“Put a double charge of powder in there and two bullets,” said Jonas. “That’s the way I come it over a deer, and I will bet you if one of them ghosts gets those balls in his head—Well, he will be a dead ghost, that’s all.”
“You will let me carry the rifle, won’t you?” said Caleb.
“No, I reckon I had best carry it myself and you do the driving,” said Jonas, stretching out his hand for the weapon. “You can drive that old horse a heap faster than I can, and if I see one of those horns stuck out from the bushes—”
“Now, Jonas, don’t talk that way,” whined Mrs. Keeler, casting uneasy glances about the room. “There may be one of them here now.”
“Naw, there ain’t. There ain’t no ghosts in the world. If you are ready Caleb, jump in. You will see us somewhere about sun-down.”
Jonas went ahead to lower the bars so that the wagon could drive through, and then, paying no further attention to his wife, he climbed to his seat, and Caleb cracked the whip and drove off.
“Hit the old fellow and make him go faster,” said Jonas. “We must get there by sun up, and have plenty of time to do the work besides. If we don’t, we have got to come home in the dark.”
This was all the encouragement that Caleb needed to make him keep up a tremendous beating of the horse all the way to Manchester. The horse suffered and did his best, but he did not seem to carry them over the miles very rapidly; but at length, to Caleb’s immense relief, the village appeared in sight. Of course the travelers were hungry and the horse needed watering, and so they drew up before the store at which Nat had purchased his things. Of course, too, the storekeeper knew them; he knew everybody within a circle of twenty miles around, and greeted them very cordially.
“Well, if there ain’t Jonas,” said he, briskly. “Are you going up to the woods to see how Nat is getting on? He was in here an hour or so ago, but I don’t see what he got those things for. He told me that he was going to look at some timber, and he bought a pick-ax and spade. Now what is he going to do with them?”
This was the same man who had waited on Nat when he was in the store, and he was determined to find out what those digging implements were to be used for. The customer whom he had consulted, was outside attending to some necessary business and getting a team ready to go up to Mr. Nickerson’s woods and find out, but he looked upon Jonas’s coming as a most fortunate thing, and he hoped that by some adroit questioning he could learn something; but he soon gave it up as a bad job.