We found out we were in a big attic that covered the whole of the house. Part of it was floored over and part of it was just joists with the lath and plaster showing on the under side. It looked as if there was about an acre in it, and it was full of angles and brick chimneys and little, funny-shaped windows, and rubbish, and trunks and goodness knows what—except things to eat.

We were there, and no chance of getting out right away, so the idea of getting something to eat was one that came pretty quick. It went about as soon as it came.

“Guess we’ll have to gnaw air,” says I, kind of down-hearted.

“L-l-lucky,” says Mark, “if Jethro don’t gnaw us.”

“What’ll Plunk and Tallow do when we don’t show up?”

“Nothin’, I hope,” says Mark. “Rock’ll f-find some way to tell ’em we’re penned up here, and I guess they’ll have sense enough to do n-nothin’ but hang around to see what t-turns up.”

“They’ll hang around,” says I. “You couldn’t drive ’em away. Don’t think they’d sneak off and leave us, do you?”

“Not them,” says Mark, and the way he said it would have sounded pretty good to Tallow and Plunk if they had heard. It showed that Mark knew them, and was sure he could depend on them no matter what happened.

“L-let’s rummage around,” says Mark.

We stirred things up good, because Mark said you never could tell what you were going to find in an attic, and if there was anything there to throw any light on Rock’s affairs, why, we wanted to know it. There were trunks and boxes of old clothes, and busted chairs, and piles of old magazines and books, and hats, and shoes. You could find ’most anything you didn’t want there, but not much you did want, unless you was figuring on dressing up for a masquerade.

Over in a corner, though, I found a little rocking-chair for a baby, and what was left of a doll’s house and some busted toys.

“Look here,” says I. “I wonder what Mr. Wigglesworth was doin’ with these kid things. Didn’t have any that I ever heard of.”

“No,” says Mark, but his eyes began to shine like everything. “Not that we heard of. Maybe, Binney, there’s n-n-nothin’ to this, but maybe it’s the m-most important thing we’ve run onto in this whole business.”

“How?” says I.

“B-because,” says he, “it makes it l-look as if what I was hopin’ was so might be so.”

“Um!” says I. “How int’restin’.”

Well, we kept on digging into things, and after a while Mark hauled out one of those old-fashioned photograph-albums that fasten with a brass catch in front. It wasn’t a big plush one, like we got to home on the center-table, but a little leather one about six inches long and four wide and two thick. We went over by a window and looked through it. My! but it was comical—the clothes folks used to wear, and the faces they wore when they went to have their pictures taken!

We looked at every picture careful. Along at the front we recognized Mr. Wigglesworth when he was a young man, with Burnside whiskers and funny pants, and his hair all plastered down in front and combed up on the side. After a few pages was another picture of a young woman sitting on a rock with Mr. Wigglesworth standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder.

“Look at that!” says Mark, excited as a bantam rooster. “He was married. See? B-b-bet that p-picture was taken on their weddin’ trip. It’s a weddin’-trip-lookin’ picture,” says he.

“Yes,” says I, “it sure looks foolish.”

“Hum!” says he. “This is important.”

“Good,” says I.

But the next picture—that was what startled both of us, for—maybe you won’t believe it—but it was the Man With the Black Gloves, only about twenty years younger than he is, and not wearing the gloves, but just as mean and ornery-looking then as he is now.

“There,” says Mark, “I g-guess when we leave here we t-take this album along.”

“Why?” says I.

“All those p-pictures,” says he, “has the names of the photographers on ’em, and the p-places where they was taken. We can go there or write there, and t-trace back somethin’ about Mr. Wigglesworth’s family.”

But we hadn’t seen all the album yet. There was, farther on, a picture of Mrs. Wigglesworth (at least we guessed it must be Mrs. Wigglesworth) with a baby on her lap, and Mark was like to jump out of his skin.

“I knew it m-must be,” says he. “We’re gettin’ hot,” says he.

After that came a lot of pictures of a kid—a girl, and she kept getting older and older, until the last one showed she was maybe eighteen or nineteen, somewheres around there—about as old as a school-teacher, maybe. And then there wasn’t any more of her, and there wasn’t any more of Mrs. Wigglesworth, either.

