AN ANGRY MISER.
“I say!” shouted Mr. Stebbins, in a stentorian voice. “Be you gone clean
deaf—you two? Come down from there, I tell you, or I’ll send you to
kingdom come afore you can bat your eyes.”
The astonished boys lost no time in waking up. The sight of the cocked
gun and the angry man’s face was enough to banish sleep most
effectually.
“I knowed you was here for no good the first time I seen you,” continued
Mr. Stebbins. “Your gun and your poles is only a blind to make folks
b’lieve that you come up here to hunt and fish; but I know you. I seen
you run in here after shootin’ off your guns to skeer me; but I’ve got a
gun, too, an’ I know how to use it. Come down from there, I say! Come
down, an’ clear out!”
The boys began to understand the matter now, and Dick saw at once that
it was necessary to take some precautions for the safety of himself and
his friend.
The old man was so highly excited that he hardly knew what he was doing.
His finger was resting on the trigger of his ancient flint-lock, and, if
the weapon should be discharged by any accident, Bob Howard would never
know what hurt him.
In order to avoid this danger, Dick thought it best to compel Mr.
Stebbins to lower his gun, which he did by picking up his double-barrel
and resting it across his knees in such a way that its muzzle was
directed toward the old man’s head.
“What are you about there?” yelled the latter.
He took the flint-lock down from his shoulder, sprang through the door
with surprising agility, and then turned around and looked back, keeping
his body concealed, and showing nothing but his eyes and two little
tufts of stiff gray hair.
[Illustration: MR. STEBBINS IS ANGRY]
“Turn that we’pon t’other way,” said he, his rage giving way to alarm.
“I don’t like it.”
“Do you suppose that we like to look into the muzzle of a cocked gun any
better than you do?” demanded Dick. “Come on, Bob; let’s go down there.”
The boys slung their baskets on their backs, picked up their
fishing-rods, and descended to the barn floor.
As they passed out into the open air, they took note of the fact that
the door was riddled with buckshot. If they had stood there instead of
going toward the house, to close the shutter which the robbers had left
open in their hurried flight, one or the other of them would have
received some of those shot in his body.
When they got out of the barn, they were surprised to find that Mr.
Stebbins had beat a hasty retreat. He had taken refuge in the wood-shed,
and all they could see of him was the top of his head above the
window-sill.
He held his gun so that he could bring it to his shoulder very quickly
if circumstances should seem to require it. Believing his position to be
impregnable, he had grown savage again.
“Now, then, clear out!” he shouted, as soon as the boys came into view.
“But mind what I say—this thing ain’t a-goin’ to be dropped here.”
“We’d rather it wouldn’t be dropped here,” replied Dick. “If you will
put down your gun, and come out here so that we can talk to you, we
shall be glad to explain matters.”
“They don’t need any explainin’!” snarled Mr. Stebbins. “I understand
’em already. I can see as fur into a grindstone as the next man, old as
I be. Clear yourselves.”
“Don’t waste any more time with him,” said Bob, who was utterly
disgusted at the old man’s obstinacy. “You might as well argue with a
pig.”
“But he thinks we are the ones who tried to rob him,” replied Dick.
“I know it; and he will continue to think so, no matter what you say to
him.”
“Be you goin’ to clear out, you two?” shouted the old man, in impatient
tones. “I’m a’most tired of waitin’ to see the last of you; but I’ll
tell you ag’in that this thing ain’t a-goin’ to be dropped here. I won’t
have you prowlin’ around my house no more.”
“You need not worry about that,” yelled Bob in reply. “You may be sure
that we shall take particular pains to steer clear of you in future.”
“I bet you will! I’ll have you locked up so tight that you won’t never
try to break into any other house. Mind that!”
Having no desire to prolong an interview that could bring forth no good
result, Dick and Bob made no further effort to induce the angry old man
to listen to the explanation they had to offer. They turned about and
walked away.
As Mr. Stebbins saw the distance between them and the house increasing,
his courage all came back to him, and he began to show more of his
precious anatomy above the window-sill, and to shout after them the most
abusive words.
Twice he made a movement indicative of a desire to bring his flint-lock
to bear on the boys; but, as often as he did so, Dick and Bob dropped
their double-barrels into the hollow of their arms, so that the muzzles
covered the window, and then the old man would draw himself down out of
sight.
In a few minutes the bushes that lined the shore of the lake shut the
house out from their view; but it was not until a long time afterward
that the yells and maledictions of the half-crazed occupant of the
wood-shed ceased to ring in their ears.
This, we repeat, was the substance of the story that Bob Howard told
George, while they were sitting on the bench in the cabin. The only
portions of it that he left out were those relating to the supposed
identity of Mr. Stebbins’ nocturnal visitors.
He did not mention the name by which one of the robbers had been
addressed by the one who seemed to be the leader of the trio, nor did he
refer to the fact that the voices of all three of them had sounded
familiar to him.
