Silas protested that he couldn't see any sense in such a law as that, but he lent his aid in pushing off the flat.
Dan, who was almost too angry to breathe, had more than half a mind to stay at home; but his curiosity to hear and see all that was said and done when the prisoner was turned over to the officers of the law impelled him to think better of it. When the flat was shoved off, he jumped in and picked up one of the oars.
CHAPTER XXXII. BOB EMERSON'S STORY.
We have said that Tom Hallet was so anxious to help his unlucky friend Bob in some way that he joined the very first squad that went out in search of him.
The man who had the name of being the leader of it was the sheriff's deputy; but the two stalwart young farmers who belonged to his party were longer of limb than he was, and they pushed ahead at such a rate that the deputy speedily fell to the rear, and stayed there during most of the day.
"Me and Cyrus have come out to win that there reward," said one of the young men, when Tom remonstrated with them for leaving the officer so far behind, "and we can't do it by loafing along like that sheriff does. We've got a mortgage to pay off on the farm, and we don't know any easier way to raise the money for it than to capture one of them rogues."
But this sanguine young fellow was not the only one who was destined to have his trouble for his pains; and what made his disappointment and his brother's harder to bear, was the reflection that if they had left Tom's cabin half an hour earlier than they did, they might have succeeded in earning a portion of the money of which they stood so much in need.