Snagged and Sunk/Chapter 5

UMAN natur'!" yelled Jake, when the ball sung through the air close to his ear. "I'm shot! Whoop! I'm killed."

He let go his hold upon the snag and fell back into the water with a sounding splash; but rising with the buoyancy of a cork, and finding, to his astonishment, that he was not at all injured, he swam rapidly in my direction, but so silently that I could not hear the slightest ripple. The robbers, if such they were, were struck dumb by the alarming sounds that had been called forth by their random shot; but at length one of them broke the silence.

"I hope you're satisfied," said he, in savage tones. "You have added murder to burglary, and now we are in for it, sure. I'm off this very minute."

"Where are you going, Tony?" asked his companion, in pleading tones.

"I'm going to get ashore and strike out through the woods the best I know how. I don't care where I bring up, so long as I put a safe distance between myself and the guides who will be on our trail at daylight. They'll track a fellow down as a hound would."

"Are you going to desert me? I can't swim ashore."

"Then walk. The water isn't up to your neck."

"But the mud! What if it should be a quicksand?"

"The mud isn't an inch deep. That boy told us a pack of lies from beginning to end. He capsized us on purpose; but I am sorry you shot him. Come on, if you are going with me."

"Must we leave the money behind after all the risk we ran to get it?"

"The money can stay where it is till the rust eats it up for all I care," replied Tony, who was very much alarmed. "I wouldn't stay here a minute longer after what you have done for all the money there is in America."

"But there are six thousand dollars in those grip-sacks," protested Jim, "and that amount of cash don't grow on every bush."

"I know it; but there's no help for it that I can see. You have knocked us out of a fortune by being so quick with your revolver."

Here the speaker broke out into a volley of the heaviest kind of oaths, and Jake Coyle sat composedly in the canvas canoe listening to him. The boy's courage came back to him the instant he found himself in the boat with the double paddle in his hand, and instead of making haste to return to the other shore, as I thought he would, he kept still and waited to see what his late passengers were going to do. Although he was not more than twenty yards from them they could not see him, for, as I have said, the night was pitch dark.

"I knowed by the way them fellers went snoopin' around that suller, an' by the funny story they tried to cram down my throat, that they wasn't sportsmen like they pertended to be," soliloquized Jake, giving himself an approving slap on the knee. "An' I knowed the minute I seed that money that it wasn't their'n, an' that's why I upsot 'em into the lake. Whoop-pee! I've got a silver mind up there by that snag, an' to-morrer night I'll slip up an' work it."

Hardly able to control himself, so great was his delight over the success of his hastily conceived plans, Jake sat and listened while the robbers floundered through the water toward the shore; and when a crashing in the bushes told him that they had taken to the woods, he headed me for the place where he had left the stolen provisions. Six thousand dollars! Jake could hardly believe it. It was a princely fortune in his estimation, and it was all his own; for no one except himself and the robbers knew where it was, and the latter would not dare come after it, believing, as they did, that their chance shot had proved fatal to Jake. It would be an easy matter for the boy to bring the two grip-sacks to the surface by diving for them, but what should he do with the money after he got hold of it? Unless he went to some place where he was not known, it would be of no more use to him than those fine guns were to his father. There was but one store within a radius of fifty miles at which he could spend any of it, and Jake knew it would not be safe to go there. The store was located at Indian Lake, and that was the headquarters of the guides who were so hostile to his father's family.

"It's a p'int that will need a heap of studyin' to straighten it out," thought Jake, putting a little more energy into his strokes with the double paddle. "But I'm rich, an' I needn't stop with pap no longer on I've a mind to. That's a comfortin' idee. Wouldn't him an' Sam be hoppin' if they knowed what had happened to-night? I don't reckon I'd best have any thing more to say to Rube about them guns. I don't care for fifty dollars long's I got six thousand waitin' for me."

Jake found the bags where he had left them, and also the five dollars which the robbers had paid him for ferrying them across the lake. He loaded the bags into the canoe, after putting the money into his pocket, and set out for home, which he reached without any further adventure. He took a good deal of pains to avoid the watchman at the hatchery, although there was really no need of it. Rube knew well enough that the food Matt's wife served up to him three times a day had never been paid for. The first words he uttered when he presented himself at the breakfast table the next morning proved as much.

"Beats the world how you folks keep yourselves in grub so easy," said he, as he drew one of the stools up to the well-filled board. "I never see you do no work, an' yet you never go hungry. Well, I don't know's it's any of my business; but I'd like mighty well to make it my business to 'rest them two robbers that's prowlin' about in these woods."

"What robbers?" inquired Matt; while Jake, taken by surprise, bent his head lower over his cracked plate and trembled in every limb.

