But even while he was thinking about it, he went off into a deep slumber. He did not awake when Joe got up, and neither did the rattling of the dishes nor the savory odors of the bacon and coffee arouse him to a consciousness of what was going on in the cabin.
Having heard him say that he did not intend to join the sheriff's posse, Mrs. Morgan and Joe did not think it worth while to disturb him, and Dan would not do anything tointerfere with his own plans, which thus far were working as smoothly as he could have desired.
"But I've got a sneaking idee that there'll be trouble in this here house when pap does wake up, and finds me and Joe gone," thought Dan. "No matter. I won't be here to listen to his r'aring and pitching, so he can go on all he wants to. And if me and Joe should catch one of them robbers—whoop-pee! Then I'll have the reward all to myself; 'cause I ain't a going to put myself in the way of getting shot at, and then go snucks with a feller that's got more'n three thousand dollars a'ready. I'll see him furder first."
The hours dragged along all too slowly for the tired, patient woman who sat in the open door with her sewing in her lap, and her tear-dimmed eyes fastened upon the hills among which the only member of the family who cared for her, or who tried in any way to smooth her pathway and make her burdens easier to bear, might at that very moment be rushing to his destruction. She wished he might have stayed at home and let some oneelse go in his place; but Joe was loyal to his friend, and Mrs. Morgan had not tried to turn him from his purpose. She wished, too, that the weary day was over, so that the young game-warden could come back and say something comforting to her.
Just then somebody did say something, but the voice belonged to one who was not often guilty of saying or doing anything to comfort her.
"Na-r-r-r!" came from a distant corner of the cabin, and Silas Morgan threw off the blankets and started up in bed, to find that it was broad daylight, that breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and that the boy he had hoped to outwit was gone. He saw it all at a glance, but he wanted an explanation.
"Where be they?" he demanded.
"They have been gone almost three hours," was the meek response.
"And you let 'em go without saying a word to me?" roared the angry and disappointed man.
"Why, father, you told me last night that you didn't intend to go," said his wife.
"And you didn't have any better sensethan to believe it!" shouted Silas. "Did they go off together? Well, old woman, you have cooked your goose this time—you have for a fact. I wanted to go with Joe myself, and leave Dan to home, 'cause he ain't no account when there's any shooting and such going on. He's too much of a coward to stand fire, Dan is. I had kind o' made it up in my mind that me and Joe would captur' one, and mebbe both, of them bugglars, and I kalkerlated to give you the most of my share of the money; but now you won't get none, and it serves you just right for letting me sleep when you oughter called me up. But I'll tell you one thing for a fact—the three thousand that Joe has made already, and the hundred and twenty he's going to earn this winter, is mine; likewise all the reward him and Dan get to-day, if they get any."
So saying, Silas shouldered his double-barrel and left the cabin, paying no sort of attention to his wife's entreaties that before he set out for the mountain he would take a cup of coffee and a bite of the breakfast she had kept warm for him.
When Morgan arose from his "shake-down" on the morning of this particular day, he was promptly joined by his brother Dan, whose actions told him as plainly as words that he had reasons of his own for not wishing to disturb his father's slumbers.
Dan was generally the last one of the family to bestir himself in the morning, and even after he got upon his feet, it took him a good while to wake up; but it was not so in this instance. His senses came to him the moment he opened his eyes, and, for a wonder, he brought in the wood, and lent a hand at setting the table.
He moved about the room with noiseless footsteps, spoke in scarcely audible whispers,and cast frequent and anxious glances toward his father's couch.
"Well, sir, we done it, didn't we?" said he, when breakfast had been eaten and he and Joe were hurrying along the road toward the place of meeting.
"Did what?" inquired his brother.
"Got away without waking pap up," said Dan, who was in high glee. "I knew he said last night that he didn't mean to go, but I wasn't such a fool as to believe it. He wanted to go with you; and then do you know what would have happened if you and him had captured one of them bugglars? Well, sir, he would have laid claim to the whole of the reward, and never give you a cent of it. I'm onto his little games. And he's going to make you hand over them three thousand dollars you made yesterday. He's a mighty mean, stingy feller, pap is, and you want to watch out for him."
Dan talked to keep up his courage, which began to ooze out of the ends of his fingers when he found himself drawing near to the gorge; but Joe was so deeply engrossed withhis own thoughts that he did not hear a dozen words of it.
The young game-warden was not building air-castles. He was by no means as confident as Dan appeared to be, that it would be his luck to assist in the capture of one of the robbers, and, if the truth must be told, he hoped that that dangerous duty would fall to somebody else.
He had more money now than he had ever expected to possess, and his brains were busy with plans for keeping it out of his father's reach.
While he was turning them over in his mind, they came within sight of his cabin. Dan insisted on seeing the inside of it, so Joe pulled out the loosened staple, and threw open the door.
"Ain't you mighty glad that you wasn't here when them robbers come up and stole your grub and things?" said he, after he had taken a look around. "Say, Joey, you'll keep old man Warren's rifle, to take the place of the scatter-gun you lost, won't you?"
"Of course not," was Joe's indignant reply."Why, Dan, this rifle is worth forty or fifty dollars!"
"So much the better," answered Dan, who evidently thought that a fair exchange with Mr. Warren could not by any means be looked upon in the light of a robbery. "You lost your gun while you was working for him, and through no fault of your'n, and I say he'd oughter give you another. Them's my sentiments."
"Well, they are not mine," said Joe, closing the door, and replacing the staple. "I wouldn't have the face to look at a man again if I should ever mention the matter to him."
Dan did not know how to combat these sentiments, which were so widely at variance with his own, and as there was no longer any necessity that he should talk to keep his courage up, seeing that there was a large number of officers and guides almost within the sound of their voices, he said nothing.
A quarter of an hour's walk brought them to Tom's cabin, where they found a score ormore of men, who were leaning on their rifles, or lounging around on the ground in various attitudes.
These, they afterward learned, comprised but a small portion of the crowd that had assembled there that morning in obedience to the summons of the sheriff and his deputy, the others having gone off in squads of four men each to begin the search.
