“Well, if Tom’s mixed up in it, it won’t take long to find it out,” said the guide, indifferently. “The minute Matt is brought before the justice he’ll blab every thing he knows.”
When Joe heard this he almost wished that he had not been in such haste to declare that he would never rest easy until Matt and his family had been arrested or driven so far out of the country that they wouldn’t get back in a hurry. Joe was indignant, as he had reason to be, but he was not vindictive.
“I’d rather Matt would get off scott free than be the means of bringing Tom Bigden into disgrace,” was his mental reflection. “If I could help him out of the country I would do it. But then, there’s the money. What’s to be done about that? Do you suppose Jake has really lost track of those six thousand dollars?” he added, aloud.
“I am sure of it,” answered Roy, “What put that thought into your head?”
“If he intended to share it with the members of his family, what’s the reason he did not take it to his father the minute he found it?” asked Joe, in reply. “Every thing goes to prove that Jake wants all the money, and if he can make his father believe that he has lost it of course he will not be expected to divide.”
“Oh, you’re off the track,” said Arthur, confidently. “If Jake had told Matt any funny story like that, don’t you think the beating he got up there at the spring-hole would have brought the truth out of him? What do you think about it, Mr. Swan?”
“I haven’t yet made up my mind,” replied the guide. “This much I know. That money is hidden somewhere in the woods, and it’s going to be no fool of a job to find it.”
“Have you decided upon any plan of action?”
“Well, yes. We might as well hunt for a needle in a hay-stack as to go wandering about through the timber looking for a couple of grip-sacks, for I have been told that these woods cover almost two thousand square miles of ground. There must be some sort of system about the search, or it won’t amount to any thing. The rest of the boys are trying to catch Matt and all his family, believing that if they can do that they will get the money. Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won’t. I wasn’t going to do business that way. I intended to find their camp the first thing I did, and hang around it night and day till I got a clew. If Jake knows where the money is, he’ll have to go to it every little while to make sure it is safe, won’t he?”
The boys all thought he would, and Joe said: