To his utter astonishment Brierly promptly answered:
"No, you hadn't. You don't know how to take care of so much money, more'n I do, and it's the properest thing that somebody should look out for it. I tell you, Silas, I ain't the man I was when that Joe of your'n ordered me out of old man's Warren's wood lot. Do you know what I did the minute I got home yesterday? Well, I went down to the hotel and give the landlord the twenty-five dollars that I had cheated Mr. Brown out of. The landlord knows where he lives, and will send it to him."
"Joe tells me that Mr. Brown was a mighty scared man after you lost him in the woods," observed Silas.
"It was a mighty mean trick," declared Brierly; "but the fact of it was I was hard up for money, and didn't care much how I got it. I think different now. I've got a chance to be something better'n the lazy, ragged vagabone I have always been, and I am going to keep it. I am, for a fact! I have been waiting for it, and now that I have got it, I intend to make the most of it. I think I shall let the heft of my money stay where it is this winter, and get my grub and clothes by chopping wood for old man Warren. You want to look out for Hobson. He's got an eye on them dollars of your'n. He tried to shove lots of things onto me this morning, but I wouldn't take 'em."
Silas Morgan never expected to hear such counsel as this from Brierly, who, like himself, had always been in the habit of squandering his slim earnings as fast as he could get hold of them, and it excited a serious train of reflections in his mind. Being on his guard, Hobson's blandishments had no effect upon him.
"You're the luckiest man I ever heard of!" exclaimed the proprietor of the Half-way House, coming out from behind his counter and greeting Silas with great cordiality. "Warren's hired man told the stage driver all about it, and he told us. Want anything in my line this morning?"
"There's plenty of things I want," replied Silas; "but I ain't got a cent of money."
"No matter for that. Your credit is good."
"And what's more, I don't reckon I can get any of that reward under six weeks," continued Silas. "The court don't sit till then, you know, and I won't see the color of them dollars till the bugglars gets their sentence."
"But Joe's pay-day will come sooner than that," suggested Hobson.