Maybe you’ve never noticed it, but when anything dangerous or exciting
or unexpected happens your body does something or other without your
knowing what it is going to do and without your asking it to do it. You
say you were startled into doing whatever it was. Maybe that’s the
explanation of it, but Mark Tidd says it’s the instinct of
self-preservation. He knows a lot of words like that.
Well, this instinct of self-preservation made Mark and me do the same
thing at the same time. It made us dig our paddles into the water and
scoot down-stream as fast as we could make the canoe go.
A canoe is a lot faster and easier to handle than a scow—even a special
scow made for the river. When we first saw Jiggins and Collins in their
boat they weren’t more than a hundred feet from us, and they had the
advantage of getting started first. After we got started they didn’t
gain, though. We didn’t gain much, either, because what our canoe gave
us in lightness they made up in strength.
They were too busy to yell at us, and we had our hands full without
doing any talking in particular. We just dug in.
After a few minutes Mark whispered, “How we m-makin’ it?”
“Holdin’ our own,” says I.
At that rate they’d catch us, or at least Mark said so.
“We’ll t-tire first,” says he. “They can k-keep it up longer than we
can.”
“We might’s well give up, then,” says I, “and save ourselves all this
work.”
“Can you p-p-paddle a little harder?” he asked.
“Not much,” says I.
“For as long as you can,” says he, “p-paddle as hard as you can. See if
we can’t g-gain a little.”
It seemed like my back would break and my arms come out by the roots,
but I worked just a little harder, and so did Mark. I looked back and it
did seem as if we were some farther away from the other boat than we
were.
“Keep it up,” says I.
We did, and we gained. At last we gained so much we turned a bend out of
their sight. This didn’t mean we were far away. I should say it didn’t.
It couldn’t have been two hundred feet at the very most. The turn was
sharp, and like a letter “S.” The part we turned into was like the lower
loop of the letter, and right at the narrowest point were some tall
weeds and bushes that grew right down to the shore.
“L-looks as if there was a stream went in t-there,” Mark stuttered.
We didn’t have time to plan or figure. Mark was the sort to go slow and
plan and plot when there was time for it, but when he had to decide
quick he could do it, and quicker than anybody else I ever knew.
“T-try it,” he snapped, and swung the canoe toward the weeds.
I helped. It was about the only chance we had to fool Jiggins and
Collins, and it wasn’t such a very good one, either. If there was water
through those bushes, all right. Maybe they wouldn’t see we’d gone in
that way. If there wasn’t water our goose was cooked, and no mistake
about it.
But there was water. The bushes almost stopped us—almost. We pushed our
paddles against the bottom and shoved our way through. Quick as a wink
Mark turned the canoe again, for there was a sort of pond back there
that gave a little room. He sent us splashing over to one side so we
were out of sight of the opening we came through. After that there was
nothing to do but wait.
We didn’t have to wait very long. In about a minnit we heard the other
boat come floundering along. I thought it was going by, all right, and
that we wouldn’t be discovered. Mark’s face looked disappointed,
actually disappointed. But the boat stopped. Then its blunt end came
nosing through the high grasses and bushes, and Jiggins’s round face
came into sight. Mark sighed, and it really was a sigh of relief.
“I d-d-didn’t think we’d fool ’em this way,” he said. “I’d ’a’ been
disappointed in Jiggins if we had.”
That was it. Mark had made up his mind Jiggins was a great man just
because both of them were fat and looked something alike; and he would
have been disappointed if Jiggins had been easy to bamboozle. I expect
he had it all planned out he’d get a lot more credit for getting the
best of a sharp man than of one that didn’t have many brains.
Jiggins saw us, and his eyes twinkled. “Hello, boys!” says he. “Glad to
see you. Most p’ticularly glad to see you. You wouldn’t believe it, but
we’ve been _looking_ for you. Collins and myself, we’ve actually been
trying to find you.”
Mark sort of grinned. “I didn’t f-f-figger on that boat,” says he,
pointing to the scow Jiggins was in.
