“Well, go on if you want to,” yelled Matt. “But bear one thing in mind: I’ll leave word at the hatchery this very night, an’ to-morrer there’ll be a constable lookin’ for you. You forget that you told me to steal Joe Wayring’s boat down there to Sherwin’s Pond last summer, don’t you? You knowed I was goin’ to take it, you never said or done a thing to hender me, an’ that makes you a ’cessory before the fact,” added Matt glibly, and with a ring of triumph in his voice. “Now, will you stop an’ talk to me, or go to jail?”
Tom was frightened as well as astonished. He had forgotten all about that little episode at Sherwin’s Pond, but the squatter’s threatening words recalled it very vividly to mind. He knew enough about law to be aware that an accessory before the fact is one who advises or commands another to commit a felony, and Tom had done just that very thing, and thereby rendered himself liable to punishment. It is true that there were no witnesses present when he urged Matt to steal the canvas canoe, but there were plenty of them around, when he advised him to steal the hunting dogs belonging to the guests of the hotels, and to turn the sail boats in Mirror Lake adrift so that they would go through the rapids into Sherwin’s Pond.
“Great Scott!” ejaculated Tom, as these reflections came thronging upon him thick and fast. “What have I done? I have put my foot in it, and this low fellow has the upper hand of me as sure as the world.”
I am of opinion that Tom would have given something just then if he had not been in such haste to take vengeance upon a boy who never did the first thing to incur his enmity.
CHAPTER VI.
JAKE WORKS HIS MINE.
“I allowed you’d stop after you took time to think the matter over,” chuckled Matt, when he saw the boy lift his paddle from the water and rest it across his knee. “I ain’t forgot that you spoke kind words to me an’ my family down there to Mount Airy when every body else was jawin’ at us an’ tryin’ to kick us outen house an’ home, an’ I’d be glad to be friends with you,” he added, in a more conciliatory tone. “But I ain’t goin’ to stand no airs of no sort. Now, come ashore so’t I can talk to you.”
“What do you want to say to me?” asked Tom, who could hardly refrain from yelling in the ecstasy of his rage. The man talked as though he had a perfect right to command him. “Speak out, if you have any thing on your mind. I can hear it from my canoe as well as I could ashore.”
“Well, I shan’t speak out, nuther,” answered Matt, decidedly. “I ain’t goin’ to talk so’t they can hear me clear up to Injun Lake. Come ashore.”
Tom reluctantly obeyed; that is, he ran the bow of his canoe upon the beach, but that was as far as he would go.
“I am as near shore as I am going to get,” said he, with a little show of spirit. “Now what have you to say to me? Be in a hurry, for my friends are waiting for me.”