“Put half those about you in your different pockets, Tom,” I said. And he did as he was bid, handling the little ingots as if they were so much lead. “And, Tom, I want your advice. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not prudent to take all this through the woods at night, with Indians about.”
“That’s sense, that is,” said Tom, interrupting.
“I think, Tom, we’ll hide it—all but this, which we’ll take back; and then we can come well prepared some other time, to carry the rest away.”
“Good, Mas’r Harry; but where’ll we hide it?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, Tom,” I said. “Where do you think would be a good place?”
“Well, Mas’r Harry, I shouldn’t bury it, because that’s the way it was hidden afore; nor I wouldn’t chuck it down the big gulf place, as you call it; it would be safe enough, only we couldn’t get it again.”
“Don’t fool, Tom,” I said impatiently.
“Who’s a fooling?” said Tom gruffly. “Tell you what, Mas’r Harry, I don’t think those Indian chaps would ever have the pluck to go right in where we’ve been. What do you think of the way under the arch on the raft?”
“The very idea that struck me, Tom,” I said.
Then I told him my plans—the result being that, at the end of a couple of hours, the little raft was prepared, launched, laden with our packages, and once more, with candles stuck in their clay sticks, we were poling ourselves along very slowly in the black tunnel.