Then Catty leaned over with his lips close to my ear and whispered.
“I never expected to be mixed up in a real mutiny. Pirate treasure was fine, but who ever would expect to pile mutiny on top of it?”
“Not me,” says I, “or I wouldn’t have come.”
“And we’ll make out to be the heroes—like Jim in Treasure Island,” he says.
“Thank you,” says I, “none on my plate. I got enough.”
“Why,” says he, “it’ll give you something to think about all the rest of your life.”
“Seeing,” says I, “that my life ain’t apt to last much more’n a few hours, that isn’t much comfort.”
“Rats,” says he, “the heroes always get out of it somehow. I never read a book where the hero came to much harm.”
“This,” says I, “isn’t any book. This is awful real. There’s a real box corner prodding a hole in my hide. This is a real tarpaulin that’s choking us to death. Those are real men with arms and legs....”
“Fiddlesticks,” says he. “We’re in for the adventure of our lives. We’ve got to circumvent these mutineers and save Jonas P. On top of that, we’ve got to grab the treasure for Mr. Browning and Mr. Topper, and——”
“I know the undertaker back home,” says I, “and I never liked him.”
“Who you’ll get to know,” says he, “is the president of the bank. And if this goes right, he’ll take off his hat to you the next time you pass.”
“Folks,” says I, “and even the bank presidents, take off their hats to funeral processions.”
“A little sleep wouldn’t do me any harm,” says I.
“Maybe it can be done,” says I, “but I haven’t ever got used to sleeping on the corner of a case of canned corn. The difficulty,” says I, “is where to put my feet.”
“Um.... Let’s fix up a place to be comfortable,” says Catty. “It’s dark enough, and with this mutiny plot going on, nobody’s going to keep close watch. We’ll make us a cave,” says he.
“You go ahead,” says I, “and when it’s done call me.”
“I mean it,” says he. “We can shift these boxes, and kind of pile them around, and make a space in the middle big enough to lie down in. It’ll be safer, too. Kind of a hiding place.”
It turned out to be easier than I thought. We just shifted cases and rucked them away cautious and piled them in a tier around a spot about five feet square, right slam in the middle of the pile. It took a half an hour, because we had to work slow and be careful not to make any noise. When it was done Catty says, “I’ll take the first watch and you snooze. In two hours I’ll wake you and it’ll be your watch.”