“it took a mighty long time to find that rope,” says collins, sort of cross-like.
“it’s a long rope,” i says. “the longer the rope the longer it takes to find it. i could ’a’ had a short one here half an hour ago.”
the rope was in a coil, which made it easy to throw. i sent it sailing over to mark, who caught it and went to work making a lasso out of it. he was as deliberate as if we were sitting on a shady porch and not perched out there with the sun beating down on our heads like it wanted to melt us down to butter.
“hurry it up,” says i, “or there won’t be anything left of me to get down. i’ll melt and run off.”
“when you go to make a l-l-lasso,” says mark, “make a good one. it’s b-better to take a minnit or two extry than to have the knot s-s-slip and let the dog loose.”
there was something to that, all right—i’d rather be sunburnt than dog-bit. he got it done at last, but then he took his time making just the right-sized noose and coiling the rope so it suited him to a tee. when everything was fixed so he was satisfied he came to the end of the roof and called over to me.
“p-p-poke him with your pole,” says he.
i knew what he wanted—it was to have the dog rear up so he could toss the noose over its body, and i got my pole. the dog seemed to be real interested in me and showed his teeth. when i shoved the pole at him he just rose right up and announced himself, and his announcement wasn’t friendly to me. i jerked back the pole, and he stood on his hind legs to reach it. then mark tidd threw his lasso. the first shot he made it. the noose plopped down over mr. doggie’s fore legs and head and was jerked tight around his ribs. you never saw an animal look so surprised as he did just as mark flopped him over. from the ground he looked around at me sort of surprised and hurt, as much as to say i didn’t play fair. well, i thought, neither did he. he’d bite, and i wouldn’t.
mark fastened the rope, and we all got down. i was glad it was a strong rope, for that bulldog acted like he’d have busted one just a little weaker. he did his best, and we couldn’t expect any more of him than that. my! how he pulled and jerked! we were sorry to leave him fastened up, but there wasn’t any other way out of it, so we said good-by to him as politely as we could and went out of the farm-yard.
“milk,” says collins, “and pie. um! good, weren’t they? let’s stop at every farm-house we see.”
jiggins and mark hadn’t a word to say.
i lagged behind, and pretty soon mark dropped back with me.
“what d’you think i found in that barn?” i says.
“rope,” says he. “that’s what you went a-after.”
“i found somethin’ else.”
“well,” says he, “what was it?”
“alfred,” i says. “alfred bell! horse! uncle hieronymous alphabet bell’s horse!”
“what?” he says, so astonished he stopped still in his tracks.
“sure’s shootin’,” i told him.
“it’s all right, then,” says he. “we don’t need to w-w-worry any more.”
“i should think we ought to worry more than ever.”
“’course not. he’ll get your note, prob’ly t-to-night. that’ll set him on his guard.”
“what note?” i asked, feeling a sort of sinking in my stomach.
“why,” says he, “the one you pinned on the stall where he’d be sure to see it.”
now what do you think of that? of course that was what i should have done, and it would have ended the battle right there, but i never thought of it. it was so plain to see, mark thought of course i’d done it. i never was so ashamed in my life as when i had to tell him i didn’t.
“well,” says he, heaving his fat shoulders, “we know your uncle’s near, anyhow.” then he sort of sighed. “too b-b-bad i can’t be everywhere,” he says, and that was all. he never spoke another word of blame. mark tidd never wasted much time crying over spilt milk.
“we got to escape t-t-to-night, sure,” says he.
“yes,” says i.
“and,” says he, “we got to fix it so we d-d-don’t go far to-day. we got to l-lay up the expedition.”
“how?” i asked.
“dun’no’,” says he. “we’ll wait for a streak of l-l-luck.”
it was noon by the time we got back to the boats, and, naturally, jiggins and mark insisted we should have dinner right then and there. nobody objected much. that took up about an hour, and then we wasted another hour resting and fussing around. but collins insisted on our getting started at last. we went the same way as before—jiggins and mark in the flatboat, and collins with me in the canoe.
we paddled along, not saying much, for an hour. my back ached, and i wished i was ashore lying under a tree. so did collins, by the look of him. nothing happened except turtles flopping into the water off logs, or birds flying overhead. the only noise was the flow of the water, and we were so used to that by this time we didn’t notice it any more. it was like the tick of a clock. did you ever sit in the room with a clock and try to see if you could hear it tick? well, just try it sometime. mostly folks are so accustomed to the sound that it sort of stops being a sound and gets to be a part of one sound made up of a lot of little ones. i know i’ve had to try hard and put all my attention to it before i could make out the ticking. and that’s the way it was with the river.
