“Not one of us,” promptly replied Chap.
“I thought as much,” said the colonel, “and that comes to fifty-four dollars. Take seventeen from that, and it leaves thirty-seven. That’s the amount you are short, and, to make it even, we’ll call it forty. Now, if one of you fellows will make out a note to me for forty dollars, payable in thirty days, and the other two will indorse it, I’ll let you have the money.”
This unexpected offer almost stupefied the boys, and they could scarcely find words with which to express their gratitude.
“Oh, it’ll be all right enough,” said the colonel. “I know that all of you or one of you will pay me the money, or I’ll make it hot for you, no matter what part of the country you’re in. When a man owes me money, he pays it.”
“But none of us are of age,” suggested Phil. “Perhaps our signatures——”
“Don’t talk to me of age,” roared the colonel. “If I lend you the money, you’ll pay it back to me. There’ll be no getting out of that. I won’t charge you any interest. It’ll be cheaper for me to let that money go for awhile without bringing in anything than to keep you fellows here eating at the rate of four dollars a day a head.”
When Adam was told of the arrangement which had been made between the colonel and the boys, he smiled.
“You might travel a long ways,” he said, “before you’d come across such another man as the colonel. If you treat him square and he likes you, he’s ready at any time to give you a friendly h’ist; but if you get him down on you, you’ll wish you’d never been born. Nobody need think that because the colonel is sittin’ in that chair all day and can’t never walk a step out of it that he needn’t be afraid of him. When I was down here afore, he used to have something to do with the revenue service, and if he’d hear of any smugglers tryin’ to get into the country across this river with cigars or anything else, he’d have his chair rolled in no time aboard the boat he used to sail in, and he put after them fellers, and I can tell you what it is, there’s no man that ever put in along this coast with smuggled goods would want to see the colonel comin’ after him, with his rifle in his hands, and that black eye of his a-flashin’ out about a mile ahead. He always was an ugly customer to run afoul of, and he’s jist as bad now as ever, if things go crooked. I ain’t surprised a bit at what he did for you fellers. It’s jist like him.”
The next day was Sunday, and the boys looked so bright and fresh, with their well-blackened boots and their clean white shirts and collars, that they felt quite fit to mingle in general society.
They would have gone to church, but were prevented from so doing by the fact that the town did not yet contain a church.