“What do you reckon he meant by that?”
“Why, it was a hint to you to go up to the lake some dark night, an’ turn the boats loose,” replied Jake. “Then they’d come down, an’ we could ketch ’em an’ hold fast to ’em till we was offered a reward fur givin’ ’em up. But, pap, since I’ve seed them rapids, I don’t b’lieve that no livin’ boat could ever come through ’em without smashin’ herself all to pieces, less’n there was somebody aboard of her to keep her off’n the rocks.”
“No more do I,” answered Matt, “an’ I shan’t bother with ’em, nuther. I ain’t forgot that they’ve got a calaboose up there to Mount Airy, an’ that they’d jest as soon shove a feller into it as not. But something has got to be done, or else we’ll go hungry for want of grub to eat.”
So saying, Matt shouldered his rifle, and set out to hunt up his dinner, and on the same day Joe Wayring and his two chums, accompanied by Tom Bigden, and his cousins, Ralph and Loren Farnsworth, ran the rapids into Sherwin’s Pond, to fish for bass. They caught a fine string, as every one did who went there, and were talking about going ashore to cook their breakfast, when they discovered a half-grown bear on the shore of the pond. Of course they made haste to start in pursuit of him—all except Tom Bigden. The latter told himself that the bear did not belong to him, that it was no concern of his whether he were killed or not, and sat down on a log and fought musquitoes while waiting for Joe and the rest to tire themselves out in the chase and come back.
Now Matt Coyle had his eye on that bear, and wanted to shoot him too, for, as I have said, his larder was nearly empty. He was ready to do something desperate when he saw Joe and his companions paddle ashore and frighten the game, but presently it occurred to him that he might profit by it. He knew that the boys would never have come so far from home without bringing a substantial lunch with them, and as they had left their canoes unguarded on the beach, what was there to hinder him from sneaking up through the bushes and stealing that lunch? Turn about was fair play. And, while he was about it, what was there to prevent him from taking his pick of the canoes? Then he would have something to work with. He could go up to Indian Lake and make another effort to establish himself there as independent guide; and, if he failed to accomplish his object, he could paddle about in his canoe, rob every unguarded camp he could find, and make the sportsmen who came there for recreation so sick of those woods that they would never visit them again. In that way he could ruin the hotels as well as the guides who were so hostile to him. It was a glorious plan, Matt told himself, and while he was turning it over in his mind he suddenly found himself face to face with Tom Bigden.
You know the conversation that passed between these two worthies, and remember how artfully Tom went to work to increase the unreasonable enmity which Matt Coyle cherished against Joe Wayring. After taking leave of Tom, the squatter plundered all the canoes that were drawn up beside me on the beach, first making sure of the baskets and bundles that contained the lunches, gave them all into my keeping, and shoved out into the pond with me. If I had possessed the power wouldn’t I have turned him overboard in short order? Matt was so clumsy and awkward that I was in hopes he would capsize me and spill himself out; but, although he could not make me ride on an even keel, he managed to keep me right side up, and, much to my disgust, I carried him safely across the pond and up the creek to his shanty.
As the squatter was impatient to begin the business of guiding so that he could make some money before the season was over, and anxious to get beyond reach of the officers of the law who would soon be on his track, he lost no time in breaking camp and setting out for Indian Lake. Before he went he burned his shanty and punt, so that the Mount Airy sportsmen could not find shelter in the one or use the other in fishing in the pond. He spent half an hour in trying to take me to pieces, so that he could carry me in his hand as if I were a valise, and finally giving it up as a task beyond his powers, he raised me to his shoulder and fell in behind his wife and boys, who led the way toward Indian Lake.
During the short time I remained in Matt Coyle’s possession I fared well enough, for I was too valuable an article to be maltreated; but I despised the company I was obliged to keep and the work I was expected to do. Matt’s first care was to lay in a supply of provisions for the use of his family; and as he had no money at his command and no immediate prospect of earning any, of course he expected to steal every thing he wanted. This was not a difficult task, for long experience had made him and his boys expert in the line of foraging. Nearly all the guides cultivated little patches of ground and raised a few pigs and chickens, and when their duties called them away from home there was no one left to guard their property except their wives and children. The latter could not stand watch day and night, and consequently it was no trouble at all for Matt and his hopeful sons to rob a hen-roost or a smokehouse as often as they felt like it. But, as it happened, the very first foraging expedition he sent out, after he made his new camp about two miles from Indian Lake, resulted most disastrously for Matt Coyle. He ordered Jake and me to forage on Mr. Swan, the genial, big-hearted guide of whom you may have heard something in “The Story of a Fly-rod;” or, rather, Jake was to do the stealing, and I was to bring back the plunder he secured.
The young scapegrace had no difficulty in getting hold of a side of bacon and filling a bag with potatoes, which he dug from the soil with his hands, but there his good fortune ended. While he was making his way up the creek toward home, he was discovered by Joe Wayring and his two friends, Roy and Arthur, who were going to Indian Lake for their usual summer’s outing. Of course they at once made a determined effort to recapture me, and Jake in his mad struggle to escape ran me upon a snag and sunk me, thus putting it out of his father’s power to go into the business of independent guiding. The fights that grew out of that night’s work were numerous and desperate, and Matt declared that he would “even up” with the boys if he had to wait ten years for a chance to do it.
It was the work of but a few moments for my master, with the aid of his friends, to bring me back to the surface of the water where I belonged. He took me home with him when his outing was over, and there I lived during the winter in comparative quiet, while Joe and his chums were made the victims of so many petty annoyances that it was a wonder to me how they kept their temper as well as they did. Matt Coyle and his boys could not do any thing to trouble them, because they were afraid to show themselves about the village; but Tom Bigden and his cousins were alert and active. They bothered Joe in every conceivable way. They made a lifelong enemy of Mars by sending him home through the streets with a tin can tied to his tail; they shot at Roy Sheldon’s tame pigeons as often as the birds ventured within range of their long bows; they overturned Joe’s sailboat after he had hauled it out on the beach and housed it for the winter; and one night I heard them talk seriously of setting fire to the boathouse. Loren and Ralph Farnsworth, however, were not willing to go as far as that, knowing, as they did, that arson was a State’s prison offense, but they agreed to Tom’s proposition to break into the boathouse and carry off “that old canvas canoe that Joe seemed to think so much of,” because they could do as much mischief of that sort as they pleased, and no blame would be attached to them. It would all be laid at Matt Coyle’s door.