"I don't know's I can give you any better idee of it than by readin' a little scrap in a paper that Swan give me early this morning," answered Rube, pushing back his stool and pulling the paper in question from his pocket.

"Swan!" ejaculated Matt, his face betraying the utmost consternation. "Has he been round here?"

Rube replied very calmly that the guide had been around there, adding—

"Him an' a whole passel of other guides an' constables come to see me this morning at the hatchery afore sun-up. They told me all about it an' give me this paper. They was a lookin' for the robbers."

"An' don't you know that they're lookin' for me too?" exclaimed Matt, reproachfully. "An you never come to wake me up so't I could take to the bresh an' hide? Spos'n I'd been ketched all along of your not bringin' me word?"

"But you see I knowed you wasn't in no danger," replied the watchman. "They wouldn't be likely to look for you in my house, an' me holdin' the position of watchman at the State hatchery, would they? Besides, they don't care for you now. They're after a bigger reward than has been offered for you. There's six hundred dollars to be made by 'restin' them robbers, an' that's what brung Swan an' his crowd up here so early. They tracked the robbers through the woods as far as Haskinses', Swan and the rest of the guides did, an' there they found a steeple pulled outen the suller door an'—Hallo! What's the matter of you, Jake?"

"There ain't nothin' the matter of me as I knows on," said the boy, faintly.

"I thought you sorter acted like you was chokin'. Well, they routed up Haskinses' folks, an' when Miss Haskins come to go into the suller she said she had lost some 'taters, turnups, bacon, butter, and pickles," continued Rube; and as he said this he ran his eyes over the table and saw before him every one of the articles he had enumerated. "Miss Haskins allowed that the robbers must a bust open the door to get grub to eat while they was layin' around in the bresh. Mebbe they did an' mebbe they didn't; but that's nothin' to me. They couldn't track the robbers no furder'n the suller; but they're bound to come up with 'em, sooner or later. Townies ain't as good at hidin' in the woods as you be, Matt."

The squatter grinned his appreciation of the complaint, and Rube proceeded to unfold his paper. When he found the dispatch of which he was in search, he read it in a low monotone, without any rising or falling inflection or the least regard for pauses. It ran as follows:

"Irvington, Aug. 3.—The cashier of the First National Bank went to dinner about noon yesterday, after closing and locking the vault and doors of the building. Thieves entered the bank by a back door and secured about $6,000, mostly in specie, which had been left in trays just inside the iron railings. Two strangers wearing long dark coats and black felt hats were seen coming out of the alley about the time the money was supposed to have been stolen, and suspicion rests upon them. The sheriff is in hot pursuit, and the thieves have already been traced as far as Indian Lake. That is bad news. The Indian Lake vagabonds will give them aid and comfort as long as their money holds out, and the officers will have an all-winter's job to run them to earth. A reward of six hundred dollars has been offered for the apprehension of the robbers."

Rube folded the paper again and said, as he winked knowingly at Matt Coyle—

"You see that Swan and the rest of the guides have got bigger game than you to look after, an' if they've got an all-winter's job onto their hands, you're safe, so fur as bein' took up is concerned; I mean that they won't go out of their way to hunt you up."

Having finished his breakfast Rube took possession of one of the shake-downs, while Matt and his family adjourned to the open air to give him a chance to sleep.

"The Injun Lake vagabones will give 'em aid an' comfort as long's their money holds out," quoted Matt, seating himself on a convenient log and knitting his shaggy brows as if he were revolving some deep problem in his mind. "That means us, I reckon; don't you? I'd give 'em all the aid an' comfort they wanted if I could only find 'em, I bet you. I wish we were livin' in the woods now like we used to. We'd stand enough sight better chance of meetin' 'em than we do here so nigh the hatchery."

"An' what's the reason we ain't livin' in the woods, quiet and peaceable?" exclaimed Sam. "It's all along of Joe Wayring an' the rest of them Mt. Airy fellers who burned us outen house an' home, so't we've got to stay around the settlements whether we want to or not."

The mention of Joe Wayring's name seemed to set Matt Coyle beside himself with rage. He jumped to his feet and strode back and forth in front of his log, flourishing his arms in the air and uttering threats that were enough to make even a canvas canoe tremble with apprehension. Why Matt should feel so spiteful against my master I could not understand. Joe had no hand in driving him out of Mount Airy, neither did he lend the least assistance in destroying Matt's property. The trustees and the guides were the responsible parties, but Matt did not give a thought to them. The innocent Joe was the object of his wrath, and he promised to visit all sorts of terrible punishments upon him at no very distant day.

"We'll tie him to a tree an' larrup him till he'll wish him an' his crowd had left us alone," said Matt, in savage tones. "We'll larn him that honest folks ain't to be drove about like sheep jest 'cause they ain't got no good clothes to w'ar. But six thousand dollars!" added Matt, coming back to the point from which he started. "That's a power of money, ain't it?"

