JAKE WORKS HIS MINE.
“I allowed you’d stop after you took time to think the matter over,”
chuckled Matt, when he saw the boy lift his paddle from the water and
rest it across his knee. “I ain’t forgot that you spoke kind words to
me an’ my family down there to Mount Airy when every body else was
jawin’ at us an’ tryin’ to kick us outen house an’ home, an’ I’d be
glad to be friends with you,” he added, in a more conciliatory tone.
“But I ain’t goin’ to stand no airs of no sort. Now, come ashore so’t
I can talk to you.”
“What do you want to say to me?” asked Tom, who could hardly refrain
from yelling in the ecstasy of his rage. The man talked as though he
had a perfect right to command him. “Speak out, if you have any thing
on your mind. I can hear it from my canoe as well as I could ashore.”
“Well, I shan’t speak out, nuther,” answered Matt, decidedly. “I ain’t
goin’ to talk so’t they can hear me clear up to Injun Lake. Come
ashore.”
Tom reluctantly obeyed; that is, he ran the bow of his canoe upon the
beach, but that was as far as he would go.
“I am as near shore as I am going to get,” said he, with a little show
of spirit. “Now what have you to say to me? Be in a hurry, for my
friends are waiting for me.”
“Well, you needn’t get huffy about it,” replied Matt, backing toward
his log and pulling his pipe from his pocket. “I can tell you in a few
words what I want you to do for me, an’ as for your friends, they can
wait till their hurry’s over. Say,” added the squatter, sinking his
voice to a confidential whisper, “you know I told you when I stole
this here canvas canoe that I was comin’ to Injun Lake to go into the
business of independent guidin’. You remember that, don’t you?”
“Well, what of it?” was the only response Tom deigned to make. “No
matter what I remember. Go on with what you have to say to me.”
“Don’t get in a persp’ration,” continued Matt, with the most
exasperating deliberation. “Yes; that’s one thing that made me take
the canvas canoe—so’t I could go into the business of guidin’ on my
own hook; but when I got here I found that the landlords wouldn’t have
nuthin’ to do with me, an’ the guests wouldn’t, nuther. So I took to
visitin’ all the camps I could hear of, an’ helpin’ myself to what I
could find in ’em in the way of grub, we’pons an’ sich. I told you
that was what I was goin’ to do. You remember it, don’t you?”
Tom made a gesture of impatience but said nothing.
“Yes; that’s what I done, an’ it wasn’t long before I kicked up the
biggest kind of a row up there to Injun Lake,” said the squatter,
pounding his knees with his clenched hands and shaking all over with
suppressed merriment. “The women-folks dassent go into the woods for
fear that they would run foul of me when they wasn’t lookin’ for it,
an’ some of the guests told Hanson—he’s the new landlord, you
know—that if he didn’t have me took up an’ put in jail they’d never
come nigh him agin. Oh, I tell you I’ve done a heap since me an’ you
had that little talk up there to Sherwin’s Pond, an’ I’m goin’ to do a
heap more before the season’s over. I said I’d bust up guidin’ an’ the
hotels along with it, an’ I’m goin’ to keep my word. I’ll l’arn them
’ristocrats that I’m jest as good as they ever dare be, even if I
ain’t got no good clothes to wear.”
Tom Bigden was intensely disgusted. Matt talked to him as unreservedly
as he might have talked to an accomplice. When he paused to light his
pipe Tom managed to say—
“You hinted last summer that you intended to kidnap little children if
you got a good chance. Have you tried it?”
“Not yet I ain’t, but there’s no tellin’ what I may do if they don’t
quit crowdin’ on me,” replied Matt, with a grin. “That is one of the
tricks I still hold in my hand. I must have money to buy grub an’
things, an’ since I ain’t allowed to earn it honest, as I would like
to do, I must get it any way I can. An’ this brings me to what I want
to say to you.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” answered Tom. “Now I hope you will hurry
up. I am getting tired of listening to your senseless gabble. I am in
no way interested in what you have done or what you intend to do. What
do you want of me? That’s all I care to know.”
