“I told you I’d lick ye if we didn’t find the money in Joe’s camp, didn’t I?” said his father, fiercely. “Now I reckon you see that I was in earnest, don’t you? If you had brung me the money the minute you got hold of it, I would have went halvers with you, an’ you wouldn’t have had that lookin’ face, an’ I wouldn’t have been put to so much trouble. Next time bear in mind that your pap is boss of this here house. You say that Bigden boy played a trick onto me. I begin to suspicion so myself; but, if he did, where’s the money? Jakey, did you hide them grip-sacks in that hole where you said you did?”
“Sure’s I live an’ breathe I did,” replied Jake, edging away from his father when he saw how savagely the latter scowled at him. “It was there the last time I seen it; but I don’t know where it is now.”
“What be we waitin’ here for?” interrupted Sam. “Joe ain’t got the money, an’ why don’t we go somewheres else an’ look for it? Mam’ll be scared if we don’t come home purty quick.”
“Where else shall we go an’ look for it?” demanded the squatter.
“Why, down to—anywheres,” said Sam, with some confusion.
“You had some place in your mind when you spoke,” Matt insisted. “Down where?”
“Anywheres on the other side of the lake. It ain’t never been brung over here, an’ I didn’t think so none of the time.”
Very gradually it began to creep into Matt’s head that Sam had not acted at all like himself since their party left Tom Bigden’s camp to go in pursuit of Joe Wayring. The boy had been opposed to it from the first, and showed great anxiety and impatience to return to camp and relieve his mother’s suspense. How did she know but that they had fallen into the clutches of the law; and how was she going to find out unless one of their number went home to assure her that they were all safe and sound? It wasn’t at all like Sam to express so much concern for his mother’s comfort and peace of mind, and why should he do it now, Matt asked himself, unless he had some reason for desiring to go back to the cove?
“An’ what should Sammy want to go back there for, less’n it’s to look after something he’s left behind?” soliloquized the squatter. “An’ what’s he left there if it ain’t them two—Whoop! That’s it, sure’s you’re born.”
“What’s the matter of you, pap?” exclaimed Sam.