“What’s the use of two goin’?” said Tug. “We’ll be lookin’ for Cub, and meet you at the corner of the woods.” To this Hank agreed.
Seeing there was nothing else to be done, Jack ran back across the pasture to Peternot’s garden, and was creeping up behind the quince-trees, when he heard a voice, and saw a glimmer of light approaching around the corner of the house. Then appeared Squire Peternot, carrying a lantern, followed by his nephew Byron, armed with a heavy club. They were looking along the ground and beating the shrubbery. Jack didn’t know whether to run away, or lie flat on the grass. While he was hesitating, he heard the old man say, “’Twas robbery, downright robbery! House-breakin’,—a clear case! The rogues have got off with their booty, but this ain’t the last on’t, they’ll find!”
“State-prison job,” replied the nephew, “if I know anything about law. The fact that a piece of property is in litigation don’t justify one claimant in entering burglariously the premises of another claimant and stealing said piece of property.”
“I’ll have out a s’arch-warrant,” Peternot declared, “and seize that coin wherever it can be found. If the deacon’s boys are mixed up in’t, they’ll find it’s a sorry business!”
Jack grew faint at heart, as he watched and listened. The men with the lantern and club passed the window through which he had escaped, and paused for a minute or more to examine the ground all about the lilac-bush. They found footprints, but he heard nothing about either hat or shoes. They then passed on, and the door closed behind them as they entered the house.
Troubled with heavy misgivings, feeling that he would give almost anything to be well out of this scrape, Jack rose and slunk away, without attempting to solve the mystery of the hat and shoes. He was no longer so anxious as he had been to get the money once more into his possession; and finding Hank and Tug faithful to their appointment, he said to them, “When you find Cub, hide the money, and keep it till you hear from me.” And he told them of the threatened search-warrant.
Hank swore fidelity to Jack’s interest; and the wretched boy,—never more wretched in mind, in all his checkered life, than at that hour,—parting from the brothers on the border of the woods, hurried home, and reached Deacon Chatford’s house just as the moon was appearing above the eastern clouds. The windows were dark; the folks had all gone to bed, leaving the kitchen door unfastened for him. He entered softly; but as he was going up to his room, the voice of Mrs. Chatford called to him, “That you, Jack?”