Right in the edge of the woods Mark stopped and picked up a cap.
“There,” says he.
“Rock’s?” says I.
“He was wearin’ it when I saw it l-last,” says he.
“Must ’a’ been in a hurry, not to pick it up.”
“P-panic,” says Mark. “He got to runnin’ across the f-field and then got scairt. It works that way. Once you start to run, the idee gits into your head s-somebody’s chasin’ you hard. I’ll bet Rock thought Jethro was right onto his heels. He didn’t stop for anythin’.”
“Hope he hain’t runnin’ yet,” says I.
“Can’t tell,” says Mark, “but I was right about the way he went, eh?”
You see, when he did a thing that was pretty bright he liked to have folks tell him so. Not that he was what you’d call vain. He wasn’t, and he wasn’t all excited about himself, either, but he was funny that way, and I guess we liked him all the better on account of it. So I told him he was right about it, and that it was a good job of figgering things out. And I was telling him what was so, too, for it was a good job. I wouldn’t have thought out what Rock had done in forty years.
We cut straight through the woods to the river, but when we came to it we stopped, for we didn’t know whether Rock went up-stream or down, or waded across.