“If I ever get the chance I’ll fill that little black fice of their’n so full of bullet holes that he won’t never be of no more use as a watchdog I bet you,” said Sam, in savage tones. “We could have done jest what we liked with that there camp, an’ every thing an’ every body what’s into it, if it hadn’t been for his yelpin’ an’ goin’ on.”
“Now, listen at you!” exclaimed his father, impatiently. “I’m right glad the dog was there an’ set up that yelpin’, ’cause if we’d went ashore, like we meant to do, we’d a had that man Swan onto us.”
“Well, what of it?” retorted Sam. “Ain’t you a bigger man than he is?”
“That ain’t nuther here nor there,” answered Matt, who knew that he could not have held his own in an encounter with the stalwart guide. “Fightin’ ain’t what we’re after. We want to do all the damage we can without bein’ ketched at it.”
“All I’ve made by this night’s work is a prod in the ribs that will stay with me for a month,” groaned Jake, who, as I afterwards learned, had received several sharp thrusts from the blade of Roy Sheldon’s oar. “Pap, you spiled our chances of gettin’ that skiff for a house-boat when you told us to run into her. She’s at the bottom of the pond by this time. Didn’t you hear the planks rippin’ and crackin’ when we struck her?”
“Wal, then, what did they put theirselves in our way for!” demanded Matt, angrily. “Didn’t you hear me tell ’em not to come nigh us, ’cause it would be wuss for’em if they did? I seen through their little game in a minute. They wanted to keep us there till Swan could come up an’ help ’em. What else could we do but run into ’em?”
This made it plain to me that the squatter had not acted entirely on the defensive—that he had made a desperate effort to send the skiff and her crew to the bottom of the pond; but, being better posted in natural philosophy than he was, I did not believe that he had succeeded in doing it. An unloaded skiff will not sink, even if her whole side is stove in, and I was positive that Matt Coyle would see more of that boat and of the boys who owned it before the doors of the penitentiary closed upon him.
In spite of Jake’s protest and Sam’s, Matt decided to camp on the bank of the creek that night, and go home in the morning. The boys were afraid that the guide might assume the offensive and attack them while they were asleep; but their father quieted their fears by assuring them that he would not attempt any thing of the sort, ’cause why, he couldn’t. The skiff was sunk, Swan’s canoe wasn’t large enough to carry more than one man at a load, and the guide, brave as he was supposed to be, would not think of coming up there alone. More than that, he did not know where to find them.