“I didn’t see all of him—only jest the eye; an’ that was a watchin’ us, kase I could see it wink.”
“Where was it?” asked Clarence, elevating his eye-brows.
“Down in the fence corner, clost by that big butternut tree.”
The boy stared, then laid down his rifle and seated himself on the nearest log. He seemed to be very much impressed by what he had heard.
“I knowed all the time that you didn’t come out here to shoot no squirrels,” said Godfrey, “kase if they was what ye wanted, ye could a found a cartload of ’em nigher to the gen’ral’s house. Now, what be ye a goin’ to do about it? Be ye goin’ to tell yer uncle?”
“That depends entirely upon yourself,” was the reply, which quickly put all Godfrey’s fears at rest. “I would much rather help you dig up the barrel and then divide its contents with you—that is, if there is any barrel there, and we have a chance of finding it.”
As Godfrey had already committed himself he knew that it was too late to deny anything, so he replied that to the best of his knowledge and belief the barrel was hidden somewhere in that potato-patch; and at the boy’s request he went on to tell why he thought so. He told him the story of the buried treasure just as he had told it before to the members of his family, and Clarence listened to every word. When Godfrey ended his tale he questioned him closely; and when he got up half an hour afterward to stretch his arms and legs, he believed as firmly as Godfrey did that there was a fortune concealed in his uncle’s potato-patch. He said so too, and proposed to Godfrey that they should search for it together, and, when they found it, divide the contents, whatever they might be.
“There is one thing about it,” continued Clarence; “two are enough to engage in any such enterprise as this, and I’ll have nothing whatever to do with it, unless you promise that Dan shall be left in the background. We don’t want him.”
“No fear about him,” replied Godfrey. “He seed the haunt as well as me, an’ says he won’t go thar no more.”
“I am glad of it, and I hope he will stick to his resolution,” said Clarence. “But, in order to make sure of it, you had better tell him that you are not going near the field again yourself. You can slip away from him every night, I suppose?”