“Can you open the window?” says Collins, after he and Jiggins had added onto what Mark said about my doing a good job.
I tried. It shoved up easy, and I threw my leg over the sill. “So long,” I called to them and ducked inside.
It was the harness-room I landed in, all smelly with leather and grease, and sort of dim so I couldn’t see very well to get around. I stood still to let my eyes get used to it, and then looked for a rope. There didn’t seem to be any there, so I opened the door and went out into the big room of the barn. Over opposite were the stalls, and in one of them was a horse. It was one of those big, square box-stalls, and that accounts for the horse sticking his nose out toward me and whickering. I like horses. Dogs are all right, but for real friendship and usefulness and all-around bullyness give me a horse. If I was a millionaire I’d have as many as Barnum’s circus.
I couldn’t help going over to speak to this fellow. He whickered again, inviting-like, and I let the rope go awhile till I could have a little talk with him. He stretched out his nose to me, and I patted it. Then I stopped and craned my neck to look at his legs, for his face seemed mighty familiar. There was a sort of white triangle on his nose, and if he had two white feet that meant he was a horse I was interested in particular. So I craned my neck over like I said before, and, sure enough, there were the white feet.
“Well, Alfred,” says I, pretty nearly flabbergasted to see him, “what you doin’ here?”
Alfred never said a word, but nuzzled at me and begged for a lump of sugar.
“Alfred,” says I, “where’s Uncle Hieronymous Alphabet Bell, and when d’you expect him back here?”
Of course, he couldn’t tell me, but just his being there was enough to let on Uncle Hieronymous couldn’t be many miles away. Uncle wouldn’t have left his horse where he couldn’t get to see him often. He probably was boarding Alfred here while he worked on the river.
“Well,” says I to myself, “what had I better do?”
When you get in a place where you aren’t sure what to do next, don’t do anything. I just stood there and patted Alfred and figgered. The more I figgered the more muddled I got, and I sure did wish Mark Tidd was there to talk it over with. But he wasn’t. I had to depend on myself this time.