“It’s all right, Kimball, I tell you! The stuff is here, under the stone, and jest like we left it a year ago. They never once suspected, the innocents, jest how near they was to a fortune. Things is atakin’ another turn, and I reckon our hard luck’s skipped out. This knocks a big load off my shoulders, believe me, Kimball!”
CHAPTER XXV.
SURPRISING CHARLIE.
Sebattis was quietly creeping, foot by foot, along the wall of the cabin. Giraffe realized that it was the intention of the guide to make his way along the side, so as to command the front, where the only exit could be found. This they must cover, if they expected to hold the situation.
Old Eli had pushed up alongside the Indian. He seemed to feel that if it came to a case of holding the hoboes up, the desperate rascals would be more apt to surrender if they saw two determined men in the front rank of those who covered them with their guns, than if they believed the whole posse to be made up of inexperienced half-grown Boy Scouts.
Of course this started the others moving also, since no one felt like being left behind. Being close to the wall, it was possible for them to hear what was being said within; for the two men did not speak in anything bordering on whispers. They did not dream of the danger that was hovering over their heads; and the finding of the bundle, apparently undisturbed, seemed to make them both happier than they could have been for some time.
When they reached the corner of the cabin the creepers turned it. Now they had to remember that the little window was here, and that if one of the new inmates of the hut chanced to thrust his face close up to the wonderful sash that had survived all these years of cold and heat, there was danger that they would be discovered, should one of them stray from the wall.
Giraffe was listening to what the men were saying. Somehow there seemed to be a sort of strange fascination about playing the part of eavesdropper in a case like this. But he did not allow himself to get so deeply interested as to forget all idea of caution.
The man with the great, heavy voice he guessed must be the leader, who went by the name of Charlie Barnes. He it had been, Thad and Allan had declared, who led the flight of the hoboes through the great Maine woods. And it had been this fact that seemed to convince the scoutmaster Charlie must at one time have been playing the rôle of guide in these same woods.
Apparently he had not bothered undoing the bundle then, for there was no trace of anger or bitter disappointment in his tones, such as must have been the case had he learned of the cheat.
“How’s the leg, Kimball?” he was asking.