“You should always figure on everything. Better luck next time. Can’t
always win.”
Collins stood up and looked over at us. “Quite considerable of a race
for a few minnits,” he says. “For boys that don’t know much about
paddling you’re pretty good paddlers.”
I will say they were good-natured men and pleasant company. If they
hadn’t been the enemy we’d have liked them fine. I’m not sure we didn’t
like them pretty average well as it was. It never occurred to us to be
afraid of them; we knew they wouldn’t hurt us, whatever happened. All
they would do was try to get to Uncle Hieronymous before we could and to
keep us from giving them away. Somehow it seemed more like a game where
you had to use your brains than an adventure out in the woods.
“Come on out,” says Jiggins. “Be sociable.”
There wasn’t anything else to do but come, so we pushed the canoe over
to the flatboat.
“Now,” says Jiggins, “I think I’ll be easier in my mind if we divide up
a bit, eh? Fat man and fat boy in this boat; thin man and thin boy in
that boat. More appropriate.” While we were making the change he leaned
back and sang, “Tee-deedle-dee-deedle-dum-deedle-dee,” over and over
again.
Mark and Jiggins started out first, and Collins and I followed. When we
got out on the river we kept as clost together as we could so we could
talk. But mostly we couldn’t keep side by side, for the channel was too
narrow and winding. Even when the river was wide enough for two boats
abreast, which it usually was, there were sand-bars and shallows and
snags and dead-heads. Why, we almost needed a pilot to get along at all!
Collins and I had a pretty good time. He knew lots of interesting things
about the woods and animals and camping and hunting. Mark and Jiggins
seemed to be enjoying themselves, too, for they kept talking to each
other as solemn as owls. Usually when Mark has that awful solemn look
he’s making some sort of a joke, and I persume Jiggins is the same way.
Neither of them laughed out loud or let on there was anything funny, but
I bet anybody else would have laughed till he split at what they were
saying to each other.
After a while we drew up alongside for a little while.
Jiggins turned to me and says, “Uncle Hieronymous down this way?”
Maybe he was expecting to take me by surprise and get something out of
me, but he didn’t. I just grinned at him and Mark and told him uncle was
one of the hardest men to locate exactly I ever saw.
“Well,” says Jiggins, “if he’s along the river we’ll see him, won’t we?
And if he isn’t you won’t see him. Very good. No harm done either way.
We’ll find him some day. No fear. Can’t miss.”
“Yes,” says Mark, “we’ll sh-sh-show him to you some day.”
“When?” asked Jiggins, grinning a little.
“Any time after we’ve had a f-f-few minutes’ talk with him.”
“Do you know where he is?” Collins put in.
Mark looked at him a minute before he decided what to say. Then he says,
“Honest to g-g-goodness, Mr. Collins, we don’t know exactly.”
“I see we’ll have to keep you right with us,” says Collins.
“And I’m glad of it,” says Jiggins. “Good company, eh? Surely. Enjoy
ourselves. Never quarrel. You try to win; we try to win—no hard
feelings.”
“That’s all right,” I says, “but do you think it’s very honest to try to
get away Uncle Hieronymous’s mine?”
“Honest? Why not?” You could see he was really surprised. He couldn’t
see why it wasn’t all right to buy a man’s land for a little bit of
money when really it was worth a whole lot because there was a mine on
it the owner didn’t know about. “D’you think I ought to tell him about
the mine?” says he. “That’s bosh,” he says. “’Twouldn’t be business. If
your uncle wants to know if there’s a mine on his land let him look for
it. We had to.”
I suppose there was something to his side of it. He and Collins, or
whoever it was they worked for, had found the mine, and it did look as
if they ought to have something out of it. Uncle never would have found
it. I tell you it’s pretty hard to judge other folks and say when
they’re honest or dishonest. Mark says it depends a lot on the way you
look at things or how you’ve been brought up. As for me, honest is
honest and dishonest is dishonest, and I can’t quite get it into my head
how anything makes it different. Maybe it does, though. At any rate, I
couldn’t get to feeling Jiggins and Collins were _bad_.
