Mark Tidd, Editor Part 23

"Binney," says Mark, "you're a n-n.o.ble young man right out of a book.

Honest you are. You're a hero," says he.

"I hain't," says I.

"L-look here, you saphead," says he, "have some sense. I'm goin' to git Rock back into Jethro's hands," says he, "but not to help Jethro. We _got_ to have him back here. How we g-g-goin' to find out about him if he's run away? Tell me that. There's somethin' mighty mysterious and important about him. Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves hain't d-doin' all they're up to just for fun, be they? Not by a jugful. Rock had ought to have known b-better than to go sneakin' off, but I s'pose he got l-lonesome. Poor kid! But lonesome or not, he's got to come b-back."

I felt pretty silly and didn't think of anything to say.

"Come on," says Mark.

"Where?" says I.

"To l-look for Rock," says he.

"Where'll we look?"

"Well," says he, "if you was Rock and was r-r-runnin' away, where'd you go?"

"South Sea Islands," says I.

He just grunted scornful-like. "Which way would you g-g-go first?"

"Right to the depot," says I, "and take a train."

"How'd you pay for your t-ticket? Rock didn't have a cent."

That was a facer. "Then I'd steal a ride on a freight," says I.

"No you wouldn't," says he. "You wouldn't go toward t-town at all.

Jethro was watchin' you close. You had to sneak away in a s-second when he wasn't lookin'. How'd you m-manage it?"

"Why," says I, "I'd git near the gate gradual, and then I'd run like the d.i.c.kens."

"You wouldn't, n-n-neither-especial if you wanted to leave a l-letter.

I'll tell you what Rock did. He got hold of p-p-paper and pencil and pocketed 'em. Then he went out in the yard and walked around. You see how he did the other day when we came here first. He hain't any n-ninny.

Well, he'd walk around the yard and after a while he'd c-c-come into this arbor. For t-two reasons. To leave the letter he was goin' to write, and to get time to hustle off to quite a d-distance before Jethro suspected he was escapin'."

"How's that?" says I.

"Why," says he, "Jethro'd s-see Rock come in here, and he'd think he knew where he was. He wouldn't come p-pokin' in to see. So Rock would write his l-letter in a hurry, and scrooch out through the hedge and run. All the t-time Jethro'd be thinkin' he was right in here. Maybe it would b-be an hour before he'd begin to wonder what Rock was up to so l-long and come in to see. In an hour Rock could move off quite a ways."

"Sure," says I, "but where'd he move to?"

"He'd git away from the road," says Mark. "He wouldn't take the road t-toward Wicksville, and he wouldn't go the other way, and he wouldn't cross the road and go s-south, because somebody might see him when he crossed. There hain't but one other way for him to go, and that's n-north toward the r-river and the woods. That's where he went."

"Sounds likely," I says.

"It's sure," says he. "He got through the hedge and took a l-look and seen those woods right there. Then he made for 'em lickety-split."

"When did he go?" says I. "The letter didn't say."

"This m-mornin'," says Mark. "Jethro was all excited. Didn't he act that way? Like he'd just found out Rock was gone? Sure he did. He acted like he was most r-rattled to pieces, and the first thing he did was to hitch a horse and go f-flyin' off wild-like, just lookin' for the sake of lookin'. Anyhow, Jethro hain't got many brains. Yes, Binney, you can bet Jethro just f-found it out."

"Then," says I, "Rock hain't been gone more 'n an hour or two."

"That's how I f-f-figger," says he.

"Come on, then," says I, "he's got quite a start."

We streaked it along till we got out of the field and into the woods.

Maybe you think because Mark Tidd is fat that he can't move. Well you'd get fooled there, for though there's enough of him for two boys and their little brother rolled into one, he can get from one place to another about as fast as the next one. I've read those rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses in Africa are pretty whopping animals, but that when they get started they can run to beat a horse. I don't know if it's so, but Mark Tidd sort of leads me to believe it.

Right in the edge of the woods Mark stopped and picked up a cap.

"There," says he.

"Rock's?" says I.

"He was wearin' it when I saw it l-last," says he.

"Must 'a' been in a hurry, not to pick it up."

"P-panic," says Mark. "He got to runnin' across the f-field and then got scairt. It works that way. Once you start to run, the idee gits into your head s-somebody's chasin' you hard. I'll bet Rock thought Jethro was right onto his heels. He didn't stop for anythin'."

"Hope he hain't runnin' yet," says I.

"Can't tell," says Mark, "but I was right about the way he went, eh?"

You see, when he did a thing that was pretty bright he liked to have folks tell him so. Not that he was what you'd call vain. He wasn't, and he wasn't all excited about himself, either, but he was funny that way, and I guess we liked him all the better on account of it. So I told him he was right about it, and that it was a good job of figgering things out. And I was telling him what was so, too, for it _was_ a good job. I wouldn't have thought out what Rock had done in forty years.

We cut straight through the woods to the river, but when we came to it we stopped, for we didn't know whether Rock went up-stream or down, or waded across.

"He didn't wade," says Mark, "b-because he don't know this river. It l-looks like it might be deep out there, and the current's swift. He wouldn't tackle it."

"I guess not," says I, "but which way did he go?"

"That," says Mark, "is what we got to f-find out. Maybe he didn't come right down to the river at all, but I think he did."

"Why?" says I.

"To see if he couldn't get across. He'd f-feel safer with a river between him and Jethro. But he didn't cross here. It looks dangerous.

Either he went up or down, and I think close to the water, searchin' for a place to cross."

"It's perty soft along here for quite a ways," says I. "Maybe we can find footprints."

"You go up," says Mark, "and I'll go down. Holler if you f-f-find any thin'."

I went off like he said, pretending I was an Indian. Maybe a couple of hunderd feet upstream I came on a place where somebody had walked right down to the edge of the river, because there in the mud were tracks filled with water. The place was tramped up quite a bit, and there were tracks leading back away from the river toward the bluff and the trees.