Mr. Warren told Joe that Tom Hallet was so impatient to be doing something for his friend, that he had left with the first squad that went out. He said, also, that a good many more men had gone, or were going, out from Bellville and Hammondsport; so the capture of the robbers was a foregone conclusion.
"By dividing into small parties we shall be able to give all the ravines and every piece of woods in the country, for miles around, a thorough overhauling before night," added Mr. Warren, "and we thought that four men were enough for each squad. They won't care to have the reward divided among too many, you know. I am going with thesheriff, and shall be glad to have you make one of our party."
"And I shall be glad to do it," replied Joe.
As Mr. Warren walked away to speak to the officer, Dan pulled his brother's coat-sleeve, and whispered:
"He didn't say that he'd be glad to have me make one of his party, did he? Well, I'm going, all the same. Say, Joey, if our squad gobbles both them bugglars, how much'll that be for each of us?"
"Twelve hundred and fifty dollars," was the reply.
"Well, now, sposen our squad catches one of 'em, and some other squad away off somewheres else catches t'other one—how much will that be for each feller?"
"A little over three hundred dollars."
"Is that all?" said Dan. And, to have heard him speak, you would have thought that he was in the habit of carrying a good deal more money than that loose in his pockets every day. "And you've got more'n three thousand dollars a coming to you! Dog-gone such luck as I do have, any way!"
It was probable that Dan had more to say on this point. He usually had a good deal to say whenever he fell to talking about his bad luck; but just then Mr. Warren beckoned to Joe, who promptly stepped forward to join his squad, Dan keeping close to his heels.
"I wish I could think up some plan to get even with old man Warren for the way he's acting," thought Dan, who was indignant because the gentleman did not show him a little more respect. "I don't reckon he wants me along, but I don't care whether he does or not. I'm here to stay, no odds if there is five men instead of four in the party, and if we catch them bugglars I'll make 'em hand over my share. That'll be—lemme see."
After an infinite deal of trouble and much hard thinking, Dan arrived at the conclusion that his share of the reward, if any were earned by that squad, would be just one-fifth of five thousand dollars.
But Joe would come in for a share, also, and then he would have four thousand dollars, while Dan would have but one. Didanybody ever hear of such luck? Joe was ahead, and Dan didn't see any way to catch up with him.
The sheriff's squad walked far and hunted faithfully all that day. There was no thicket too dense for them to penetrate, and no gorge so dark and gloomy that they were afraid to go down into it; but they saw nothing of the robbers, and neither did they happen to come upon either of the other searching parties.
They stopped for lunch on the banks of a trout brook, and the sheriff was filling his pipe for a smoke, when all on a sudden he struck a listening attitude, at the same time enjoining silence upon his companions by a motion of his hand.
"That's two," said he, in a low voice. "Now wait. That's three. Now wait a little longer, and perhaps we shall hear some gratifying news."
The others held their breath to listen, and presently, faint and far off, and rendered somewhat indistinct by intervening hills, and by the echoes that mixed themselves up withthe sound, they heard three reports of heavily-loaded shotguns.
"Hurrah for law and order," cried the sheriff. "Our work is half done, and some lucky squad will have twenty-five hundred dollars to divide among its members."
"We don't get none of it, do we?" whispered Dan to his brother.
"Did we have any hand in making the capture?" asked Joe, in reply. "Of course, we don't."
"Dog-gone such luck!" murmured the disappointed Dan.
"One of the outlaws has come to grief," continued the sheriff, "and that proves that they must have separated. I should much like to know what they did with their prisoner. It seems to me, from where I stand, that they were guilty of an act of folly when they gobbled Bob. They ought to have known that by doing a thing of that kind, they would get every able-bodied man in the country after them."
The officer and his squad were so anxious to have a hand in completing the work sowell begun, that they did not remain long in camp, although they might have passed the rest of the day there for all the good they did.
Every now and then they stopped to listen, but they never heard any signals to indicate that the other robber had been apprehended. That, however, was no sign that such signals had not been given; for the Summerdale hills covered a good deal of territory, and the searching parties were so widely scattered that it would have taken a field-piece to signal to all of them.
Finally, the sheriff announced, with a good deal of reluctance, that it was time to go home; and it was with equal reluctance that the members of his squad turned their steps towards Tom Hallet's cabin.
It was almost dark when they came in sight of it, but still there was light enough for Joe Morgan to see that the cabin had been visited during their absence, and that there was a communication of some sort awaiting them.
It was fastened to the door, and Joe ranahead of the squad and took it down. Then he found that it was not intended for any one in particular, but had been left for the information of everybody who had taken part in the search.
"Shall I read it, Mr. Warren?" asked Joe, when his employer came up. "It is in Tom Hallet's own hand."
"Let us hear it at once," replied Mr. Warren.
And Joe read as follows:
"Good and bad news.—Robber No. 1 was captured by Brierly's squad at half-past twelve. Bob Emerson is with me now, and none the worse for his adventure. That's the good news."Nothing has been seen or heard of robber No. 2, who doubtless fled deeper into the hills than any of our searching parties had time to go. The Bellville and Hammondsport squads say they will try him again to-morrow. That's the bad news."
"Good and bad news.—Robber No. 1 was captured by Brierly's squad at half-past twelve. Bob Emerson is with me now, and none the worse for his adventure. That's the good news.
"Nothing has been seen or heard of robber No. 2, who doubtless fled deeper into the hills than any of our searching parties had time to go. The Bellville and Hammondsport squads say they will try him again to-morrow. That's the bad news."
"And it isn't so very bad, either," said the sheriff. "If he gets lost, as I hope he will, we'll have him to-morrow, sure; but if he works his way out of the hills, we shall have to call upon the telegraph to help us. SoBrierly has made himself wealthy by this day's work. I should think that he could afford to let your blue-headed birds alone, now, Mr. Warren."
"Did any living person ever hear of such luck?" muttered Dan. "Everybody is getting wealthy, 'cepting me."
The squad broke up here, Mr. Warren and two companions turning into the cow-path that led down the mountain by the shortest route, and Joe and Dan striking for home, where a most astonishing discovery awaited them.
