“He wasn’t sich a tough proposition to handle,” says Jethro. “I done it alone.”
“Huh!” says the Man.
“We might go and see what we kin git out of him,” says Jethro.
“All right,” says the Man, and up they got and went tramping up the stairs right over our heads.
“N-n-now,” whispered Mark, and out he ducked and headed for the back of the house. I was right on his heels, you can bet, and if the hall had been wide enough I’ll bet I’d have beat him. I was anxious enough to get somewheres else than where I was. Any change looked like a big improvement to me.
We got into the kitchen, and because we didn’t know the house very well inside, which Mark said was our fault and we ought to suffer for it, we had to prowl around a lot to find the cellar door. That took some time, because it was dark and we dassent make a light, and there were a dozen doors out of that big kitchen, and we had to open every one; we opened slow and cautious so it wouldn’t squeak or anything.
At last we found steps going down. It was as black down there as a lump of charcoal, darker even than it was in the kitchen. But we had to go it blind. One step, two steps, we went, and then Mark Tidd says something startled-like, and all at once I heard the loudest, clangiest, bangiest kind of a noise and then another. Right in front of us! I like to have jumped clean out of my stockings.
Bang! Bang-bang! Clangety-dang-whang-bang! something went, rolling and bumping downstairs ahead of us.
“What’s that?” says I.
“It l-l-looks,” says Mark, “like our f-finish.” That was him all over. He could joke even when we were in a fix like that, and keep as cool as if nothing had happened at all.