“But we could follow them!” exclaimed Sandy.
“As well look for a needle in a haystack,” observed the far-seeing Bob.
“Just to think, if only we could have come upon them while they were seated here, eating their supper, and never dreaming that those they had robbed were at their elbows! Wouldn’t we have given the wretches a scare, though, Bob?” and Sandy gritted his white teeth savagely, as he stared at the dumb ashes, just as if they might be to blame for the misfortune that had befallen the brothers in arriving too late.
“Of course there is one little hope that we will yet run across them,” Bob said, as though he, himself, wanted to cling to such a shred. “Perhaps they may be lingering around this part of the country, meaning to rest and hunt, after the long trip they have just made from away up the Ohio. And if they do, Sandy—”
“Yes, if they do!” echoed the impulsive lad, shaking his gun impressively, so that further words were unnecessary.
“Let us go and show father what we’ve found,” remarked Bob. “Poor mother will feel so sad when she sees this little box, for it held a number of pretty trinkets which she valued more because they were connected with the past, when her children were small, than on account of their worth in a money sense. To think of those big thieves carrying them around in their pockets or medicine bags; it will make father furious.”
“But how does it come, do you think,” Sandy went on, “that, after carrying the box all this distance, they threw it away here?”
“That is hard to say, Sandy; and I can only guess at it. Perhaps, now, they liked the looks of this pretty little casket, which a cabinetmaker once fashioned for our mother when she lived in Jamestown, back in Virginia. But, in the end, it began to get in the way; and, tired of carrying it, the men took out the contents while sitting here by this fire, and threw the box into the bushes.”
“Never dreaming that the Armstrong boys would come along a day or two later, and find their property again,” mused Sandy. “Finding this box seems to tell me that next we will be fortunate enough to run across our wampum belt.”
“I hope so,” was all Bob said, as he turned around, to return to where the rest of the party were busily employed.