“Then if you can’t find it you don’t know where it is.”
“I tell you I do too. It’s up there in the same woods that the canoe an’ guns was hid in,” cried Matt, once more speaking a little too hastily.
It was now Tom’s turn to open his eyes. After a little reflection he said—
“If you think the money is in that particular part of the woods, why don’t you go there and stay till you find it? Or else make Jake show you where it is.”
“But Jakey won’t do it. He ain’t that sort of a boy.”
“Then denounce him to the sheriff.”
“What’s that?”
“Why, expose him; tell on him. I’ll bet you he will be quite willing to reveal the hiding-place of those valises when he feels an officer’s grip on his collar.”
“But what good will that do me? The constable who takes Jakey up will get the reward that’s been offered, an’ I shan’t see none of it. Whoop!” shouted Matt, going off into another paroxysm of rage. “Every thing an’ every body seems to be goin’ agin me this mornin’.”
“Well, then,” said Tom, who had the strongest of reasons for hoping that the squatter might never fall into the clutches of the law, “if I were in your place, I would have a serious talk with Jake. I’d tell him that he is sure to be arrested, sooner or later, that it is preposterous for him to think he can keep the money, and urge him to give it up and claim a portion of the reward. Some of it will have to go to the officers who found the robbers, you know. If you will do that, I will promise that Joe Wayring will not prosecute you for stealing his canoe.”