As soon as Tom had time to recover from the surprise that these words occasioned, he told himself that he wouldn’t be in Jake’s place for any money.
“I ain’t sot eyes on that there boy for better’n a week, an’ you can’t begin to think how tickled I was to see him,” continued Matt. “He’s been livin’ tol’able hard since he’s been away from hum, an’ I reckon it’ll do him good to get a jolly tuck-out onct more.”
The squatter might have added that he and his family had also lived tolerable hard during Jake’s absence. They had put themselves on half rations, trying to make their bacon and potatoes last as long as possible, for when their larder was empty they did not know where the next supply was coming from.
“What did you do to Jake when you ran foul of him?” inquired Tom.
“What did I do to him? Why should I want to do any thing to him, seein’ that he has come hum to show me where them six thousand is hid? I jest tied him hard an’ fast, so’t I could easy find him agin, an’ left him in the bresh behind Rube’s cabin with the ole woman watchin’ over him to see that he don’t get loose,” replied Matt, with a grin. “Did you want to say any thing to me?”
“I thought it might interest you to know that your friend Joe Wayring is coming back to Indian Lake, and that he will probably bring Jake’s canoe with him,” answered Tom.
“Is that all?” exclaimed Matt, knocking the ashes from his pipe and glaring fiercely at the boy. “Have you made me tramp three or four miles through the woods jest to tell me that? I don’t care for Joe Wayring an’ his ole boat now. They can go where they please an’ do what they have a mind to, so long’s they keep clear of me. I wisht I hadn’t come. Jakey an’ me might have been most up to the cove where the money is hid by this time.”
Seeing that Matt was disposed to get angry at him for the time he had wasted and the long tramp he had taken for nothing, Tom stepped into his canoe and shoved off, while the squatter disappeared in the woods, grumbling as he went. He took the shortest course for the outlet, and in the thickest part of the woods, a short distance in the rear of the watchman’s cabin, found his wife keeping guard over the helpless Jake, who was so tightly wrapped in ropes that he could scarcely move a finger. The woman had accompanied Matt to the hatchery with the intention of begging a few eatables of Rube; but, finding him fast asleep, she helped herself to every thing she could find in the house, without taking the trouble to awaken him. When Matt came suddenly upon Jake in the woods and made a prisoner of him before he had time to think twice, his mother was on hand to stand sentry over him.
“That Bigden boy made me go miles outen my way an’ lose two or three hours besides, jest ’cause he wanted to tell me that Joe Wayring is comin’ back to Injun Lake directly,” said the squatter, in response to his wife’s inquiring look. “Jest as if I cared for him when there’s six thousand dollars waitin’ for me. Now, Jakey, what brung you to the hatchery? I ain’t had a chance to ask you before.”
“I come to git some grub, for I’m nigh starved to death,” said Jake, and his pinched face and sunken eyes bore testimony to the truth of his words. “I allowed to take one of the skiffs that we stole from Swan and his crowd, an’ go up to the lake an’ rob another suller.”