“Oh, it is nothing. It will pass off in a few minutes. I get to coughing that way once in a while.”
“Especially when you are going to say something you don’t want to,” murmured one of the boys under his breath. “And some day you are going to pay mother for her goodness to you. I wish I knew what you meant by that.”
The boys turned and left the cabin, but they did not go in company with each other. In fact, they tried to get as far apart as possible. There was something wrong with them—a person could see that at a glance. What these young fellows had to make them enemies, living there in the wilderness with not another house in sight, shall be told further on.
CHAPTER II.
A Friend In Need.
“Nat, what do you reckon he meant by that?”
“Meant by what?”
“Why he said that mother had always been good to him, and that some day—then he went off coughing and didn’t say the rest.”
“I don’t know, I am sure.”
“I reckon he has got some money stowed away somewhere, as pap always said he had, and that when he is gone mother will come into it. By gracious! I wish I could find it.”
“Would you take it away from your mother?”