Dan Morgan did not have as much to say on the way home as he did while he and his brother were passing over that same road in the morning.
Another one of his air-castles had fallen about his ears, and a portion of the money he had hoped to earn would go into Brierly's pocket.
One of the robbers had been captured, but the other had taken himself safely off, and that was the end of all his dreams. Did anybody ever hear of such luck? It made him very angry to see how light-hearted Joe seemed to be.
"I reckon you're glad 'cause I ain't got a cent to bless myself with, ain't you?" said he, savagely. "Then, what do you keep up such a whistling for? You can afford to be happy,when you know that you can have a pile of money by asking for it; but I ain't a going to be treated this here way no longer."
The young game-warden did not pay the least attention to his brother's ravings, because he had something of more importance to think about—his future.
He was sadly in need of such training as he could get at the Bellville academy, and he had sense enough to know it; and the point he was trying to decide was: Should he ask his employer to release him from his contract, so that he could go to school during the winter? or would it be better to make sure of the hundred and twenty dollars he could earn during the next eight months, and look to Tom and Bob to help him along with his studies?
While he was thinking about it, the cabin hove in sight, and at the same time an exclamation from Dan called him back to earth again.
Joe looked up, and saw his father sitting motionless on a chair in front of the cabin. His double-barrel lay upon the ground withineasy reach of him, his elbows were resting upon his knees, and his chin was upheld by the palms of his hands. He appeared to be gazing steadily at some object that was hidden from Joe's view by the corner of the house.
"How do you reckon he feels over the trick we played on him this morning?" said Dan, with a grin. "He thinks he's a sharp one, pap does, but he ain't got no business along of me."
"If there was any trick played upon him, you did it, and not I," answered Joe. "Father hasn't worked half as hard as we have, and yet he is just as well—What in the name of wonder is that?"
While Joe was speaking, he and Dan moved around the corner of the house, and then the object at which Silas was looking so fixedly was disclosed to view.
It was a man who was sitting on a bench beside the door, and who was so closely wrapped up in a clothes-line that he could scarcely stir one of his fingers.
Silas and the Bank Robber
Silas and the Bank Robber
Hearing the sound of their footsteps, the man, whoever he was, slowly turned his headtoward the corner of the cabin, whereupon Silas shouted out, in a savage voice:
"None of that there, I tell you! You can't get away, 'cause you're worth a power of money to me, and I'm bound to hold fast to you till—Human natur'!" yelled Silas, jumping to his feet, with both barrels of his gun cocked. "Oh, it's you, is it? I kinder thought it was t'other robber coming to turn his pardner loose."
Silas was so completely wrapped up in his own affairs that the boys got close to him before he was aware of their presence, and it is the greatest wonder in the world that he did not shoot one of them in his excitement.
He was really alarmed; but when he had taken a good look at the newcomers, in order to make sure of their identity, he laid his gun across the chair, pushed up his sleeves, and shook both his fists at Dan.
"So you thought you would fool your poor old pap this morning, did you, you little snipe?" he shouted. "Well, you see what you made by it, don't you?"
"I never tried to make a fool of you,"stammered Dan, who had a faint idea that he understood the situation. "I never in this wide world!"
"Hush your noise when I tell you I know better," yelled Silas; and one would have thought, by the way he acted and looked, that he was very angry, instead of very much delighted, at the way things had turned out. "Here you have been and tramped all over them mountings, and never got a cent for it, while I have made a clean twenty-five hundred dollars, if I counted it up right on my fingers; and I reckon I did, 'cause your mam put in a figger to help me now and then."
"Why, how did it happen?" exclaimed Joe, who, up to this moment, had not been able to do anything but stand still and look astonished.
He knew that his father had captured one of the robbers without help from any one, and that was more than fifty other men had been able to do, with all their weary tramping.
"The way it happened was just this," said Silas, who could not stand in one place for a single moment. "Hold on there!" he added,turning fiercely upon his prisoner, who just then moved uneasily upon the bench, as if he were trying to find a softer spot to sit on. "I've got my eyes onto you, and you might as—"
"Why, father, he can't get away," Joe interposed. "You've got him tied up too tight. Why don't you let out that rope a little?"
"'Cause he's worth a pile of money—that's why!" exclaimed Silas; "and I won't let the rope out not one inch, nuther. You, Joe, keep away from there."
"I really wish you would undo some of this rope," said the prisoner, who, like Byron's Corsair, seemed to be a mild-mannered man. "I have been tied up ever since two o'clock, and am numb all over. I couldn't run a step if I should try."
"Don't you believe a word of that!" exclaimed Silas. "Come away from there and let that rope be, I tell you."
"Say, father," said Joe, suddenly, "what are you going to do with your captive? Do you intend to sit up and watch him all night long?"
"I was just a studying about that whenyou come up and scared me," replied Silas, dropping the butt of his gun to the ground, and leaning heavily upon the muzzle.
He never could stand alone for any length of time; he always wanted something to support him.
"What do you think I had better do about it? I don't much like to keep him here, 'cause—Why just look a here, Joey," added Silas, moving up to the door, and pointing to some object inside the cabin. "See them tools I took away from him?"
The boys stepped to their father's side, and saw lying upon the table, where Silas had placed it, a belt containing a brace of heavy revolvers and a murderous-looking knife.
"Now, them's dangerous," continued Silas, "and if this feller's pardner should happen along—"
"But he won't happen along," interrupted Dan. "Brierly's squad gobbled him."
The ferryman looked surprised, then disgusted, and finally he turned an inquiring glance upon Joe, who said that Dan told the truth.
"You don't like it, do you?" said the latter to himself. "It sorter hurts you to know that there is them in the world that are just as lucky and smart as you be, don't it? Yes, that's what's the matter with pap. He don't want no one else to be as well off as he is."
And when Dan said that, he hit the nail fairly on the head.
"The other robber is not in a condition to attempt a rescue," said Joe; "but, all the same, I don't think you ought to keep this man here all night. The sheriff is now at Mr. Warren's house, and it is your duty to hand the prisoner over to him at once. Be careful how you point those guns this way."
