“Here they are, all safe and sound,” John answered, as Ree gently bore the sufferer down on his bed again; and as he felt his property placed in his hands, the wounded Quaker, holding them with all his remaining strength, allowed his eyes to close. Soon he slept and it required no doctor to tell that the crisis had been passed and Theodore Hatch was on the way to health again.
CHAPTER VII.
THE REWARD OF VIGILANCE.
“Have you ever seen what’s inside those saddle bags, Ree?”
John Jerome asked the question when it was certain that Theodore Hatch was sleeping, and the more comfortably because the property to which reference was made was clasped under his arm.
“I took a shirt out of the bags, you know, to make bandages. There was nothing in them that I saw to make him so anxious about them,” Kingdom answered. “Of course I didn’t see anything in them, nor look for anything except something to tie up his wounds with.”
“That man at Fort Pitt thought he had gold in the bags, that he kept them close by him all the time, you remember,” John went on. “Now I don’t think there is any gold in them, but maybe the other half of that letter about those hidden valuables is there; that’s what I’ve been thinking; for don’t you know how at first he would call out for Ichabod Nesbit and ask if he had the letter, and all that? Yes sir, Mr. Hatch will be able to tell all about the paper we found in Nesbit’s snuff box, when he comes to enough and gets strong.”
“You are wrong, John; see if you aren’t. Because if this man has the other part of the letter, and was looking for Nesbit to get the part he had, to put the two together, what was that paper that Duff and Dexter had at the Eagle tavern? Then, too, Duff and Dexter were just such rough fellows as Nesbit and might have been associated with him. But you can’t imagine this respectable Quaker and Nesbit having anything to do with one another, can you?”
Still John would not give in to Ree’s way of thinking, and as the argument was delaying their work when there was much to be done, the talk was discontinued.
The short afternoon came to a close before the boys were fully prepared for evening. Their goods were all unpacked and carried into the cabin, where they lay in confusion. A great pile of dry wood had been carried in, and fresh, dry leaves gathered for beds, but no provision had been made for shelter or protection for the horses, and there were numerous spots in which the cabin walls needed re-chinking to keep out the wind; the hot summer sun having baked the mud so dry that in places it had fallen away from between the logs.
Without a word, when their supper was over, Kingdom, taking a large blanket, hung it before the fire in such a way that the cabin was made quite entirely dark.