Jiggins remembered how uncle had hoisted Collins, and didn’t say another word. As for the lawyer-man, he was edging toward the door.
“Well?” says Uncle Hieronymous.
Then we told him, each of us trying to talk at once. We told him everything from the beginning. We described how we got suspicious of Collins, and how we found the letter and the telegram, and what we overheard on the lake, and how we escaped from the cabin, and all about our race down the river.
Uncle kept saying “Oh!” and “Ah!” and “Goodness gracious!” and grunting like he was astonished most out of his head.
“A mine!” says he, when we were through. “Copper! Um! Who’d ’a’ thought it? Not me. Nor Alfred. Hain’t that fine, now? I’m happy, eh? Alfred’s happy. Marthy and Mary’ll be happy.” For a minnit he didn’t say a word; then he turned to Collins and Jiggins, and you wouldn’t believe how dignified he looked in that minnit. “And,” says he, gentle-like, but accusingly, “you tried to git it away from me for three hundred dollars. I hadn’t never done you no despite, had I? No. Then why did you fellers try to do this? Don’t seem noways decent nor Christian to act like you done. I guess,” he says, sorry-like, “that I don’t want to talk to you no more. Come on, boys. Let’s go away from here.”
We went out of the door and left Jiggins & Co. standing there. I looked back. They looked ashamed. Yes, sir; ashamed is the word. They weren’t looking at each other at all, but at the floor. Somehow I felt ashamed for them. I didn’t say a word to them, nor did Mark.
When we got out into the street uncle stopped and grabbed his leg between his thumb and finger and pinched it good.
“’Tain’t no nightmare, is it?” he asked. “Them men was there, and there is a mine, eh? No mistake?”
“There’s a mine,” says Mark, “and it’s worth a l-l-lot of money.”
“To be sure,” says Uncle Hieronymous. “Mines generally is. Well, well! Who’d ’a’ thought it? Copper under that ol’ forty. Marcy me! What had I best do? I dun’no’ what to do about it.”