This last remark was called forth by an action on the part of Silas and Dan that made Joe feel the least bit uncomfortable.
While the latter was talking, his hands were busy with the rope; and when the prisoner arose from the bench and stamped his feet to set the blood in circulation again, his excited and watchful guards at once covered his head and Joe's with the muzzles of their guns.
"Turn those weapons the other way,"repeated Joe, angrily. "You don't think this man is foolish enough to try to run off while his hands are tied, do you? Now, father, how did you happen to catch him?"
"It was just as easy as falling off a log," replied Silas, resuming his seat and resting his double-barrel across his knees. "When you and Dan went away this morning, I just naturally shouldered my gun, walked up the road to the foot of the mounting, and set down on a log to wait for game to come a running past me, just the same as if I was watching for deer, you know."
This was all true; but there was one thing he did that he forgot to mention. The only "game" Silas expected to see was Dan Morgan, when he returned from the mountain at night, and the ferryman was prepared to give him a warm reception. Before he devoted himself to the task of holding down that log by the roadside, he took the trouble to cut a long hickory switch, and to place it beside the log, out of sight. He meant to give Dan such a thrashing that he would never play any more tricks upon him.
"Well, about one o'clock, or a little after, while I was a setting there and waiting for the game to come along, I heared a noise in the brush, and, all on a sudden, out popped this feller. He was running like he'd been sent for, and that's why I suspicioned him. Of course I didn't know him from Adam, but I asked him would he stop a bit. And he 'lowed he would, when he seed my gun looking him square in the eye. I brung him home, and your mam she passed out the clothes-line, and I tied him up."
"Where is mother now?" asked Joe.
"Gone off after more sewing, I reckon," replied Silas, in a tone which seemed to say that it was a matter that was not worth talking about. "She helped me figger up what I would get for catching him, and then she dug out. I'm worth almost as much as you be now, Joey, and that there mean Dan, who wouldn't stay by and help me, he ain't got a cent. Now, don't you wish you hadn't played that trick on me this morning."
"Never mind that," interposed Joe, who did not care to stand by and listen to anangry altercation which might end in a fight or a foot-race between his father and Dan. "If we are going to deliver this man to the sheriff to-night, we had better be moving."
"Do you reckon the sheriff will hand over the twenty-five hundred when I give up the prisoner?" inquired Silas, as the party walked down the bank toward the flat.
"Of course he won't."
"What for won't he?"
"Because he hasn't got it with him. Perhaps it was never put into his hands at all. I haven't received my share yet."
"Then I reckon I'd best hold fast to him till I'm sure of my money," said Silas, reflectively. "I guess I won't take him down to old man Warren's to-night."
"I guess you will, unless you want to get into trouble with the law," said Joe, decidedly. "If you don't give him up of your own free will, the sheriff will take him away from you."
Silas protested that he couldn't see any sense in such a law as that, but he lent his aid in pushing off the flat.
Dan, who was almost too angry to breathe, had more than half a mind to stay at home; but his curiosity to hear and see all that was said and done when the prisoner was turned over to the officers of the law impelled him to think better of it. When the flat was shoved off, he jumped in and picked up one of the oars.
We have said that Tom Hallet was so anxious to help his unlucky friend Bob in some way that he joined the very first squad that went out in search of him.
The man who had the name of being the leader of it was the sheriff's deputy; but the two stalwart young farmers who belonged to his party were longer of limb than he was, and they pushed ahead at such a rate that the deputy speedily fell to the rear, and stayed there during most of the day.
"Me and Cyrus have come out to win that there reward," said one of the young men, when Tom remonstrated with them for leaving the officer so far behind, "and we can't do it by loafing along like that sheriff does. We've got a mortgage to pay off on the farm, and we don't know any easier way to raisethe money for it than to capture one of them rogues."
But this sanguine young fellow was not the only one who was destined to have his trouble for his pains; and what made his disappointment and his brother's harder to bear, was the reflection that if they had left Tom's cabin half an hour earlier than they did, they might have succeeded in earning a portion of the money of which they stood so much in need.
They were not more than a quarter of a mile away, when Brierly's signal guns announced that one of the robbers had been captured. They ran forward at the top of their speed, hoping to reach the scene of action before the arrest was fairly consummated, but in this they were also disappointed.
When they came in sight of the successful party, they found the robber securely bound, and Brierly wearing the belt that contained his weapons.
"Too late, boys!" exclaimed the guide, who was highly elated over his good fortune. "You can't lay claim to any of our money,if that's what brung you up here in such haste."
"We don't care for the money," panted Tom. "Where's Bob?"
"That's so," said Brierly, who had not bestowed a single thought upon the prisoner during the whole forenoon. "Where is he? Say, feller, what have you done with him?"
"I have not seen him for two hours," replied the prisoner. "As soon as we found out that the hills were full of men, we set him at liberty, and I suppose he made the best of his way home. We didn't want to keep him with us, for fear that he would set up a yelp to show where we were hiding."
Just then the deputy, who had been sitting on a log to recover his breath, managed to inquire:
"What have you done with your partners?"
"There were only two of us, and the other man has gone off that way," answered the captive, nodding his head toward an indefinite point of the compass.
Tom Hallet had no further interest in thehunt. He stood by and watched the officer as he unbound the prisoner and substituted a pair of handcuffs for the rope with which his arms had been confined, and when Brierly's party started off with their captive, Tom fell in behind them.
He went as straight to his cabin as he could go, and there he found Bob Emerson, who was rummaging around in the hope of finding something to eat.
"I haven't had a bite of anything since last night, and you'd better believe that I am hungry," said Bob, after he and Tom had greeted each other as though they had been separated for years. "But I am not a bit of a hero. I haven't had an adventure worth the telling."
"There's nothing in there," said Tom, seeing that his friend was casting longing eyes toward his game-bag. "I didn't take much of a lunch with me, and I was hungry enough to eat it all. Can you stand it till we get home?"
"I'll have to," replied Bob. "By-the-way, did you ever see that before?"
