“fat man that was hummin’ and a thin man that was sweatin’?”
“yes,” says mark.
“sort of in a hurry?”
“they would ’a’ b-been,” says mark.
“lemme think,” says the man. “now, did i see them men or did i jest imagine i seen ’em? if my dawg ’d ’a’ been here he’d ’a’ barked at anybody that went by. but he didn’t bark. that hain’t anythin’ to go by, though, ’cause he run off last spring.” he stopped again and made like he was studying hard.
“supposin’ they’d stopped and asked me had i seen a couple of boys, one fat and one lean? would that ’a’ been them?”
“i guess it would,” says mark; and you could see he was tickled to death with the man.
“then,” says he, “there can’t be no doubt i seen ’em.”
“how l-long ago?” asked mark.
“a perty good-sized nap,” says he.
mark didn’t understand any more than i did. “what’s that?” he cried.
“just my way of tellin’ time,” says the man. “day’s divided into naps. i snooze and wake and snooze and wake. i know how long ago a thing happened by countin’ back how many times i been asleep.”
“how l-long is a perty good-sized nap?”
“more’n twice as long as a skimpy nap.”
that was the best we could get out of him, though mark tried him a couple of times more.
“did they stop and ask you about anything?” mark asked.
“asked me about two boys.”
“what did you t-t-tell ’em?”
“young feller,” says the man, scowling like anything with his left eyebrow, “i judged it best not to state anythin’ definite. when folks is huntin’ for folks it may be friendly and it may be unfriendly. you might be doin’ a favor, or you might not, as the case may be. them men looked perty anxious, so, thinks i, this here is a time for thinkin’ and meditation. likewise it’s a time for bein’ sure you don’t do nothin’ about somethin’ you don’t know nothin’ about. so i was what the newspapers calls non-committal. big word, eh? i’ve remembered her nigh two years, and hain’t never had no use for her before. pays to save them words, though. time always comes for ’em.”
“what did you say to them?”
“says i, ‘gentlemen and strangers, i hain’t been app’inted watchman of this here river, though i do notice it consid’able. but i got my weaknesses, gentlemen, and one of ’em is for sleep. i jest woke up, so to speak. before i done so there might ’a’ been a barnum’s circus parade a-floatin’ down, though it would ’a’ been the first time sich a thing’s happened in ten year.’ that’s all i said to ’em, young fellers, and they went away in more of a hurry than ever.”
“if you w-w-wouldn’t tell them anything,” says mark, suspicious-like, “what makes you tell us?”
the man didn’t say a thing for a minnit, and his face got to look the same on both sides. it was a kind of wistful look, i guess. “when it’s boys,” he says, very slow, “all rules don’t work. boys is— i like boys,” says he, and then began again to scowl with one side and look like he didn’t care with the other. what he said and the way he said it made you pretty sorry for him, and you didn’t know why.
we said “thank you” to him and got back into our canoe. he stood on the bank, looking after us till we went around the bend, and for some reason or other i couldn’t get him out of my mind for a long time. i haven’t got him out yet. he was a nice man, and he was lonesome for boys. it was too bad he didn’t have any of his own.
we kept paddling along, with our eyes open sharp. it was worth while to keep your eyes open on the river because there was so much to see—birds, and thousands of turtles sleeping on stones and logs, and sometimes a muskrat. besides, there were fish jumping every little while, and sounds back among the trees and underbrush that were made by little animals you looked for but couldn’t see most of the while. we did see a few squirrels, and once a little bit of a chipmunk. he just sat up on his haunches and looked at us, not scairt a bit till i yelled “boo!” at him. then you should have seen him flick away. my, but he was quick! one second he was there and the next he was gone.
i saw mark take out his watch and look at it, and knew what it meant, all right. he was just seeing if his stomach told the truth about its being dinner-time.
“well?” says i.
he twisted his big round head on his fat neck and grinned.
“n-not for a half an hour,” says he.
“i don’t remember saying another word. i was too hungry to do anything but think about eating, and i’ll bet mark was hungrier than i was. when you’re nearly starved you don’t want to talk, you just want to eat, and every minute between you and food seems like it stretched from noon till midnight.
“well, sir, i guess being so hungry made us a little careless. we were just coming to a sharp bend, and for the first time we forgot to slow up and look ahead. we just pelted along as though there wasn’t a thing in the world to be afraid of. i was looking off to the left when i heard mark give a startled grunt and saw him dig his paddle into the water and push the nose of the canoe toward shore. i looked. there, up to their waists in the river, were jiggins and collins, working over their flatboat that had struck something and tipped over. i dug my paddle in, too.
