mark crawled over to the little door and peered around. he pushed both his fat legs through and sat with his feet dangling, and i saw him begin to pinch his cheek between his thumb and finger.
“there,” i says to the other fellows. “he’s got to work now. just you wait, and marcus aurelius fortunatus tidd’ll fix up some sort of scheme to make that dog wish he was off in the woods barkin’ at a woodchuck.”
pretty soon mark began to drag in his legs, which was considerable of a job, and his little eyes were twinkling, though the rest of his face was solemn and without any more expression than a round apple dumpling, which it looked like a whole lot.
“fellers,” he says, “have you got a slingshot among you?”
both binney jenks and i had, and good full pockets of bully round stones, too.
“good,” says mark. “we’ll give mister man a s-s-seance.”
“a what?”
“a s-seance—that’s a sort of ghost party, where spooks go prancin’ around. wonder if he’s s-superstitious.”
“he looked like he was right mean, if that’s any help,” says plunk.
“where you goin’ to git your ghosts?” i was curious to find out.
“these here’ll be sling-shot ghosts.”
“g’wan!” i sneered; but i was pretty sure he’d hit on some scheme better than ordinary.
“what’s the scary part to the ghost stories you know?” he asks.
i thought it over, remembering all the hair-raising stories i ever heard—sort of telling them over to myself to see what was the part that made them creepy. well, sir, you’d be surprised, but it was the same thing in every one of them—noises. that was it—noises—mysterious noises that you couldn’t see any reason for. it didn’t matter what the noise was, just so there wasn’t anything around to make it. it could be a door squeaking or a chair moving or a footstep or a cat miauing or anything. i told mark.
he nodded three times. “sure—noises. well, we’re goin’ to give this feller noises—mysterious noises.”
“how?”
“sling-shots. see that dinner-bell?” he pointed to an old dinner-bell hanging on the pole back of the house.
we could see it, all right, but we couldn’t see what good it was going to do.
“can you h-hit it with your sling-shot?”
i took a good stone and fitted it in the leather, then i knelt close to the door and took aim careful as i could. they waited, holding their breaths until i let go the rubbers, and in a second the old bell said glang just as plain as if somebody had rung it. mark grinned until all the fat on his face looked as if it was trying to climb back of his ears. “fine,” he says; “now keep away from the door.”
“why?”
“so he won’t see us and think we done it. it’s got to be mysterious, ain’t it?”
we got a little back from the door, and i shot again, but this time i missed. binney took a try at it, and glang went the old bell.
“wait,” said mark.
pretty soon we saw the old man come poking out of the house and look around. he walked back to the bell and looked up at it and turned all around, watching everywhere, but of course there wasn’t a thing to be seen. when his back was to the bell mark said to shoot again. i let her go, and glang went the bell. the old man jumped like i’d shot him instead of the bell, and looked up at it with his eyes sticking out big as eggs. i’ll bet it was a mighty mysterious happening to him.
“n-now,” says mark, “shoot the d-dog.”
i scrouged close to the door and let the old whopper have one in the ribs. he jumped worse than the old man did when the bell rang and said “yip, yip!”
well, there was another noise for him. he came walking our way cautious, and he was as pale as a pond-lily. when he was about half-way i let fly at the bell again, and when it glanged i thought he was going to throw a fit. he wheeled around to look that way, and binney reached out quick and gave the dog another. he yowled again, and around came the old man, but there wasn’t a thing to see. we could sit back where he couldn’t see us and plug away at his bell all day. we rang it twice, one glang right after another. if i’d been that fellow i calculate i’d most have jumped out of my skin, just as he did. what with the bell a-ringing without anybody to ring it, and the dog a-yelping without anybody to make him yelp, it was spooky enough to suit anybody, and a lot more than enough to suit him. you could see he wished there was five or six other men with him, or that he was off in the next state.
“hey, up there!” he yelled, with his voice trembling and squeaky. “hey!”
we never said a word; just kept as still as though we weren’t there at all; and i guess that helped. it always is sort of creepy to call somebody you’re sure is right there and not hear a sound. you get to wondering what’s happened to them, and—well, you know that kind of cold and wrinkly feeling you get just at the back of your neck. and to top it off we gave the old bell another lick. he turned and made tracks for the house.
well, we weren’t helped much so far. “give it to the dog,” says mark; and we did, twice, good and hard. he set up an awful yelping and the man began to run, but he stopped and began whistling and calling. the dog went running after him, pretty glad to get away, i guess. i had it figured out the old man wanted some kind of company and wanted it bad, so he’d rather have the dog with him than watching us. he went hustling up to the back door, and just as he opened it binney whanged the bell again. well, mister man just waited to let in his dog and slammed the door shut so hard he ’most broke its window; and on top of everything i banged a stone right against the panel. i’ll bet he thought the ghost was rapping for him sure.
“he don’t come out again for a week,” says plunk; and it did look as though he’d holed himself in for quite a stay.
“guess we can git down now,” says mark.
we climbed down the ladder cautious and sneaked out through the evergreens and behind the hedge, keeping out of sight of the house till we got to the road. nobody made a move after us.
“wonder who lives here?” mark was always curious.
