“No, I ain’t! Do come quick! They won’t wait long, and then Peternot will take the money!”
“Well, well,—I suppose I’ll go,—pretty work for Sunday, I should say!”
“It was wrong,—I ought to have told you all about it before,” said Jack, “but I thought I was doing the best thing; I didn’t want anybody to know whose land I found the money on, so he couldn’t claim it.”
“Hurrah! I’ll go too!” cried Phin. “You take care of the old mare, Phi!”
“If it’s the Huswick boys, I guess I better go and see fair play,” remarked Mr. Pipkin; and he followed with the deacon, while Phin ran ahead with Jack.
The two boys reached the pasture; and now Jack, outstripping his companion, darted forward to a certain low length of fence, leaped upon it, and peered with a wild and anxious gaze into the woods.
“They’re gone! they’re gone!” he shrieked despairingly; and, tumbling over the rails, he ran through the bushes to the log.
They were gone indeed; but there was his basket, just where he had left it, covered with his frock. He flew to it, and stripped off the covering; and there Phin, as he came up, found him staring in utter consternation and dismay at a peck of melon rinds and rotten wood.
“Is that yer money?” said Phin. “I don’t believe there was any: you’ve been fooling us!”
Jack threw out the rubbish, with the frantic thought that the coin must still be there.