“Might be,” was the cheerful reply. “How about that whip?”
“I don’t find one.”
“Never mind. It probably wouldn’t do any good, anyway.” For a minute or more they thumped and swayed over the road, if road it was, without further speech. Nelson tried to listen for sounds of pursuit, but the creaking of the wheels and the straining of the wagon prevented. Then Martin laughed softly beside him. “Say, won’t they be surprised when they get back and don’t find it?” he asked. “Can’t you just picture them stumbling around in the dark? They’ll think at first that they’ve missed the place. Then they’ll conclude that the horses have moved off a bit. Oh, they’ll have a jolly time of it!”
“They’ll follow us, of course,” said Nelson. “Don’t you suppose they can hear this old thing rumbling and squeaking a mile away?”
“That’s so! I hadn’t thought of that! Well, we’ll give them a run for their money, anyhow. Get ap, Roger! Get ap, Queen Bess! Say, what do they call horses in Ireland?”
“Pat and Mike, I guess.” Nelson put an uneasy head around the side of the wagon, but, except that a sudden lurch brought his ear in violent contact with a piece of wood, nothing resulted. At that moment the horses turned to the right, the front wheels jarred down a little declivity and the wagon began to move faster.
“Ata boy!” approved Martin. “Some speed to these nags, what? Blessed if they aren’t actually trotting! Or were,” he added with less enthusiasm as the horses dropped to a walk again. “Get ap, consarn ye! Wish to goodness I had a whip! Or a stick of dynamite!”
“Open one of the cases in there,” suggested Nelson dryly.
“It would be an awful joke on us if those same cases held canned tomatoes or some silly thing like that! Think of opening them and finding a lot of ‘Sinn Fein Brand Early June Peas’!”
“They’re rifles, I think,” said Nelson. “The cases felt sort of long and narrow. As I make it out, those folks in the boat came from some schooner anchored out beyond there. The man with the lantern was the fellow who brought this wagon. Maybe there were two of him. What I can’t see is what he expected to do with the stuff. He wouldn’t dare take it into the town.”