"Six hundred you mean," suggested Sam. "That's the reward that's been offered for them robbers."

"Who said any thing about the reward," exclaimed Matt, almost fiercely. "I wasn't thinkin' of the reward. I was thinkin' of the six thousand."

"Wouldn't you try to 'rest 'em, pap, if you should find 'em?" inquired Sam.

"Not if I could make more by givin' 'em aid an' comfort, I wouldn't. Say," added Matt, giving Sam a poke in the ribs with his finger. "Six hundred dollars is nothin' alongside of six thousand, is it? Them fellers will have to camp somewhere, if they stay in the woods, won't they? An' is there a man in the Injun Lake country that's better'n I be at findin' camps an' sneakin' up on 'em? Jakey, go into the shanty an' bring out that canvas canoe of your'n. Go easy, 'cause Rube wants to sleep after bein' up all night. More'n that, I want him to sleep; for I don't care to have him know what I am up to. I suspicion that he's watchin' me."

"Where be you goin', pap?" asked Jake, in some alarm.

"Up to Haskinses' to take a look around his landin'," replied Matt. "You didn't see any thing of them robbers while you was workin' about that suller, did you, Jakey?"

"Didn't see hide nor hair of nobody," was the answer. "If I'd seen 'em I'd been that scared that I never would quit a runnin'."

"Well, they was up there somewheres, 'cause Swan an' his crowd tracked 'em that fur. But they couldn't foller 'em no furder, an' that proves that the robbers must have crossed the lake right there."

"I don't reckon they did, pap," replied Jake, whose uneasiness and anxiety were so apparent that it was a wonder his father's suspicions were not aroused. Cause where did they get a boat to take 'em over? Haskins don't own but one, an' he's got that up to Injun Lake."

"I don't know nothin' about that," answered Matt, doggedly. "Them robbers got across the lake somehow, an' I am sure of it. Leastwise it won't do any harm to slip up there, easy like, an' look around a bit. Go an' bring out the canoe, Jakey."

I did not wonder at the white face the boy brought with him when he came into the cabin and took me out of the chimney corner, and neither was I much surprised to hear him mutter under his breath—

"I do wish in my soul that I'd busted a hole into you when I run you onto that snag last night. Then pap couldn't have used you this mornin'. I'll bet he don't never go out in you no more."

"Now, then," said Matt, "put him together, ready for business—you can do it better'n I can—while I go in after my pipe an' rifle."

"Say, Jakey," said Sam, in a delighted whisper, as Matt tip-toed into the cabin, "if pap finds the camp of them robbers won't we be rich folks, though? He ain't goin' in fur the reward, pap ain't. Looks to me as though he had got his eye on them six thousand."

That was the way it looked to Jake too; and although he knew that his father could not find the money, hidden as it was under five feet and more of muddy water, he was afraid that he would see something at Haskins' landing that would make him open his eyes. And Jake's fears were realized. In less than an hour after he and his brother put me into the water at the head of the outlet, Matt had paddled up to Haskins' landing and was taking in all the signs he found there with the eye of an Indian trailer. Nothing escaped his scrutiny. He saw the impress of Jake's bare feet in the mud, the prints of boots, the marks of the canvas canoe on the beach, and noted the place where the bags had been left while the robbers were being ferried across the lake. Then he sat down on a log, smoked a pipe, and thought about it.

"What was that boy's notion for tellin' me that them robbers couldn't have crossed the lake 'cause they didn't have no boat, do you reckon?" said he, to himself. "Come to think of it, he did look kinder queer when I said I was goin' to look about Haskinses' landin' jest to see what I could find here, and I'll bet that that boy knows more about them robbers than any body else in these woods. He took 'em over, Jakey did—all the signs show that. Course he didn't do it for nothin', so he must have money. Now what's to be done about it?"

This was a question upon which the squatter pondered long and deeply. If Jake had earned some money the night before, of course Matt ought to have the handling of it, for he was the head of the family; but how was he going to get it? He knew the boy too well to indulge in the hope that he would surrender it on demand, and as for whipping it out of him—well, that wouldn't be so easy, either; for Jake was light of foot, and quite as much at home in the woods as his father was. It wouldn't do for Matt to come to an open rupture with his hopeful son, for if he did who would steal the bacon and potatoes the next time the larder ran low? Sam was too timid to forage in the dark, running the risk of encounters with vicious dogs and settlers who might be on the watch, and even Matt had no heart for such work. He must bide his time and pick Jake's pocket after he had gone to bed, unless—here the squatter got upon his feet, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and shoved the canvas canoe out into the lake.

