“Right down there on the beach,” replied Tom, indicating the direction with his finger. “You know which one I mean, don’t you? You’re sure you can tell a canvas canoe from a Shadow or a Rob Roy?”
“Am I sure that I can tell a pipe from a shot gun?” retorted Matt.
“Yes, I suppose you can do that, but I am not so positive that you can tell one canoe from another,” answered Tom. “Of course it wouldn’t be safe for me to go down to the beach with you, for if Joe should happen to be anywhere within sight, I’d be in a pretty fix. You may be sure I shall not so much as hint that I saw you here in the woods, and you mustn’t lisp it to a living person.”
“Course not,” said Matt. “Mum’s the word between gentlemen.”
Tom could scarcely restrain an exclamation of disgust. It looked as though this blear-eyed ragamuffin considered himself quite as good as the boy he was talking to.
“Take the canoe just as it stands,” continued Tom, “and you will find a good lunch as well as a fine fishing-rod in it. Be lively now, for Joe may come back at any moment. I’ll keep out of sight, for of course I don’t want to know any thing about it.”
“I don’t care fur them new-fangled poles what’s got a silver windlass onto the ends of ’em, an’ I wouldn’t tech it if I didn’t think I could sell it to somebody; but I’ll go fur the grub, I tell you.”
So saying Matt Coyle went through with some contortions with the left side of his face which were, no doubt, intended for a friendly farewell wink, and stole off toward the beach; while Tom turned and walked away in the opposite direction. When he thought he had put a safe distance between himself and the pond, he sat down to await developments. Nor was he obliged to wait long. A rifle cracked away off to the left of his place of concealment, then a shot gun roared, and presently voices came to him from the depths of the forest. Joe and his companions had given up the chase, and were now on their way back to the pond, shooting squirrels as they came. Tom knew when they passed by within less than a hundred yards of him, and he knew, too, that they were surprised because they did not meet him in the woods or find him on the beach, for they set up a series of dismal whoops as soon as they reached the water’s edge.
“Now for it,” thought Tom, drawing his hand over his face and looking as innocent as though he had never been guilty of a mean act in his life. “I’ve got to meet them some time, and it might as well be now as an hour later. Whoop-pee!” he yelled in answer to the shouts that were sent up from the shore of the pond.
Tom’s ears also told him when Joe Wayring first discovered that his canvas canoe was missing. The yells suddenly ceased, and Tom heard no more from Joe and his companions until he came out of the woods and halted on the beach a short distance from the place where they were standing. They were gathered in a group around Roy Sheldon, who was bent over with his hands on his knees, and his eyes fastened upon a foot-print in the mud. They were listening so eagerly to something Roy was saying, that Tom walked up within reach of them before any of the group knew that he was about.