“look on the mail-box,” i told him; “the name’ll be there.”
he crawled along to the little tin box on the post in front of the gate. the name was harvey willis. none of us thought anything of that then, but it wasn’t very long before mark did think something of it by putting two and two together. he was great for doing that. give him a couple of facts, and he was the greatest fellow that ever was for taking them and reasoning all sorts of other facts out of them. i never saw his beat.
binney’s old horse was standing just where we left him, and i thought he looked kind of disappointed to see us come back. most probably he’d been having a horse-dream about standing right there in the shade forever with lots of fresh green grass to eat and no work to do. seeing us, and mark tidd in special, must have been quite a shock to him. i’d sort of hate to have to pull mark around myself.
we got into the rig and started for home, stirred up quite a bit and excited over our adventure. it was mark that began showing us his pockets full of sawdust. said he’d had presence of mind enough to get a cargo of gold even when we was being besieged and fighting for our lives against awful odds. the rest of us were sorry we hadn’t got some treasure, too.
“the old ku klux klan showed it was worth somethin’ that time,” says binney; and we all agreed with him.
mark told us about a lot of famous escapes out of history, and we sized them up and compared them with ours; and if we hadn’t been about as smart as any of them, then i don’t know what i’m talking about! ours was as good a scheme as any mark had to tell about.
we drove along, making believe we were pursued and that the horse was galloping madly, which was a kind of a joke, because that animal couldn’t have gone fast enough to break the law on the sign over the bridge about riding or driving across faster than a walk. we stood ready with our sling-shots to sell our lives dear, and, considering everything, we were having as much fun as i’ve had for a long time.
we kept looking along the river-bank hoping to catch sight of sammy, but he must have gone farther up, because we didn’t see any trace of him. there was no telling how far he had gone; ten or fifteen miles wasn’t anything to him at all, and sometimes he’d be away as much as a week. when he came back he’d tell us about hunting or fishing in a lake or woods maybe fifty miles off. i never saw his beat for walking—all day and all night he could keep it up without getting tired, and as for getting lost or wondering which was the right way to go, why, it never bothered him at all. he was like one of those pigeons that carry letters; take him where you wanted to and he always knew the way to start for home.
maybe we had gone a mile when we saw a cloud of dust ahead that had a horse and buggy in the middle of it driving faster than farmers usually do when they’re coming home from town. at first we thought maybe it was the doctor on a hurry call but the horse wasn’t gray, so we knew it couldn’t be him. in a few minutes the rig was close enough so we could see the man driving, and i like to have fallen out of our carriage, for it was nobody in the world but that henry c. batten who was sneaking around the engine-room the day before. there he was, as big as life, and we thought sure he had gone back to pittsburg. he went by in a flash without even looking at us.
“well,” i said to mark, “what d’you think of that?”
“i think,” said mark, frowning a little, “that we’re goin’ to have to keep our eyes open. if that feller’s hangin’ around after dad’s turbine, now’s when he’ll try to git it—with dad away.”
“jinks!” he says in a minute, slapping his knee. “that name on that post-box was willis. he’s drivin’ that way. the engineer’s name was willis—in mr. whiteley’s place, i mean—and he’s in cahoots with this batten. fellers, he’s a goin’ to that place we just left.”
it sounded likely, the way mark reasoned it out.
“well,” says plunk, “what are we goin’ to do about it?”
“nothin’,” mark says, “but wait and keep our eyes open.”
it was a pretty serious business, we thought, with mr. tidd away and nobody to depend on but just the ku klux klan. still, considering what we had done off and on, we believed we were pretty well able to look after things in a pinch.
we hurried up binney’s horse and got home in plenty of time for supper. in the evening i went over to mark’s, and we put in the time putting a brand-new padlock on the shed where the turbine and the drawings and things were. that made us feel safer. so when it got too dark to play around outside we went in and fussed with a lot of stuff mark had and looked at books. along about half-past eight mrs. tidd brought in a big plate with fried cakes and apples and hunks of maple sugar on it, and we attended to that the way it ought to be attended to. afterward i went home.
i went to bed and fell asleep right off. i got to dreaming, and it seemed like somebody was whistling the ku klux klan whistle to me and i was tied up so i couldn’t come or even speak—one of those funny kind of dreams when you feel as though you couldn’t even wink, and yet can’t figure out what it is keeps you so still. and all through it i kept hearing the whistle and straining and trying to get up, but it wasn’t any use. after a while it seemed as if somebody was trying to blow me up with dynamite or something. there came an awful crash in the dream, and i woke up standing in the middle of the floor. i was shivering and scared so my teeth chattered. then i heard the ku klux klan whistle again, and something came smack against my window. i guess that was the explosion i heard in my dream. i stuck my head out and there stood mark tidd, looking as big as all get out, with the moon shining down onto him as white as silver.
“what’s the matter?” i called to him.
“q-q-quick!” he says. “come down. somebody’s busted into the shed and s-s-stole dad’s t-t-turbine.” he was so excited he stuttered like anything.
“g’wan!” i says.
“it’s gone,” says he.
“what time is it?”
“’most one.”
well, it was the first time i ever did it. i didn’t like to go sneaking off without telling my folks, but i judged the circumstances kind of demanded something special, so i got into my clothes and slid out on the porch. it wasn’t any trick to get down the trellis to the ground. it was cold, and my teeth chattered.
“what we goin’ to do now?” i asked.
he didn’t say a word, but just set off walking away into the dark, and i followed after.
