“Maybe I can use you, Sam,” he said. “But it’ll be dangerous work, in the dark and on the quiet.”
“Well, I ain’t never stole no hawgs nor chickens,” said Sam, evidently bracing himself for lawlessness, “but I—”
“No, I’m not going to steal anything,” Joe interrupted. “But we’ll have to live in the woods for a while and work at night—work hard, too—and you’ll have to keep your mouth tight shut about it. If we pull it off I’ll give you big wages—three times what you’d make turpentining.”
“Golly, Mr. Joe! You ain’t fixin’ to make moonshine whisky?” cried Sam, alarmed at last.
“Nothing like it,” said Joe, laughing. “Come along with me and I’ll show you what it is.”
He led the way into the woods, past the emptied gum-cups, slowly refilling now, past the charred remains of the burned barrels, until he reached the open spot where he had discovered the rosin-bed. He glanced about with an instinct of caution, lest anybody should be within sight; then, with the iron bar he had used before, Joe raked away the pine-needles and uncovered the surface of the valuable deposit. As he worked he explained the origin of the mine to Sam, and unfolded his plans regarding it.
“Why, sure, I’ve often heard of de old Marshall still,” cried Sam, excited and highly elated. “But I never knowed where it was. Why, dere must be a reg’lar fortune in yander. I heered of a place like dis here, where dey got ten thousand dollars of rosin outer it.”
“I reckon that’s a fish-story,” said Joe. “If we do as well with this one I’ll give you a thousand dollars. But the trouble is to get it out and get away with it. This is Burnam’s land, you know. He’d order us off if he caught us at it, I’m afraid. We’ll need tools to dig with, and we’ll have to have some sort of big boat, so that we can move it away as fast as we dig it out.”
“Dat’s shorely so,” said Sam, thoughtfully.
“Goin’ to be a mighty big job for jes’ you an’ me to git all out these thousand barrels of rosin. Yes-suh, Mr. Joe. But we kin do it. I knows a boy back at de camp what’s got a good spade he’ll sell for four bits. An’ dere’s an old flatboat up de river bank a ways. I dunno whether it’s any ’count now.”