TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF.
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 in the 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 I _wouldn't_ do 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 his father 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 and boatman. 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 will not 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'inted
himself 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.