Golden Days for Boys and Girls Part 22

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 pa.s.sed 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 an angry 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.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

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 the 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 raise the 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 within 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 compa.s.s.

Tom Hallet had no further interest in the hunt. He stood by and watched the officer as he unbound the prisoner and subst.i.tuted a pair of hand-cuffs 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 until 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 doc.u.ment 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 whole cloth, 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.