The Irishman acted quite easy and indifferent about the matter, as he did on all occasions.
The coffin was small; about the size that a ten-year-old child would require.
For a moment the robbers gazed at it, then one of them asked:
“Do ye s’pose the body’s all right into it?”
“Don’t know,” was the response. “It mout hev got shook around; however, it won’t take long ter look,” and in a few moments the lid was removed.
The lantern was lowered as the four men bent over the coffin, and our friends in the tree parted the foliage carefully, and peered down, eager to get a glimpse of the dead.
And true enough they did. The pale waxen face of a beautiful child, wrapped in a sheet was revealed to their startled gaze.
“It’s all right,” growled one of the robbers.
“Ya-as, put on the lid, and let’s git it sunk quick as possible.”
While the robber with the knife was screwing on the lid of the coffin, one of the others went to the canoe and brought a shovel, with which he at once began digging a grave.