Burnam laughed.
“Along with your cousins from the North?” he inquired. “Well, that’s all right, Joe. Hope you make a big hit, and if it doesn’t pan out you can always come back and get a job with me, you know.”
“Look here, Mr. Burnam, I’ve got to tell you something,” burst out Joe, whose conscience had been troubling him. “I’ve found—no, come along with me, and I’ll show you.”
He hurried Burnam down the stairs again, and over the rail to the houseboat, where the turpentine operator recognized Bob and Sam with astonishment. In the cabin Joe pointed out the four barrels of rosin, and rapidly told the story of his discovery of the “mine,” and its removal.
“You’re a wonderful woods-rider, Joe,” Burnam commented with a laugh. “It seems you can get rosin even out of the swamps. But I knew all about that old still in the woods. I didn’t know exactly where it was, but I’d always planned to prospect for it, and dig up the rosin. It legally belongs to me, you know, the same as any other deposit in the ground, even if your grandfather did put it there.”
“I was a little afraid it might be that way,” Joe admitted.
“But you boys certainly deserve to have it,” Burnam continued, “after the wild chase you’ve gone through. You can have these four barrels, anyway. They’re worth thirty dollars, and I’ll buy them off you now. I’ll write you a check in the office. And if you can locate the rest of the stuff, why,”—he hesitated a moment,—“we’ll go halves on it, and you can hold my half until my note is paid in full.”
“Thanks,” said Joe. “But I’m afraid there’s not much chance of my ever locating it. I expect it’s all sold in Mobile long ago.”
“Likely that’s so,” Burnam admitted. “We’re a few weeks too late, I reckon. Well, come along and I’ll give you the check for this, anyway, and there’s some wages due you, too, that you may as well have.”
Joe was richer by sixty-five dollars when the steamer reached Dixie Landing, a few miles below the River Island. Here they left the houseboat, tying it carefully to a tree, to wait till the owners should reclaim it. That black houseboat, Joe found, was tolerably well known along the lower river, and no one would dispute Blue Bob’s claim when he should come after it.