"It ain't our fault," said Bob, "and when they take us out of the creek dead, I want them to know it. But I don't think they'll cry very much. How can they, when they have tried to kill us?"
"It won't make any difference to us whether they cry or not," I replied. "We won't know anything about it."
We came to the swimming-hole and the water was blue and deep. Upon the grass under a tree we sat and gazed in silence into the pool. "We'll take off our clothes," said Bob, "and then when they find us they'll think that we were drowned accidentally and that will make 'em cry."
The song of a plow-man came floating through the soft air; a blue-jay above us shrieked in a fit of merriment; a cat-bird laughed at us and we looked at each other.
"Mars. Bob," said I, "he didn't hurt me much."
"But I thought he was killing you by the way you hollered."
"Yes, but he told me to. I'll tell you something if you'll cross your heart that you'll never tell anybody."
He crossed his heart and I told him, and he lay back and laughed. "But you were whipped in earnest," I said.
"Yes, but it didn't hurt. Ho, think that old shoe could hurt me! Let's go in swimming?"