We all went to the back window and looked out.
“It’s goin’ to be a reg’lar siege,” I says, for Collins was just putting up a little tent.
“They’ll never let us g-git away with the jewel,” says Mark; and he took that old door-knob out of his pocket and looked at it as if it was worth a million dollars.
The tent wasn’t a regular tent. It was just a square of canvas. Collins stretched a rope between two small trees that grew about ten feet from the door and threw his canvas over it. Then he staked down the edges and had a good shelter to sleep in.
“How many s-s-savages do you count?” Mark asked.
“Two,” says Tallow, without thinking.
“Two!” snorted Mark. “You must be b-b-blind. I see two war parties with fifty in each of th-them. That makes a hundred, don’t it?”
“Sure,” says Tallow. “I wasn’t thinkin’.”
“If we d-d-don’t git out ’fore night,” says Mark, “I got a scheme for givin’ ’em a s-scare, anyhow.”
“What is it?” Plunk wanted to know; but Mark wouldn’t tell him. Mark always was that way. If he had a plan he wouldn’t tell it to a soul till he had to. I guess he was naturally good at keeping a secret. You couldn’t get anything out of him he didn’t want to tell if you offered him the Wicksville bank and all the money in it.