“Don’t get in a persp’ration,” said the squatter again. “Yes; I
visited all the camps I could hear of, like I told you, an’ among
other things I took outen them camps were two scatter-guns an’ a
rifle. One of the scatter-guns I give up agin, an’ I got ten dollars
for doin’ it, too.”
“Well, what do I care about that?” said Tom, when Matt paused and
looked at him. “I tell you I am not interested in these things. Come
to the point at once.”
“I’m comin’ to it,” answered the squatter. “I give up one of the
scatter-guns, like I told you, but t’other one an’ the rifle I’ve got
yet. There’s been a reward of a hundred dollars offered for them two
guns—fifty dollars apiece—an’ I want it.”
“Then why don’t you give up the guns and claim it?”
“Now, jest listen at the fule!” exclaimed Matt. “I dassent, ’cause
there’s been a reward of a hundred more dollars offered for the man
that stole them guns. That’s me. I can’t go up to Injun Lake to take
them guns back to the men that owns ’em, an’ I’m afeared to send the
boys, ’cause they would be took up the same as I would. See?”
“Yes, I see; but I don’t know what you are going to do about it.
You’ve got the guns, and if you are afraid to give them up you will
have to keep them. I don’t see any other way for you to do.”
“I do,” said Matt; and there was something in the tone of his voice
that made Tom uneasy. “I don’t want the guns, ’cause I can’t use ’em;
but I do want the money, an’ that’s what I am goin’ to talk to you
about. I want you to buy them guns—”
“Well, I shan’t do it,” exclaimed Tom, who was fairly staggered by
this proposition. “I’ve got one gun, and that’s all I need. Besides, I
am not going to become a receiver of stolen property.”
“I’ll give ’em to you for twenty-five dollars apiece,” continued Matt,
paying no heed to the interruption, “an’ you can take ’em up to Injun
Lake an’ claim the whole of the reward. You’ll make fifty dollars by
it.”
“I tell you I won’t do it,” repeated Tom. “I’ll not have any thing to
do with it. I’m not going to get myself into trouble for the sake of
putting money into your pocket.”
“There ain’t no need of your gettin’ yourself into trouble less’n you
want to. When you take the guns up to Hanson you can tell him that you
found ’em in the bresh—that you didn’t know who they belonged to, an’
so you made up your decision that you had better take ’em to him. See?
That’ll be all fair an’ squar’, an’ nobody will ever suspicion that I
give ’em to you. Come to think on it, I won’t give ’em to you,” added
Matt. “You hand me the twenty-five dollars apiece, an’ I will tell you
right where the guns is hid, an’ you can go up there an’ get ’em. Then
when you tell Hanson that you found ’em in the bresh you will tell him
nothing but the truth. What do you say?”
“I say I haven’t got fifty dollars to spend in any such way,” answered
Tom. He wished from the bottom of his heart that he had pluck enough
to defy the squatter, but he hadn’t. It cut him to the quick to be
obliged to sit there and hear himself addressed so familiarly by such
a fellow as Matt Coyle, but he could not see any way of escape. The
man had it in his power to make serious trouble for him.
“Ain’t you got that much money about your good clothes?” asked Matt,
incredulously.
“I haven’t fifty cents to my name.”
“You can’t make me b’lieve that. You wouldn’t come to Injun Lake
without no money to pay your expenses. Don’t stand to reason, that
don’t.”
“My cousin Ralph carries the purse and foots all our bills; but he
hasn’t half that amount left. We are pretty near strapped and almost
ready to go home.”
“Well, I won’t be hard on you,” said Matt. “I am the accommodatin’est
feller you ever see. Go home, ask your pap for the money, an’ come
back an’ hand it to me. That’s fair, ain’t it? Mount Airy is a hundred
miles from Injun Lake. You oughter go an’ come back in ten days. I’ll
give you that long. What do you say?”
“I’ll think about it,” replied Tom, whose sole object just then was to
get out of hearing of Matt Coyle’s voice. As he spoke he placed one
blade of his paddle against the bottom and shoved his canoe out into
deep water.
“That won’t do, that won’t,” exclaimed Matt. “I want to know whether
or not you are goin’ to bring me that money.”
