“What makes you think George Piggins is on Big Hole Island?” says I to Mark when we met early the next morning. I didn’t see why he should hit on that place for George to hide. The world looked like a pretty good-sized place to me, and I couldn’t see any reason for picking a couple of acres of marshy ground out of it. But he had some reason and I wanted to know what it was.

“Well,” says he, “you know George.”

“I do,” says I.

“What’s the m-m-main thing about George? If you was g-goin’ to p-pick out somethin’ that George was famous for, what would it be?”

“Laziness,” says I.

“Well?” says he, as if that settled it right there.

“Well what?” says I.

He sort of scowled impatient, as if it made him have a pain somewheres to have to talk to a person that was as dumb-headed as I was, and says, “How far would a lazy man row a b-b-boat?”

“Not farther than he could help,” says I.

“Right the first time,” says he. “Now what’s the nearest place a man could hide—that he has to git to in a boat?”

“Why,” says I, “I guess Big Hole Island.”

“Sure,” says he, “and we know he’s on an island, because if he wasn’t he wouldn’t use a boat. He’d ride a horse or walk. Both is easier’n rowin’ a scow. So he’s on an island, and the nearest island is Big Hole, which p-proves that’s where he is.”

“Have it your own way,” says I, “and let’s git started.”

Now my way of getting to Big Hole Island would have been to take a boat and row there as fast as I could, but not Mark. He always had to do things the hardest way, and he had to be secret about it and drag in a lot of pertending and that sort of stuff. He wouldn’t just walk up to George Piggins and tell him all about it, but he’d have to make up a lot of things so that by the time we got there we would all be tired out and ready to quit. Besides, he said George would run if he saw us coming, and that we’d have to sneak up on him. Just where he would run to on Big Hole Island I didn’t see. He couldn’t run more than a couple of hunderd feet in any direction, and if he went to running circles around the shore I figgered we boys could soon tire him out at that; but Mark wouldn’t have it so.

His idea was for us to walk up to the shore across from Big Hole and then to swim to the island. We was to be a party of scouts and George Piggins was an Injun chief that was off alone making medicine and getting ready to turn his braves loose on the whites in the biggest Injun war that ever was. Mark’s notion was that if we caught the chief and carried him off it would spoil the whole war, and then maybe the Injuns wouldn’t ever uprise any more, but would become tame and gentle forever after. The notion of George Piggins as an Injun chief made me snicker. Why, any sort of a decent Injun would be ashamed to slam a tomahawk into George for fear of soiling it; and as for wearing George’s scalp, I’ll bet you couldn’t find even a squaw that would do it for money.

“I’m g-g-goin’ to make this Injun sign a treaty never to butcher any more whites,” says Mark, “and I went to a lawyer to get it done right.” At that he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and showed it to me. On top it said “Option” in big letters, and then there was a lot of legal words and a place to have George sign his name and for witnesses to sign their names.

“’Tain’t no treaty,” says I. “That’s just business, like the time we bought the store in Sunfield.”

“Huh!” says he. “I guess we kin pertend it was a treaty, can’t we?”

“We kin pertend it’s a bunch of bananas or a ham or a two-headed hoo-hoo bird,” says I, “but that don’t make it so.”

“It does while we’re pertendin’ it,” says he, as stubborn as a mule. “Anythin’ s-s-so while you’re p-pertendin’ it.”

That was the way with him. Yes, sir, whatever he pertended he believed was so while he was at it. And he acted as if it was so and talked as if it was so. Which hain’t all. He managed somehow to make the rest of us feel just like he did. There was times when we had some mighty fine adventures that way—that was real adventures till we woke up and found out we’d just been pertendin’.

Anyhow, we started up the river toward the island, and made pretty good time in spite of having to hide every now and then because hostile bands was monkeying around. At last we got into the woods just across from Big Hole and scrooched down to see if we could catch a sight of George. We couldn’t. Not even a sign of smoke like he had been cooking his breakfast. But that wasn’t so surprising, for the island was all over trees and bushes and vines, and a lot of it was swampy. There was a time once when folks used to have picnics there, and then there was a little floating bridge across that used to get about ankle-deep with water when a crowd walked over it; but that was a long time ago, and now there wasn’t much left except a tumble-down dance-floor with a roof and no sides, with a refreshment counter across one end. Mark judged George would most likely be living somewheres in that old dance-hall.

“S-swim over one at a t-time,” says Mark. “Each f-feller pull up a bush and hold it in his teeth and come down with the current. Then the chief’ll think it’s jest a bush adrift and won’t suspect it’s a party comin’ to capture him.”

“Who first?” says I.

“Me,” says Mark.

“I’m the best swimmer,” says Tallow, which he was by long odds.

“Don’t make no d-difference. It’s my p-place to go first,” says Mark, and that settled it. It was just as if he was going into real danger, and he almost believed he was. That was the way he would have acted, anyhow. You never saw him dodge or try to get out of doing his share and more than his share whenever a pinch came.

So we all took off our clothes and did them up in bundles, and we got us each a bush, and Mark started off. It was only about a hunderd-foot swim, but there was quite some current. Now maybe Mark Tidd looked like a bush floating down-stream to an Injun on the island, but to me on the shore he looked more like a hippopotamus carrying home his dinner. Anyhow, he got across, and then came Tallow, and then me, and Binney last. We all got there safe and sound and pulled on our clothes and held a council of war.

Mark laid out a lot of plans about how we would surround the Injun chief and pounce on him before he could get his hand onto his tomahawk, and how we would tie him to a tree and all that. But I says:

“Hain’t it a good idee to find out if he’s here before we catch him? ’Cause if we pounce when there hain’t nobody to pounce onto we kind of waste work.”

“He’s got to be here,” says Mark. “Everythin’ p-p-points that way. It wouldn’t be reasonable for him to be any place else.”

“It’s all right to reason somethin’ out,” says I, “and maybe you can do it and feel sure in your mind it’s so; but for me, jest give me one peek at George Piggins and I’ll believe he’s here.”

“Listen,” says Mark. “I kin p-p-prove it easy. Jest start out and skirmish around the island till you f-f-find his boat. It’ll be close to the shore, because he’s too lazy to pull it up far. When you find the boat you’ll know he’s here, won’t you?”

“I’ll feel reasonably certain,” says I.

“Then scoot,” says he.

I took off as fast as I could go—that is, as fast as I could crawl on my stummick, for Mark said I had to go that way. Well, I hadn’t gone far, sort of poking my head in front of me regardless, when all of a sudden it brought up against a plank with a bump that made me see a Fourth of July celebration, and when I got so I could see what was going on, why, it was George’s boat! Sure enough Mark had reasoned it out right. I might have known he would.

So I ra............