Mark Tidd, Editor Part 14

It would have been fine if there hadn't been a hole there and if I hadn't stepped in it. But I did, and fell down and floundered around and let out a yell.

"Hey!" Mark whispered. "Shut up! Want to git a l-lance through your stummick?"

"Don't expect a feller to drownd without makin' a noise, do you?" says I. "I notice you didn't fall into any holes."

"No," says he, with a grin. "I had you walk first so if there was one you'd sort of warn me of it."

"Which I done," says I, feeling pretty chilly and not what you could call comfortable.

"You've been wet before," says he, "and it didn't hurt you."

"Probably," says I, "it won't hurt me this time, but that hain't no reason I should be happy about it."

We didn't say any more until we'd scouted out the other side of the bridge and found that none of the Knight's men were hidden there.

"Now," says Mark, "we want to hide ourselves so's we can overhear what they s-s-say. Let's f-find a good place."

It was an old wooden bridge, and when you looked up at it from below you made up your mind that it had better be fixed some time before long, for you could see through cracks and splits and broken boards right up to the sky.

"What's the matter," says I, "with hidin' down under the bridge, right at the end? n.o.body'll look there, and we can sit on the bank in the mud and be comfortable. I love to sit in the mud," says I.

"Good idee," says Mark. "Fine idee. We can hear p-plain, and not one chance in a hunderd of bein' seen."

Under we got and settled there as comfortable as was possible. I don't know if you ever sat in black mud under an old bridge with your clothes dripping and the evening chilly, but if you did, and got any fun out of it, why then, you are better at enjoying yourself than I am. My teeth got to chattering.

"Keep s-still," says Mark.

"You'll have to hold my jaw if you want me to," says I. "The cold makes it wiggle and rattle my teeth."

"Stuff your cap in your mouth," says he, which I did. Oh, it was a pleasant party, what with chewing on an old cap and all that!

"Wonder if Tallow and Plunk are on deck," says I.

"Sure," says he; "you can always d-d-depend on _them_."

"Meanin'," says I, and feeling sort of peevish, "that you can't depend on me."

"You n-notice," says he, "that I picked you to come with me, don't you?"

That made me feel pretty good, like praise always does make a fellow, even if he don't deserve it, and after that the cold wasn't so chilly nor my clothes so clammy on my back.

After about half an hour, which seemed like a week, we heard a horse coming. It stopped at the end of the bridge and a man got out. He whistled, but n.o.body answered, and the man started to pacing up and down from one end of the bridge to the other. Then in another ten minutes up came another rig, and a man got out of it.

"I been waitin' for you," says the first man.

"Huh!" says the second, and we recognized him as the Man With the Black Gloves, or the Knight With the Black Gauntlets, like he was promoted to be to-night.

"Well?" he says in a minute.

"Everythin's all right," said the first man. "Rock don't remember nothin' he hadn't ought to, 'cause I've questioned him mighty close.

n.o.body's been sneakin' around to see him, though a lot of Jakes have drove by to stare at him since them kids had that piece in the paper."

"Wigglesworth didn't leave any writing?" says the Knight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Huh!" says the second man, and we recognized him as the man with the black gloves]

"Not what you'd call writin'. Though he might. Acted toward the last like he was suspicious of me. Didn't let on nothin' to me, and kept to himself. One night he was writin' in the library, but what he wrote I dunno. Maybe it was letters. He didn't leave anythin' around. That is, except a puzzle or somethin' he wrote out for Rock."

"Puzzle," says the Knight.

"Yes," says the first man, "puzzle, or else he'd gone crazy."

"What become of it?"

"Rock's got it."

"Thought I said to grab every bit of writing you could get your hands on."

"This didn't amount to nothin'," said the man.

"You aren't on the job to think, but to do what you're told."

"Well, I done it," says the man; "anyhow I made a copy of it, and give the old man's writin' to the kid."

"Let's have it," says the Knight.

He read it, or I guess that's what he was doing, because he was still awhile. Then he grunted, disgusted-like.

"No sense to it," says he.

"Not a mite," says the other man.

"But there may be," says the Knight.

"Shucks!" says the man.

"Wigglesworth was queer-and suspicious. Look how he acted toward the boy. Maybe he made a writing. Seems like he must have. Didn't _tell_ anybody, so far as I can find out. That's certain, I guess. But he must have written. _Must_ have. And we've got to find it. Never can tell when a writing will pop up just when it will send you higher than a kite."

"I've looked till my eyes is wore out."

"Look some more," says the Knight.

"Where's Pekoe?"

"n.o.body knows. Gone off to South America or India or the North Pole again, likely. _He_ won't bother us."

"May some day."

"Don't believe he knows enough about things. If he had he'd hung around."