Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/199

 have been able to stop Matt Coyle's raid on our canoes."

"I doubt it very much," replied Joe Wayring. "No doubt Matt has been watching us all the morning and waiting for us to come ashore so that he could steal something, and I believe he would have made his 'raid' if we had all been here to oppose him. As it was, he had full swing, and there are none of us hurt."

"That's my idea," said Arthur. "Judging by his countenance Matt is a bad man and a desperate one. Well, we have lost our rods and reels, which must be worth considerably more than a hundred dollars, but we have learned one thing, that we ought to profit by, and another that we can use to our advantage. To begin with, so long as Matt Coyle is allowed to stay about in this neck of the woods—"

"And I guess he'll stay here as long as he has a mind to," observed Roy.

"Well, I guess he won't," retorted Arthur.

"I know what you mean," said Roy. "You mean that the arm of the law is strong enough to snatch him out of the swamp. I don't dispute it. The trouble is going to be to get hold