“Well, I am he; the identical old nigger!”
“Don,” said Bert, reproachfully, “you didn’t——”
“Yes, I did,” replied Don, as he sat down on the lowest step and stretched his arms and legs. “I am the one who cut up all those shines at the barn, and made the hands think old Jordan had risen from the dead. I am sorry now, but the temptation was so strong I couldn’t resist it. But didn’t I scare everybody, though?”
“But, Don,” said Bert, who could not understand the matter at all, “how came——”
“I know what you want to find out,” said his brother, “and ‘thereby hangs a tale’—a long one, too. I’ll tell it while I am resting.”
With this introduction Don began and told a story that made Bert open his eyes wider than ever. He related as much of the history of the buried treasure as he had been able to learn, told how he had first found out about it, and gave a glowing description of the plans he had formed to frighten the two conspirators, as he called them. He described minutely all the incidents connected with his capture and confinement in the cellar, and when he told of the coolness and determination with which Clarence had conducted the whole proceeding, Bert’s astonishment was almost unbounded.
“That was a joke that was no joke,” said Don, in conclusion. “The tables were turned on me in a way that would have amused me greatly, had it not been for the fact that I knew Clarence was likely to suffer for what he had done. I didn’t care for myself, although I assure you there was no fun in being tied up for almost twelve hours. Where is Clarence now?”
“I left him at the barn, waiting for your horse to be saddled, so that he could start out in search of you. Godfrey was there too, and I heard him promise father that he would look through the woods and see if he could discover any signs of you.”
“Did either of them know that they had captured me instead of old Jordan?”