Timothy Turtle found himself in a very uncomfortable position, staked out as he was on the bank of Black Creek, with one rope about his body and another about his neck.  
And even then Johnnie Green was not satisfied. Though his friend Red insisted that their captive could do them no harm (saying, "How can he bite when he can't move his head?") Johnnie Green replied that he would "fix him" so there couldn't possibly be any accident. And taking the old grain-sack he had brought back with him, he wrapped it carefully around Timothy'sp. 76 head, till he looked for all the world as if he had the earache.
 
"There!" Johnnie Green said, when he had finished. "He'll have to bite through that bag before he bites us; and I guess he'll find he has a pretty big mouthful."
 
Then he pulled out his jackknife and felt its sharp edge with his thumb.
 
"Lemme do it for you!" Red begged him, holding out his hand for the knife.
 
But Johnnie Green had no such idea.
 
"No!" he said firmly. "I've got to cut my initials myself."
 
"He might get loose and grab you," the red-haired boy remarked hopefully.
 
But Johnnie Green told him that he would risk that.
 
"Which way are you going to cut them?" Red asked him.
 
"What do you mean?" Johnnie inquired.p. 77
 
"Are you going to make 'em read when he's going or coming?" Red explained.
 
"I hadn't thought of that," Johnnie Green replied. "But I guess going would be better. Then if he stands up you can read 'em just the same, without any trouble."
 
So Johnnie kneeled down beside Timothy Turtle. It took him some time to decide just where he would carve his initials on Timothy's shell. And he had about decided that the best place to put his mark on Mr. Turtle's back would be exactly in the middle of it, when he cried all at once, "Look, Red! Look!"
 
"Whassamatter?" the red-haired boy wanted to know.
 
"This is the queerest thing I ever heard of!" Johnnie exclaimed. "Here are my initials already cut!"
 
Red could not believe him, until he hadp. 78 peered at Timothy's shell himself. And then he saw that what Johnnie had said was true.
 
"There's a date, too," Johnnie pointed out. And he read it aloud. "That's more'n thirty years ago," he declared.
 
But the red-haired boy laughed boisterously.
 
"Shucks!" he jeered. "Somebody's been playin' a joke on you............