“it was lucky for us they were busy and had their backs our way, for we weren’t more than fifty feet from them. the splash and rush of the current kept the sound of our paddles from them, and we managed to get to shore and hide just on our side of the point. we didn’t pull the canoe up; we lifted it. lifting was quieter. then we sat down, plump! it took the wind right out of our sails.”
“whew,” i says, “but that was a narrow one!”
he just shook his head and panted. “it was hot, and we moved pretty sudden, i can tell you.”
“we’re all r-r-right here,” says he, “if we keep quiet and they don’t go p-p-prowlin’ around. they think we’re below them.”
“i’d feel more comfortable farther away,” i says; but i could see it wouldn’t be safe to move. “wonder how they’re gittin’ along?”
we craned our necks to see, but it wasn’t any use. there was a hummock in the way, and considerable high grass and bushes.
“and we can’t eat,” i says. “we dassent make a fire.”
that was the worst of it.
mark crawled down to the canoe, though, and came back with a loaf of bread and some butter. the butter was soft and squashy, but we didn’t object to that. we wouldn’t have objected to anything we could chew and swallow. a meal of bread and butter don’t sound like you’d be very interested in it, but, all the same, you’d be mistaken if you thought we weren’t. we enjoyed it. between us we ate that whole loaf and looked around for crumbs.
i said before that a fellow is braver when his stomach’s full than when he’s had to tighten his belt. i felt bolder a lot, and more curious to know what collins and jiggins were up to.
“i’m goin’ to see if i can’t git a squint at ’em,” says i.
“b-better stay still,” says mark.
“i got to try it,” i says, and started crawling on my stomach across the point and through the underbrush. i went slow and cautious, and i don’t believe a wild indian could have done a great deal better when it came to making noise. i didn’t make any. i didn’t know i could move so quiet, and it made me sort of proud of myself. i said to myself i’d show the other fellows what a still one i could be in the woods, and did considerable bragging to myself. and then my heart came up into my mouth so sudden i almost bit it.
i poked my head over the hummock, which was maybe twenty-five feet from where i left mark, and there, not six feet away, were collins and jiggins wringing out their clothes. whew! i just wilted down and tried not to breathe.
but nothing happened, so i screwed up my courage to lift my head again. they were still busy, and they didn’t look as though they would be pleasant company. both of them looked mad enough to bite themselves, and they weren’t saying a word. it was funny, and i had all i could do to keep from snickering. my! how i did wish mark could see them!
there was jiggins, fat as anything, with sweat trickling down his face and river-water running down his legs. he must have gone in head first, for his hair was wet and plastery, the way a fellow’s is when he takes a dive. collins wasn’t fat. he wasn’t so awful lean, either, but the general look of discomfort he wore from head to foot was even funnier than jiggins. they were both turning and twisting their pants, trying to squeeze all the water out of them. i could imagine how cold and clammy and nasty those clothes were going to feel when they put them on again.
collins looked at jiggins and scowled, and jiggins scowled back. then all of a sudden collins began to grin and then to laugh, and jiggins he began to laugh, and both of them simply laid down on the ground and rolled and yelled.
“i wish you could see yourself,” collins says, as soon as he could speak.
“um,” says jiggins. “see myself? oh-ho, neighbor, i hain’t getting cheated, to speak of. you’re some sight yourself.” and then he began to sing that silly tune of his, “tum-diddle-dum-dum. tee-dee-diddle-dee-dee.”
“it’s a risky and adventurous life,” says collins.
“that fat boy would have enjoyed this,” says jiggins, with a grin. “he’d have appreciated it. you bet. this gives ’em a good start, eh? good big start.”
“don’t believe they’d hurry much,” says collins. “they didn’t know we had a boat. they’ll take it easy, and if i know anything about kids they’ll see things to stop and look at.”
“if anything delays the fat kid,” jiggins says, emphatic, “it’ll be eatin’. he’ll have to eat.”
“you ought to know,” says collins, with a look at the size of jiggins.
“wonder how long they’re going to keep to the river?” jiggins says, shaking his head. “must know where they’re going, eh? they acted like it was all planned out.”
“all we can do is follow ’em.”
“i’d like to meet somebody to inquire of. we’ve got to keep track of ’em. maybe somebody’d know where mr. hieronymous alphabet bell is, too. then we could take a short cut to him.”
“all i can see to do is just keep ahead. lucky the boat wasn’t busted.”
they quit talking and put on their soggy clothes. their boat was pulled up on the shore, and they got in it again and pushed off.
“good-by, gentlemen,” says i to myself, and felt like standing up to wave my hand after them.
when they were out of sight i got up and went back to mark. he wanted to know what i saw, and i told him. it made him mad to think he’d missed seeing it.
“anyhow,” says i, to comfort him, “we can make a cup of coffee if you want to.”
he wanted to.
