Dan was generally the last one of the family to bestir himself in the morning, and even after he got upon his feet, it took him a good while to wake up; but it was not so in this instance. His senses came to him the moment he opened his eyes, and, for a wonder, he brought in the wood, and lent a hand at setting the table.
He moved about the room with noiseless footsteps, spoke in scarcely audible whispers, and cast frequent and anxious glances toward his father's couch.
"Well, sir, we done it, didn't we?" said he, when breakfast had been eaten and he and Joe were hurrying along the road toward the place of meeting.
"Did what?" inquired his brother.
"Got away without waking pap up," said Dan, who was in high glee. "I knew he said last night that he didn't mean to go, but I wasn't such a fool as to believe it. He wanted to go with you; and then do you know what would have happened if you and him had captured one of them bugglars? Well, sir, he would have laid claim to the whole of the reward, and never give you a cent of it. I'm onto his little games. And he's going to make you hand over them three thousand dollars you made yesterday. He's a mighty mean, stingy feller, pap is, and you want to watch out for him."
Dan talked to keep up his courage, which began to ooze out of the ends of his fingers when he found himself drawing near to the gorge; but Joe was so deeply engrossed with his own thoughts that he did not hear a dozen words of it.
The young game-warden was not building air-castles. He was by no means as confident as Dan appeared to be, that it would be his luck to assist in the capture of one of the robbers, and, if the truth must be told, he hoped that that dangerous duty would fall to somebody else.
He had more money now than he had ever expected to possess, and his brains were busy with plans for keeping it out of his father's reach.
While he was turning them over in his mind, they came within sight of his cabin. Dan insisted on seeing the inside of it, so Joe pulled out the loosened staple, and threw open the door.
"Ain't you mighty glad that you wasn't here when them robbers come up and stole your grub and things?" said he, after he had taken a look around. "Say, Joey, you'll keep old man Warren's rifle, to take the place of the scatter-gun you lost, won't you?"