So you can understand just what happened that night I will tell you as carefully as I can just how our camp lay and where everything in and around it was. Then you’ll be able to see how hard it was to plan a way for Mark and me to escape, and what a lot of brains Mark Tidd had to have to figure out ahead of time just about what Jiggins and Collins would do with us. I never could have done it. If I was going to think up a scheme to get away I’d have to wait till we were all fixed the way we were going to be. Maybe then I could have figgered something out; but with Mark it was different. He looked ahead. He was always putting himself into somebody else’s shoes and trying to think just the way they would think. I couldn’t do that. But Mark would just make believe he was the other fellow, and you’d be surprised to see how many times he hit it right.

Well, the camp was on a sandy flat shaped like a triangle. The river ran past the base of it, and high banks climbed almost straight up from the two sides. The whole thing was covered with trees and shrubs and grasses, except back about the middle, where there was a small bare patch of sand, and here we had our tent. The base of the triangle was about two hundred feet long, and each of the sides was a little more than that, I should say.

When we came we hauled up our boats at the up-stream end of the flat and turned them over there. That spot was over a hundred feet from the camp, and you couldn’t see the boats from the tent. The fire was at the end of the tent that pointed up-stream. The supplies and paddles and oars were all left under the boats.

When we turned in Collins slept across one opening of the tent and Jiggins across the other. Their feet touched canvas on one side and their heads touched it on the other. Mark and I slept between. We were so close together, when we all got in, that we touched, and before a fellow could roll over he came pretty close to having to ask the man next him to help. Add to that that Collins and Jiggins both bragged about how lightly they slept and said the least noise or touch would wake them, and you’ll see they had us pretty average safe. We couldn’t wiggle without waking one of them.

Before we went to bed we sat by the fire quite a while and talked. Mark got to talking about lassoes and bragged considerable about how he could throw one of them. Jiggins made fun of him, and Mark said get a rope for him and he’d show what he could do. It was pretty dark then, but Collins fished a piece of line about forty feet long out of the mess of stuff under the boats and told Mark to go ahead.

Mark made a noose in the rope and had me run back and forth in the firelight while he whirled the thing around his head and threw at me. He was pretty good at it, and no mistake. He could catch me every time, and about the way he wanted to. First he’d get me around the neck, and then by one foot, and sometimes by a hand if it happened to be sticking out. He told me afterward he’d been practising it in his back yard ever since a Wild West show came to our country-seat. He’d kept still about it because he wanted to give Plunk and Tallow and me a surprise when he got so he could throw good.

We fussed around like that for half an hour, and then Mark said he was tired. He tossed the rope off to the side of the tent where there was a sapling growing about fifteen feet away.

“Better get some more firewood,” says Collins, and he and Jiggins and I went off looking for dry sticks. Mark didn’t go far, though. While we were busy he tied his rope tight to the tree and carried one end up and pushed it under the tent. There was about twenty feet to spare, so he cut that off and brought it inside.

Of course, I didn’t know that till afterward, but he told me just how he did it. The piece of rope he cut off he laid through the tent from one end to the other about a foot from the side where our feet would go. So nobody’d notice it he pushed it down under the boughs we had to sleep on. Then he went back and got an armful of sticks and threw them down by the fire. When we got back with our loads he lay there with his eyes shut, looking as sleepy as an old frog. He yawned and yawned and rubbed his eyes and said he guessed he’d go to bed. I went in with him.

We got fixed before Collins and Jiggins were through their smoke.

“Move around c-c-consid’able,” says Mark in a whisper. “Sort of git them used to h-h-havin’ you rub against them.”

I couldn’t see any sense to that, but, all the same, I said I’d do it. You can’t see any sense to lots of things Mark wants you to do, but usually you find out he knew what he was talking about.

“K-k-keep awake if you can,” he says next, stuttering like anything. “I’ll p-pinch you every little while, and you p-pinch me. That’ll do it, I guess.”

Then Jiggins and Collins came in. Collins laid down next to me, and Jiggins took the other end. They said good night as polite as if we were back home instead of out in the woods, or as if they were visitors instead of guards. Mark and I said good night back again, and then everybody kept quiet for a spell. I got drowsy.

