It was early in the morning yet—before seven. Folks in Wicksville
were just getting up, but it seemed to Mark and me that we’d been
awake a week. For a while we didn’t do anything but sit on the sand
in front of the cave and wish we had something to eat or that
somebody we could trust would come along. But there wasn’t a bit of
use wishing.
“We should have had a telephone put in the cave,” I told Mark. “It
certainly would come in handy this morning.”
Mark didn’t say anything. He just got up and went inside the cave,
where he began rummaging around in the hope of finding a few
potatoes we had overlooked. There were pans to cook with and
fishing-tackle and Ku Klux Klan disguises, but it was precious
little good any of them did. I saw him pick up a sheet and hood and
stand looking at it.
“Not goin’ to try eatin’ that, are you?” I called to him.
“No,” says he. “I was just wonderin’ if we couldn’t put the Klan to
some good use.”
“If we could only signal to Plunk an’ Binney.”
“But we can’t,” he says. “What I wish is that I could get my
jack-knife to Uncle Ike Bond. He’d know it was a signal to hurry to
the cave, and he _would_ hurry.”
“That’s right,” says I. “We never used any signs on him just for
fun. He warned us about that. If we could get the knife to him he’d
know it was serious. But what’s the use talkin’ about it; we might
as well hope for an airship to come swoopin’ down and carry us
safely home.”
Mark covered up the turbine with sheets and came out where I was.
“Let’s walk to the road again. No, I’ll go to the road, and you stay
with the turbine. If anybody comes you holler like s-s-sixty.”
“All right,” says I; “but don’t be gone long.”
He climbed up to the road and sat down on a big stone under a
butternut tree.
Maybe fifteen minutes went along before he heard anything, and then
it was a whistle from up the river way, and the tune it whistled was
“Marching Through Georgia.”
Then the tin-peddler’s red wagon came into sight, with Zadok Biggs
sitting on the seat, his head back, as we had first seen him, taking
it easy, enjoying the morning, and whistling so the birds must have
been jealous. Maybe they thought Zadok Biggs was some sort of a bird
himself; if they did, birds must be able to stretch their
imaginations considerable.
Mark never was so glad to see anybody in his life. He stepped out
into the road and waited. Zadok came driving along without seeing
him until Mark spoke; then he straightened up, looked at Mark, and
slapped his leg. He slapped it again and chuckled, and began talking
to the horse.
“Rosinante,” he says, “there he stands! There stands Marcus Aurelius
Fortunatus Tidd. Observe him—look at him is the way people usually
say it. Mind what I said about opportunity, Rosinante. Here
stands Marcus Aurelius, who has had an opportunity. We shall
pause—stop—shall we not, to inquire what he did with it.” He swung
his little legs sideways over the edge of the seat and stared down
at Mark.
“Opportunity,” says he, “and Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus. Um! It
knocked, so to speak. Were you in?”
“Well,” says Mark, “I wasn’t f-f-far off.”
“Good! Excellent! I said so. I told young Martin you would not
disappoint me. I would have been disappointed. I, Zadok Biggs, am
your friend, your friend for life, and I would have been grieved.
You got the—the turbine?” He shot the last question at Mark like it
was a pea out of a pea-blower. It came out with a sort of _poof_.
Mark nodded. “I got it; but it ain’t safe yet.”
“So? You are perturbed—worried is the commoner word. _I_ am not. I
have confidence in you. How could one named Marcus Aurelius
Fortunatus Tidd let failure roost in the nest of success? A figure
of speech that, a sort of metaphor. You understand me?”
“I guess so. What I want to know is, will you do me a f-f-favor?”
“A favor? Will Zadok Biggs do a favor for Marcus Aurelius! Anything,
even to the half of my kingdom, as the kings in the Bible used to
say. I am yours. Command me!”
“It ain’t much. Just take this jack-knife to Uncle Ike Bond, the bus
driver. Give it to him and say it’s from me.”
“Why,” says Zadok, surprised, “what’s this.” He was disappointed,
likely, at the littleness and commonness of the favor Mark asked.
Then his long, lean face lightened up and he slapped his leg again.
“I perceive—understand is the word in general use. It is a token, a
signal. Excellent! You are coming up to my expectations. Now who
would have expected this?” He leaned over so far Mark thought he’d
fall off the wagon, and stared at him so admiringly that Mark
blushed. “A remarkable lad,” Zadok went on. “My friend for life.
