“Well,” says I, feeling like I could beller, “we’re beat.”
It did seem hard to come out at the little end of it when we were so close. It looked like it ought to be so easy to warn Uncle Hieronymous when he was only a hundred feet or so away. But it wasn’t easy. It looked like it was impossible.
“Got to f-f-find some other way,” says Mark.
“There isn’t any,” says I.
“Must be,” says he. “Got to be. L-lemme think.”
He thought and thought, and pinched his cheek and squinted his eyes, but it didn’t seem like he was doing any good. After a while he sighed—a regular whopper of a sigh.
“We hain’t doin’ any good here,” he says. “Have to t-try somewheres else.”
“Hain’t got time,” says I.
“Got half an hour, maybe. There’ll be dickerin’. Your uncle won’t make no deal till he’s argued and fussed around c-consid’able. He’s one of them kind. They hain’t been there long, and Uncle Hieronymous never’ll sell a farm in less’n an hour.”
I wasn’t so sure of that, and it didn’t look like much to depend on, but Mark don’t often go wrong when he’s figgerin’ out what folks’ll do. He’s the greatest fellow for knowing how anybody’ll act that you ever saw.