“It ain’t fair to be askin’ me fer money all the time,” they heard one man say. “I reckoned as how I’d settled in full with ye long ago.”
“It ain’t so, Hiram Skeetles,” was the reply in Dan Marcy’s voice. “I did you a big service, and what you’ve paid ain’t half of what I ought to have.”
“It’s more’n you ought to have. Them papers wasn’t of no account, anyway.”
“Maybe—but you were mighty anxious to get ’em when——” And the boys did not catch what followed.
“And that’s the reason,” came presently from Hiram Skeetles.
“Do you mean to say you lost ’em?” demanded Dan Marcy.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“One day when I was sailin’ down the lake in Jack Lasher’s sloop. We got ketched by a squall that drove us high and dry on Pine Island. I jumped to keep from getting hurt on the rocks, and when we got off after the storm my big pocketbook with everything in it was gone.”
“Humph!” came in a sniff from Dan Marcy. “Do you expect me to believe any such fish story? Not much! I want fifty dollars, and I am bound to have it.”