Batten wasted quite a bit of breath yelling at me, and so did Bill. I guess between them they made racket enough to stir up a good slice of that side of the country. But they were better at yelling than they were at running, and even in the road, where things were easier for them, I kept all of my lead, and even gained some. But they stuck to it. I suppose both of them were pretty mad. There aren’t many things, I’ve noticed, make a grown-up man so mad as to be scared good without any reason, especially if the scaring has been done by a boy. They chased me clean to the bend of the river, and then all at once I heard old Willis letting out screeches and hollers from the house.
Batten stopped as quick as a wink, and Bill stopped, too. I slackened down some myself and listened. Whatever could have happened to the old man I couldn’t figure out, but he was sure enough excited, bawling Batten’s name and things I couldn’t make out and hollering “Help!”
Well, sir, those two men forgot all about me. They turned around and hit for the house. I kept right on going, because I studied it out that Mark and Sammy had been up to something and, whatever it was, it was too late for me to help; and, mad as Batten was, I didn’t think that neighborhood was a very good one for me to be hanging around. It was five miles to town almost, but I set out to walk it.
As I went along I got to thinking about the dog that had been tied up now for three or four hours, and I was sorry for him. “I might as well let him loose,” I says to myself; “he can’t do any harm now.”
He was tied up just around the next bend. When I turned it there was Zadok Biggs’s red wagon, but Zadok wasn’t on top of it. The horse was taking advantage of his opportunity again. I says to myself that if the peddler stopped very often and gave the horse many more opportunities he’d eat so much he couldn’t walk, and then Zadok would have an opportunity to doctor him.
I came up close and called. Zadok answered from back among the trees, and I found him petting the dog and feeding him sandwiches.
He didn’t seem a bit surprised to see me, but went on feeding the dog, and the dog wriggled around and worked his tail back and forth so hard it rocked his hind legs.
“He likes sandwiches,” says Zadok Biggs. “That is an interesting fact. Always make a note of interesting facts. They may some day be of advantage to you—come in handy is the general way of saying it. You see, if you owned a dog like this and had nothing to feed him but sandwiches, you, with this fact in your possession, would not hesitate to give them to him. You would know he liked them. Very interesting and very useful.”
“I’m going to let him go,” says I.
He nodded. “Where is your companion—Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd? A name to admire!”