He looked at me, and I guess the surprise was still plain on my face. “I thought it was there,” I said again. “Honest!”
“Did that Indian take it with him?”
“Not that I know of,” I says.
Bill broke in then. “It must be here somewhere, or they wouldn’t have stayed around to fight. What did they try to keep us out for?”
That was what I wanted to know. If Mark knew the engine was gone, why did he stay around instead of making for home? I couldn’t understand.
“Maybe there’s a hiding-place in there,” Bill said.
They both hurried into the cave again and poked all around, hunting for another opening and prodding the floor to see if we had buried the turbine. Of course they couldn’t find anything, because there wasn’t anything there.
Out they came again.
“That fat kid knows, I’ll bet,” says Bill.
They looked around for him and so did I, but he was gone.