“Well, I shan’t do it,” exclaimed Tom, who was fairly staggered by this proposition. “I’ve got one gun, and that’s all I need. Besides, I am not going to become a receiver of stolen property.”
“I’ll give ’em to you for twenty-five dollars apiece,” continued Matt, paying no heed to the interruption, “an’ you can take ’em up to Injun Lake an’ claim the whole of the reward. You’ll make fifty dollars by it.”
“I tell you I won’t do it,” repeated Tom. “I’ll not have any thing to do with it. I’m not going to get myself into trouble for the sake of putting money into your pocket.”
“There ain’t no need of your gettin’ yourself into trouble less’n you want to. When you take the guns up to Hanson you can tell him that you found ’em in the bresh—that you didn’t know who they belonged to, an’ so you made up your decision that you had better take ’em to him. See? That’ll be all fair an’ squar’, an’ nobody will ever suspicion that I give ’em to you. Come to think on it, I won’t give ’em to you,” added Matt. “You hand me the twenty-five dollars apiece, an’ I will tell you right where the guns is hid, an’ you can go up there an’ get ’em. Then when you tell Hanson that you found ’em in the bresh you will tell him nothing but the truth. What do you say?”
“I say I haven’t got fifty dollars to spend in any such way,” answered Tom. He wished from the bottom of his heart that he had pluck enough to defy the squatter, but he hadn’t. It cut him to the quick to be obliged to sit there and hear himself addressed so familiarly by such a fellow as Matt Coyle, but he could not see any way of escape. The man had it in his power to make serious trouble for him.
“Ain’t you got that much money about your good clothes?” asked Matt, incredulously.
“You can’t make me b’lieve that. You wouldn’t come to Injun Lake without no money to pay your expenses. Don’t stand to reason, that don’t.”
“My cousin Ralph carries the purse and foots all our bills; but he hasn’t half that amount left. We are pretty near strapped and almost ready to go home.”
“Well, I won’t be hard on you,” said Matt. “I am the accommodatin’est feller you ever see. Go home, ask your pap for the money, an’ come back an’ hand it to me. That’s fair, ain’t it? Mount Airy is a hundred miles from Injun Lake. You oughter go an’ come back in ten days. I’ll give you that long. What do you say?”