“We should have had a telephone put in the cave,” I told Mark. “It certainly would come in handy this morning.”
Mark didn’t say anything. He just got up and went inside the cave, where he began rummaging around in the hope of finding a few potatoes we had overlooked. There were pans to cook with and fishing-tackle and Ku Klux Klan disguises, but it was precious little good any of them did. I saw him pick up a sheet and hood and stand looking at it.
“Not goin’ to try eatin’ that, are you?” I called to him.
“No,” says he. “I was just wonderin’ if we couldn’t put the Klan to some good use.”
“If we could only signal to Plunk an’ Binney.”
“But we can’t,” he says. “What I wish is that I could get my jack-knife to Uncle Ike Bond. He’d know it was a signal to hurry to the cave, and he would hurry.”
“That’s right,” says I. “We never used any signs on him just for fun. He warned us about that. If we could get the knife to him he’d know it was serious. But what’s the use talkin’ about it; we might as well hope for an airship to come swoopin’ down and carry us safely home.”
Mark covered up the turbine with sheets and came out where I was. “Let’s walk to the road again. No, I’ll go to the road, and you stay with the turbine. If anybody comes you holler like s-s-sixty.”
“All right,” says I; “but don’t be gone long.”
He climbed up to the road and sat down on a big stone under a butternut tree.