“Well, go on, an’ I’ll stay here till you come back,” said Sam, with suppressed eagerness.
“I don’t reckon that would be the best plan in the world,” answered Matt, who was not to be taken in by any such artifice. “Do you, Sammy?”
“Then you stay an’ let me go.”
“I don’t think that would be the best thing either, ’cause if you went alone them fellers might jump outen their camp an’ ketch you. We’ll both go, an’ then they can’t harm us, an’ we won’t get lost, nuther.”
Sam was well enough acquainted with his father to know that the latter had had his suspicions aroused in some mysterious way, and he had suddenly hit upon a plan to outwit him. If he could separate himself from Matt for just five minutes he would put for the outlet at his best pace, induce one of the resident vagabonds to set him across, and then he would secure his treasure and go somewhere—anywhere—so long as he could hold fast to the money and be out of his father’s reach. Perhaps, on reflection, he might decide to give it up and claim the reward; but that was a matter that could be settled at some future time. Did the squatter suspect this little game? Whether he did or not he nipped it in the bud by giving Sam to understand that wherever one went the other would go also, and that there was to be no separation.
“You see, Sammy,” said Matt, as he led the way toward the place where he had left the blanket, “if me an’ you stick together we won’t nuther get lost nor ketched, one or t’other of which has most likely happened to Jakey. ’Tain’t like him to stay away less’n he’s got some excuse for it.”
“Aw! Jake ain’t ketched,” said Sam, who knew that the only thing he could do was to put a good face on the matter and bide his time. “If he was, wouldn’t we have heard him whoopin’? He’s lost; that’s what’s went with Jake.”
“Well, if he is, he’s lost the grub as well as himself, ’cause there’s right where I left the blanket,” said Matt, pointing out the exact spot. “He won’t stay lost, for Jakey’s a master hand to find his way around in the woods. He’ll put for the outlet, most likely, an’ there’s where we will go, too. You toddle on ahead an’ I’ll foller.”
This meant that the squatter was resolved to keep Sam where he could see him, and the latter was careful to do nothing out of the ordinary. When it became too dark for them to continue their journey they lighted a fire and went supperless to bed, with nothing but the leaves for a mattress and the spreading branches of an evergreen for a covering. They slept, too, for Sam thought it wasn’t worth while to escape from his father’s control while they were so near the outlet. He could not get across before daylight, for the boats were all on the other side, and, more than that, Sam was too much of a coward to deliberately undertake a two-mile tramp through a piece of dark woods. It would be time enough for him to make a move when he was on the same side of the lake that the money was.
Father and son resumed their journey at the first peep of day, and at breakfast time were standing on the bank of the outlet below the hatchery, signaling for a boat. The same accommodating vagabond who had ferried them across two days before responded to their hail, and showed a desire to pry deeper into their private affairs than Matt was willing he should go.