“No use, boys,” said he, “might as well go back. There ain’t no fears but what the sheriff’ll be smart enough to do ’em yet, if he’s alive, an’ if he’s dead we can’t help him any.”
“If he’s dead,” remarked Bill Braymer, “an’ there’s any pay due him, I hope part of it’ll come for these horses. Mine’s dead, an’ Pete’s might as well be.”
“Well,” said Jim, “I’ll go on to town. I want to be out early in the mornin’ an’ see ef I can’t get a deer, an’ it’s time I was in bed.” And Jim galloped off.
The horse and man which might have been seen threading the woods at early daybreak on the following morning, might have set for a picture of one of Sherman’s bummers. For a month afterward Jim’s mother bemoaned the unaccountable absence of a tin pail, a meal-bag, two or three blankets, her only pair of scissors, and sundry other useful articles, while her sorrow was increased by the fact that she had to replenish her household stores sooner than she had expected.
The sheriff examined so eagerly the articles which Jim deposited in rapid succession on the cabin-floor, that Jim had nothing to do but look at the sheriff, which he did industriously, though not exactly to his heart’s content. At last the sheriff looked up, and Jim saw two eyes full of tears, and a pair of lips which parted and trembled in a manner very unbecoming in a sheriff.
“Don’t, please,” said Jim, appealingly. “I wish I could have done better for you, but somehow I couldn’t think of nothin’ in the house that was fit for a woman, except the scissors.”
“Don’t think about me at all,” said the sheriff, quickly. “I care for nothing for myself. Forget that I’m alive.”
“I—I can’t,” stammered Jim, looking as guilty as forty counterfeiters rolled into one. The sheriff turned away quickly, while the father called Jim to his side.
“Young man,” said he, “you’ve been as good as an angel could have been, but if you suspect her a minute of being my accomplice, may heaven blast you! I taught her engraving, villain that I was, but when she found out what the work really was, I thought she’d have died. She begged and begged that I’d give the business up, and I promised and promised, but it isn’t easy to get out of a crowd of your own kind, particularly when you’re not so much of a man as you should be. At last she got sick of waiting, and ran away—then I grew desperate and worse than ever. I’ve been searching everywhere for her; you don’t suppose a smart—smart counterfeiter has to get rid of his money in the way I’ve been doing, do you? I traced her to this part of the State, and I’ve been going over the roads again and again trying to find her; but I never saw her until she put this hole through my arm last night.”
“I hadn’t any idea who you were,” interrupted the sheriff, with a face so full of mingled indignation, pain and tenderness, that Jim couldn’t for the life of him take his eyes from it.