Will I deliver the knife? Will I? Will Zadok Biggs? Just pass it up
to me and see.”
Mark handed up the knife, and Zadok shoved it into his pocket. Then
he shook the lines and waked up his horse, who had taken the
opportunity to go to sleep, and started off. “I will hasten—hurry is
the less dignified word. Uncle Ike Bond shall have the knife. I
shall say it comes from Marcus Aurelius, who knows an opportunity
when he sees it. Good-by. Remember Zadok Biggs. He is your friend
for life. Remember him.”
We both felt a little easier in our minds with the message sent to
Uncle Ike. Of course we couldn’t tell how long he might be coming to
us, for sometimes he had to drive folks into the country, and
sometimes he was off fishing, so it was possible Zadok Biggs would
have considerable bother finding him. But we knew he’d come
sometime, and that was better than not having any hope at all.
“Well,” says Mark, “we might as well do somethin’ while we’re
waitin’.”
“Sure!” says I. “Let’s git up a game to pass away the time.”
Mark thought a minute. He was fine at getting up new games, because
he had read so many histories and books of adventure. All he had to
do was to remember some bully story, and right off he’d make a game
out of it. “Let’s pertend,” says he, “that you and me are sentinels
left to g-g-guard this treasure-cave. It’s got a jewel into it as
big as your fist. We’ll make b’lieve the turbine is the jewel, and
it is worth more’n a billion dollars. There was a party of us
captured this jewel out of a heathen temple, and everybody but us
had gone to git help. We’re bein’ pursued by the heathens, and
they’ve found us here, and right this minute they’re besiegin’ us.
How’s that?”
“Fine,” says I. “I kin see more’n fifty of ’em a-sneakin’ around
down among the trees and rocks. Looks to me like they was gittin’
ready to make a charge.”
“We got to git am-am-munition. If our supply gives out we’d be easy
prey for em.”
So we went to work gathering sling-shot pebbles—nice smooth, round
ones. We had to sally out into the open to get them, and that was
taking a chance, with all those heathens shooting away at us with
bows and arrows; but by ducking and dodging we made out to fill our
pockets and get back safe. Between us we had a couple of pecks of
stones.
“There,” says Mark; “that’ll stand ’em off a while.”
We got out our sling-shots just in time. The enemy was creeping up
on us, thinking to take us by surprise, but we whanged away at them
like sharp-shooters, and it was pretty seldom we missed. Mostly we
struck the heathen in vital spots, so that they threw up their arms
with a screech and fell dead, rolling over down the hill. Twice we
stopped regular charges, and in fifteen minutes or so the foe was
pretty badly discouraged.
They retreated right down to the shore of the river, where their
war-canoes were, with us a-firing after them as fast as we could
shoot. Then for the first time we dared take a breath and look
around us. It was lucky we did, for there, not a hundred yards off,
were Henry C. Batten and Bill landing out of a boat. Batten looked
up at us and grinned.
My stomach all of a sudden went hollow, and my knees got so weak I
sat down without intending to. Yes, sir, I went right down
ker-plunk. Those men popping up like that took the wind clean out of
my sails, and no mistake. Mark wasn’t any better off, either. He
looked like somebody had up and poured a pitcher of ice-water down
his back.
If I’d been all alone I’d have up and run, but with Mark there I was
ashamed to. He couldn’t run, for two reasons: first, he was too fat
to go very fast; and, second, he wasn’t the running kind. We knew
there was help coming, too, but how long it would be before it got
here we hadn’t the faintest idea; it might come too late.
Mark was scared at first, I could see it, but in a minute he got
mad, real good and snapping mad, to think of all the trouble we’d
had getting the engine back, and then to have these men drop in when
it was most safe. It didn’t look fair any way you took it.
“Tallow,” says he, “you can do what you want to, but I’m going to
stay and _f-f-fight_.”
Well, what could I do? I just took a long breath and says, “All
right, Mark, but I don’t see what good it’s goin’ to do.”
“They sha’n’t get that turbine as long as I kin s-s-stand up,” he
stuttered.
“It looks,” says I, “as if we was in for a hard fall, then.”
Batten said something to Bill, and both of them started up the bank.
“Git back there,” Mark yells.