As he spoke, he put his hand into his pocket and drew out a soiled and crumpled letter, which looked as though it might have been through the war.
It was the same precious document that he and Tom had left in Silas Morgan's wood-pile.
"One of the robbers gave it to me last night," continued Bob, in reply to his companion's inquiring look. "You will remember that Dan Morgan lost the letter within a few feet of the log on which he sat when he read it, and that when he and Silas went back to find it, they were frightened away by something that dodged into the bushes, before they could get a sight at it, and which they took to be a ghost. Well, it wasn't a ghost at all, but one of the thieves, who had been to the Beach after supplies. He found the letter and read it. Of course he was greatly alarmed, and so was his companion; for they couldn't help believing that some one had got wind of their hiding-place. They could hardly believe me, when I told them that you and I made that letter up out of the wholecloth, and that we never dreamed there was any one living in the gorge."
"But we did know it," said Tom.
"Of course we did, after they frightened us, but not before. They spoke about that, too. We took them completely by surprise the day we came down the gorge. We were close upon their camp before they knew it, and for a minute or two they didn't know what to do. Then one of them conceived the idea of making that hideous noise, and when the other saw how well it worked, he joined in with him."
"But didn't they know that we would be back sooner or later to look into the matter?" asked Tom.
"Of course they did, and that was another thing that frightened them. They saw very plainly that their hiding-place was broken up, and were making preparations to leave it when Silas and Dan put in their appearance. The robbers saw and heard them long before they got to the camp, and the one who found the letter recognized them at once. It was at his suggestion that that ghost was rigged up."
"But they must have known that they could not scare everybody with that dummy," observed Tom.
"To be sure they did, and they were in a great hurry to get away from there; but they needed provisions, and by stopping to get them they fell into trouble. They took Joe Morgan's house for a woodchopper's cabin and while we were robbing them, they were foraging on Joe. I tell you, Tom, it's a lucky thing for us that we got out of that gorge when we did. They were mad enough to shoot us on sight."
"I don't wonder at it," replied Tom. "It would make most anybody mad to lose a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money and securities, no matter how he came by them. Where did they catch you? Did they treat you well?"
"They treated me well enough," was Bob's reply, "but I believe that if they had not stood in fear of immediate capture I should have a different story to tell, if, indeed, I were able to tell any. I told you nothing but the truth in the postscript I added to their note."
"I knew they made you write it, and that you did not express your honest sentiments when you told us to be in a hurry about giving back that valise."
"I was sure you would understand it; but what could a fellow do with a cocked revolver flourished before his eyes by a man who was in just the right humor to use it on him?"
"He would do as he is told, of course," answered Tom. "But do you suppose they thought they could get that valise back by threatening you?"
"I don't know what they thought, for they acted as if they were crazy. They caught me in less than half an hour after I left you, and it was through my own fault. I ran on to them before I knew it, and do you imagine I thought 'robbers' once? As true as you live I didn't. I took them for poachers, and told them, very politely, that these grounds were posted and they couldn't be allowed to shoot there, when all on a sudden it popped into my head what I was doing. They saw the start I gave, and in a second more theyhad me covered. If I could have got away without letting them see that I suspected them, they wouldn't have said a word to me."
"Well, they covered you with their revolvers; then what?"
"Beyond a doubt, they made a prisoner of me before they thought what they were doing, and when they came to look at it they found that they had got an elephant on their hands. Then they would have been glad to get rid of me; but they did not see just how they could do it with safety to themselves, so they made up their minds to use me."
"At first they thought they would wait and see if anything would come of the notice they left on the door of the cabin, and then they thought they wouldn't—that they would hunt up another hiding-place as soon as possible; so they ordered me to take them where nobody would ever think of looking for them. And I could do nothing but obey."
"Were you acting as their guide when they released you?"
Bob replied that he was.
"Why didn't you veer around a bit, and lead them toward the railroad?"
"If I had I shouldn't be here now," answered Bob, significantly. "They warned me to be careful about that, and they were so well acquainted with the hills that I was afraid to attempt any tricks. We camped over on Dungeon Brook last night, and set out again at an early hour this morning, but before we had been in motion an hour, we found ourselves cut off from the upper end of the hills, and that was the time they made up their minds to let me go. They didn't say so, but still I had an idea that they didn't want me around for fear I would make too much noise to suit them."
"I know they were afraid of it," said Tom. "The robber that Brierly's squad captured said so."
"Is one of them taken?" exclaimed Bob, who hadn't heard of it before. "That's good news. Where's the other?"
"Don't know. They separated after they let you go, and Brierly captured one of them. Perhaps we shall hear something about theother one now," added Tom, directing his companion's attention to a large party of men who were at that moment discovered approaching the cabin. "We went out in squads of four, and there are a dozen men in that crowd."
"But I don't see any prisoner among them," said Bob. "They have all got guns on their shoulders, and that proves that they have not seen anything of robber number two."
As the party came nearer, the boys saw that it was made up of citizens of Bellville and Hammondsport, who had abandoned the search for the day, and were now on their way home.
They were surprised to see Bob Emerson there, safe and sound, and forthwith desired a full history of the letter which had been the means of bringing about so remarkable a series of events.
Bob protested that he was too hungry to talk, but when he saw the generous supply of bread and meat which one of the men drew from his haversack, he sat down on a log in front of the cabin and told his story.
His auditors declared that the way things had turned out was little short of wonderful, adding, as they arose to go, that they were coming out again, bright and early the next morning, to resume the search for robber number two. They were not going to remain idle at home, they said, as long as there were twenty-five hundred dollars running around loose in the woods.
When the bread and meat were all gone, and the boys were once more alone, Tom wrote the notice which Joe Morgan found pinned to the door of the cabin, and then he and Bob set out for Uncle Hallet's.
Although Silas Morgan had received the most convincing proof that he had nothing more to fear from the "hant" which had so long occupied all his waking thoughts and disturbed his dreams at night, he would not have taken one step toward Mr. Warren's house before morning, had he not been urged on by the hope that the sheriff would be ready to pay over his money as soon as the robber was given up to him. The desire to handle the reward to which he was entitled was stronger than his fear of the dark.
