Mark Tidd, Editor Part 40

"Guess so," says I.

"That's why we're after it," says he. "Besides," he says, "the young Duke's in t-trouble, and a feller that won't help another feller out when he's in t-trouble hain't much good."

Well, _that_ was so.

Pretty soon it commenced to get dark, and from then the time went slower and slower. Neither of us had a watch, so we couldn't tell what time it was, and we decided to go up on top of the tower to listen if we could hear the town clock in Wicksville. We kept on listening a long time, and then it struck. Eight o'clock, it said, and I would have been willing to bet a minute before that it was ten at least.

"If you wait l-l-long enough," says Mark, with a grin, "any l-length of time pa.s.ses by."

I hadn't ever thought of that before, but you could see right off that it was so. Mark was always discovering new things.

That's how it happened now. We kept on waiting, and after a couple of years the town clock struck ten. Then we waited what we judged was a half an hour.

"Jethro ought to be in b-bed now," says Mark.

"If he's ever goin'," says I.

"T-take off your shoes," says Mark, which we both did, and crept down the attic stairs as quiet as a couple of cats. We opened the door into the second-floor hall pretty cautious, and listened. There wasn't a sound. Then we sneaked along the hall to the top of the stairs, and still we didn't hear a thing. I kept wis.h.i.+ng we could hear a good, snorting snore, and then we'd be sure Jethro was out of the way.

After a minute we went down the first-floor stairs, and was just at the bottom and turning toward the back of the house when the front-door bell rang. I 'most jumped out of my skin. We stood stalk still a second, and then we heard a sound in a room at the left like somebody getting up out of a chair.

"Quick!" says Mark, and he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into a little sort of cubbyhole under the stairs.

And then out came Jethro, as big as life and natural enough to scare the life out of me. He marched right past us so close we could have touched him, and went to the door.

Well, sir, when we heard the man's voice that he let in you could have bought _me_ for a peanut shuck. It was the Man With the Black Gloves.

Mark pinched my arm.

Right then I says to myself that being a newspaper man was all right-if you kept on being one all in a healthy piece-but as for me, I'd rather be something else and safe in bed.

Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves went right past us and into the library, where they lighted the lamp and left the doors open. The light shone right out into the hall, and they sat down facing the door, looking right out in our direction. We couldn't have moved out of that cubby-hole an inch without being seen. It was a dandy place to be, I don't think!

The worst of it was they talked low so we couldn't hear a word they said, until at last the Man With the Black Gloves sort of raised his voice, angry-like, and says:

"We got to get that kid out of here. Right away."

That was all we heard, but Mark laid his fingers on my hand and pressed.

I knew what he meant all right. What he meant was it was lucky we heard _that_, and we'd have to get awful busy awful quick.

After a while we made out another thing he said, which was, "The kid's father's dead. Central America. Months ago. No danger from him."

Well, we had later news about Big Rock than that. Then Jethro says: "This Pekoe don't know anythin'. There's nothin' he can tell the boy."

"But he can snoop around and get suspicious," says the Man With the Black Gloves, "and he's no man to fool with-not if he's been a partner of Big Rock Armitage."

"He wasn't sich a tough proposition to handle," says Jethro. "I done it alone."

"Huh!" says the Man.

"We might go and see what we kin git out of him," says Jethro.

"All right," says the Man, and up they got and went tramping up the stairs right over our heads.

"N-n-now," whispered Mark, and out he ducked and headed for the back of the house. I was right on his heels, you can bet, and if the hall had been wide enough I'll bet I'd have beat him. I was anxious enough to get somewheres else than where I was. Any change looked like a big improvement to me.

We got into the kitchen, and because we didn't know the house very well inside, which Mark said was our fault and we ought to suffer for it, we had to prowl around a lot to find the cellar door. That took some time, because it was dark and we da.s.sent make a light, and there were a dozen doors out of that big kitchen, and we had to open every one; we opened slow and cautious so it wouldn't squeak or anything.

At last we found steps going down. It was as black down there as a lump of charcoal, darker even than it was in the kitchen. But we had to go it blind. One step, two steps, we went, and then Mark Tidd says something startled-like, and all at once I heard the loudest, clangiest, bangiest kind of a noise and then another. Right in front of us! I like to have jumped clean out of my stockings.

_Bang! Bang-bang! Clangety-dang-whang-bang!_ something went, rolling and b.u.mping downstairs ahead of us.

"What's that?" says I.

"It l-l-looks," says Mark, "like our f-finish." That was him all over.

He could joke even when we were in a fix like that, and keep as cool as if nothing had happened at all.

"Did you kick somethin' over?" says I.

"Oh no," says he. "It j-just went for an evenin' stroll all by itself.

Calc'late it was the sheet-iron wash-tub settin' here g-gossipin' with the boiler," says he.

"And Jethro'll be here in a second gossipin' with us," says I.

We lighted a match then. It was time to hustle about as fast as we could hustle, and you can't do that when it's so dark you can't pinch your own nose and feel it, even if you could find your nose to pinch.

When the light flared up we found we were half-way down the stairs, and that the stairs went between two brick walls and didn't go right into the big cellar, but into a kind of little hall, and that there was a door about six feet from the bottom step. That led into the cellar.

We scooted for the door.

"G-good heavy door," says Mark. "Slam her s-shut."

I did, not worrying much about noise now, and then we both lighted matches to see what chances was standing around offering themselves to a couple of boys who wished they was off in Africa or at the North Pole instead of in Mr. Wigglesworth's cellar.

The room we were in was a big one, the whole width of the house. Toward the front of the house was a brick wall, with doors in it that led to other parts of the cellar. The door we came through was the only one into the room from the back.

"B-b-barricade the door," says Mark, and we set to work piling things against it. There were quite a few heavy things there, which was our first piece of luck that night, and the way we pulled and hauled and jerked them in front of that door would have done your heart good. In three minutes it would have taken an elephant to push it open.

"There," says Mark, "n-now we got to see if there's another stairway down here."

We scurried into the other parts of the cellar, but there wasn't another stairs. Anybody that got us now would have to come the way we did, or through a window, and the cellar windows were little, narrow ones that neither Jethro nor the Man With the Black Gloves could have got through to save their lives.

We were safe for a while, anyhow.

"Here's a lamp," says I; "let's light her up. Somehow I feel easier in my mind when it hain't pitch dark."

"Go ahead," says Mark, so I lighted up, and just then somebody came pounding down the stairs and stumbled over the tin things that had given us away, and banged against the door.

Of course the door wouldn't open.