“That depends upon whether I can get it or not.”
“’Cause you needn’t think you can get away from me by jest goin’ up to
Mount Airy,” continued Matt. “There’s constables up there same’s there
is at Injun Lake, an’ a word dropped at the hatchery will reach ’em
mighty easy. If you want me to be friends with you, you won’t sleep
sound till you bring me that fifty dollars.”
“I wonder if any other living boy ever submitted so tamely to such an
insult,” soliloquized Tom, as he headed his canoe up the lake and
paddled back toward the point. “That villain holds me completely in
his power. He can disgrace me before the whole village of Mount Airy
any time he sees fit to do so. The minute he is arrested and brought
to trial, just that minute I am done for. If I give him fifty dollars
for those guns, how much better off will I be? He will have a still
firmer hold upon me. He’ll rob other camps, compel me to buy his
plunder by threats of exposure, and the first thing I know I shall be
a professional ‘fence’—receiver of stolen goods. By gracious!”
exclaimed Tom, redoubling his efforts at the paddle as if he hoped to
run away from the gloomy thoughts that pressed so thickly upon him.
“What am I coming to? What _have_ I come to?”
“There, now,” I heard Matt mutter, as he stood with his hands on his
hips, watching Tom Bigden’s receding figure. “I’ve done two good
strokes of business this morning. I’ve brought that feller down a peg
or two, an’ I have pervided for gettin’ shet of them guns in a way I
didn’t look for. I thought for one spell that they wasn’t goin’ to be
of no use to me, but now I shall make fifty dollars clean cash outen
’em. He’ll bring it to me, for if he don’t I’ll tell on him sure, an’
then he’ll be in a pretty fix with all them people up there to Mount
Airy knowin’ to his meanness. It hurts these ’ristocrats to have a
feller like me to talk to ’em as I talked to that Bigden boy; I can
see that plain enough. Well, they ain’t got no business to have so
much money an’ so many fine things, while me an’ my family is so poor
that we don’t know where our next pair of shoes is comin’ from.”
Highly pleased with the result of his interview with Tom Bigden, Matt
shoved the canvas canoe into the water and pulled slowly toward the
outlet, once more passing directly over Jake’s silver mine. Perhaps
the sunken treasure had some occult influence upon him, for he
straightway dismissed Tom from his mind, and thought about Jake and
the robbers and the six thousand dollars.
“Don’t stand to reason that Jakey would a told me that he hadn’t seen
them robbers less’n he had some excuse for it,” said Matt, to himself.
“He did see ’em, an’ I know it. He took ’em across the lake, too. He
didn’t do it for nothing, so he’s got money. I’ll speak to him about
it when I get home, an’ then I’ll make it my business to keep an eye
on him.”
Having come to this determination Matt dismissed Jake as well as Tom
from his thoughts, and made all haste to reach the outlet, not
forgetting as he paddled swiftly along to keep a close watch of the
woods on shore. Mr. Swan and a large squad of guides and constables
were in there somewhere, and Matt Coyle had a wholesome fear of them.
When I ran upon the beach at the head of the outlet, I was not very
much surprised to see Jake step out of the bushes and come forward to
meet his father. The boy must have been in great suspense all the
morning, and although he was almost bursting with impatience to know
whether or not his father had discovered any thing during his absence
he could not muster up courage enough to ask any questions. But Matt
began the conversation himself.
“Jakey,” said he, reproachfully. “I didn’t think you would get so low
down in the world as to go an’ fool your pap the way you done this
mornin’. You told me you hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them robbers,
an’ that wasn’t so. You did see ’em, an’ you took ’em across the lake,
too. But you didn’t land ’em on this side; you dumped ’em out into the
water. Now how much did you get for it?”
Jake was not so much taken aback as I thought he would be. He had been
expecting something of this kind and was prepared for it. He knew that
his father was an adept at reading “sign,” and he was as well
satisfied as he wanted to be that his five dollars ferry money would
never do him any good. The question was: How much more had his father
learned? Did he know any thing about the silver mine? Jake didn’t
believe he did, else he would have been more jubilant. A man who knew
where he could put his hand on six thousand dollars at any moment
would not look as sober as Matt Coyle did.