Batten laughed out loud, which wasn’t a very good thing to do. Never
laugh at folks when you’ve got them cornered, because it’s likely to
get their dander up, and no telling what’ll happen. It made me so
mad to hear Batten laugh that way that, unconscious-like, I just
hauled off with my sling-shot and sailed a pebble down at him. It
struck right under his feet, and he jumped like he’d been bitten.
“Hey,” he yelled, “quit that, you young grampus!”
“Fine,” says Mark, “that’s the ticket,” and he put a stone in his
sling and pelted it so it went whizzing past Batten’s ear. Batten
stood right still, and so did Bill.
“You keep away from here,” yelled Mark, “or I’ll shoot straighter.
G-g-git!”
“If you hit me with that thing!” calls Batten, threatening-like.
“Come on,” says Bill; “they can’t hit us. Come on.”
They started up again, but they didn’t go far, for Mark whanged
another pebble at them—and didn’t miss. It hit Batten just above the
knee, and I bet it stung like sixty. He let a holler out of him and
ducked behind a tree. Bill started edging around, but I stopped him
with another pebble that whizzed past his head.
Batten was good and mad now, and so was Bill. They kept yelling back
and forth at each other, but stayed all the time behind the trees
where we couldn’t hit them. That satisfied us; we weren’t out to
shoot anybody with our sling-shots, and didn’t want to if they’d
only quit pestering us.
“Young feller,” Batten yelled up to Mark, “put that thing down or
you’ll be sorry. Don’t you go shootin’ it at me again.”
“I ain’t goin’ to shoot so long’s you s-s-stay behind that tree,”
says Mark, “but if you start up here again I’ll p-p-paste you, and
it won’t be in the leg, either.”
Bill took the chance to run across an open space to another tree,
and got there just in time. The pebble flicked off a chunk of the
bark as he got sheltered.
“They’re tryin’ to divide,” says Mark “so’s to take us on two sides.
Don’t let one of ’em get onto the hill above us.”
That would make it pretty bad, for it’s hard to shoot up-hill; and,
besides, a man higher than we were could make it mighty hot for us
by rolling things down.
“We’ll stop Bill from comin’ any higher,” I says.
The best way to do that, I thought, was to give him something to
think about besides climbing hills, so I looked careful down at the
tree he was behind. The only part of him that stuck out was his
hand, and that was gripping a sapling close to his tree to hold him
from slipping, I expect, for the slope was pretty steep right there.
“Watch me whang his fingers,” I says, but, honest, I didn’t have
much hope of hitting them. I guess it was more good luck than good
judgment; but, all the same, I took careful aim, and let her fly.
The stone whizzed down and banged Bill’s thumb a good one so he
yelped out sharp and danced into the open, shaking his hand like he
wanted to flop it off. He wasn’t exactly quiet about saying things
to us, either. If he’d done to Mark and me what he said he was going
to do we couldn’t have been worth carrying home.
“Always f-f-follow up your victories,” says Mark, with a grin. “I’ll
give him another while he’s feeling bad.” This one took him a clip
right on the hip where his pants were tight, and Bill didn’t wait
around there any longer. Out where he stood was a bad place, he
thought, so he turned tail and made for the trees lower on the hill.
“That’s right,” yells Mark; “you’ll like it better down there.”
We could see Batten edging over toward Bill. He was too far off for
us to take a crack at him, but he went careful, just the same, with
one eye on us all the time. It was pretty evident neither of them
liked our sling-shots very much, and I don’t blame them. A pebble
the size of a good marble stings when it’s snapped by a couple of
strong rubbers. You can shoot hard enough to kill a squirrel or
rabbit, and, while it wouldn’t damage a man very much, it would hurt
like fury. I’ve figured it out that soldiers in a battle aren’t so
much afraid of being killed or badly injured as they are of being
hurt. It’s the idea of _pain_ that scares them, and we could give
Batten and Bill about all the pain they wanted.
“There’s only one way they can get us,” says Mark, “and that’s to
charge.”
“Yes,” says I, “if they got the grit to keep a-comin’, no matter how
hard we hit ’em, we’re beat.”
Batten and Bill had their heads together way down by the river.
Every once in a while they’d turn and look or point up to us, so we
knew they were hatching up a plan of attack. After a while they
stood and studied out the lay of the land.
