“Why, Tallow and Binney, of course! We left one to watch the detective and the other to watch Miss Piggins. When Tod stopped at Miss Piggins’s Binney took after him. Of course Tallow was right after the detective all the while. So we got into one p-parade. I was all p-puzzled at first, but it come to me all in a minute. That’s how I knew Tallow and Binney were here and yelled at them to head off George.” “Um!” says I. “But we didn’t head him off,” says Binney. “May be j-jest as well,” says Mark. “We’ll f-find him to-morrow or n-next day. I got a notion I know where he is right now, or where he will be when he lands out of his boat.” “Where?” says I. “Big Hole Island,” says he. “Maybe so. But what was he doin’ here?” “Come d-down after grub. Been doin’ it every night. It was him we almost caught in the mill when we saw the light.” It was clear enough now, but such a mixed-up business as it was a few minutes before I never heard of. I never would have got it figured out, but Mark was good at that kind of thing, which was lucky. “Better go home now,” says he, “and get a night’s s-s-sleep. We’ll start up the river for George Piggins to-morrow.” “Better stay in town,” says Silas Doolittle. “There’s trouble at the mill. All our men but two has quit work.” “What for?” says Mark. “Claim they been offered better jobs,” says Silas. “Huh!... That means Wiggamore has hired ’em away. Hum!... Well, we can’t stop to fix that. See if you kin get more m-men, Silas. Do the best you kin. If you can’t get anybody, just plug along for a day or two. We got to find George Piggins before we do anything else.” We said good night to Silas and left him feeling kind of blue, I guess. I was kind of blue myself, because it did look to me like we ought to stay and see about the mill instead of traipsing around after George. But there’s no use trying to run against Mark Tidd when he has his mind made up. He was going after George, and he would keep on till he found him if it took a year. It was a kind of a disease with him, like a boil, I guess. When you got a boil you hain’t comfortable till it busts. Well, Mark Tidd was never comfortable till he did what he set out to do. When I went to bed I wasn’t expecting anything exciting to happen the next day. I wasn’t much expecting anything to happen, which shows that you never can tell. How was I to guess that the next little while was going to be about the most exciting and worrying time we ever had? But it was. CHAPTER XVI “What makes you think George Piggins is on Big Hole Island?” says I to Mark when we met early the next morning. I didn’t see why he should hit on that place for George to hide. The world looked like a pretty good-sized place to me, and I couldn’t see any reason for picking a couple of acres of marshy ground out of it. But he had some reason and I wanted to know what it was. “Well,” says he, “you know George.” “I do,” says I.