“Huh!” says Mark, after a couple of minutes. “Rock’s all right. Know what he did?”
“No,” says I. “What?”
“Got on top of the fence and went along. Maybe took off his shoes, because the t-top rail hain’t scratched up anywheres. Figgered he wouldn’t leave any trail. What with his doublin’ back and f-f-forth, we don’t know which way he’s aimin’. Maybe he went up and maybe he went down. He’s a good one, all right.”
“Too good for us,” says I, sort of discouraged.
“Huh!” says Mark, like he didn’t like my saying that very well.
“What’ll we do?” says I.
“Eat,” says he, “and then hunt both ways. Separate like we did below.”
“All right,” says I, and that’s what we did. But not a sign had either of us seen of him when we met at the office just before supper-time. Rock had just naturally up and disappeared.
CHAPTER XII
We had to forget about Rock for the next day, anyhow, and go to the county-seat to see about that political printing. It was two hours’ ride on the train, but we enjoyed that and made use of it planning how we’d go to work to land the business. At least Mark planned and I listened while he did it. But, somehow or other, the plans we made weren’t the ones we carried out. Not by a long shot. If they had been Mark wouldn’t have been as famous in the State as he is to-day among men that follow up politics for a living, and among newspaper men.