It was early in the morning yet—before seven. Folks in Wicksville were just getting up, but it seemed to Mark and me that we’d been awake a week. For a while we didn’t do anything but sit on the sand in front of the cave and wish we had something to eat or that somebody we could trust would come along. But there wasn’t a bit of use wishing.

“We should have had a telephone put in the cave,” I told Mark. “It certainly would come in handy this morning.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He just got up and went inside the cave, where he began rummaging around in the hope of finding a few potatoes we had overlooked. There were pans to cook with and fishing-tackle and Ku Klux Klan disguises, but it was precious little good any of them did. I saw him pick up a sheet and hood and stand looking at it.

“Not goin’ to try eatin’ that, are you?” I called to him.

“No,” says he. “I was just wonderin’ if we couldn’t put the Klan to some good use.”

“If we could only signal to Plunk an’ Binney.”

“But we can’t,” he says. “What I wish is that I could get my jack-knife to Uncle Ike Bond. He’d know it was a signal to hurry to the cave, and he would hurry.”

“That’s right,” says I. “We never used any signs on him just for fun. He warned us about that. If we could get the knife to him he’d know it was serious. But what’s the use talkin’ about it; we might as well hope for an airship to come swoopin’ down and carry us safely home.”

Mark covered up the turbine with sheets and came out where I was. “Let’s walk to the road again. No, I’ll go to the road, and you stay with the turbine. If anybody comes you holler like s-s-sixty.”

“All right,” says I; “but don’t be gone long.”

He climbed up to the road and sat down on a big stone under a butternut tree.

Maybe fifteen minutes went along before he heard anything, and then it was a whistle from up the river way, and the tune it whistled was “Marching Through Georgia.”

Then the tin-peddler’s red wagon came into sight, with Zadok Biggs sitting on the seat, his head back, as we had first seen him, taking it easy, enjoying the morning, and whistling so the birds must have been jealous. Maybe they thought Zadok Biggs was some sort of a bird himself; if they did, birds must be able to stretch their imaginations considerable.

Mark never was so glad to see anybody in his life. He stepped out into the road and waited. Zadok came driving along without seeing him until Mark spoke; then he straightened up, looked at Mark, and slapped his leg. He slapped it again and chuckled, and began talking to the horse.

“Rosinante,” he says, “there he stands! There stands Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd. Observe him—look at him is the way people usually say it. Mind what I said about opportunity, Rosinante. Here stands Marcus Aurelius, who has had an opportunity. We shall pause—stop—shall we not, to inquire what he did with it.” He swung his little legs sideways over the edge of the seat and stared down at Mark.

“Opportunity,” says he, “and Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus. Um! It knocked, so to speak. Were you in?”

“Well,” says Mark, “I wasn’t f-f-far off.”

“Good! Excellent! I said so. I told young Martin you would not disappoint me. I would have been disappointed. I, Zadok Biggs, am your friend, your friend for life, and I would have been grieved. You got the—the turbine?” He shot the last question at Mark like it was a pea out of a pea-blower. It came out with a sort of poof.

Mark nodded. “I got it; but it ain’t safe yet.”

“So? You are perturbed—worried is the commoner word. I am not. I have confidence in you. How could one named Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd let failure roost in the nest of success? A figure of speech that, a sort of metaphor. You understand me?”

“I guess so. What I want to know is, will you do me a f-f-favor?”

“A favor? Will Zadok Biggs do a favor for Marcus Aurelius! Anything, even to the half of my kingdom, as the kings in the Bible used to say. I am yours. Command me!”

“It ain’t much. Just take this jack-knife to Uncle Ike Bond, the bus driver. Give it to him and say it’s from me.”

“Why,” says Zadok, surprised, “what’s this.” He was disappointed, likely, at the littleness and commonness of the favor Mark asked. Then his long, lean face lightened up and he slapped his leg again. “I perceive—understand is the word in general use. It is a token, a signal. Excellent! You are coming up to my expectations. Now who would have expected this?” He leaned over so far Mark thought he’d fall off the wagon, and stared at him so admiringly that Mark blushed. “A remarkable lad,” Zadok went on. “My friend for life. Will I deliver the knife? Will I? Will Zadok Biggs? Just pass it up to me and see.”

