“P-p-pickles,” stuttered Mark, as disgusted as could be.
We all crowded to the window and looked out. I half expected to see the men getting ready to batter down the door, but Mark was right, after all. They weren’t doing anything violent, and they didn’t look as if they would. That was some comfort. Collins was standing with his back to us, talking to Jiggins, who sat on the ground with his back to a tree. We could hear him singing all the time in that funny way of his: “Dum-diddle-diddle-dee-diddle,” and so on. It made you want to throw something at him.
After a while they agreed on something, and Collins started out of the clearing.
“S-s-supplies,” says Mark. “The enemy’s goin’ to settle down for a s-s-siege.”
There he was off at a game again. It didn’t seem to matter what came up, Mark had to pretend something. This time we found out we were a party of explorers who had run onto a mysterious tribe of white men in the middle of Africa. These white men didn’t want to be discovered at all, so they were after us hot and heavy. We’d made a bully fight, Mark said, but there were too many of them for us, so we sought refuge in a cavern where they could come at us only one at a time.
“We g-g-got to sell our lives dear,” says Mark.
“Can’t we make a rush for it?” I suggested.
“’Twouldn’t be no use. There’s th-th-thousands of ’em all around us. You d-don’t think they’d let us g-git away with the s-s-sacred jewel, do you?”
“Oh,” says I, “we got the sacred jewel, did we? I thought we were chased out before we got hands on it.”
Mark shook his head and then wagged it from side to side. I really think he believed what he said and thought for the minnit that we were really what we were playing we were.
“No,” says he, puffed-up-like, and proud as a pigeon. “While you fellows was fightin’ ’em off I made a g-g-grab for the jewel and got it. See!” He held up a white door-knob he’d found some place. “It’ll make us all rich,” says he, “maybe—who knows? But if we take it to some king or queen or somethin’ they’ll m-m-make dukes or e-earls of us.”
“Bully,” says Plunk. “I want to be a markiss.”
“You’re m-more like to git burned at the stake,” says Mark.
We took another peek out of the window. Jiggins was still sitting under his tree, not ten feet from the door, and it did look as if his eyes were shut.