“Keep s-still,” says Mark.
“You’ll have to hold my jaw if you want me to,” says I. “The cold makes it wiggle and rattle my teeth.”
“Stuff your cap in your mouth,” says he, which I did. Oh, it was a pleasant party, what with chewing on an old cap and all that!
“Wonder if Tallow and Plunk are on deck,” says I.
“Sure,” says he; “you can always d-d-depend on them.”
“Meanin’,” says I, and feeling sort of peevish, “that you can’t depend on me.”
“You n-notice,” says he, “that I picked you to come with me, don’t you?”
That made me feel pretty good, like praise always does make a fellow, even if he don’t deserve it, and after that the cold wasn’t so chilly nor my clothes so clammy on my back.
After about half an hour, which seemed like a week, we heard a horse coming. It stopped at the end of the bridge and a man got out. He whistled, but nobody answered, and the man started to pacing up and down from one end of the bridge to the other. Then in another ten minutes up came another rig, and a man got out of it.
“I been waitin’ for you,” says the first man.