CHAPTER XXI.
JAKE ELLIOTT MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO GET EVEN.
s it is impossible to tell at one time the story of the doings of two different sets of persons in two different places, it follows that, if both are to be told, one must be told first and the other afterward.
For precisely this reason, I must leave Sam and his party for a time now, while I tell where Jake Elliott had been, and what he had been about.
When Sam let him off as easily as he could at the time of the compass affair, and even went out of his way to prevent the boys from referring to that transaction, he did so with the distinct purpose of giving Jake an opportunity and a motive to redeem his reputation; and he sincerely hoped that Jake would avail himself of the chance.
It is not easy for a man or boy of right impulses to imagine the feelings, or to comprehend the acts of a person whose impulses are all wrong, and so it was that Sam fell into the error of supposing that his badly behaved follower would repent of his misconduct and do better in future. This was what all the boys thought that Jake ought to do, and what Sam thought he would do; but in truth he was disposed to do nothing of the sort, and Sam was not very long in discovering the fact. Instead of feeling grateful to Sam for shielding him against the taunts of his companions, he hated Sam more cordially than ever, when he found how completely he had failed in his attempt to embarrass the expedition. He nursed his malice and brooded over it, determined to seize the first opportunity of "getting even," as he expressed it, and from that hour his thoughts were all of revenge, complete, successful, merciless. He was willing enough, too, to include the other boys in this wreaking of vengeance, as he included them now in his malice.
His first attempt to accomplish his purpose, as we know already, was an effort to wreck the boat in a drift pile, and that affair served to open Sam's eyes to the true character of the boy with whom he had to deal. He trusted him no more, and managed him thereafter only by appeals to his fears.