But Mark was satisfied. “Look at that last p-picture,” says he. “Who d-does it resemble?”

“Nobody I kin see,” says I.

“All right,” says he; “jest wait.”

“I hain’t got anythin’ else to do,” says I, “so I might ’s well.”

He stepped back and almost went off of the floor and stepped on the lath and plaster between the joists.

“Lookout!” says I. “You’ll go right through.”

He slapped his knee. “Right t-through!” says he. “Ain’t we fat-heads? Say, Pekoe’s room’s over about there, hain’t it?” says he, pointing across the attic.

“Somewheres,” says I.

“Anyhow,” says he, “we hain’t been wastin’ time.”

He went to the back of the house and paced off toward the front.

“I calc’late Pekoe’s room is about under here,” says he, and got down on his knees and began working cautious at the plaster between two laths with his knife. He picked and picked, and at last got a hole through about as big around as a lead-pencil, then he got down on his stummick and looked through it.

“Mr. Pekoe,” says he.

“What?” says Pekoe’s voice, kind of muffled-like.

“We’re h-here,” says Mark, “up in the attic. Jethro’s got us cornered, but he don’t know it.”

“That’s where you’re ahead of me,” says he; “Jethro’s got me cornered and he does know it.”

“Tell me all you know about Rock and his f-f-father,” says Mark.

“Don’t know much about Rock,” says Pekoe, “except that his father always kept him in school, and sometimes had pretty hard work to find the money to pay for it. Mostly Big Rock was in South America or Alaska or Burma or Africa or somewheres, trying to find a gold mine or a diamond mine, or somethin’. He never got to the United States at all. He wasn’t a feller that talked much, but when it came to acting well, you can bet he was right there. There never was a squarer pal than Big Rock, and there’s men that loves him from Nome to Cape Town.”

“Where was Rock’s m-m-mother?”

“Big Rock never mentioned her, but I knew she was dead. Been dead since Rock was a little baby. Guess that’s why Big Rock went to globe-trottin’.”

“You don’t know her name?”

“Never heard it.”

“And Big Rock’s d-dead now?”

“Not by a jugful,” says Pekoe. “I thought he was, and he thought he was goin’ to be, but I got a letter from him a week ago, and he says he got over that sickness, and for me not to take Rock to Wicksville if I hadn’t, and if I had, to git him back again, because he didn’t want the boy to go there while he was alive. He says he didn’t want to be beholdin’ to a man while there was a chance of keepin’ away from it. The way he wrote made me think he had some sort of a grudge ag’in’ this Mr. Wigglesworth.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“Every livin’ thing,” says he.

“All right,” says Mark. “Now we won’t t-talk any more, ’cause Jethro might hear. We’re g-goin’ to git away, and we’ll git you away as soon as we kin. I guess things is g-goin’ to happen around here perty sudden.”

“Hope so,” says Pekoe. “They would happen sudden if Big Rock was to show up.”

“Good-by,” says Mark, “till we see you again.”

“Now,” says I, “let’s figger on how we’re goin’ to escape from the dungeon.”

“’Tain’t a d-dungeon,” says Mark. “We’re shut up in the tower of the Knight we’ve been f-fightin’. There’s men-at-arms crowdin’ all around, and the drawb-bridge is up and the moat’s full of water. I guess he’s holdin’ us for ransom.”

“If I don’t git somethin’ to eat perty soon,” says I, “he won’t have anythin’ to ransom.”

“Food,” says Mark, “hain’t to be thought about in sich circ’mstances. Here we be shut in the same t-tower with the young Duke that we’re liegemen of, and his father’s retainer, the Knight Pekoe. What’s food compared with sich things?”

“Even a Duke,” says I, “wouldn’t be much good if he didn’t eat for a week or two. I guess they’d be lookin’ for a new Duke to take his job.”

“The b-best of it,” says Mark, “is that the Duke’s secret is hid in this Castle Wigglesworth. If we could git it we could rescue the Duke and the Knight would wish he hadn’t ever been born.”

“You hain’t figgerin’ on tryin’ to follow up that paper thingumbob of Mr. Wigglesworth’s, be you?”

