As Jake shouldered his well-filled bags he turned toward the door, only to find it blocked by the two figures who had sought concealment behind the cellar. They had come down the steps so cautiously that Jake did not know there was any one near him. Of course he was greatly alarmed, and visions of the New London penitentiary rose up before him; for Jake knew very well that nocturnal house-breaking, with the intent to commit a felony, constitutes burglary, and burglary is a State’s prison offense. The light was so dim that he could not see the features of the men who blocked the doorway and cut off his escape, but beyond a doubt one of them must be the son of the guide he had robbed.
“I couldn’t help it, Ike, sure’s I live an’ breathe I couldn’t help it” stammered Jake, as soon as he could speak. “We ain’t got a bite to eat in the shanty, an’ no way to earn any, seein’ that the folks about here won’t let us be guides and make an honest livin’, like we want to do. I’ll give up every thing I’ve got into the bags if—”
“Keep your plunder, friend,” said a voice that Jake did not remember to have heard before. “We don’t own it, and neither are we officers. We don’t care how much you steal. Where’s your boat?”
“Down to the beach,” replied Jake, who thought this a little ahead of any thing he had ever heard of before.
“Well, do you want to earn five dollars?” asked the man, in hurried tones. “Then shoulder your bags again and come on. We want you to set us across the lake.”
Jake obeyed the order to “come on,” but he did it with fear and trembling. How did he know but this was a ruse on the part of the two men to get him out of the cellar so that they could both pounce upon him? He followed them up the steps because he was afraid to hang back; but when he got to the top he watched for an opportunity to throw down his bags and take to his heels. But first he took as good a look at the men as he could in the darkness. They both wore slouch hats and long dark-colored ulsters, and each carried a small traveling bag in his hand. In appearance, they were not unlike the sportsmen and tourists who patronized the Indian Lake hotels in summer. They tried to make Jake believe that that was what they were; but the boy was sharp enough to discover a flaw in their story at once.