"And what shall I do with them twenty-five hundred after I get 'em, Joey?" said he. "That's what's a bothering of me now."
And it was the very thing that was bothering Joe, also. His father had always been inthe habit of spending his money as fast as he got it, and the boy fully expected to see this large sum slip through his fingers without doing the least good to him or anybody else.
"I'll tell you what Iwouldn'tdo with it," said Joe, after a little hesitation. "I wouldn't give Hobson any of it."
"You're right I won't!" exclaimed Silas. "He's got more'n his share already. What be you going to do with yours, when you get it?"
"I think now that I shall put it in the bank at Hammondsport," answered Joe. "It will be safe there, and if I am careful of it, it will last me until I get through going to school. You don't want to go to school, but you might go into business and increase your capital."
"That's it—that's it, Joey!" exclaimed Silas, who grew enthusiastic at once. "I never thought of that. But what sort of business? It must be something easy, 'cause I've worked hard enough already."
"Mr. Warren says that there is no easy way of making a living," began Joe; but hisfather interrupted him with an exclamation of impatience.
"What does old man Warren know about it?" he demanded. "He never had to do a hand's turn in his life."
"But he don't know what it is to be idle, and he is busy at something every day," said Joe. "I'll tell you what I have often thought I would do if I had a little money, and I may do it yet, if you don't decide to go into it. The new road that is coming through here is bound to bring a good many people to the Beach, sooner or later. As the trout are nearly all gone, the guests will have to devote their attention to the bass in the lake, and consequently there will be a big demand for boats."
"So there will!" exclaimed Silas, who saw at once what Joe was trying to get at. "That's the business I've been looking for, Joey, and it's an easy one, too. Of course, I can let all my boats at so much an hour, and I won't have nothing to do but sit on the beach and take in my money."
"And what'll I be doing?" inquired Dan, who had not spoken before.
"You!" cried Silas, who seemed to have forgotten that Dan was one of the party. "You will keep on chopping cord wood, to pay you for the mean trick you played on me this morning. You see what you made by it, don't you? I reckon you wish you'd stayed by me now, don't you? How much will them boats cost me, Joey?"
"I should think that ten or a dozen skiffs would be enough to begin with," answered Joe, "and they will cost you between three and four hundred dollars; but you would have enough left to rent a piece of ground of Mr. Warren and put up a snug little house on it."
"Then I'll be a gentlemen like the rest of 'em, won't I?" exclaimed Silas, gleefully.
"No, you won't," said Dan, to himself. "That bridge ain't been built yet, and I don't reckon Hobson means to have it there. He is going to bust it up some way or 'nother, and I'm just the man to help him, if he'll pay me for it. Everybody is getting rich 'cepting me, and I ain't going to be treated this way no longer!"
Silas was so completely carried away by Joe's plan for making money without work that he could think of nothing else. He forgot how determined and vindictive Dan was, and how easy it would be for him to place a multitude of obstacles in his way, but Joe didn't.
The latter knew well enough that Dan intended to make trouble if he were left out in the cold, but what could be done for so lazy and unreliable a fellow as he was? That was the question.
While Joe was turning it over in his mind, he led the way through Mr. Warren's gate and up to the porch, where he found his employer sitting in company with the sheriff and both Uncle Hallet's game wardens. The deputy was in an upper room, keeping guard over the other prisoner.
Of course, Tom and Bob, who were greatly surprised as well as delighted to see Joe and his party, wanted to know just how the capture of robber number two had been brought about, and while Joe was telling the story, the sheriff marched the captive into the house and turned him over to his deputy.
Then he came back and sat down; but he did not put his hand into his pocket and pull out the reward as Silas hoped he would.
"This has been a good day's work all around," said Tom, who was in high spirits. "The next time there is any detective work to be done in this county, Bob and I will volunteer to do it. We can catch more criminals by sitting still and writing letters than the officers can by bringing all their skill into play."
The sheriff laughed, and said that was the way the thing looked from where he sat.
"The fun is all over now," continued Tom, "and to-morrow we will go to work in earnest. You will be on hand, of course?"
Joe replied that he would.
"By-the-way," chimed in Bob, "did this robber of yours have a gun of any description in his hands when he was captured?"
"No."
"Then, Joe, you and I are just that much out of pocket. The guns are gone up."
"What has become of them?"
"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 ferryman,who thought sure that he was going to get it now. "That's what I'm here for. You have got the burglars 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?"
"The court will sit again in about six weeks. As some of the money was offered by the county, and the rest by the men who lost the jewelry and things that were found in that valise, you will get your reward from different parties, unless they hand it over to me to be paid to you in a lump."
"That's the way I want it," said Silas, who was very much disappointed. "I'm going into business."
"What sort of business?" inquired Mr. Warren.
"I am going to keep a boat-house down to the Beach."
"Well now, Silas, that's the most sensible thing I have heard from you in a long time," said Mr. Warren. "I'll rent you a piece of ground big enough for a garden, and you can set yourself up in business in good shape, build a nice house, and have money left in the bank. If you manage the thing rightly, you and Dan ought to make a good living of it."
"Who said anything about Dan?" exclaimed Silas.
"I did. Of course, you can't ignore him, because you are wealthy. He wants a chance to earn an honest living, and he needs it, too. He's a strong boy, a first-rate hand with a boat, knows all the best fishing-grounds on the lake, and would be just the fellow to send out with a party who wanted a guide andboatman. You can easily afford to pay him a dollar a day for such work as that."
"Well, I won't do it," said Silas, promptly. "He's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, Dan is, and I won't take him into business along with me."
"But you will hire him, and give him a chance to quit breaking the game-law, and make an honest living," said the sheriff. "By-the-way, Silas, I guess you had better bring up those setters, and save me the trouble of going after them."
"What setters?" exclaimed Silas, who acted as if he were on the point of taking to his heels. "I ain't got none. I took 'em down to the hotel and give 'em up."
"I am glad to hear it, because it will save me some trouble," replied the officer, "I have had my eyes on those dogs ever since you got hold of them, and I should have been after them long ago, if I had known where to find the owner. Don't do that again, Silas. Honesty is the best policy, every day in the week."