The next thing that happened was Jiggins speaking.

“For goodness’ sake, son,” says he to Mark, “keep still. Be quiet. You roll like a boat in a heavy sea. Go to sleep.”

Mark quieted down a little, and I remembered to stir about like he said. Collins stood it a few minnits and then nudged me with his elbow. “Binney,” says he, “want me to sing you to sleep?”

“No,” says I. “Why?”

“Because,” says he, “I’d be willing to do ’most anything to get you still. You wiggle like an angleworm.”

“I hain’t comfortable,” I told him.

“Well,” says he, “I hope you tire yourself out pretty soon. You’re tirin’ me.”

At that Mark pinched my arm.

We kept quiet after that for quite a while, maybe half an hour. Every minnit or so Mark would pinch me, and if he missed I’d pinch him. That way there wasn’t any danger of our going to sleep.

Both Collins and Jiggins began to snore. I laid as still as I could and never wiggled even an eyelash. After a while Mark nudged me with his elbow.

“S-s-squirm some,” says he, under his breath.

I moved my legs and twisted my shoulders. Collins sort of grunted in his sleep and threw up his arm, but he didn’t wake. I could feel Mark moving on the other side of me, and then Jiggins muttered something in a drowsy voice. He didn’t sound a quarter awake.

There was another wait, then Mark whispered in my ear to snuggle as close to Collins as I could so as to give him room. I did. He moved over so part of him was on top of me, and that left him clear of Jiggins. There was the dimmest sort of light from the coals in front of the tent, so I could just make out Mark and guess at what he was doing. The first thing he did was to get his jack-knife out of his pocket and, cautious as anything, cut a slit about a foot and a half high in the canvas. He reached through that and got hold of the rope. He began to pull. Now you’ll see it was a lot easier for him to haul himself out by degrees like he was a cork in a bottle than it would be for him to move around and get up and step over Jiggins. That would have made a commotion and considerable noise, while by pulling himself out a couple of inches at a time you could hardly notice anything at all was happening. If I hadn’t been awake and looking and listening I never would have discovered what he was at at all.

My heart was beating like somebody was pounding on it with a mallet. It was exciting, I can tell you. The longer it took and the slower and more deliberate Mark was the more exciting it got, until before his feet disappeared through the slit I could have up and hollered.

As soon as I dared I scrooched over in front of the slit in the canvas and grabbed the rope like Mark did. It wasn’t any trick at all to inch myself out, and before very long I got up outside and looked around for Mark.

We weren’t safe yet by a long ways. No, sir, we were not. Collins and Jiggins were asleep not six feet from us, and the least noise might wake them up. Then there was danger one of them might happen to wake and feel for us. He’d find us gone, and it wouldn’t take him long to get after us, you can bet. We didn’t stay around there.

One of the funniest sights in the world is to watch Mark Tidd tiptoe. It’s sort of like a hippopotamus trying to waltz. But it is surprising how quiet he can go. He’s lighter on his feet than I am, and he weighs pretty close to three times as much.

We went straight back away from the tent and then took a wide swing around to the boats.

“Q-quiet now,” says Mark. “Shove in the canoe.”

We lifted it and set it on the edge of the river and pushed it in.

“I’ll hold her,” says Mark, “while you g-g-git the p-p-paddles and things.” He was so excited he stuttered until he sounded almost like a gasolene-engine that was out of kilter.

I grabbed what came first. Anything that felt like it could be eaten was what I wanted to make sure of. In three minnits I had the boat as full as I dared make it. Then I went back after the paddles.

Well, sir, I looked under and over and between and among for them, but not a paddle was there to be seen. I moved things and rooted into the sand and went around near-by trees to see if they were stood up out of sight, but all I got was a pair of scratched hands.

“Mark,” says I, “there hain’t no paddles.”

“What?” says he, like somebody’d hit him in the stomach.

“The paddles are gone,” I said.

He sat plump down on the sand and let his head lop over forward. You could tell by the way he acted he was ashamed. He was cut.

“I m-m-might ’a’ known it,” says he. “I m-m-might ’a’ seen it.”

“Shucks!” says I. “Nobody could have guessed it.”