“I didn’t get nothin’ for dumpin’ on ’em out, pap,” replied Jake,
after a little pause. “That was somethin’ I couldn’t help. The night
was dark, an’ I didn’t see the snag till I was clost onto it.”
“Well, what become of the six thousand dollars they had with ’em?”
inquired Matt, looking sharply at the boy, who met his gaze without
flinching. “Did you see any thing of it?”
“I seen a couple of grip-sacks into their hands, but I didn’t ask ’em
what was in ’em,” answered Jake. He looked very innocent and truthful
when he said it, but his father was not deceived. He had known Jake to
tell lies before.
“What become of the grip-sacks when you run onto the snag an’ spilled
’em out?” asked Matt.
“They hung fast to ’em an’ took ’em ashore an’ into the woods where I
didn’t see ’em no more.”
“How much did you get for takin’ the robbers over the lake?”
“Jest five dollars; an’ there it is,” said Jake, who knew that the
money would have to be produced sooner or later.
“Now jest look at the fule!” shouted Matt, going off into a sudden
paroxysm of rage. “Five dollars, an’ them with six thousand stolen
dollars into their grip-sacks! Jake, I’ve the best notion in the world
to cut me a hickory an’ wear it out over your back.”
Jake began to look wild. When his father talked that way things were
getting serious.
“Hold on a minute, pap,” he protested, as Matt pulled his knife from
his pocket and started toward the bushes. “How was I goin’ to know
that they had all that money an’ that it was stole from the bank? If I
had knowed it, I would a taxed ’em a hundred dollars, sure; but I
thought they had clothes an’ things in them grip-sacks.”
Matt paused, reflected a moment, and then shut up his knife and put it
into his pocket.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had made five dollars by takin’ ’em
over ’stead of sayin’ that you hadn’t never seed ’em?” he demanded.
“’Cause I wanted to keep the money to get me some shoes,” answered
Jake, telling the truth this time. “Winter’s comin’ on, an’ I don’t
want to go around with my feet in the snow, like I done last year.
I’ll give you half, pap, an’ then you can get some shoes for
yourself.”
To Jake’s great amazement his father replied—
“No, sonny, you keep it. You earned it, fair and squar’, an’ I won’t
take it from you. I shall make fifty dollars hard cash outen them guns
we’ve got hid in the bresh, an’ that will be enough to run me for a
little while. Now take your boat to pieces an’ bring him up to the
house.”
So saying, Matt Coyle walked off, leaving Jake lost in wonder.
“Well, this beats me,” said the boy, after he had taken a minute or
two to collect his wits. “Pap wouldn’t take half my five dollars, an’
he’s found a way to make fifty dollars outen them guns! I don’t
b’lieve it,” added Jake, his face growing white with excitement and
alarm. “He’s found my silver mind; that’s what’s the matter of him.”
The contortions Jake went through when this unwelcome conviction
forced itself upon him were wonderful. He strode along the beach,
pulling his hair one minute and clapping his hands and jumping up and
down in his tracks the next, and acting altogether as if he had taken
leave of his senses. I had never before witnessed such a performance,
having always been accustomed to the companionship of those who were
able to control themselves, under any and all circumstances. After a
little while he ceased his demonstrations, and picking me up bodily,
carried me into the bushes and left me there.
“I won’t take him to pieces, nuther,” said Jake, aloud. “I’ll leave
him here so’t I can get him without pap’s bein’ knowin’ to it, an’
when night comes I’ll go up an’ see after my silver mind. If pap has
found it, he’ll have to give me half of it, cash in hand, or I’ll tell
on him.”
Although Jake really believed that his “claim” had been “jumped,” he
did not neglect to make preparations for working it in case he found
his fears were groundless. He came back to me about the middle of the
afternoon, and as he approached I saw him take a long, stout line out
of his pocket. What he intended to do with it I could not tell; but I
found out an hour or two afterward, for then I had a second visitor in
the person of Matt Coyle, who came stealing through the bushes without
causing a leaf to rustle. He stopped beside me and picked up the line.
