“Nat has got an idea that there is some money down there, and he has gone after it. If he only knew it, I have got all the money that was there long ago.”
Mr. Graves was really surprised now.
“The old man did not have but a thousand dollars, and he gave that to me to spend for him,” said Jonas. “When that boy gets through looking I hope he will come back.”
The speaker went away without saying another word, and Mr. Graves stood in his door and watched him go. If Jonas told the truth Peleg had his journey for nothing.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Storekeeper Speaks.
Very different were Nat Wood’s feelings as he walked slowly toward the place he called home. He was certain that during the last hour of his life he had made a bad mistake in that he yielded to his first impulse and took Peleg into his confidence. But the thing had been done, Peleg knew that the money was there, or somewhere about Manchester, and now he had to watch his corners very closely in order to succeed at all.
“There is one thing about it,” said Nat, as he went up behind the bushes which stood between the potato patch and the house. “I will keep a close watch of Peleg, and if I have any reason to suppose that he is working for himself, I will lead him off the track and go somewhere else. Peleg is a pretty sharp boy, but I don’t believe he can get ahead of me.”
While Nat was thinking this matter over he drew up behind the bushes and took a long and earnest survey of the house. There was no one stirring around it. Having made sure that no one was watching him Nat hurried to a fence corner, not the one that Mr. Nickerson went to in order to get his plug of tobacco, but another one that lay further off, and after a few minutes’ search arose to his feet with two articles in his hand which he hastily crammed into his pocket. One was a roll of money—he did not look it over for he knew how much there was in it—and the other was the two leaves of “Baxters’ Saints’ Rest,” still pasted together, which told him where the money was concealed. The money was what he had left from the sum Mr. Nickerson had last given him for the purchase of tobacco.
“I don’t see what is the need of my taking these two leaves with me,” said Nat, as he pushed the remnants of the twigs and bushes back to the place which they had occupied before. “Peleg might find it and then know as much about the money as I do. I reckon I had best get that in my head and then destroy the leaves.”
To think with Nat was to act. He produced the two leaves from his pocket, seated himself upon the ground and tore them open. The stray leaf, the one on which the diagram that showed where the money was concealed, fell out; and although it was pretty dark so that he could barely trace the lines, they were made with a heavy lead pencil, and furthermore there were but two lines on the page. The first led from a pile of rubbish—Nat did not know what else to call it; it probably intended to represent the ruins of Mr. Nickerson’s house—to a second pile of rubbish, which was doubtless intended to show the pile of briers. The second line ran across a little wavering stream which was intended to stand for the brook, up to another pile, and there it stopped. If Nat could only find that pile, his fortune was secure.