He went to the back of the house and paced off toward the front.
“I calc’late Pekoe’s room is about under here,” says he, and got down on his knees and began working cautious at the plaster between two laths with his knife. He picked and picked, and at last got a hole through about as big around as a lead-pencil, then he got down on his stummick and looked through it.
“Mr. Pekoe,” says he.
“What?” says Pekoe’s voice, kind of muffled-like.
“We’re h-here,” says Mark, “up in the attic. Jethro’s got us cornered, but he don’t know it.”
“That’s where you’re ahead of me,” says he; “Jethro’s got me cornered and he does know it.”
“Tell me all you know about Rock and his f-f-father,” says Mark.
“Don’t know much about Rock,” says Pekoe, “except that his father always kept him in school, and sometimes had pretty hard work to find the money to pay for it. Mostly Big Rock was in South America or Alaska or Burma or Africa or somewheres, trying to find a gold mine or a diamond mine, or somethin’. He never got to the United States at all. He wasn’t a feller that talked much, but when it came to acting well, you can bet he was right there. There never was a squarer pal than Big Rock, and there’s men that loves him from Nome to Cape Town.”
“Where was Rock’s m-m-mother?”
“Big Rock never mentioned her, but I knew she was dead. Been dead since Rock was a little baby. Guess that’s why Big Rock went to globe-trottin’.”