We just dawdled along that day. When we stopped for dinner we took two
or three hours to it and didn’t start out again till the hottest part of
the afternoon was over.
Jiggins was a good cook. He and Mark ’tended to getting the meal, but
this was one of the times Mark didn’t do much but look on. Jiggins
showed him things. You could see, without half looking, that Mark
thought a heap of the fat man. Mark right down admired him.
After dinner Mark and I sat down together and talked a spell.
“He’s a g-g-great man,” says Mark.
“Shucks!” says I.
“He’s beat us so f-far, hain’t he?”
“’Twasn’t nothin’ but luck. Are you ’fraid they’re goin’ to beat us all
the way through?”
I knew Mark Tidd never would admit any such thing as that. Not him!
“’Course n-not,” says he. “But it’s goin’ t-to be p-p-perty hard
sleddin’ for us. If it was just Collins I wouldn’t worry a speck. But
Jiggins! He’s g-g-got a head for thinkin’, he has.”
“Got any scheme for escapin’?” I asked him.
“Not yet. I’m p-p-plannin’, though. It’s got to be at night. If I’ve
f-f-figgered right we got to-night and to-morrow night. ’Tain’t l-likely
we’ll come up with your uncle till day after to-morrow, g-g-goin’ at the
rate we are.”
“Never put off till to-morrer night what you kin do to-night,” I says.
“I wish I knew m-m-more about the country,” he stuttered. “Then we
c-could leave the river and cut across lots. As it is we got to
st-st-stick to the water.”
“Well,” I says, “you do the plannin’ and tell me when you’re ready to do
somethin’. I’m goin’ to take a nap.”
The last I remember seeing of him he was leaning back against a tree,
with his little eyes shut, and he was pinching and tugging away at his
fat cheek like all-git-out. He was thinking. Next thing he’d do would be
get out his jack-knife and whittle. When he did that—_look out_!
Collins waked me up, and he and I got into the canoe. Mark and Jiggins
followed close behind us in the flatboat, and I could hear Jiggins
singing away at his foolish tune, “Tum-deedle-dee-deedle-dum,” and so
on, without any finish at all.
We camped that night on a sandy flat. While Jiggins and Mark got supper
Collins and I fixed things up for the night. We cut a lot of boughs and
twigs for our beds and pulled up the canoe and the flatboat and turned
them over the supplies, so if it rained nothing would be spoiled. Then
we stretched a clothes-line between two trees and threw over it a big
piece of grimy canvas that Jiggins and Collins had brought along. The
edges of this we pulled out and staked down so we had a pretty fair
shelter. Of course, it was open at the ends, but it would keep off the
dew and the rain if there wasn’t much wind. Mark came and looked at it.
“B-better dig a ditch around it,” says he.
“What for?” Collins asked.
“If it rains,” says Mark, “the d-d-ditch’ll carry off the water that
runs off the t-tent. If you don’t have a d-d-ditch you’ll have a
p-p-puddle right where you sleep.”
Collins allowed that sounded sensible, so we scooped out a little trench
all the way around, with a canal leading away toward the river. By that
time supper was ready.
When we were through eating we built up the fire so it would give light
and keep us warm. Jiggins and Collins walked around to get the stiffness
out of their legs and to smoke. Mark and I sat down, or, rather, laid
down, close to the fire.
“I g-g-got a scheme,” says Mark.
“What is it?” I asked.
Just then Collins strolled over our way, and Mark shut up tight as a
locked door. I looked around for Jiggins, but I couldn’t see him. I
supposed he’d just walked off to look around a bit, but that wasn’t it.
Maybe if I’d called it to Mark’s attention things would have turned out
differently from what they did, but I didn’t think it was important. You
never can tell, though. After this I’m not going to overlook anything,
no matter how silly I may think it is. Mark says the silliest things on
the surface are sometimes the deepest down underneath. This was one of
them. Mark said Jiggins was a great man, and—well, I came pretty close
to agreeing with him before morning.