the banks of the river kept getting higher and higher until we came to a bend where the river widened out into a sort of pool with a backwater, and up from this rose a bluff higher than anything we’d seen. at the foot of this bluff was a little flat of sand that drifted down and stuck there, and on the edge was a mess of driftwood and logs. the most interesting things, though, were an old boat-house and a tiny shanty that stood on the flat. no, they weren’t the most interesting, though i did think so for a spell. the really interesting thing was a big, fat woodchuck that was feeding not twenty feet from the boat-house up on the side of the hill.
i yelled at him. he turned and looked for all the world like he was scowling at us. then he ducked into the boat-house and disappeared.
“b-bet his hole’s in there,” mark tidd yelled. “let’s go ashore and see.”
everybody was willing to rest, so we ran ashore and drew up the navy. the boathouse wasn’t at the water’s edge like you might think, but stood back on the sand, maybe twenty feet from the water. it looked as if it had been washed there by the flood-water in the spring. the other shanty, a little thing about four feet square, was a fish-shanty, mark said. it didn’t have any floor in half of it. the other half was mostly seat and sheet-iron stove.
“they p-pull it onto the ice,” says mark. “then they chop out a h-hole and sit there and spear fish. it’s dark in the shanty, so they can s-s-see down into the water.”
it looked easy. all the man who owned it had to do was sit on that seat and wait for a fish to swim past him, then he up with his spear and let her go. i bet it was fun.
we went to the boat-house next, and there, sure enough, was the woodchuck’s hole. it was at the far end of the house and went down at an angle into the side of the bluff.
“poke him out,” says collins.
“nothin’ to poke with,” says mark.
jiggins came crowding in to see what there was to see, and he said to go out and get a pole or something.
“not much chance,” he says. “hole too deep. try, though. woodchuck’s good to eat. fat.”
mark motioned to me, and we both went outside.
“b-b-binney,” says mark, his little eyes twinkling like they always do when he’s excited. “it l-l-looks like we got ’em.” my, how he stuttered!
“how?” says i.
“watch me and h-help,” says he.
he brought a small log or a big pole, i don’t know which to call it.
“git over by the door,” he says, pointing to the heavy door of the boat-house that stood wide open. “stand right there, where they c-c-can’t see you. when i whistle you p-p-push the door shut. not slow. fast. b-b-bang it!”
i saw it in a second. he was planning to shut up jiggins and collins in the boat-house while we got away. i did like he said, and braced myself to slam.
he whistled, i slammed. the door started sort of hard, but it moved, and i made it move fast. bang! it went shut, and slam went mark’s leg against it. that locked mr. door, i can tell you. one end of the log was wedged in the sand and the other forced against the door. it would have taken an elephant to move it. but mark wasn’t satisfied. he propped it shut with two more logs and then dragged a shorter and thicker piece right in front. the door was pretty nearly covered up before we were through.
mark straightened up and grinned then. “hello, inside,” says he.
“what’s this? let us out! quick!” says jiggins.
“c-c-couldn’t do it p-possibly,” says mark. “have to dig out, i guess. ’twon’t take l-long. g-g-good-by.”
they began to holler like anything, but we didn’t stop. at the boats mark told me to push off the canoe while he tended to the flatboat. he tended to it, all right—with a big stone.
he didn’t have to drop that stone on the bottom of the boat but once. two planks busted.
mark climbed into the canoe with me, and we dug in our paddles.
“h-h-hurry,” says he; but he didn’t need to tell me. i was hurrying as hard as i could. i wanted to get as much distance between jiggins & co. and us as possible. they were nice men, but i didn’t want any more of their company till we’d had a little chat with uncle hieronymous.
for the first time i had a chance to draw a breath and do a little thinking. then it began to dawn on me what mark had done. all in a second he’d seen his chance, and just as quick he took advantage of it. i would have sat around that boat-house all day without scheming to shut up the enemy in it, but not mark. it didn’t matter what he saw, he always tried to fit it into his plans. i suppose he began studying about that boat-house as soon as it came into sight, and by the time we landed his plan was all ready.
wasn’t it easy, though? all he had to do was get jiggins and collins in there alone. that was all. it doesn’t look very hard, and it didn’t seem to be hard. but the brainy part was thinking it up in a second and working it when there wasn’t a chance in the world the enemy would be expecting anything.
take marcus aurelius fortunatus tidd by and large, and it looks to me like he was considerable of a general.
