"Well, he was going to get a little something for helping you capture them men," replied Barlow, indifferently. "Wouldn't you be mad, too, if somebody bad taken twenty-five dollars out of your pocket?"
"But he says he is going to get even with me. He is going to ship me off to sea."
"Aw! don't you let that bother you. He told you that just to frighten you."
"But you won't stand by and see him do that?"
"In course I won't. I may want you to help me again."
"'Cause, Barlow, I don't know anything about a vessel," said Joe, earnestly. "I am too old to learn."
"Course you are. A man has to learn that business when he is young. Now you go home with the boat—be sure and leave everything there just as it was—and if anybody says anything to you about this night's work, you may bet that I didn't tell 'em."
"No doubt you will want me to help you again," soliloquized Joe, as he climbed down into the boat with the painter in his hand, "but it's a long time before you'll get Joe Lufkin. I tell you I am well out of this scrape now, and if I ever get into it again you can shoot me! Let somebody else try their hand, and see how they will come out."
Somehow Joe Lufkin experienced a desire he had never known before, and that was to be safe at home. He always felt safer when at his wife's side than he did when alone. He pulled with all his might, and in due time arrived at the wooden wharf and made the boat fast where she belonged. Everything was placed just as it was before, and then he walked rapidly toward the path which ran by the house. The doors and windows stood invitingly open, but Joe did not want to go in there. Everything seemed to tell him of the inmates he had torn from their home, and whether or not they would ever come back again was a mystery. When he reached the gate he looked up and down the road, and seeing no one in sight, he went out and closed it behind him.
"Whether they ever come back again or not, I've got fifty dollars," said he, with a chuckle, taking the two rolls of bills from his pocket and folding them into one. "Now when I get time I am a-going to think up some story to tell them, as Barlow suggested. But Samson's shipping me off to sea—that's what bangs me! Howsomever, I am safe from him so long as I stay here at my house."