The only thing that cheered him was the thought of the rosin “mine.” There was going to be money in that, and he felt no scruple now at taking possession. Burnam owed him more than that, if, indeed, Burnam had any rights in the rosin at all. Joe began to convince himself that the rosin mine was legally his own property. Surely it was absurd to think otherwise. He had, at any rate, no immediate way of deciding the question, and he was willing to take a chance on it.
How to get the stuff away was a troublesome problem. There might be tons of it. It would have to be taken away by the river, on some sort of large flatboat or barge. He would need some one to help him at it, but hesitated to take any one into his confidence, for he knew that he would have to get the rosin out secretly, under cover of darkness, before Burnam could get wind of it. There was a sort of unpleasant flavor of stealing about the affair, but he tried to ignore that aspect of the case.
He thought of his cousins. Bob and Carl would probably be willing to help him. In fact, when he came to think of it, their rights in the rosin might be as good as his own. But he did not want to involve them in this possibly lawless affair. They had no feud with Burnam. At the same time, if he got the profits he hoped from the rosin, he was firmly resolved to put the money into the bee business of the young Canadians and become an apiarist himself.
He remembered Snowball, still hitched to a tree, and he slipped out to put the horse in the stable and unsaddle him. Snowball did not belong to Joe. It was Burnam’s horse, but Joe had ridden him for almost two years and had grown so fond of the horse that it was hard to think of parting from him.
The fire was under control now, and the red glow of the flame was dying down. Joe went back to his room and finished his packing. An hour later Morris, who shared the room with him, came in, black to the eyes, his clothes burned full of holes, and was surprised to find Joe lying on the bed, fully dressed and awake.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed. “Where have you been? Not hurt, are you? Burnam was asking for you.”
“He found me, all right,” said Joe bitterly. “Is the camp burned out? Who set it on fire?”
“Why, nobody!” said the other woods-rider. “What made you think of such a thing? It was an accident—carelessness, rather. The nigger that tends the pump went off and left it while the still was working. The engine went wrong and stopped running water into the retort. It got hot, and the top of the still blew off. The red-hot rosin flew like rain, and the whole place was afire in two seconds. Where were you all the time?”
Joe briefly narrated the adventures of the evening, and his discharge.
“Shucks! that’s nothing!” said Morris. “The old man’s done that same sort of thing before. He was half crazy to-night; he didn’t know what he was saying. You’ll find that he’ll be all right in the morning, and you can fix it up with him.”