The bright sun still smiled calm and serene, the morning breeze still kissed the blue water, the two deer still watched him with curious eyes; but he saw them not–only the winsome face and appealing eyes of Chip as he last beheld them.
And now in the prow of his canoe lay her fortune, her heritage, which was, after all, but scant return for all the shame and stigma so far meted out to her.
It was almost sunset ere Old Cy, his nerves still quivering and wearied as never before, crossed the little lake and breathed a sigh of heart-felt gratitude as he drew his canoe out on the sandy shore near the ice-house. No one was in sight, nor likely to be. A thin column of smoke rising from the cabin showed that the hermit was still on earth, and now for the first time, Old Cy sat down and considered his plans for the near future.
First and foremost, not a soul, not even his old trusted companion here, not even Martin, or Angie, and certainly not Ray, must learn what had now come into his possession. Neither must his journey to this far-off lake or aught he had learned there be disclosed.
But how was he to escape from the woods and these people, soon to arrive for their summer sojourn? And what if Chip herself should come? Two conclusions forced themselves upon him now: first, he must so conceal the fortune that none of these friends even could suspect its presence; next, he must by some pretext leave here as soon as Martin and his party arrived, and cease not his watchful care until Chip’s heritage was safe in some bank in her name.
And now, with so much of his future moves decided upon, he hurried to the cabin, greeted Amzi, urged him to hasten supper, and, securing a shovel, returned to his canoe.
In five minutes the cans of gold were buried deep in the sand, not two feet from where the half-breed had once landed, and upon Old Cy’s person the bills found concealment. How much it all amounted to, he had not even guessed, nor scarce thought. To secure it and bear it safely away from this now almost accursed lake had been his sole thought, and must be until locks and bolts could guard it better. That night Old Cy hardly slept a moment.
And now began days of waiting and watching, the slow course of which he had never before known. He dared not leave the cabin except to fish close by and within sight of the one focal point of his interest. Each midday, for not sooner would the expected ones be apt to arrive, he began to watch the lake’s outlet, and ceased not this vigil until darkness came. A dozen times a day he covertly visited the ice-house to be certain no alien footprints had been stamped upon the sand near his buried treasure, and had the hermit been an alert and normal man, he must have noticed Old Cy’s strange conduct.
This burden of care also began to haunt his sleep, and in it he saw the open cave, and himself watched by vicious, leering faces. Once he saw those ghastly corpses still clasped together, but hovering over him, and then awoke with a sense of horror.
A worse dream than this came later, for in it he saw the half-breed creeping along the lake’s shore, and then, stooping where the gold was buried, he began to dig, at which Old Cy sprang from his bed in sudden terror.