CHAPTER VI
We sat there in the boat about a hundred feet from shore and watched Collins and the fat man floundering around on the bank. We could just see them, but gradually it got lighter and lighter until we could make them out as plainly as they could us. Most of the time Mark was laughing to himself.
“What you laughing at?” I asked him.
“At the way we r-r-ran,” says he.
“It wasn’t any laughin’-matter,” says I.
“You don’t think they’d have h-h-hurt you, do you?”
“I don’t think anything else.”
“Shucks!” says he. “They only come after us l-l-like they did because they were s-s-startled. We s-s-scared ’em.”
“And they scared us,” I says, sharp-like.
“They might ’a’ mauled us a l-l-little,” says Mark, “but nothin’ more.”