“That there is a search warrant, I ’spose,” growled Barr.
“That is just what it is. I want to see if you haven’t got another big gun stowed away somewhere about your premises.”
“Go ahead and sarch till you are blind, if you want to,” said Barr, angrily. “If you find anything around here that the law don’t allow me to have, I’ll eat it. I don’t know who it is that’s making all this furse for me, but if I can find out, I’ll have him brought before the justice to-morrow. I got into a muss last year trying to make grub for my family, and I’ve been doing as near right as I knowed how ever since.”
“No doubt of it,” answered the officer, in a tone which implied that there was considerable doubt about it. “By the way, Barr, how much did that big gun we found on Powell’s Island yesterday cost you?”
“’Twan’t mine. I never knew you had found one till these young chaps told me,” said Barr, and these were the only truthful words he uttered during the interview.
“Yes, I saw these boys there, and I noticed that they seemed to take a good deal of interest in the proceeding.”
“Was there anything so very strange in that?” asked Enoch, boldly. “We wanted to see what a big gun looked like.”
The boys did not at all like the look the officer gave them as he put his warrant back into his pocket and went into the cabin. It seemed to say that he knew they could tell all about that big gun and its owner if they were disposed to do so.
Barr’s house received a thorough overhauling. The police-officer and the detective were experts, and there was not a nook or crevice that they did not look into. They even examined the boards in the floor to see if any of them had been recently nailed down; but their search was in vain. Then they came out and searched the clearing, looking under every stump and log in it, and pulling down the brush-heaps, which they left for Barr to pile up again, and finally they found the path that led to the big gun’s place of concealment. Lester and Jones looked frightened when they saw them disappear in the bushes, but Enoch and Barr were perfectly unconcerned.
“There’s no cause for alarm yet,” said the former. “The path leads to a spring, and ends in a pasture where Barr keeps his cow. The gun is so securely hidden that they will never find it. They stand as much chance of being struck by lightning.”