Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a shiver through every fibre of his body. This store was robbed in a singular manner. No bolt was broken,—no door burst open. There was a window, however, that lacked one pane of glass. The aperture would not admit a man's body. It was believed that the burglars had passed a boy through it, who had handed out the stolen goods.
And now, Nick foolishly argued, if any one should discover that he knew where the plunder was hidden, they would believe that he was that boy who had robbed the store!
He began to resolve that he would say nothing about what he had seen,—not even to Barney. He thought his safety lay in his silence. Still, he did not want his silence to be to the advantage of wicked men, so he tried to persuade himself that the burglars would soon be traced and captured without the information which he knew it was his duty to give. "Ter be sartain, the officers will kem on this place arter a while," he said meditatively.
Then he shook his head doubtfully. The crag was far from any house, and except the dwellers on Goliath Mountain, few people knew of this great niche in it. "They war sly foxes what stowed away thar plunder hyar!" he exclaimed in despair.
Often, when Nick had before stood in the Conscripts' Hollow, he had imagined that he would make a good soldier. But his idea of a soldier was a fine uniform, and the ra-ta-ta of martial music. He had no conception of that high sense of duty which nerves a man to face danger; even now he did not know that he was a coward as he faltered and feared in the cause of right to encounter suspicion.
Courage!—Nick thought that meant to crack away at a bear, if you were lucky enough to have the chance; or to kill a rattlesnake, if you had a big heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags and precipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and the strength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" could mean the nerve to speak one little word for duty's sake.
He would not speak the word,—he had determined on that,—for might they not think that he was the boy who had robbed the store?
He was quivering with excitement when he turned and began to walk along the ledge toward those roughly hewn natural steps by which he had descended. He knew that his agitation rendered his footing insecure. He was afraid of falling into the depths beneath, and he pressed close against the cliff.
On the narrow ledge, hardly two yards distant from the Conscripts' Hollow, a clump of blackberry bushes was growing from a crevice in the rock. They had never before given him trouble; but now, as he brushed hastily past, they seemed to clutch at him with their thorny branches.
As he tore away from them roughly, he did not observe that he had left a fragment of his brown jeans clothing hanging upon the thorns, as a witness to his presence here close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where the stolen goods lay hidden. There was a coarse, dark-colored horn button attached to the bit of brown jeans, which was a three-cornered scrap of his coat. No! of Barney's coat. And was it to be a witness against poor Barney, who had not gone near the Conscripts' Hollow, but was lying asleep on the summit of the crag, supposing he had his own coat under his own head?