“Well what?” says I.
He sort of scowled impatient, as if it made him have a pain somewheres to have to talk to a person that was as dumb-headed as I was, and says, “How far would a lazy man row a b-b-boat?”
“Not farther than he could help,” says I.
“Right the first time,” says he. “Now what’s the nearest place a man could hide—that he has to git to in a boat?”
“Why,” says I, “I guess Big Hole Island.”
“Sure,” says he, “and we know he’s on an island, because if he wasn’t he wouldn’t use a boat. He’d ride a horse or walk. Both is easier’n rowin’ a scow. So he’s on an island, and the nearest island is Big Hole, which p-proves that’s where he is.”
“Have it your own way,” says I, “and let’s git started.”
Now my way of getting to Big Hole Island would have been to take a boat and row there as fast as I could, but not Mark. He always had to do things the hardest way, and he had to be secret about it and drag in a lot of pertending and that sort of stuff. He wouldn’t just walk up to George Piggins and tell him all about it, but he’d have to make up a lot of things so that by the time we got there we would all be tired out and ready to quit. Besides, he said George would run if he saw us coming, and that we’d have to sneak up on him. Just where he would run to on Big Hole Island I didn’t see. He couldn’t run more than a couple of hunderd feet in any direction, and if he went to running circles around the shore I figgered we boys could soon tire him out at that; but Mark wouldn’t have it so.
His idea was for us to walk up to the shore across from Big Hole and then to swim to the island. We was to be a party of scouts and George Piggins was an Injun chief that was off alone making medicine and getting ready to turn his braves loose on the whites in the biggest Injun war that ever was. Mark’s notion was that if we caught the chief and carried him off it would spoil the whole war, and then maybe the Injuns wouldn’t ever uprise any more, but would become tame and gentle forever after. The notion of George Piggins as an Injun chief made me snicker. Why, any sort of a decent Injun would be ashamed to slam a tomahawk into George for fear of soiling it; and as for wearing George’s scalp, I’ll bet you couldn’t find even a squaw that would do it for money.
“I’m g-g-goin’ to make this Injun sign a treaty never to butcher any more whites,” says Mark, “and I went to a lawyer to get it done right.” At that he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and showed it to me. On top it said “Option” in big letters, and then there was a lot of legal words and a place to have George sign his name and for witnesses to sign their names.