"And would you be willing that your money should be risked on any such a venture?" asked the Sheriff, turning to Sabella with a smile.
"Indeed I would," answered the girl, promptly. "After the splendid way Mr. Brackett helped us last evening, I know whatever he says must be so."
"That will do," said Mr. Riley. "With such sureties I am well content, and am willing to make public acknowledgment that these gentlemen are what they represent themselves to be. Now, for their future guidance, I will tell them what I have not yet hinted to a living soul. It is that their raft has probably been stolen and taken down the river by the most noted gang of counterfeiters that has ever operated in this part of the country. There are three of them, and I thought I had surely run them to earth when I traced them to the island just above Dubuque. You must have seen them there, didn't you?"
"No, sir," replied Winn, to whom this question was addressed. "I only saw one man on the island. He said he was a river-trader, and would help me float the raft. We went to look for his partners, and when I came back, it and he were both gone. After that I did not see a soul until you came along and arrested me."
"That confirms my belief that they have appropriated your raft to their own uses," said the Sheriff; "and it is a mighty good scheme on their part, too. We were watching all the steamboats, and even the trading scows, but never thought of finding them on a raft. They have probably disguised it, and themselves too, long before this, so that to trail them will be very difficult. I suppose you will try to follow them, though?"
"Certainly I shall," answered Billy Brackett, promptly. "I haven't undertaken this job only to give it up after a week's trial. As for Winn, though, I don't know but what I really ought to send him home."
"Now look here, Uncle Billy. You know you don't mean that. You know that, much as I want to see mother and Elta, I simply must find that raft, or, at any rate, help you do it. You couldn't send me home, either, unless you borrowed a pair of handcuffs from the Sheriff and put me in irons. Anyway, I don't believe you'd have the heart. If I thought for a moment that you had, I'd—well, I'd disappear again, that's all."
"All right," laughed Billy Brackett. "I'm willing you should go with us if Bim is. What do you say, old dog? Speak, sir!"
And Bim spoke till the echoes rang again.