“Why, hasn’t that money been found yet?” exclaimed Roy.
“Not yet, and somehow we don’t make out to get on Jake’s trail. He hasn’t been to Rube’s house since the day we found your canvas canoe hidden under that pile of brush. He’s hiding in the woods, living on what he can shoot and steal. I tell you the outlook is mighty dark for us guides. There’s more than two hundred guests gone away since the Irvington bank was robbed, and half of us are idle. Of course our pay goes on, but no honest man wants to take money that he doesn’t earn.”
“Well, I must say that things have come to a pretty pass when a few vagabonds can shut up two hotels and throw fifty men like Mr. Swan out of employment,” said Joe, as the guide went down the beach toward the place where he had left his canoe. “Now that the guns have been recovered, Matt Coyle ought to be arrested without an hour’s delay. I hope he and Jake will be looking through iron bars when we return.”
Joe would have put his wish into stronger language than that if he had known what was to happen to him before he saw Indian Lake again.
Mr. Swan, who had come to Indian Lake to purchase some supplies for his family, took a couple of baskets from his canoe and walked back to the place where Joe Wayring and his friends were standing.
“There’s one thing I ’most forgot to tell you,” said he, as he came up. “Them three cronies of yours, Tom Bigden and his cousins, are spending their vacation in visiting with Matt Coyle and his family.”
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Roy and Arthur, in concert.
“Leastwise we think they are,” continued the guide, “for they have more to do with Matt than they do with any body else. The boys have often seen them together, and they seem to be as thick as so many thieves.”
“That’s what we get by sending them word that if they wanted their fishing-rods they could come and get them,” said Joe, after a little pause. “If we had redeemed their property at the time we redeemed ours, Tom and his cousins wouldn’t have come here.”
“Well, the woods are big enough for all of you, ain’t they?” said the guide. “You needn’t have any thing to do with ’em if you don’t want to.”
“We are not sure of that,” answered Roy. “We shall not trouble them, but that’s no sign that they will keep away and let us alone.”