“He didn’t take the canoe to pieces an’ carry him up to the house,
like I told him to, an’ he’s stole his mam’s clothes-line and brung it
down here,” said Matt to himself. “Now, what did he do that for? He’s
goin’ to use ’em both to-night, Jakey is, an’ what’s he goin’ to do
with ’em? He’s a mighty smart boy, but he’ll find that he can’t fool
his pap.”
The hours passed slowly away, and finally the woods were shrouded in
almost impenetrable darkness. The time for action was drawing near. I
waited for it impatiently, because I was sure that the temporary
ownership of those six thousand dollars would be decided before
morning, and I felt some curiosity to know who was going to get them.
While I was thinking about it, Jake Coyle glided up and laid hold of
me. In two minutes more I was in the water and making good time up the
lake towards the sunken silver mine; but before I had left the woods
at the head of the outlet very far behind I became aware that we were
followed. I distinctly saw a light Indian Lake skiff put out from the
shadow of the trees and follow silently in our wake. The boat was one
of the two that had been stolen by Matt and his family on the day that
Mr. Swan and his party burned their camp; and, although the night was
dark, I was as certain as I could be that its solitary occupant was
Matt Coyle himself. He held close in to the trees on the left hand
side of the lake, and as often as Jake stopped and looked back the
pursuer stopped also; and, as he took care to keep in the shadow, of
course he could not be seen.
“Pap thinks he’s smart,” muttered Jake, after he had made a long halt
and looked up and down the lake to satisfy himself that there was no
one observing his movements, “an’ p’raps he is, but not smart enough
to get away with the whole of them six thousand. If I don’t find them
grip-sacks, I shall know sure enough that he’s been here before me;
an’ if he don’t hand over half of it the minute I get home I’ll tell
on him afore sun-up. Here I am, an’ it won’t take me long to see how
the thing stands.”
As Jake said this, he drew up alongside the snag and dropped the
anchor overboard. He must have been in a fearful state of suspense,
for I could feel that he was trembling in every limb. When he came to
divest himself of his clothes, preparatory to going down after the
money, his hands shook so violently that he could scarcely find the
few buttons that held them together. He didn’t dive, for the splash
could have been heard a long distance in the stillness of the night,
and might have attracted somebody’s attention. He made one end of the
clothes-line fast to a brace, took the other in his hand, and,
lowering himself gently over the stern of the canoe, drew in a long
breath and sank out of sight. He was gone a full minute; but before he
came to the surface I knew he had been successful in his search, for I
could tell by the way the line sawed back and forth over the gunwale
that he was tying it to something. An instant later his head bobbed up
close alongside, and then Jake essayed the somewhat difficult task of
clambering back into the canoe. Being a remarkably active young
fellow, he accomplished it with much more ease than I expected; and no
sooner had he gained his feet than he began hauling in on the line
with almost frantic haste.
“I’ve got one of ’em! I’ve got one of ’em!” he kept on saying over and
over again; and a second afterward one of the little valises was
whipped out of the water and deposited on the bottom of the canoe.
“Pap didn’t find my silver mind, like I was afeard of, an’ it’s mine,
all mine. I’m rich.”
Forgetting where he was in the excess of his glee, Jake jumped up and
knocked his heels together; but when he came down I wasn’t there to
meet him. He gave me a shove that sent me to one side, and Jake
disappeared in the water. He was greatly alarmed by the noise he made,
and during the next five minutes remained perfectly motionless.
Supporting himself by holding fast to the anchor rope, he waited and
listened. He was so quiet that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and all
this while an equally motionless and silent figure sat in the skiff,
not more than fifty yards away, taking note of every thing that
happened in the vicinity of the snag.
The deep silence that brooded over the lake deceived Jake, and he made
ready to go down after the rest of the money. He was not out of sight
more than half a minute, and again the sawing of the line told me that
he had found the object of his search. There was another short,
frantic struggle to get into the canoe, a hasty pull at the rope, and
the second valise was jerked out of the water and placed safely beside
its companion. Jake Coyle had worked his silver mine to some purpose.