Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/216

 to look at the prizes, told himself that if he did not win that flag it would be because some lucky member walked off with it before he had a chance to try for it.

During the next two weeks little or nothing happened in or about Mount Airy that is worthy of note. A deputy sheriff and constable went down to Sherwin's Pond to arrest Matt Coyle, and, after a three days' search returned empty-handed. They found the place where the squatter had built his shanty, but it was gone when they got there, and so were Matt and his family. The authorities at Indian Lake were requested to keep a look-out for him, but Matt was too old a criminal to be easily caught. He and his boys offered themselves as guides to the guests of the hotels, but when they were told that they were not wanted, they set themselves to work to carry out the programme of which Matt had spoken to Tom Bigden on the day he stole Joe Wayring's canoe—that is, to break up the business of guiding in the region about Indian Lake, and to make the people who came there for recreation so sick of the woods that they would never