“They are out in the hills somewhere,” answered Bob. “When the robbers made up their minds that they had better let me go, one of them had my gun and the other had yours; but the robber Brierly captured says that the weapon impeded his flight, and so he threw it away. Whereabouts he was in the hills when he got rid of it, he can’t tell. No doubt your gun was thrown away also, and the chances are not one in a thousand that we shall ever find them again.”
While this conversation was going on, Silas Morgan, who stood at the foot of the steps that led to the porch, kept pulling Joe by the coat-sleeve, and whispering to him:
“Never mind the guns. Tell the sheriff that I’m powerful anxious to see the color of them twenty-five hundred.”
Joe paid no sort of attention to him, and finally Silas became so very much in earnest in his endeavors to attract the boy’s notice, that the officer saw it; and when there was a little pause in the conversation, he said, carelessly:
“Oh, about the reward, Silas—”
“That’s the idee,” replied the ferry-man, who thought sure that he was going to get it now. “That’s what I’m here for. You have got the bugglars in your own hands now, and I don’t reckon you would mind passing it over, would you?”
“I?” exclaimed the sheriff. “I haven’t got it. I have never had a cent of it in my possession.”
“Then who’s going to give it to me?” demanded Silas, who wondered if the officer was going to cheat him out of his money.
“Well, you see, Silas,” said the sheriff, “the reward is conditioned upon the arrest and conviction of the burglars. They have been arrested, and their conviction is only a matter of time; but you can’t get your money until they are sentenced.”
“And how long will that be?”