"If you will leave your business in my hands I will attend to it for you, and you willnot have to go to Hammondsport at all," continued Mr. Warren.
And Joe was glad to hear him say it, because it showed him that the gentleman did not intend that his father should squander all his money, if he could help it.
"It is too late in the season for you to do anything with your boats this year, but I will give you and Dan a steady job at chopping wood, and if you take care of the money you earn, instead of spending it at Hobson's bar, you can live well during the winter. If the reward is not paid over to you by the time spring opens, I will advance you enough to start you in business and build your house. Then I think you had better give Dan a chance."
"So do I," whispered Tom to his friend Bob. "Dan has lived by his wits long enough, and if Silas doesn't begin to take some interest in him, the sheriff will have a word or two to say about those setters. I can see plainly enough that he intends to hold that affair over Silas as a whip to make him behave himself."
"Do you think Silas will ever have the reward paid him in a lump?" asked Bob.
"No, I don't, because he doesn't know enough to take care of so much money. Joe can get his any time he wants it, for Mr. Warren knows that he will make every cent of it count."
Then, aloud, Tom said:
"Well, Bob, seeing that we've got to get up in the morning, we had better be going home. Come over bright and early, Joe, and we will take your things back to your cabin."
"And I will send up another supply of provisions," said Mr. Warren.
Joe thanked his employer, bade him good-night, and led the way out of the yard.
For a time he and his party walked along in silence, and then Silas, who began to have a vague idea that he had been imposed upon in some way, broke out fiercely:
"What did old man Warren mean by saying that if I didn't get all my money by the time spring comes, he would advance enough to set me up in business?" Silas almost shouted. "Looks to me like he'd 'p'intedhimself my guardeen, and that he means to keep a tight grip on them twenty-five hundred, so't I can't spend it to suit myself. That's what I think he means to do, dog-gone the luck!"
Joe thought so, too, and he was glad of it. If that was Mr. Warren's intention, Joe's mother would be likely to reap some benefit from the reward; otherwise, she would not.
Silas Morgan was one of the proudest men that the sun ever shone upon, and he would have been supremely happy if it had not been for two things, over which he could exercise no control.
One was that Mr. Warren and the sheriff intended to keep a sharp eye on him, and see that he did not squander any of the money he had earned by capturing the robber. The other was that Dan claimed recognition, and was determined to have it, too, in spite of the mean trick he had played upon his father.
When Silas arose the next morning the first thought that came into his mind was that he was a rich man. It excited him to such a degree that he could not eat any breakfast. He managed to drink a single cup of coffee, and then shouldered his gun andset out for Hobson's, to exhibit himself to the loafers who made the Half-way House their headquarters, while Joe hastened off to Mr. Hallet's to assist Tom and Bob.
Dan was left to pass the time as he pleased, and it suited him to sun himself on the bank of the river and bemoan his hard luck.
The first man Silas saw as he drew near to Hobson's place of business was Brierly, who dropped some hints that set him to thinking. After congratulating Silas on his good fortune, he inquired what use he intended to make of the reward when he got it.
"I ain't just made up my mind yet," was Silas Morgan's guarded reply. "I don't reckon I'm going to get it right away, 'cause old man Warren he's went and 'p'inted himself to be my guardeen, and I say that ain't right. I ketched that there bugglar without no help from anybody. The reward belongs to me, and I had oughter have it!"
To his utter astonishment Brierly promptly answered:
"No, you hadn't. You don't know how to take care of so much money, more'n I do,and it's the properest thing that somebody should look out for it. I tell you, Silas, I ain't the man I was when that Joe of your'n ordered me out of old man's Warren's wood lot. Do you know what I did the minute I got home yesterday? Well, I went down to the hotel and give the landlord the twenty-five dollars that I had cheated Mr. Brown out of. The landlord knows where he lives, and will send it to him."
"Joe tells me that Mr. Brown was a mighty scared man after you lost him in the woods," observed Silas.
"It was a mighty mean trick," declared Brierly; "but the fact of it was I was hard up for money, and didn't care much how I got it. I think different now. I've got a chance to be something better'n the lazy, ragged vagabone I have always been, and I am going to keep it. I am, for a fact! I have been waiting for it, and now that I have got it, I intend to make the most of it. I think I shall let the heft of my money stay where it is this winter, and get my grub and clothes by chopping wood forold man Warren. You want to look out for Hobson. He's got an eye on them dollars of your'n. He tried to shove lots of things onto me this morning, but I wouldn't take 'em."
Silas Morgan never expected to hear such counsel as this from Brierly, who, like himself, had always been in the habit of squandering his slim earnings as fast as he could get hold of them, and it excited a serious train of reflections in his mind. Being on his guard, Hobson's blandishments had no effect upon him.
"You're the luckiest man I ever heard of!" exclaimed the proprietor of the Half-way House, coming out from behind his counter and greeting Silas with great cordiality. "Warren's hired man told the stage driver all about it, and he told us. Want anything in my line this morning?"
"There's plenty of things I want," replied Silas; "but I ain't got a cent of money."
"No matter for that. Your credit is good."
"And what's more, I don't reckon I can get any of that reward under six weeks," continued Silas. "The court don't sit tillthen, you know, and I won't see the color of them dollars till the bugglars gets their sentence."
"But Joe's pay-day will come sooner than that," suggested Hobson.
"Well, now, look here," said Silas, slowly. "Don't you think it would be mighty mean for a man who is worth twenty-five hundred dollars to take the money his little boy makes by living up there alone in the woods? I do. And I've about made up my mind that I won't do it."
"Didn't you tell me that you thought the head of the family ought to have the handling of all the money that came into the house?" demanded Hobson, who was really astonished to hear such sentiments as these come from Silas Morgan.
"I did think so once, but I don't now," was the reply. "And furder'n that, I don't reckon I'll get my money all in a lump, like I thought I was going to, 'cause old man Warren he's gone and made himself my guardeen; and if I run in debt now, I'll have to give you an order on him for the money. Of course hewould want to see the bill, and mebbe he'd take particular notice of the items that's into it."
