“Say,” says he, “somebody was monkeyin’ around this mill last night. I was passin’ about nine o’clock and I seen a light. I come rushin’ right down. It looked like the light was ’way up toward the roof. Well, I busted right in and went rampagin’ up-stairs, and before I knowed I rammed right into a feller on the stairs. He was comin’ down as fast as I was goin’ up, and the way we come together would ’a’ made a railroad accident jealous. He got the best of it, though, for he was a-comin’ down-stairs. Yes, sir. He lammed right into me and clean upset me so’s I rolled all the way down, and doggone it if I didn’t leave about a peck of skin on them steps. Then he trompled right over the top of me and skedaddled. I couldn’t ketch him and I couldn’t find no harm he’d done. But after this I calc’late I’ll sleep right here into this mill. That’s what I’ll do, and if anybody comes fussin’ around I guess they’ll find out they got Silas Doolittle Bugg to reckon with.” “Mighty good idee,” says Mark. “Say, we got two freight-cars comin’ in this m-mornin’. Git ’em loaded so’s they’ll ketch the noon freight.” “Have to have help,” says Silas. “Hire some of them grocery-store loafers to help,” says Mark. “Us f-fellers has got somethin’ mighty important to look after.” Well, Mark and I started out then to get our eyes on Tod Nodder and to keep them on him. He wasn’t so easy to find as we thought he would be. Maybe that was because there was a man in town trying to hire folks to do some work on the railroad. Tod would hide away from such a man harder than he would hide from a tribe of scalping Indians. He wasn’t at any of the usual loafing-places, and at the livery-stable where he ’most generally slept they said they hadn’t seen him since daylight. They said he started off somewheres about four o’clock in the morning. Now when a man like Tod Nodder goes somewheres at four o’clock in the morning there are lots of things he _might_ go to do, but there hain’t but one thing he’s very likely to go for, and that’s fish. After we had rummaged all around and couldn’t come across him Mark says, “Well, the s-s-skeezicks must’a’ gone f-f-fishin’.” “Where?” says I. “Tod’s one of these p-pickerel fishermen,” says Mark. “Seems like pickerel and him is mighty fond of each other. So,” says he, “I calc’late we better make for the bayou.”