“Go on, Thad; we’re catching on to what you’ve got in mind,” hinted Allan.
“We happen to know,” said Thad; “that this chief hobo, who calls himself Charlie Barnes now, though he may have gone by another name years back, must have been a Maine guide once on a time. If so, he is well acquainted up in this region, and must know all about this abandoned cabin. Now, if so be the third chap is sick, or badly hurt, as we’ve guessed, why, where could they find a better place to stay for a while than right here?”
“Seems like it,” admitted Giraffe; “and say, p’raps that’s just why they cribbed your venison like they did. If they expect to hole up here for some weeks, lyin’ low while the sheriff and his posse go chasin’ all over the country lookin’ for the runaways, why, they’d need a heap of grub; and so they just couldn’t resist the temptation to grab your little buck. It’d supply their wants for a long time, if they only jerked the meat the way the Indians do, and made it into pemmican.”
“Glad to see you take that view of the matter. Giraffe,” Thad continued, for it was always an object with him, as the leader of the patrol, to tempt his scouts to think for themselves, and not depend wholly on others to plan things.
“But Thad,” remarked Allan, about that time,—he had been watching the face of the other for signs that would tell him what Thad had on his mind; “was this the only thing you stirred up, that would be apt to keep these fellows wanting to get in this cabin so badly?”
“Well, honest now, Allan,” replied the other, smilingly, “it wasn’t. I figured along another line too. I said to myself, that supposing now, a year or so ago this same hard case of a Charlie Barnes had made another haul, and escaped to the woods with his plunder, where would he be apt to hide that same until the time when he could add to the pile, and then skip across the border? And boys, I thought that this deserted old cabin would offer him about as snug a hiding-place for his loot as any place I knew!”
“Oh! Thad, do you really think that?” exclaimed Bumpus, a smile appearing on his plump face; “just imagine us diggin’ up treasure, fellers, would you; gold, and jewels, and all sorts of precious things that these desperate yeggs have hooked in their bold operations? And when we restored the same to the original owners, how they’d pour the fat rewards into our pockets. Why, we’d just as like as not have our names in all the papers down in New York, and be famous.”
“Hold on,” said Thad, “you make me think of the girl who was tripping to market with a basket of eggs, and saying to herself, that after she’d sold those she’d buy a pig; and when it grew up, she’d take that money and buy a calf; and then, after that grew up to be a cow, with the money she’d get from selling all the milk she could lay a nice sum by, so that when the right young man came along she’d have enough to get her outfit with, and——”
“Then she tripped once too often, fell over, and every egg was broken,” broke in Bumpus, with a shout. “Sure, I’ve heard my mother tell that story. It means we hadn’t ought to figure too far ahead. But Thad. I want to say, I like your scheme; and in the mornin’ we ought to turn this here old place upside-down, huntin’ in every nook and cranny for the hobo’s plunder.”
“Not forgetting that loft up yonder, where our friend, the bear—” began Giraffe, and suddenly broke off with a laugh, as he remembered that in the other excitement he had forgotten all about his private surprise.