“I can’t do a thing without the papers—the lawyers have told me so.”
“If old Skeetles lost them we couldn’t make him give them up, even on a search warrant.”
“That is true. But they may not have been lost even though he said so. He may have them hidden away where nobody can find them,” concluded Mr. Westmore.
Sunday passed quietly enough, the lads attending church with their families, and also going to Sunday school in the afternoon. In the evening Joel Runnell dropped in on the Westmores to see that everything was ready for an early start the next morning.
“Funny thing happened to me,” said the old hunter. “I was over to the tavern Saturday night, and met Hiram Skeetles there. He asked me how matters were going, and I mentioned that I was to take you fellows up to Pine Island for a hunt. He got terribly excited, and said you had no right to go up there.”
“Had no right?” questioned Joe. “Why not?”
“He claims that Pine Island belongs to his family, being a part of the old Crawley estate. But I told him that old Crawley didn’t leave the island to him, and he had better mind his own business,” went on Joel Runnell. “We had some hot words, and he flew out of the tavern madder nor a hornet.”
“Can he stop us, do you think?”
“He shan’t stop me, and I shall protect you boys. Crawley was only a fourth-handed relation of his, and the property is in the courts, and has been for three years. At the most, Skeetles ain’t got more’n a sixth interest in it. Sheriff Cowles is taking care of it.”
This news made the boys wonder if Hiram Skeetles would really try to prevent their going to the island, but when the time came to start on the trip the real estate dealer was nowhere to be seen.