"Yes; and I reckon he'll have a lively time doing it. He won't be back under two or three years, and I'll watch my chance and send word to him. He shall not come back here if I can help it. There goes Mr. Gibbons now, and he's got the dog-cart behind him," said Gus, throwing as much contempt into his tones as he could. "I wish those ponies would run away with Bob the first time he goes out riding, and spill him out and break his neck!"
"So do I," said Mr. Layton, mentally. "So do I. It would be a heap of bother off my shoulders. The amount of it is, I must do something. I can't stand this way of living any longer."
CHAPTER XIII.
ONE DISPOSED OF.
Joe Lufkin having eaten his breakfast had started away on one of his useless errands—at least that was what Hank and his mother thought about it; but the truth was he had set out for Middletown, to see how his new scheme would work. He hadn't done much sleeping the night before, for his plan seemed to have banished slumber from his eyes. Of course, he indulged in building some gorgeous air-castles on the strength of it. After he got a little way from home he stopped and took the clipping out of his pocket.
"Like pulling berries off the bushes," he soliloquized, as he put the clipping back, having finished reading it, and went on with his walk. "That would hit me, I tell you. I wonder what men I can get to help me."
While Joe was revolving this problem in his mind he came within sight of Barlow's saloon. There were two men standing there, and they were engaged in earnest conversation. The one was Barlow, and the stranger in the light suit he took to be the captain of the Smart. It was hard work to raise a crew at that time of the year, and the captain had come in to see what Barlow could do to assist him. As he approached them he heard the one-legged man say to him:
"Captain, you just go on board your boat and never mind it. I'll have the men there ready for you to-night."
He didn't hesitate to talk this way before Joe Lufkin, for the latter was a man who could be hired to keep his mouth shut. As the captain moved away Barlow turned and gave Joe a sign, who followed him into his saloon and into a little back room, the door of which was closed and bolted.
"Well, Joe, where are you going to-day?" said Barlow, seating himself on the table. "I don't generally see you move so fast."
"Read that," said Lufkin, handing him the article he had cut from the paper the night before. "It seems to me that if such a thing could be worked at one place it could be at another. Don't it to you?"