They were scarcely outside the door, when Jack, who in his excitement, had hardly been able to keep quiet, exclaimed, "Oh! Hugh, we've found Baptiste Lajeunesse."
"Sho," said Hugh, "you don't mean it."
"Yes we have. He saw the powder charger and before looking at it, said it was his and that he had lost it a long time, and that it had his initials on it. He had not told us what his name was, and I asked if he was Baptiste Lajeunesse, and he said yes. Let's go and see him and find out all about what happened when he lost the powder charger; and oh! Hugh," he said, his face falling, "suppose that gold belongs to him."
"Well, son," said Hugh, "if it's Bat, and he lost the powder charger and he lost the gold too, we are all just as poor as we were before you found it."
"Oh!" said Jack, "won't that be a shame, when we have been thinking that we were all so rich, and when Joe needs so many things, and you and me too, Hugh."
"Well," said Hugh, with a comical look of disappointment on his face, "I guess we all think we need lots of things that we haven't got, but somehow or other, if we can't have 'em, we manage to just live along in about the same way, and I don't know as it makes much difference, but I would like to see Joe with a good gun and I reckon we'll have to try to get him one somehow, whether we have the gold or not."
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE LOST GOLD.
It was but a short walk to the place where Jack had left the stranger, and in a few moments they saw him sitting in front of the door. Hugh stopped in front of him, looked at him closely and said: "Well, Bat, how are you?"