I was tactful enough to refrain from asking him if this were true.
“They wuz turnin’ the cabin outer winders huntin’ ’n’ pawin’ roun’, ’n’ all the while me comin’ back from Noo York with three thousand dollars. That wuz pay fer three stocks, that wuz; Pollock he weren’t so regular, but honest, I’ll say that. He went ter Europe owin’ us close on a thousand, he did.”
It occurred to me that the enterprising Pollock could ill have afforded to cheat these distant associates.
“Well,” he continued, “they leaves the cabin mad ’n’ pricked up like a ole porkeypine. They says they’d ketch us yet ’n’ hev us behind bars. I comes up from Suffern ’n’ cuts through along Torne Brook, never knowin’! I heads it east up by Conklin Cabin ’n’ aroun’ Pine Meadow Mountain and ’long Woodtown Trail. There wuz Mink a-waitin’ fer me right where the trail goes by Green Swamp. He says, ‘Barney Wythe’s gang wuz ter the cabin ’n’ overhauled us complete; smoked out the place like we wuz woodchucks.’ I says, ‘Well, they didn’ get nuthin’.’ Mink says, ‘No, but they’re comin’ agin ’n’ we ain’t goin’ ter fetch that money ter the cabin, not yet, Buck,’ he says. ‘They’ll want the whole on it, they will, ter leave us free, they will.’
“Well, I told him he was right in that way of it and good he come out like he did ter meet me. ‘But,’ I says, ‘I ain’t goin’ ter leave it roun’ Green Swamp here, yer can lay ter that. We want it near where we can keep a bead on it,’ I says. Wasn’ I right?”
“I guess you were,” I said.
“Well,” he continued, “we talked ’baout different places and I says Conner’s well is the best place—near and safe and all growed over.”
Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulder with his old, brown hand and for just a second I was a little fearful that he had lured me into a trap for some dark purpose. I suppose it was because the place was so remote and dense. But it was for only a second.
“Look over there,” he said; “there’s Conner’s well. Yer see that ole foundation? That’s Conner’s ole place, that is. That’s my cabin in there among the trees.”
We were emerging from an area of underbrush into the shelter of solemn woods. In my first glance I did not see all that he had pointed out, for my eyes caught sight of a young girl standing in the open door of a log cabin, watching us eagerly as we approached. It was like a shock, withdrawing my thoughts from those old scenes with hunters and game wardens and treasure brought from distant parts so long ago, and presenting in their stead this winsome little maid waiting for her old grandfather and guardian to come home.