Pretty soon we couldn’t even hear the tin-peddler’s whistle, and Mark got up onto his feet, painful-like. He stretched, which was taking a chance on busting out some seams, and yawned. Lots of things Mark Tidd does look funny, but if there’s anything more comical a fat boy can do than yawn I’d give something to see it.

“Just an hour,” says he, “to f-find that opportunity.”

“Might not take ten minutes,” I says. “From what I know of opportunities they’re onreliable. They’re just as apt to catch you early in the mornin’ as late at night. No tellin’ when they come prowlin’ around.”

“We’ll go ahead like I p-planned for an hour. Then we’ll go home if nothin’ hasn’t turned up.”

“Good!” says I. “That suits me down to the ground.”

“There ain’t but sixty minutes in an hour,” says he, “and every one that gits away from you is one less you got. Let’s be stirrin’ around.”

“Stir ahead,” I told him, getting onto my feet. “Get your old spoon to workin’.”

Mark was looking at Sammy with a kind of glint in his eye. He didn’t need to tell me he was thinking of some use to put that big fellow to; you could see it sticking out all over him.

“Um,” says he. “You’re too dangerous-lookin’ to waste, Sammy.”

Sammy grinned like it was the finest compliment a boy could think of, and wriggled his toes. Well, sir, that was all Mark needed to give him an idea—just the wiggling of a toe.

“That’s the ticket,” he says in his tickled-to-death voice. “Wasn’t there a fresh-spaded flower-bed just in front of the porch there, Tallow?”

“All raked over and as neat as a pin,” I says. “Bet the seeds hain’t been planted six hours.”

“It’s where they’ll be s-s-sure to see it.”

“Right under anybody’s nose that comes out on the porch.”

“Fine! We’ll give ’em somethin’ to look at, then. Now, Sammy, listen to what I’m a-goin’ to say to you, and listen good. You jest make believe all of you is Injun and that you’re a-crawlin’ up on a camp of enemies. The camp of enemies is the house, and if you git seen they’ll more’n likely burn you at the stake. Well, you go mouchin’ along till you git to that flower-bed, and then you up and step careful right in the middle of it with that b-b-busted foot of yours. Leave a good, plain mark like was in the sand at the cave. Then come back a-kitin’.”

Sammy grinned some more and wriggled his hands and sort of twisted all over like a cat does when it wants you to feed it. We watched him crawl down along the hedge, and then all at once he ducked out of sight, and, no matter how we strained our eyes, we couldn’t catch even a wabble of the bushes.

“If it looks as mysterious to Batten as it did to us I guess they’ll do considerable wonderin’ about it,” I says.

We sat pretty anxious and quiet waiting for Sammy to come back. It didn’t look to us like the folks in the house could do Sammy harm once he got a start, but somebody might come onto him unexpected and swat him with something; and then where’d we be, with nobody to carry the turbine if we did manage to get a hold on it? But we needn’t have worried. The first thing we knew there was Sammy standing right by us, chuckling like all get out.

“Sammy step on flower-bed. Sammy careful—oh, very careful. Make foot show plain. Make Sammy’s funny foot show in dirt. Sammy helps, eh? Big help?”

“You b-bet Sammy’s a help,” Mark told him, and patted him on the back. “We never’d git anywheres without you, would we, Tallow?”

“I should say not,” I says, just as solemn as I could; and maybe you think Sammy wasn’t tickled. Why, he most wiggled out of his skin!

“I’m goin’ to sneak over and see if anything happens,” says I. “I kin hide among the evergreens and watch. It ought to be worth seein’.”

“Don’t go takin’ no r-r-risks.” Mark like to have strangled over the last word. “Keep your ears open, and if I whistle the whistle, come a-runnin’.”

I went around in front and wriggled through the hedge. Nobody was in sight around the house, so I squirmed up, dodging from tree to tree until I was only about twenty feet away from the steps. There I crouched down among the prickles of a fat evergreen and waited. I could see the steps as plain as could be, but you’d have had to hunt for me careful to have found me, even if you knew I was hiding around.

Well, it wasn’t more than ten minutes before Bill came out rubbing his hand like he’d been writing or drawing and the muscles were tired. He sat down on the top step and pulled a cigar out of his vest. I could see the red-and-gold band around it. He bit off the end and struck a match. I was interested to see how he snapped the match away, and made up my mind to try it myself. He shot it just like I’d shoot a marble, and it went straight. It fell right on Willis’s flower-bed. Now, when you snap a thing that way you always watch to see if you hit what you shot at, or, anyhow, to see where you do hit, and Bill saw the match strike right alongside of Sammy’s footprint. I saw him lean forward quick and stretch his neck. He grabbed a hold on the post and pulled himself up, and then walked over to the bed. He leaned over, knelt down, and I could hear him grunt with surprise.

“Well,” says he to himself, “well.”

In a minute he got up and went into the house. Before long he came back with Batten, and both of them looked at the footprint.

“What is it?” says Bill.

Batten looked kind of funny and shook his head.

“Look at them toes,” Bill says, after a while. “Look at ’em, growin’ right out of the side of the foot. No man ever made that,” says he.

“Too big,” Batten agreed, shaking his head some more.

“There’s only one footprint. I looked,” Bill says. “It hasn’t made a mark anywhere else around. I don’t like it, not me. Feet with toes off to the side and bells ringin’ without anybody to ring ’em. I tell you I don’t like it.”

“Shucks!” Batten snorted.

“Well, what made it, then? Looks as if it didn’t have but one leg and come down out of the air just to make a footprint. I wish we was a good ways away from here.”

“So do I, but not on account of the bells or the tracks in the dirt.”

“I never took any stock in ghosts, but that track makes me shiver—and them bells ringin’. And old Willis is so scairt he can’t eat.”

“Come on,” Batten says, sort of savage, “let’s skirmish around the yard and see if we can’t see what’s doing it all.”

“Batten, you can skirmish all you want to, but not for me. I ain’t hankerin’ to meet the thing that made that mark, not me.”

“Shucks!” Batten growled again. “Get a club and come on.”

That sounded fine to me, I can tell you. Get a club and come on! I was afraid enough of them without clubs, so I waited just long enough to let them turn their backs, and off I was. I couldn’t get out of the yard, though, before they were back, and each of them had a cane big enough to knock a horse down with. They didn’t separate—seemed like both of them wanted company—but they did begin poking all over the front yard. Every chance I got I edged away farther, and I managed to keep a bush between the men and me all the time. At last I had to take a chance of being seen or else get caught, for they had me cornered, so I watched for the best time, and up and dived through the hedge like I was jumping off a spring-board. I landed all in a heap outside.

“What’s that?” Batten says, sharp.

“Somethin’ went slam through the hedge—somethin’ heavy.”

You can just be sure I didn’t wait. I picked myself up and skedaddled, keeping close to the bushes, and was safe and sound before they got up courage to look over at the place I dived through.

“They’re consid’rable stirred up,” I says to Mark, when I got back. “You ought to have seen Batten and Bill look at that track.”

“Did it s-s-scare ’em?” He was excited as could be.

“Scare ’em! Huh, I bet they won’t go to bed in the dark for a month. Let’s not give ’em any rest. Jest keep whangin’ away at ’em all the time that’s left to us.”

“Well, then, git over where you were behind the fence, and we’ll give ’em some more ghost-ringin’.”

I went crawling back, and got into my fence corner all right. I’d been so lucky getting one place and another without being seen that I was feeling pretty well satisfied with myself and figuring that I was about as good, maybe, as Leatherstocking an............