“It’s exactly what I’d ’a’ d-d-done in his place,” he says. He sighed, and then: “And I wasn’t undervaluin’ him, n-n-neither. It was n-n-nothin’ but carelessness.”

“Pickles!” says I. “Let’s make the best of it.”

“How?” says he.

“Find a board and use it for a paddle,” says I.

He looked at me disgusted and shook his head. “I’m s’prised at you, B-B-Binney. You don’t think Jiggins ’u’d ’a’ l-left any b-boards around handy, do you? Not him.”

“Well,” I says next, “what’s the matter with just piling into the canoe and shovin’ off? We’d git somewheres, and somewheres else is better ’n bein’ here.”

He thought a minnit or so. “’Tain’t p-p-practical,” says he. “We dun’no’ where we are, do we? Nor how to g-git any place? But,” says he, “there hain’t n-n-nothin’ else to do. We’ll run ashore or git wrecked or somethin’, but come on.”

I held the boat while he scrambled in, and was just going to get in myself when Jiggins spoke up from the dark behind us and says: “Better not start off in the dark, boys. Better not. ’Tain’t advisable. See it for yourselves. Stay ashore. To be sure.”

I was so surprised I didn’t say a word, and I guess Mark was surprised too. But he didn’t let on.

“I was expectin’ you’d c-c-come along next,” says he.

“I sort of figgered you’d try something to-night,” says Jiggins.

“It was carelessness, me f-f-forgettin’ those paddles,” says Mark.

“Fellow can’t think of everything,” says Jiggins, like he was trying to keep Mark from feeling bad. “Better come back to bed. Need sleep. So do I. So does Collins.”

Mark got out of the canoe, slow as molasses. He didn’t like to come a bit, but he couldn’t help himself.

“N-n-next time,” says he, “I won’t forget anythin’.”

“When’ll next time be?” Jiggins asked, with a sort of chuckle.

“It won’t be to-night,” says Mark.

“There hain’t much time left,” I whispered to him.

“There’s t-to-morrow and t-to-morrow night,” he says.

“Somehow I don’t feel a bit sleepy,” I told Mark.

“N-n-neither do I.” He stopped a minnit and tugged at his button of a nose. “But I’m hungry. L-let’s get somethin’ to eat.”

We rummaged around till we found a box of crackers, and we started in on them.

“Hey!” says Collins, from the tent. “What you up to now?”

“Eatin’,” says Mark.

We heard somebody stirring around, and then Jiggins crawled out.

“What you got?” he asked. “Um. Lemme see. Crackers, eh? Gimme some. Gimme a handful. What you mean, eating without offering me any? Always willing to eat. Always.”

We passed the box to him, and he took half a dozen. You couldn’t get away from it, he was a lot like Mark Tidd. Fat, always hungry, and had a lot of brains. I wondered if Mark would be like him when he grew up, but I thought not. I don’t know why, but there was something different about Mark. It was hard to figure out just what it was, but I guess it was a combination of things. Mark was funnier and liked funny things more. And he was surer of himself. When Mark started to do a thing he never had the least bit of doubt he’d come out all right. Jiggins, it seemed to me, was a little worried at times.

“Got enough?” Collins called. “’Cause I want to get to sleep.”

“That’s why he’s thin,” says Jiggins to Mark. “No interest in food. Always sticking up his nose at eating. Thin. Skinny. Don’t weigh any more’n a good-sized feather. It’s his stomach. Worries about it. Didn’t eat between meals. Silly, eh? We don’t think that way, eh, son?”

“No,” says Mark, with a grin.

It was peculiar how good-natured everybody was. Of course, Jiggins and Collins had a right to be because they’d come out ahead; but Mark and I didn’t hold it up against them. Funny, isn’t it? We chatted as pleasant as if we were close friends instead of genuine enemies and opponents-like. Most folks would have growled and sulked and scowled at each other, but not one of us did. If I’ve got to have enemies that’s the way I’d like to have them.

We turned in pretty quick, and I didn’t know another thing till Collins woke me up in the morning by pouring a cup of water on me. He was laughing like he thought it was funny. So were Jiggins and Mark. Everybody seems to see how comical a thing like that is except the fellow the water falls on.