“We can’t tell you where his shanty is,” said Joe, “but we can show you where Matt and his boys were not ten minutes ago. He stole my canvas canoe and gave me a long chase through the woods. He promised that if he could get hold of me, he would wear a hickory out over my back.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the guide. “What for?”
Joe’s story was a long one, for in order to make the guide understand how he and his companions had incurred the enmity of the vindictive squatter, it was necessary that he should go back to the time when Matt and his family first made their appearance in Mount Airy. He described the fight between them and the constable and his posse, the particulars of which he received from eye-witnesses; told how Matt had stolen the canoe and six fine fishing-rods and reels, while he and his companions were looking for the bear they saw on the shore of Sherwin’s Pond; and gave a glowing account of the fight in the creek, at which the guide laughed heartily.
“I’ll jest bet that them was my taters that you pelted him with,” said he; “’cause while I was out in the woods with a guest from Boston, my wife said that my garden and smoke-house were both robbed in one night. As for them fish poles—I think I can tell you where to find them.”
“Good for you, Mr. Swan,” cried Arthur. “Where are they?”
“Of course, I don’t know that they belong to you; I only suspect it,” continued the guide. “You see, one day last summer, Jake Coyle brung six as purty poles as you would want to look at up to the Sportsman’s Home, and told Mr. Hanson, the new landlord, that he got ’em in a boat trade. He couldn’t use ’em, fur they wasn’t the kind that he’d been in the habit of handlin’, and so he wanted to sell ’em. I told Hanson that I was as sure as any thing could be that they had been stole, and that mebbe the owner would come along some day looking for them; so Hanson, he buys ’em, reels and all, for four dollars apiece—all except one that Jake said had been broke by a bass, and for that he give two dollars. They were covered with mud and rust, but I cleaned ’em up, and now they look as good as new.”
“They are our rods, and I know it,” exclaimed Roy. “If mine is the one that’s broken, I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I paid Jake for it in advance by hitting him in the mouth with that potato.”
“And if it’s mine, I settled with him this afternoon by slapping him in the face with his father’s paddle,” chimed in Joe Wayring.
The guide laughed again. “You’re as plucky a lot of youngsters as I ever see,” said he, “and you may rest assured that them folks won’t bother you or any body else much longer. We are going to put ’em in jail for thieves when we catch ’em.”
“Ah! Yes,” said Arthur; “but that’s right where you are going to see trouble. Our deputy sheriff and constable searched every inch of the ground around Sherwin’s Pond, and all they found was the place where Matt’s shanty once stood. He set fire to it before he left for Indian Lake.”