“That’s the reward that’s been offered for them robbers.”
“Who said any thing about the reward,” exclaimed Matt, almost fiercely. “I wasn’t thinkin’ of the reward. I was thinkin’ of the six thousand.”
“Wouldn’t you try to ’rest ’em, pap, if you should find ’em?” inquired Sam.
“Not if I could make more by givin’ ’em aid an’ comfort, I wouldn’t. Say,” added Matt, giving Sam a poke in the ribs with his finger. “Six hundred dollars is nothin’ alongside of six thousand, is it? Them fellers will have to camp somewhere, if they stay in the woods, won’t they? An’ is there a man in the Injun Lake country that’s better’n I be at findin’ camps an’ sneakin’ up on ’em? Jakey, go into the shanty an’ bring out that canvas canoe of your’n. Go easy, ’cause Rube wants to sleep after bein’ up all night. More’n that, I want him to sleep; for I don’t care to have him know what I am up to. I suspicion that he’s watchin’ me.”
“Where be you goin’, pap?” asked Jake, in some alarm.
“Up to Haskinses’ to take a look around his landin’,” replied Matt. “You didn’t see any thing of them robbers while you was workin’ about that suller, did you, Jakey?”
“Didn’t see hide nor hair of nobody,” was the answer. “If I’d seen ’em I’d been that scared that I never would quit a runnin’.”
“Well, they was up there somewheres, ’cause Swan an’ his crowd tracked ’em that fur. But they couldn’t foller ’em no furder, an’ that proves that the robbers must have crossed the lake right there.”
“I don’t reckon they did, pap,” replied Jake, whose uneasiness and anxiety were so apparent that it was a wonder his father’s suspicions were not aroused. “’Cause where did they get a boat to take ’em over? Haskins don’t own but one, an’ he’s got that up to Injun Lake.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” answered Matt, doggedly. “Them robbers got across the lake somehow, an’ I am sure of it. Leastwise it won’t do any harm to slip up there, easy like, an’ look around a bit. Go an’ bring out the canoe, Jakey.”