The cave was about two-thirds up the hill. Mostly the climb was
pretty steep, and there were lots of big rocks and boulders and
trees until you got maybe a hundred feet from the cave, and there
was an open space steeper than the rest. The cave faced on a sort of
shelf that stuck out maybe ten feet from the door. Probably it was
made by the earth that was dug out of the cave when it was made.
Partly that, anyhow, and partly made by cutting the face of the hill
smooth and straight. When you make a snow house you generally start
by heaping up snow and tamping it down till it’s about the shape of
a half-orange. Then when you start to hollow out and make your door,
you cut away one side so it’s straight up and down—just slice it off
to give you a place to begin. That’s what the folks who dug the cave
had done—cut out a chunk of the hill like a big step, L-shaped, and
the foot of the L was the little shelf in front of our door.
The hill went up perpendicular about six feet from the top of the
door and then slanted away natural again, getting less steep as it
came nearer the level ground above.
That, in a general way, is how the land lay.
Batten and Bill studied it over quite a while and then got their
heads together again. They seemed to be arguing about something.
Batten smashed one hand against the other impatient-like, and it
looked as though he was ordering Bill to do what he wanted. We
waited to see what that would be.
Both the men started up the hill, but they didn’t get out from
behind things any more than they had to. From one tree to another
and from one boulder to the next they went slinking until they were
almost at the edge of the clear space in front of the cave.
“They’re going to charge,” says Mark. “Get ready.”
I filled my pocket with pebbles and stood, all trembly, waiting for
them to begin.
All of a sudden they both let out yells and started scrambling up
toward us as fast as they could. That wasn’t very fast, on account
of the steepness and loose sand and stones that kept slipping back,
but they came like they had made up their minds to get us in spite
of everything.
Just the minute they got uncovered we began to shoot. I was
surprised to see how little scared I really was when things began to
happen; and Mark, why, he was as cool as a cucumber, and took
careful aim every time before he let fly.
We shot pretty well, too. Of course, we didn’t hit every time, but
we hit often enough, and the closer they came the oftener we hit.
They didn’t say a word, and Mark and I were too busy to speak.
They got over the first twenty-five feet all right, and started in
on the next twenty-five. Now they were near enough so that any
fellow who could shoot at all would have hard work to miss. And we
shot fast. Plunk! plunk! plunk! we would hear the stones as they
struck. They kept on, though, for another fifteen or twenty feet
until they were only about fifty feet away and maybe forty feet
lower than we were. That gave us all the advantage, of course, for
it’s hard enough to climb a steep hill without having a couple of
fellows peppering at you from the top.
“I’ll shoot faster than you can talk,” says I, making a little fun
of his stuttering.
We did shoot fast and hard. Every time I pulled back the rubber as
far as it would stretch, and I bet those pebbles hurt some. They
hurt more than Batten and Bill could stand, anyhow, for in another
minute they had enough. First Bill quit and went leaping down the
hill; then Batten, finding out he was all alone, gave up and
retreated so fast Mark said it was a rout.
We didn’t let them go without hurrying them along, either. Just as
long as they were in sight we kept on whanging at them, and I’ll
make a guess that there weren’t two men in the state who had more
black-and-blue spots to show than they did when they got to the
bottom. We laughed so loud they could hear us when we saw them
rubbing their sore places.
Batten shook his fist at us, and Bill roared something we couldn’t
understand.
All the while they were talking together and motioning. Then they
turned like they were giving it up and got into their boat.
“Whoop!” I yelled, “we’ve licked ’em!”
Mark shook his head. “No,” he says. “It’s a—a—s-s-s-stratagem.”
“A what?” says I.
“A s-s-s-s-s—” Mark started in, hissing like the exhaust of an
engine.
“Better try some other word,” I told him; and he grinned as
good-natured as could be.
“It’s a trick,” he says.
“That’s better. Leave the s’s alone when you’re excited.”
“They’re trying to make us think they’ve quit so they can s-s-s—”
“There you go.”
“Sneak up on us,” he finished.
Batten and Bill pushed their boat off and rowed down-stream. We
watched them till they went out of sight around the bend.
“I bet they’re gone,” I said.
Mark only shook his head.
“I’m goin’ to see,” says I.
“Go ahead, but don’t let ’em catch you. Don’t go blunderin’ along.
Be c-careful.”
“I’ll be careful,” says I; and with that I started off along the
face of the hill in the direction Batten and Bill had taken.