When Ol’ Pop felt up to it they started back for Eagle Pass to
breakfast. He was talking with Uncle Jeb and said he hadn’t decided what
he would do for a while and would stay in the cabin while he was
thinking it over. Anyhow, he mentioned that if his money was still
intact, he could live the rest of his life in comfort.
Westy and Artie walking ahead could hear them talking and wondered then
why Ol’ Pop had risked his money to such a place as the hollow! Not only
his money, but it had almost cost him his life, they thought, and all
for what?
Undoubtedly if we could answer questions like those, we would have to be
infinite in our wisdom.
However, the two old scouts praised these two young scouts for their
intuitive sense concerning Ollie, and vowed that they would never again
think they were too old to learn something from these younger minds.
[Illustration: HE KEPT THE RIFLE POINTED DIRECTLY AT HIM, AS ARTIE
STRUGGLED WITH THE HEAVY STEEL BOX]
As they rounded the lake they all glanced simultaneously up toward the
hollow with eager eyes. There was Ollie, who had spied them as soon as
they appeared at the lake, leaning over the edge waving to them
frantically for help. Westy remarked that he thought it was just the
thing he would do. A coward when he was cornered.
They sat there joyously eating breakfast, watching his frenzied appeals
for help. It was Westy who had suggested letting him suffer at least
apprehension, if they couldn’t make him suffer anything else. Any one so
devoid of human feeling as this stone-faced individual deserved the full
limits of the law, he concluded.
“I told you from the looks of his eyes he didn’t have any soul!” Artie
said proudly.
“Wa-al, boys,” Uncle Jeb said, “it wuz shure left fer you ’uns ter show
us, wuzn’t it?”
“I hope you won’t believe the hollow is haunted any more?” Westy asked
Uncle Jeb.
“No, indeedy, not now!” he said, chuckling, and then turned to Ol’ Pop.
“How cum, yer ol’ crony you, thet ye picked thet durn place ter hide yer
money?”
“Cuz,” answered Ol’ Pop, not very informative, “I didn’ believe in any
fool ghosts, ’n you ’n all the folks here’bouts did.”
After breakfast, when they got good and ready, Westy and Artie started
off around the lake, feeling for all the world like two officials of the
law. Westy, in the lead going up the Cliff trail, had Uncle Jeb’s rifle
nonchalantly slung over his left shoulder. No matter how indifferently
placed it looked to the beholder, Westy was perfectly aware of its exact
position, for it took him at least five minutes to get it placed in the
right position, just as he wanted it. Artie had a club in his hand that
looked rather primitive in design, but nevertheless he felt that it was
a weapon of defense at least.
Reaching the precipice cautiously, these two boy scouts made sure they
were unheard before they approached the enemy.
Ollie was too busy concentrating his gaze toward the lake and didn’t see
or hear them coming.
“Hands up!” Westy commanded authoritatively. “Hand the money over quick
or I’ll blow your brains out!” He was now waving the rifle menacingly
back and forth between Ollie’s little eyes.
“You mean throw the money up, don’t you, Wes?” Artie said in a very
un-official tone.
Westy gave Artie a black look that rather told him how unseemly his
remark had been.
“Of course, that’s what I did say!” he lied gallantly to save his face.
“What youse kids trying to do, scare me?” Ollie said in the east-side
vernacular and with a show of bravado. “Youse haven’t a chanct in the
woild!”
“Is that so!” exclaimed Westy and more for something further to say than
anything else continued, “Your old friends, the bulls, are just coming
up the trail now with a nice pair of bracelets for you. Are you going to
throw that money box up here?”
“I can’t!” said Ollie, visibly pale. “It’s too heavy.”
“Very well,” said Westy, master of the situation at once. “I’ll hand you
the rope and you can tie it around the box, so we can haul it up.”
“Aw-right!” said Ollie, his teeth chattering now. “Are the bulls there
now?”
“Coming!” said Westy.
He kept the rifle pointed directly at him, as Artie struggled with the
heavy steel box coming over the precipice. When it had landed safely,
Artie carried it back a way on the Cliff. Westy, his curiosity aroused,
drew back from the precipice to look at the incentive of all the
trouble. He and Artie were conversing in low tones about the weight of
the box.
“Say, Wes,” asked Artie very softly, “what made you say that?”
“About the bulls?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I just hit the nail on the head too. I suppose though
it must have been my own common sense told me that Ollie was a criminal
before, or he wouldn’t have done such a low, despicable thing to poor
Ol’ Pop.”
Whether Ollie Baxter thought that the bulls had finally arrived on the
scene is a question. Westy has always thought so anyway, and we are
inclined to believe him. He claims that Ollie must have become
panic-stricken, mistaking his and Artie’s low converse for the bulls.
At any rate, be that as it may, there was a sudden cry as of fright, and
by the time Westy and Artie got to the end of the precipice and looked
over, Ollie Baxter was plunging in mid-air through that vast space and
hence into Eagle Lake.