Mark handed up the knife, and Zadok shoved it into his pocket. Then he shook the lines and waked up his horse, who had taken the opportunity to go to sleep, and started off. “I will hasten—hurry is the less dignified word. Uncle Ike Bond shall have the knife. I shall say it comes from Marcus Aurelius, who knows an opportunity when he sees it. Good-by. Remember Zadok Biggs. He is your friend for life. Remember him.”

We both felt a little easier in our minds with the message sent to Uncle Ike. Of course we couldn’t tell how long he might be coming to us, for sometimes he had to drive folks into the country, and sometimes he was off fishing, so it was possible Zadok Biggs would have considerable bother finding him. But we knew he’d come sometime, and that was better than not having any hope at all.

“Well,” says Mark, “we might as well do somethin’ while we’re waitin’.”

“Sure!” says I. “Let’s git up a game to pass away the time.”

Mark thought a minute. He was fine at getting up new games, because he had read so many histories and books of adventure. All he had to do was to remember some bully story, and right off he’d make a game out of it. “Let’s pertend,” says he, “that you and me are sentinels left to g-g-guard this treasure-cave. It’s got a jewel into it as big as your fist. We’ll make b’lieve the turbine is the jewel, and it is worth more’n a billion dollars. There was a party of us captured this jewel out of a heathen temple, and everybody but us had gone to git help. We’re bein’ pursued by the heathens, and they’ve found us here, and right this minute they’re besiegin’ us. How’s that?”

“Fine,” says I. “I kin see more’n fifty of ’em a-sneakin’ around down among the trees and rocks. Looks to me like they was gittin’ ready to make a charge.”

“We got to git am-am-munition. If our supply gives out we’d be easy prey for em.”

So we went to work gathering sling-shot pebbles—nice smooth, round ones. We had to sally out into the open to get them, and that was taking a chance, with all those heathens shooting away at us with bows and arrows; but by ducking and dodging we made out to fill our pockets and get back safe. Between us we had a couple of pecks of stones.

“There,” says Mark; “that’ll stand ’em off a while.”

We got out our sling-shots just in time. The enemy was creeping up on us, thinking to take us by surprise, but we whanged away at them like sharp-shooters, and it was pretty seldom we missed. Mostly we struck the heathen in vital spots, so that they threw up their arms with a screech and fell dead, rolling over down the hill. Twice we stopped regular charges, and in fifteen minutes or so the foe was pretty badly discouraged.

They retreated right down to the shore of the river, where their war-canoes were, with us a-firing after them as fast as we could shoot. Then for the first time we dared take a breath and look around us. It was lucky we did, for there, not a hundred yards off, were Henry C. Batten and Bill landing out of a boat. Batten looked up at us and grinned.

My stomach all of a sudden went hollow, and my knees got so weak I sat down without intending to. Yes, sir, I went right down ker-plunk. Those men popping up like that took the wind clean out of my sails, and no mistake. Mark wasn’t any better off, either. He looked like somebody had up and poured a pitcher of ice-water down his back.

If I’d been all alone I’d have up and run, but with Mark there I was ashamed to. He couldn’t run, for two reasons: first, he was too fat to go very fast; and, second, he wasn’t the running kind. We knew there was help coming, too, but how long it would be before it got here we hadn’t the faintest idea; it might come too late.

Mark was scared at first, I could see it, but in a minute he got mad, real good and snapping mad, to think of all the trouble we’d had getting the engine back, and then to have these men drop in when it was most safe. It didn’t look fair any way you took it.

“Tallow,” says he, “you can do what you want to, but I’m going to stay and f-f-fight.”

Well, what could I do? I just took a long breath and says, “All right, Mark, but I don’t see what good it’s goin’ to do.”

“They sha’n’t get that turbine as long as I kin s-s-stand up,” he stuttered.

“It looks,” says I, “as if we was in for a hard fall, then.”

Batten said something to Bill, and both of them started up the bank.

“Git back there,” Mark yells.

Batten laughed out loud, which wasn’t a very good thing to do. Never laugh at folks when you’ve got them cornered, because it’s likely to get their dander up, and no telling what’ll happen. It made me so mad to hear Batten laugh that way that, unconscious-like, I just hauled off with my sling-shot and sailed a pebbl............