“I wonder if any other living boy ever submitted so tamely to such an insult,” soliloquized Tom, as he headed his canoe up the lake and paddled back toward the point. “That villain holds me completely in his power. He can disgrace me before the whole village of Mount Airy any time he sees fit to do so. The minute he is arrested and brought to trial, just that minute I am done for. If I give him fifty dollars for those guns, how much better off will I be? He will have a still firmer hold upon me. He’ll rob other camps, compel me to buy his plunder by threats of exposure, and the first thing I know I shall be a professional ‘fence’—receiver of stolen goods. By gracious!” exclaimed Tom, redoubling his efforts at the paddle as if he hoped to run away from the gloomy thoughts that pressed so thickly upon him. “What am I coming to? What have I come to?”
“There, now,” I heard Matt mutter, as he stood with his hands on his hips, watching Tom Bigden’s receding figure. “I’ve done two good strokes of business this morning. I’ve brought that feller down a peg or two, an’ I have pervided for gettin’ shet of them guns in a way I didn’t look for. I thought for one spell that they wasn’t goin’ to be of no use to me, but now I shall make fifty dollars clean cash outen ’em. He’ll bring it to me, for if he don’t I’ll tell on him sure, an’ then he’ll be in a pretty fix with all them people up there to Mount Airy knowin’ to his meanness. It hurts these ’ristocrats to have a feller like me to talk to ’em as I talked to that Bigden boy; I can see that plain enough. Well, they ain’t got no business to have so much money an’ so many fine things, while me an’ my family is so poor that we don’t know where our next pair of shoes is comin’ from.”
Highly pleased with the result of his interview with Tom Bigden, Matt shoved the canvas canoe into the water and pulled slowly toward the outlet, once more passing directly over Jake’s silver mine. Perhaps the sunken treasure had some occult influence upon him, for he straightway dismissed Tom from his mind, and thought about Jake and the robbers and the six thousand dollars.
“Don’t stand to reason that Jakey would a told me that he hadn’t seen them robbers less’n he had some excuse for it,” said Matt, to himself. “He did see ’em, an’ I know it. He took ’em across the lake, too. He didn’t do it for nothing, so he’s got money. I’ll speak to him about it when I get home, an’ then I’ll make it my business to keep an eye on him.”
Having come to this determination Matt dismissed Jake as well as Tom from his thoughts, and made all haste to reach the outlet, not forgetting as he paddled swiftly along to keep a close watch of the woods on shore. Mr. Swan and a large squad of guides and constables were in there somewhere, and Matt Coyle had a wholesome fear of them. When I ran upon the beach at the head of the outlet, I was not very much surprised to see Jake step out of the bushes and come forward to meet his father. The boy must have been in great suspense all the morning, and although he was almost bursting with impatience to know whether or not his father had discovered any thing during his absence he could not muster up courage enough to ask any questions. But Matt began the conversation himself.
“Jakey,” said he, reproachfully. “I didn’t think you would get so low down in the world as to go an’ fool your pap the way you done this mornin’. You told me you hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them robbers, an’ that wasn’t so. You did see ’em, an’ you took ’em across the lake, too. But you didn’t land ’em on this side; you dumped ’em out into the water. Now how much did you get for it?”
Jake was not so much taken aback as I thought he would be. He had been expecting something of this kind and was prepared for it. He knew that his father was an adept at reading “sign,” and he was as well satisfied as he wanted to be that his five dollars ferry money would never do him any good. The question was: How much more had his father learned? Did he know any thing about the silver mine? Jake didn’t believe he did, else he would have been more jubilant. A man who knew where he could put his hand on six thousand dollars at any moment would not look as sober as Matt Coyle did.
“I didn’t get nothin’ for dumpin’ on ’em out, pap,” replied Jake, after a little pause. “That was somethin’ I couldn’t help. The night was dark, an’ I didn’t see the snag till I was clost onto it.”
“Well, what become of the six thousand dollars they had with ’em?” inquired Matt, looking sharply at the boy, who met his gaze without flinching. “Did you see any thing of it?”
“I seen a couple of grip-sacks into their hands, but I didn’t ask ’em what was in ’em,” answered Jake. He looked very innocent and truthful when he said it, but his father was not deceived. He had known Jake to tell lies before.