“We’re inside the castle,” says Mark, “and the enemy don’t know it. Never have a b-better chance to snoop around, if we wait till after dark.”

“Without nothin’ to eat,” says I.

He jest sniffed.

“And,” says I, “with the risk of this Knight Jethro findin’ us snoopin’.”

“You hain’t s-s-scairt, be you?” says he.

“I hain’t what you’d call easy in my mind,” says I.

“All right,” says he. “If that’s the way you f-f-feel, we’ll jest escape, and I’ll git Plunk or Tallow to come back with me when we can git a chanct.”

“You won’t,” says I, “because so long as I’m here I might as well stick. If them kids can do it, I guess I can.”

“I knew you would, Binney,” says he, which ended that. I was elected to stay, hungry or no hungry, so I settled down and made believe I was eating an apple pie. But that didn’t do much good. It just made me hungrier.

“Wish we could c-c-communicate with our faithful friends, the Knights Tallow and Plunk,” says he.

“We can try,” says I.

“There’s a ladder l-leadin’ to a trap door in the roof,” says Mark. “Let’s go up it and see what there is to see.”

The ladder went up over in a front corner, and I scrambled up it first. Mark came right behind me. I unhooked the trap door cautious and shoved it up; then I poked my head through. There was a flat place about six feet square with a railing around it, and I knew we were on top of a sort of little tower on the front of the house.

“Come on,” says I, “but keep down. We can hide behind this railin’ here.”

“’Tain’t a railin’,” says Mark, “it’s a battlement.”

That’s the way with him. When he’s playing a thing he plays it, and sticks to details. Everything you say or do has got to be the way it would be if what you was doing was real instead of make-believe. He was the greatest make-believer I ever saw.

We crawled out on the roof, and looked around pretty careful, I can tell you. Nobody was in sight for a while. Then we saw Rock in the yard, and after a while we saw Plunk and Tallow coming toward him. They stopped and talked with their heads close together.

“Our t-trusty friends,” says Mark, “have found a way of t-talkin’ to the young Duke.”

“Yes,” says I, “they’re doin’ it the usual way—with their mouths.”

“We got to let them know we’re h-h-here,” says he.

“Yell at ’em,” says I.

He just looked at me, and then got his slingshot out of his pocket and put a pebble in the leather. Then his eyes sort of twinkled, and he says, “If I hit where I aim, Plunk Smalley’s g-g-goin’ to git a s’prise.”

Plunk’s back was toward us, so I sort of guessed.

Mark aimed careful and let her fly. In a jiffy Plunk clapped his hand to the seat of his pants and let out a holler you could have heard in Illinoy. Then him and the others looked all around and Mark stuck up his head pretty slow, and then his hand, and waggled it.

Plunk and Tallow and Rock saw it, but they had sense enough not to waggle back. They knew Jethro might see them. So they just nodded their heads and made believe they was looking at something else.

“Now,” says Mark, “we’ll give ’em their orders.”

“How?” says I.

“Write ’em,” says he, “and chuck ’em over.” He got out his pencil and wrote a note that said:

Faithful Knights:—The Knight Binney and me is safe. Our presence hain’t known, and we got to talk with the prisoner Pekoe. In the tower where we’re hid we found other secrets that is important to the young Duke. Tell him his father’s alive, and is a great man, so the prisoner Pekoe says. We hain’t going to escape till we see if we can get past the men-at-arms and the bad Knight Jethro, and hunt around in the dungeons under this castle to find out what the writing left by the Earl Wigglesworth leads to. You faithful knights stick around till you hear from us, but don’t be seen. If we don’t show up by midnight, you better wake up Lawyer Jones and tell him what has happened, and for him to come out with his men-at-arms to rescue us. If you hear three whistles inside go and bang like everything on the front door and holler fire. All in the young Duke’s service,

Mark Tidd, Knight

Then he folded it and, making sure Jethro wasn’t watching, let it flutter over the edge. It fell to the grass quite a ways off and pretty soon we saw the knights and the young Duke go over to it, and Tallow put his foot on it. After a while he sat down, and we saw him stuff it in his pocket. Then they all went over to the arbor and out of sight. We knew they were reading the note, and that they would stick just like Mark told them.