second and then darted under again in a fright.
He dasn t tell! So it _was_ a witch that done it. I just knowed it.
He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he
gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have
the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a
patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his
treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing
when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his
pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
Brother, go find your brother!
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must
have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last
repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each
other.
Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green
aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned
a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log,
disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and
in a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged,
with fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an
answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way
and that. He said cautiously to an imaginary company:
Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow.
Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom.
Tom called:
Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?
Guy of Guisborne wants no man s pass. Who art thou that that
Dares to hold such language, said Tom, prompting for they talked by
the book, from memory.
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