“Oh! Thad, did you hear what he said?” whispered Giraffe, in the ear of the scout-master.
“Keep still, Giraffe, and let me manage this affair, please!” was what Thad replied; and accordingly the tall scout, quickly grasping the situation, relapsed into silence; for he had the utmost faith in the ability of the patrol leader to whip things into shape.
“What was that you were telling us, Mr. Sheriff, about this man robbing some one?” Thad asked, before the other could turn fully away.
“It’s this way, son,” came the obliging officer’s reply; “a very wealthy planter by the name of Richmond had occasion to employ a secretary to conduct some literary work he was head oveh ears interested in. So in New Orleans he comes across a smart gentlemanly fellow who gives the name of Jasper. Fo’ a long time they seem to get on right well. Then all of a sudden the kunnel he finds that his secretary suh, done disappeah, as also the contents of his safe, includin’ some family jewels that had been fetched oveh from France two hundred yeahs ago by his ancestors, and which he values above anything he possesses.”
“Oh! and that is why he is willing to put up so much money to try and recover these things, I suppose?” Thad went on, for the purpose of drawing out still more information rather than because he failed to understand.
“That accounts fo’ the milk in the cocoanut, son,” the officer admitted. “He then and there calls me in fo’ a consultation, and immediately afterwards issues that offer of reward, as also the promise to pay every man and boy who would join my posse, and hunt fo’ the thief.”
“And then word came to you that some one had seen a man answering the description of this Jasper down here—was that it, sir?” Allan asked.
“You have described it to the lettah, suh. And as the thief must be hiding in Alligator Swamp, you can understand how we’ve made up our minds to clean the old pest hole out, once fo’ all.”
“But we are told that a stranger never could make his way in and out of here, because there are so many treacherous passages; and that more than a few men have met their death trying to escape from the endless succession of watery trails?” the scout-master continued, still trying to pick up information without betraying his side of the case to the other.
“Perfectly correct, suh,” the sheriff told him; “but that fact only made me look deeper into the case. What do you think I discovered, but that yeahs ago a family by the name of Jasper lived close by this region. If that is so, then we sorter reckons this heah thief might be a son of the ole man; and in that case don’t ye see, he’d know every part of the swamp as well as Tom Smith heah?”