"Do you mean to let him boss you around in that way?" exclaimed Hobson. "I thought you had more pluck than that. You are old enough to be your own master, if you are ever going to be."
"Well," said Silas, again, "there's one thing that I ain't master of, and I know it. That's money. Whenever I get a dollar bill in my hands, it burns me so't I have to drop it somewheres. I reckon I won't touch that reward this winter."
Hobson was so angry and disgusted that he could not say a word in reply. He went around behind his counter, and when Silas turned to go out, he informed him, in a savage tone of voice, that there was a little difference of a dollar and a half between them, and he would be glad to have him settle up then and there.
"Didn't I tell you when I first come in that I ain't got a cent to bless myself with?" reminded Silas. "But me and Dan are goingto work for old man Warren this very afternoon, and I'll be around next Saturday, sure pop."
"I'll bear that in mind," said Hobson. "If you are not on hand, I shall ride down to your house to see what is the matter."
"That's always the way with them kind of fellows," said Brierly, in a low tone. "As long as you've got plenty of money, and spend it free with them, you're a first-rate chap; but the very minute you turn over a new leaf, and try to be honest and sober, they ain't got no use for you. I'm done with 'em."
Silas walked home in a brown study. The first thing he did after he crossed the threshold of his humble abode was to put his gun in its place over the door, and the second, to take an axe and whetstone out of the chimney corner. With these in his hand, he went out on the bank where Dan was still sunning himself.
"It's a long time since you seen this here little tool, ain't it?" said Silas, cheerfully; but there was something in the tone of his voice that made the boy tremble. "Looks kinder likeit used to last winter, don't it? Now, sharpen it up so't you can drive it clear in to the eye every clip, and after dinner me and you will toddle down to old man Warren's, and ask him where he wants us to cut that wood; won't we, Dannie?"
"No, we won't," shouted Dan.
"Won't, eh?" said his father, calmly. "Well, them that don't work can't eat, and a boy that won't help himself when he's got a chance, can't get no dollar a day out of me when I go into that boat business. He won't be worth it, and Mr. Warren will think so too, when he hears of it. I reckon the best thing you can do is to put that there axe in shape and be ready to go with your pap after dinner."
When he had taken time to think about it, Dan came to the same conclusion. It cost him a struggle to do it, but when his father shouldered his axe and set out for Mr. Warren's house, Dan went with him.
The gentleman was glad to hear that Silas did not intend to remain idle simply because he had twenty-five hundred dollars inprospect, gave him some good advice, and told him where to go to cut the wood.
The road they followed to get to it took them close by the cabin of the young game-warden, whom they found busily engaged in setting things to rights.
Of course, it made Dan angry to see his brother surrounded by so many comforts, and in a position to make his money so easily, but there was no help for it.
His father was on Joe's side now; Dan could see that easily enough, and an attempt on his part to annoy the young game-warden in any way would bring upon him certain and speedy punishment.
After that, things went smoothly with Joe Morgan.
During that fall and winter Mr. Warren's imported game was never interfered with, and the reason was because all the worst poachers in the country, including Brierly and his gang, as well as Joe's own father, had given up the precarious business of market-shooting.
More than that, when Silas paid his billat Hobson's, which he did, according to promise, he gave the loungers about the Halfway House to understand that he had taken Joe under his protection, and that any one who troubled either him or Mr. Warren's blue-headed birds, might expect to answer to him for it.
As Silas Morgan's prowess in battle was well known to every body for miles around, the market-shooters took him at his word, and kept away from Mr. Warren's wood-lot.
The savage, half-starved dogs in the settlement which had become so fond of hunting deer that they sometimes chased them on their own responsibility, were either chained up or given away, and the only hounds that gave tongue among the Summerdale hills during the winter were those which, like Tom Hallet's beagle, were trained to hunt foxes and coons.
While the pleasant weather continued, the young game-wardens searched the woods thoroughly, in the hope of finding the guns that the robbers had thrown away during their flight, but their efforts were unrewarded,and finally the snows of winter came and covered them up.
One day, just before Christmas, Mr. Warren's hired man came up, bringing, among other things, a few magazines and papers, a supply of provisions for Joe's use, some grain for the birds, and a long, shallow box which he placed carefully upon the table.
"Mr. Warren says that you will want to go home on Christmas, and there's a little something for your folks to eat," said he, handing Joe a nice fat turkey, all dressed and ready for the oven. "In that box you will find a present from St. Nick. Look at it, and see if you ain't glad you lost your rusty old single-barrel."
"I know what it is," replied Joe. "Is it mine to keep, or to use while I am acting as game-warden?"
"It is yours to keep. It is intended to replace the one the robbers stole from you."
The sight that met the boy's gaze when he unlocked the box made his eyes open wide with wonder and delight. Inside, was a breech-loader, with pistol-grip and all thenecessary loading tools. Of course, it was a fine weapon. Mr. Warren never did things by halves.
It was the first Christmas present Joe had ever received.
Contrary to Mrs. Morgan's expectations, there was not the least trouble in the house over the young game-warden's money. She had enough and to spare, and so had Silas and Dan.
The former worked faithfully, because his ambition had been aroused, and Dan toiled steadily by his side, because he knew if he didn't, he would lose the dollar a day he was looking forward to. He got it, too.
The robbers were duly convicted and sentenced, and, when spring came, Silas had his twenty-five hundred dollars intact; or, to speak more correctly, somebody had it for him.
Silas did not know just where it was, whether in Mr. Warren's hands or the sheriff's, and indeed he did not care. All the bills he made in buying his boat, building his new house and fencing the piece ofground that Mr. Warren leased to him, were promptly met by that gentleman, and Silas highly elated at the prospect of having a paying business of his own, worked to such good purpose that when the guests began to arrive he was ready to serve them.
For the first time in his life, Dan Morgan looked as "spick and span as anybody" in his blue uniform, with a wide collar and sailor necktie, all bought with his own money, too; and he often walked up and down in front of the hotel to show himself to the people who were sitting on the veranda.