That was Mark all over. He’d stick to you like a corn-plaster, and he wouldn’t quit sticking till he’d got you out of any fix you were in. Of course I couldn’t go off, either, and not know what had happened, so we climbed out of the mud and started into the woods after the men.
We didn’t go far, though, before we heard them coming back, and laid down behind some bushes till they were past. They didn’t have any captives, so we knew the kids were safe.
“Well,” says Mark, when it was safe to move along again, “we know one thing. We know where our master, the Duke, is imprisoned.”
“Oh,” says I, “do we?”
“Yes,” says he, “he’s shut up in Castle Wigglesworth, and they won’t l-let him use his own name, but call him Rock. The next thing on our program is to t-t-try to get a chance to talk to him and l-look over the lay of the land.”
We went on back to the printing-office as quick as we could, and Plunk and Tallow were there looking pretty scratched up and dilapidated, and frightened a little, I guess. Mark didn’t say a word about Tallow’s sneezing, though Tallow looked pretty guilty. But Mark knew Tallow didn’t do it on purpose, and he never lit into a fellow much, anyhow. If you did something that was wooden-headed he might look at you so you’d wish the floor would open up and let you through, but that would be all. Oh, he was a bully fellow to go into things with, all right.
“Now,” says he, “we b-better get to bed. To-morrow Binney and I are goin’ to Wigglesworth Castle to t-try to see the Duke and to get a squint at that p-puzzle paper he’s got. Maybe there’s somethin’ important in it. Bet there is.”
And we all headed for home.
CHAPTER VIII
“What’s in the box?” says I to Mark Tidd next morning, when we had started out toward what he was still calling Castle Wigglesworth.