I thought so long I bet those folks out on the hot top of the shed thought I’d got lost or eaten up, but I wasn’t worrying about them just then. I let them do the worrying. Anyhow, two of them were enemies, and that made the unpleasantness two to one. Mark should have been willing to stand that, shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t you be willing to be uncomfortable if you could see two enemies being just as uncomfortable alongside? Well, maybe you wouldn’t. Likely I didn’t see it the same way Mark did, for the barn was cool and comfortable.
I couldn’t make up my mind what I ought to do, so I went hunting for a rope again. I found a good long one and slung it over my shoulder. Then I went back into the harness-room after saying good-by to Alfred, and scrambled through the window onto the roof of the shed.
Mark and Jiggins and Collins were looking pretty tired out and impatient.
CHAPTER XV
“It took a mighty long time to find that rope,” says Collins, sort of cross-like.
“It’s a long rope,” I says. “The longer the rope the longer it takes to find it. I could ’a’ had a short one here half an hour ago.”
The rope was in a coil, which made it easy to throw. I sent it sailing over to Mark, who caught it and went to work making a lasso out of it. He was as deliberate as if we were sitting on a shady porch and not perched out there with the sun beating down on our heads like it wanted to melt us down to butter.
“Hurry it up,” says I, “or there won’t be anything left of me to get down. I’ll melt and run off.”
“When you go to make a l-l-lasso,” says Mark, “make a good one. It’s b-better to take a minnit or two extry than to have the knot s-s-slip and let the dog loose.”
There was something to that, all right—I’d rather be sunburnt than dog-bit. He got it done at last, but then he took his time making just the right-sized noose and coiling the rope so it suited him to a tee. When everything was fixed so he was satisfied he came to the end of the roof and called over to me.