"Them robbers must have made pretty considerable of a trail, lumberin' through the bresh in the dark, an' what's to hender me from follerin' 'em?" he soliloquized, as he plied the double paddle. "Havin' been up all night they oughter sleep to-day, an' if I can only find their camp—eh?"

Matt Coyle began building air-castles as these thoughts passed through his mind. He paddled directly across the lake, avoiding the snag on which I had been overturned the night before, passing over Jake's silver mine, which he might have seen if he had looked into the water, and presently he was standing on the spot where the robbers made their landing when they waded ashore. Here another surprise awaited him. There were no signs to indicate that the canvas canoe had been there before, and neither were there any prints of bare feet to be seen. Boot-marks were plenty, however, and the ground about them was wet.

"Now what's the meanin' of this yer?" exclaimed Matt, who was greatly astonished and bewildered. "What's the reason Jakey didn't land his passengers on shore 'stead of dumpin' them in the water? Do you reckon he tipped 'em over an' spilled that money out into the lake? If he did, 'taint no use for me to foller the trail any furder."

Little dreaming how shrewd a guess he had made, Matt filled his pipe and sat down for another smoke. While he was trying to find some satisfactory answers to the questions he had propounded to himself, he was aroused by a slight splashing in the water, and looked up to see a light canoe close upon him. It had rounded the point unseen, and was now so near that any attempt at flight or concealment would have been useless. So Matt put on a bold face. He arose to his feet with great deliberation, picked up his rifle, and rested it in the hollow of his arm.

"No one man in the Injun Lake country can 'rest me," I heard him say, in determined tones, "an' if that feller knows when he's well off he won't try it. Well, I do think in my soul! If that ain't the boy that told me to steal Joe Wayring's boat, I'm a sinner. He's the very chap I want to see, for I've got use for him. Hello, there!" he added, aloud. "Powerfu1 glad to see you agin, so onexpected like. Come ashore."

Tom Bigden (for it was he) paused when he heard himself addressed so familiarly, and sat in his canoe with his double paddle suspended in the air. He gave a quick glance at the tattered, unkempt figure on the beach, and with an exclamation of disgust went on his way again.

"Say," shouted Matt, in peremptory tones. "Hold on a minute. I want to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you," was Tom's reply. "Mind your own business and let your betters alone."

If Tom had tried for a week he could not have said any thing that was better calculated to make Matt Coyle angry. The latter never acknowledged that there was any body in the world better than himself. Lazy, shiftless vagabond and thief that he was, he considered himself the equal of any industrious, saving and honest guide in the country.

"Who's my betters?" Matt almost yelled. "Not you, I'd have you know. I can have you 'rested before this time to-morrer, if I feel like it, an' I will, too, if you throw on any more of your 'ristocratic airs with me. Mind that, while you're talkin' about bein' ' my betters."

"Why, you—you villain," exclaimed Tom, who could not find words strong enough to express his surprise and indignation. "How dare you talk to me in that way?"

"No more villain than yourself," retorted Matt, hotly, "an' I dare talk to you in any way I please. You don't like it 'cause a man who ain't got no good clothes to wear has the upper hand of you an' can send you to jail any day he feels in the humor for it, do you? Well, that's the way the thing stands, an' if you want to keep friends with me, you had better do as I tell you."

Tom Bigden was utterly confounded. Never in his life before had he been so shamefully insulted. Do as that blear-eyed ragamuffin told him! He would cut off his right hand first. Almost ready to boil over with rage, Tom dipped his paddle into the water and set his canoe in motion again.

"Well, go on if you want to," yelled Matt. "But bear one thing in mind: I'll leave word at the hatchery this very night, an' to-morrer there'll be a constable lookin' for you. You forget that you told me to steal Joe Wayring's boat down there to Sherwin's Pond last summer, don't you? You knowed I was goin' to take it, you never said or done a thing to hender me, an' that makes you a 'cessory before the fact," added Matt glibly, and with a ring of triumph in his voice. "Now, will you stop an' talk to me, or go to jail?"

Tom was frightened as well as astonished. He had forgotten all about that little episode at Sherwin's Pond, but the squatter's threatening words recalled it very vividly to mind. He knew enough about law to be aware that an accessory before the fact is one who advises or commands another to commit a felony, and Tom had done just that very thing, and thereby rendered himself liable to punishment. It is true that there were no witnesses present when he urged Matt to steal the canvas canoe, but there were plenty of them around when he advised him to steal the hunting dogs belonging to the guests of the hotels, and to turn the sail boats in Mirror Lake adrift so that they would go through the rapids into Sherwin's Pond.

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Tom, as these reflections came thronging upon him thick and fast. "What have I done? I have put my foot in it, and this low fellow has the upper hand of me as sure as the world."

I am of opinion that Tom would have given something just then if he had not been in such haste to take vengeance upon a boy who never did the first thing to incur his enmity.