“Whee!” he whispered. “Now p-pass me the spear.”
I handed it to him and he poked it out of the window a little at a time, not making a sound. I didn’t know what he was up to, but somehow the darkness and the stillness and one thing and another made me so excited I could hardly breathe. I crowded as close to Mark as I could and looked over his shoulder. I could see the tent below us, with Collins leaning against a tree not five feet away from it. Mark didn’t move, but just held out his fish-pole spear and waited.
After quite a while Collins got up and went over to the tent. He stooped and reached inside. It looked as if he couldn’t reach what he wanted, so he crawled in careful-like, so as not to wake Jiggins. Mark chuckled.
Then he reached out with the knife on the end of his fish-pole and brought it down kersnap on the rope that held up the tent. The rope was tight, and the knife was sharp. He didn’t have to whack it again. We could hear the rope snap; then the tent just sort of plumped down on Collins and Jiggins. Mark hauled in his spear quick, and we waited to see what would happen. A lot did happen quick.
We could see a floundering and flapping around under the canvas. Collins let out a startled yell. Jiggins was waked up suddenly, and didn’t like it very well, I guess, for he yelled, too. Then the canvas began to roll and jump and wabble in the funniest way you ever saw. Both men yelled and hollered and kicked and thrashed around until Jiggins got his head out at one end. I laughed out loud when I saw him crawl from under. He looked as though he’d been trying to butt through a cyclone, and he looked scared. In a minnit Collins worked out of the other end. They just looked at each other.
“You put up that tent,” said Jiggins. “You did. Of course you did. Nobody else.” He was mad clear through.
“What made it come down?” Collins asked, bewildered-like.
They both walked over to the nearest tree and felt of the rope. Jiggins pulled the loose end to him and looked at it. He chuckled, and his chuckle sounded sort of like Mark’s.
“Should have known better,” he said. “Fat boy. Nobody’s fool. Might have known. Snipped the rope. Don’t know how. He found a way. Look out for that boy. Look out for him, eh? You bet.”
He turned toward the house and grinned. “You’re all right, fat kid,” says he. “That scores one for you.”