All unconscious of his loss, he went away in the rich autumnal sunset, leaving it there as a witness against him.
CHAPTER II
After this, Nicholas Gregory was very steady at his work for a while. He kept out of the woods as much as possible, and felt that he knew more already than was good for him. Above all, he avoided that big sandstone cliff and the Conscripts' Hollow, where the goods lay hidden.
He heard no more of the search that had been made for the burglars and their booty, and he congratulated himself on his caution in keeping silent about what he had found.
"Now, ef it hed been that thar wide-mouthed Barney, stid o' me, he'd hev blabbed fust thing, an' they'd all hev thunk ez he war the boy what them scoundrels put through the winder ter steal the folkses' truck. They'd hev jailed him, I reckon."
He had begun to forget his own part in the wrong-doing,—that his silence was helping to screen "them scoundrels" from the law.
This state of mind continued for a week, perhaps. Then he fell to speculating about the stolen goods. He wondered whether they were all there yet, or whether the burglars had managed to carry them away. His curiosity grew so great that several times he was almost at the point of going to see for himself; but one morning, early, when an opportunity to do so was suddenly presented, his courage failed him.
His mother had just come into the log cabin from the hen-house with a woe-begone face.
"I do declar'!" she exclaimed solemnly, "that I'm surely the afflictedest 'oman on G'liath Mounting! An' them young fall tur-r-keys air so spindlin' an' delikit they'll be the death o' me yit!"