I did not wonder at the white face the boy brought with him when he came into the cabin and took me out of the chimney corner, and neither was I much surprised to hear him mutter under his breath—
“I do wish in my soul that I’d busted a hole into you when I run you onto that snag last night. Then pap couldn’t have used you this mornin’. I’ll bet he don’t never go out in you no more.”
“Now, then,” said Matt, “put him together, ready for business—you can do it better’n I can—while I go in after my pipe an’ rifle.”
“Say, Jakey,” said Sam, in a delighted whisper, as Matt tip-toed into the cabin, “if pap finds the camp of them robbers won’t we be rich folks, though? He ain’t goin’ in fur the reward, pap ain’t. Looks to me as though he had got his eye on them six thousand.”
That was the way it looked to Jake too; and although he knew that his father could not find the money, hidden as it was under five feet and more of muddy water, he was afraid that he would see something at Haskins’ landing that would make him open his eyes. And Jake’s fears were realized. In less than an hour after he and his brother put me into the water at the head of the outlet, Matt had paddled up to Haskins’ landing and was taking in all the signs he found there with the eye of an Indian trailer. Nothing escaped his scrutiny. He saw the impress of Jake’s bare feet in the mud, the prints of boots, the marks of the canvas canoe on the beach, and noted the place where the bags had been left while the robbers were being ferried across the lake. Then he sat down on a log, smoked a pipe, and thought about it.
“What was that boy’s notion for tellin’ me that them robbers couldn’t have crossed the lake ’cause they didn’t have no boat, do you reckon?” said he, to himself. “Come to think of it, he did look kinder queer when I said I was goin’ to look about Haskinses’ landin’ jest to see what I could find here, and I’ll bet that that boy knows more about them robbers than any body else in these woods. He took ’em over, Jakey did—all the signs show that. Course he didn’t do it for nothin’, so he must have money. Now what’s to be done about it?”
This was a question upon which the squatter pondered long and deeply. If Jake had earned some money the night before, of course Matt ought to have the handling of it, for he was the head of the family; but how was he going to get it? He knew the boy too well to indulge in the hope that he would surrender it on demand, and as for whipping it out of him—well, that wouldn’t be so easy, either; for Jake was light of foot, and quite as much at home in the woods as his father was. It wouldn’t do for Matt to come to an open rupture with his hopeful son, for if he did who would steal the bacon and potatoes the next time the larder ran low? Sam was too timid to forage in the dark, running the risk of encounters with vicious dogs and settlers who might be on the watch, and even Matt had no heart for such work. He must bide his time and pick Jake’s pocket after he had gone to bed, unless—here the squatter got upon his feet, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and shoved the canvas canoe out into the lake.
“Them robbers must have made pretty considerable of a trail, lumberin’ through the bresh in the dark, an’ what’s to hender me from follerin’ ’em?” he soliloquized, as he plied the double paddle. “Havin’ been up all night they oughter sleep to-day, an’ if I can only find their camp—eh?”
Matt Coyle began building air-castles as these thoughts passed through his mind. He paddled directly across the lake, avoiding the snag on which I had been overturned the night before, passing over Jake’s silver mine, which he might have seen if he had looked into the water, and presently he was standing on the spot where the robbers made their landing when they waded ashore. Here another surprise awaited him. There were no signs to indicate that the canvas canoe had been there before, and neither were there any prints of bare feet to be seen. Boot-marks were plenty, however, and the ground about them was wet.
“Now what’s the meanin’ of this yer?” exclaimed Matt, who was greatly astonished and bewildered. “What’s the reason Jakey didn’t land his passengers on shore ’stead of dumpin’ them in the water? Do you reckon he tipped ’em over an’ spilled that money out into the lake? If he did, ’taint no use for me to foller the trail any furder.”