“Now,” says Mark Tidd when we were on the train again, “I guess we kin go to work l-l-lookin’ for George Piggins.”

“Somethin’ else is apt to happen,” says I. “You can’t never tell.”

“I guess ’most everything has h-happened,” says he. “There hain’t much more left.” Then all of a sudden he give me a poke in the ribs and says, “Tod Nodder.”

“Eh?” says I.

“Tod Nodder,” says he.

“What about him? Tod Nodder hain’t no reason for pokin’ me black and blue.”

“Who was he always loafin’ around with?”

“Why, George Piggins!” says I.

“Never seen one without the other, did you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well?” says he.

“Well yourself,” says I, “and see how you like it.”

“I mean,” says he, “that if anybody in the world knows where George is, the feller is Tod Nodder.”

“Maybe so, but what does that git us?”

“If he knows where George is,” says Mark, “maybe we kin git s-s-somethin’ out of him some way.”

“It’s worth t-tryin’,” says I.

“Anythin’s worth t-tryin’,” says he, “and everythin’s worth tryin’ when you’re in the fix we’re in. For a spell we’ll leave Silas Doolittle Bugg to run the mill. I guess he kin l-look after the manufacturin’ end with what help we kin give, and put all our time on f-findin’ George. We know Wiggamore’s l-lookin’ for him, and Wiggamore’s got money to look with. He kin hire men to do his lookin’. All we got is us and what b-brains we got.”

“Admittin’ we got any,” says I.

It was evening when we got home, but we got hold of Binney and Tallow and told them what had happened and how we was going to get all the freight-cars we needed; and we planned how we would meet next morning early, and two of us would keep watch on Miss Piggins’s house and the other two would lay for Tod Nodder. Mark and I were going after Nodder. That left it so that if anything happened one of each couple could stay to watch while the other went for help or to do any following that was necessary. Mark said it would be a pretty good idea to keep an eye on Wiggamore or any men that he had hanging around town.

That’s the way it turned out. Binney stayed to watch Miss Piggins. Tallow went mogging after a strange man with fancy clothes that let on he was a detective and was working for Wiggamore, and Mark and I went to hunt up Tod Nodder.

You could ’most always tell where to find Tod. It was the place where nobody would be like to come along and offer him a job. Tod was the kind that always complained about not having work, and then took mighty good care to hide somewheres where work couldn’t find him. Lazy! Whoo! Why, he was so lazy when he fished he did it with a night line, and then he hated to pull it in to take off the fish!

We stopped at the mill a minute, and Silas Doolittle come up to us, all excited.

“Say,” says he, “somebody was monkeyin’ around this mill last night. I was passin’ about nine o’clock and I seen a light. I come rushin’ right down. It looked like the light was ’way up toward the roof. Well, I busted right in and went rampagin’ up-stairs, and before I knowed I rammed right into a feller on the stairs. He was comin’ down as fast as I was goin’ up, and the way we come together would ’a’ made a railroad accident jealous. He got the best of it, though, for he was a-comin’ down-stairs. Yes, sir. He lammed right into me and clean upset me so’s I rolled all the way down, and doggone it if I didn’t leave about a peck of skin on them steps. Then he trompled right over the top of me and skedaddled. I couldn’t ketch him and I couldn’t find no harm he’d done. But after this I calc’late I’ll sleep right here into this mill. That’s what I’ll do, and if anybody comes fussin’ around I guess they’ll find out they got Silas Doolittle Bugg to reckon with.”

“Mighty good idee,” says Mark. “Say, we got two freight-cars comin’ in this m-mornin’. Git ’em loaded so’s they’ll ketch the noon freight.”

“Have to have help,” says Silas.

“Hire some of them grocery-store loafers to help,” says Mark. “Us f-fellers has got somethin’ mighty important to look after.”

Well, Mark and I started out then to get our eyes on Tod Nodder and to keep them on him. He wasn’t so easy to find as we thought he would be. Maybe that was because there was a man in town trying to hire folks to do some work on the railroad. Tod would hide away from such a man harder than he would hide from a tribe of scalping Indians. He wasn’t at any of the usual loafing-places, and at the livery-stable where he ’most generally slept they said they hadn’t seen him since daylight. They said he started off somewheres about four o’clock in the morning. Now when a man like Tod Nodder goes somewheres at four o’clock in the morning there are lots of things he might go to do, but there hain’t but one thing he’s very likely to go for, and that’s fish.

After we had rummaged all around and couldn’t come across him Mark says, “Well, the s-s-skeezicks must’a’ gone f-f-fishin’.”

“Where?” says I.

“Tod’s one of these p-pickerel fishermen,” says Mark. “Seems like pickerel and him is mighty fond of each other. So,” says he, “I calc’late we better make for the bayou.”

The bayou was a kind of elbow of the Looking-glass River that flows into the main river just below town. When the railroad came along they built right across that elbow, shutting it off into a kind of a lake shaped like a letter U, and the banks was mostly swampy and all overgrown with underbrush. Seems like the pickerel was fond of hanging around in there, and folks who knew how to fish was always hauling regular whoppers out of there. There was places where the banks were high and where you could take a long pole and fish right from the shore. We sort of figured Tod would pick out one of those places if he was there, on account of its being less work than to row out a boat.

Mark was always thinking ahead a little, so what does he do but go past his house and stop for a lunch. He wasn’t going to be caught out in the country somewheres without anything to eat, not if he knew himself. Then we started off for the bayou, which wasn’t far. We started in at the railroad on one end and just skirted the shore, keeping our eyes open every inch of the way, and, sure enough, along about half-way around we saw a bamboo fish-pole sticking out.

“Injuns,” says Mark Tidd.

“Where?” says I.

“Everywhere. All around us. They’re a r-r-raidin’ party gittin’ ready to bust out on the town and scalp everybody and carry off the wimmin and children. We got to creep up on ’em and f-f-find out their plans and warn Wicksville.”

“I don’t understand no Injun language,” says I.

“I do,” says he. “I learned ’most all the Injun languages when I was a captive among them some time back.”

“Um!” says I. “I forgot about that. Come to think of it, I was one of them cap............