“They’re thieves theirselves if they take them guns away,” muttered Jake, between his clenched teeth. “I was goin’ to give ’em to Rube, an’ tell him to buy me some shoes an’ clothes outen my shar’ of the reward; but now I can’t have ’em. I wisht they would go off; for if they tech them grip-sacks—”
Jake finished the sentence by pushing up his sleeves and looking around for a club. The money was hidden but a short distance from that very log, and if Tom and his cousins had found it Jake would have rushed out and fought them single-handed before he would have given up his claim to it. But things did not come to that pass. Ralph had come upon the guns by the merest accident, and he and his friends did not think to search for any other stolen property. They took the guns away with them, and the minute they were out of sight Jake began to bestir himself. He came out on his hands and knees, crawled past the empty log, and disappeared among the bushes on the other side of it. While Sam was trying to decide whether or not it would be quite safe to follow him, Jake glided into view again, holding a valise under each arm.
“There they are! Sure’s you’re born, there they are!” cried Sam, in great excitement; and if he had uttered the words a little louder Jake would have heard him. “Now, all I’ve got to do is to keep my eyes on them things an’ never lose track of ’em agin.”
And Sam didn’t lose track of them, either, although Jake spent nearly an hour in hunting up a safe hiding-place for them. He ran swiftly from point to point, closely scrutinizing every log and thicket he came to and stopping now and then to listen, and Sam followed him wherever he went and saw all he did. At last Jake found a place to suit him. A gigantic poplar had been overturned by the wind, and in falling had pulled up a good portion of the earth in which its far-reaching roots were embedded, thus forming a cavity so deep and wide that Rube Royall’s cabin could have been buried in it, chimney and all. Into this cavity Jake recklessly plunged, and when he came out again fifteen minutes later his arms were empty. He had left the valises behind.
“An’ he won’t never see ’em agin, nuther,” said Sam, gleefully. “They’re mine now, an’ so is the money that’s into ’em.”