He and Dick had talked these matters over during their walk down the
shore, and decided that they would say nothing about them. They were
merely coincidences, and, if they so much as hinted at them, they might
be the means of placing three of their schoolmates in a most unpleasant
situation.
George paid the closest attention to the story, and Dick Langdon noted,
with no little astonishment, that at times an expression of intelligence
would light up his countenance, and a meaning smile linger about his
lips.
When Bob ceased speaking, George asked abruptly:
“You say those robbers engaged in a long conversation in your hearing.
Did you recognize their voices?”
This question took Dick and Bob so completely by surprise that they
could not speak; but the blank look in their faces told George all he
wished to know.
“You needn’t answer me if you don’t want to; but I’ll just tell you
what’s a fact,” said he, striking his open palm with his clenched hand.
“I’ll bet a million dollars, or half I am worth, that if I felt at all
revengeful—if I had any desire to punish three boys who have repeatedly
gone out of their way to insult me—I could put my hands on those robbers
before sundown, unless they have skipped the country. What do you say to
that?”
“_I_ say if you know who they are, you ought to point them out to the
officers of the law,” answered Dick Langdon, with the utmost promptness.
“Who do you think they are?”
“I don’t think anything about it, Dick; I _know_. Now, let me tell you a
story—a very short one.”
So saying, George, in a few words, told of his accidental meeting with
Wallace, Benson and Forbes at the rock beside the spring, and repeated
the conversation he had overheard.
While he was speaking, he kept a close watch of his guests’ faces, and
he would have been blind, indeed, if he had not been able to see that
they knew more about the robbers than they cared to tell.
When he had finished his story, he leaned back against the cabin and
waited for one of them to say something; but Bob kept his eyes fastened
on the ground, while Dick Langdon stood with his back toward the bench,
and appeared to be deeply interested in watching the motions of a
fish-hawk that was slowly winging its way across the lake.
Beyond a doubt, these three boys were the possessors of a secret that
was destined, at no distant day, to make a commotion in the village.
“Put your story and mine together, and what do you make of them?”
continued George, who was anxious that his companions should express an
opinion, in order that he might know how nearly it agreed with his own.
“I make just this of them,” answered Bob. “Mr. Stebbins believes that
Dick and I tried to rob him last night, and he told us more than once
that he didn’t intend to let the matter drop. That means that he is
going to have us arrested. If he does that, it may be necessary for Dick
and me, in order to protect ourselves, to make three fellows, who shall
be nameless, show where they passed the hours between sunset yesterday
and sunrise this morning. If he lets us alone—”
“Don’t build any hopes on that,” interrupted George; “for if you do you
are bound to be disappointed. He is one of the most vindictive old
misers that ever lived.”
“Well, as to that,” said Bob, slowly, “I don’t call a man vindictive
because he asks the help of the law when he has been wronged.”
“Neither do I; but he might have listened to your explanation.”
“Well, fellows, what did we come out here for?” said Dick. “It is a most
unfortunate piece of business altogether, and I wish to goodness that we
were well out of it; but seeing that we are not, and that we can’t
settle it among ourselves, I say let’s drop it and go fishing.”
The others said so, too; but the first thing in order was breakfast, and
that was very soon made ready.
The water in the kettle, which George had placed over the fire before he
opened the door, had had plenty of time to come to the boiling point
while they were sitting there on the bench, and it was but a few
minutes’ work to make the coffee, lay the table and place upon it some
of the delicacies that were brought up from the capacious depths of the
camp-baskets.
“Now, if we only had some squirrels for George to broil over the coals,
what a breakfast we would have!” exclaimed Dick.
“Don’t grumble with what is set before you, young man,” said Bob,
sternly. “It’s not polite. You can’t have any broiled squirrels this
morning. The time consumed in shooting and cooking them would be just so
much time taken away from our fishing, and we ought to have been
anchored over that bass-hole when the sun first touched the water this
morning; then we would have caught some fish.”
That was quite true; but still the best part of the morning had not all
been lost. Hungry as they were, there were but a very few minutes
devoted to breakfast.
There was no time spent in catching minnows for bait, George having been
thoughtful enough to procure an ample supply the day before, and neither
did it take him long to row the scow out to the bass-hole and bring it
to an anchor in the proper place.
The fish were evidently as hungry as the boys had been a short half hour
before, and the struggles that ensued between them and their captors
were numerous and exciting. They took the bait almost as quickly as it
was offered to them, and, although some succeeded in effecting their
escape, the most of those that were struck were safely landed, by the
aid of the folding dip-net that had found a place in Bob’s basket; and
by the time ten o’clock came, George’s guests had caught a larger string
than the one they had carried to the village with them the Saturday
before.
George himself did not do much fishing. He did not believe in wasting
such good things as black bass, so he caught only enough for dinner, and
then sat down and watched the others.
When the fish stopped biting he drew up the anchor and pulled back to
the cabin, where a great surprise awaited both him and his friends.