Matt dropped upon his hands and knees and peered into the hollow, which he saw at a glance was empty. Then he seated himself upon the log and took his pipe from his pocket. He did not whoop and yell, as he usually did when things went wrong with him, for this new misfortune fairly stunned him. His knowledge of the English language was so limited that he could not do justice to his feelings; but by the time he had smoked his pipe out he had made up his mind what he would do.
“In course that Bigden boy will have the fifty dollars in his pocket when he comes after the guns to-morrer,” said he. “So all I’ve got to do is to get him ashore an’ take it away from him. I reckon I’ve lost them six thousand, but I ain’t goin’ to be cheated on all sides, I bet you. Then if he blabs, I’ll tell about his bein’ in ca-hoots with me when I stole Joe Wayring’s canvas canoe. I reckon that’s the best thing I can do.”
I have already told you how hard Matt tried to carry out this programme when he met Tom Bigden on the following morning and how signally he failed. Tom could not be induced to approach very close to the beach, and was so wide-awake and so quick with his paddle that Matt could not seize his canoe. The squatter’s proverbial luck seemed to have forsaken him at last. He was being worsted at every point.
I pass over the next few days, during which little occurred that was worthy of note. Jake Coyle kept aloof from his kindred, who had not the faintest idea where he was or how he lived. Matt and the rest of his family again established their camp at the cove, and they did not go there a single day too soon; for when it became known among the guides that the stolen guns had been found and given into Mr. Hanson’s keeping a dozen of them plunged into the woods, intent on earning the hundred dollars that had been offered for the squatter’s apprehension, and ridding the country of a dangerous man at the same time. Tom Bigden and his cousins fished a little and lounged in their hammocks a good deal, and, having had time to become thoroughly disgusted with camp life, were talking seriously of going home.
As bad luck would have it, the three boys went up to the Sportsman’s Home after their mail on the same day that Mr. Swan returned from his trip to Mount Airy. They heard him say that he had restored the canvas canoe to his owner, that Joe Wayring was all ready to pay another visit to Indian Lake, and that he and his two chums might be expected to arrive at any hour. Ralph and his brother did not pay much attention to this, for they didn’t like Joe well enough to be interested in his movements; but Tom paid a good deal of attention to it. He spent an hour or two the next morning in loafing about the hatchery, and another hour on the beach waiting for Matt Coyle. That was the time he was seen by a couple of guides and their employers, who were camping on the opposite side of the Lake, and who had a good deal to say about the incident when they went back to their hotel. They saw Matt plainly when he came out of the bushes and accosted Tom, and if they had been near enough they might have overheard the following conversation:
“I seen you hangin’ around the hatchery, an’ thought that mebbe you had something to say to me; so I come up yer,” said Matt, who, for some reason, was in exceedingly good humor.
“You have been a long time coming,” was Tom’s reply. “I began to get tired of waiting and was about to start for camp. What has come over you all of a sudden? You are not quite as ugly as you were the last time I saw you.”
“An’ you ain’t quite so skittish, nuther,” retorted Matt. “I couldn’t get you to come ashore last time you was here.”
“Of course not. You meant to rob me, and I knew it. What good fortune has befallen you now?”
“You may well ask that,” replied the squatter, sitting down on the log and producing his never failing pipe. “I did think one spell that luck was agin me, but now I know it ain’t. The reason I kept you waitin’ so long for me was ’cause I run foul of Jake as I was comin’ here.”