“No, thar ain’t,” said the man who had done the most of the talking and who answered to the name of Barlow. “We’ll move our duds over thar, if we can get in, an’ stay thar until we can fix our boat up a little. If everything works right, we’ll have a better one before long.”
He got upon his feet as he spoke and drew from under his bunk a short bar of iron, which had more than once come into play when Barlow wanted to force an entrance into somebody’s smoke-house. Carrying this in his hand, he went ashore with Dan, who led the way through the woods toward Don Gordon’s shooting-box. It was the work of scarcely a moment to pull out one of the staples, and when that had been done, the door swung open, and Dan and his companion went in to take a survey of the interior. It was dry and comfortable, as clean as it could possibly be, and Barlow at once decided that he would live there as long as he remained in that neighborhood.
“It’s nice to be rich,” said he, seating himself in one of the empty bunks, after touching a match to the pile of light wood which the lawful owner of the shooting-box had left in the fire-place. “It’s nice to have horses an’ hounds an’ niggers to work for you, while you have nothing to do but ride around the country an’ enjoy yourself. That’s the way I’d live if I had the chance to make money that your brother’s got.”
“Yes, Dave makes right smart,” said Dan, with some pride in his tones, “an’ he don’t do no work, nuther. But he’s scandalous mean with what he ’arns. He gives it all to mam, an’ me an’ pap never have none of it. He’s gettin’ mighty tired of Dave’s way of doin’, pap is, an’ t’other night he told Dave that he could jest fork over every cent of his ’arnin’s, an’ let pap have the handlin’ of ’em. Dave, he said he wouldn’t do it, an’ I’m looking for the biggest kind of a furse up to our house when next pay-day comes.”
“Your pap has got the right to every cent Dave makes till he is twenty-one years old, an’ Dave can’t hender him from takin’ it,” said Barlow. “I ’spose he carries a heap of money between the landin’ an’ the county-seat in that mail-bag of his’n.”
“I should say he did!” exclaimed Dan. “Only last night he brought in five thousand dollars for Mr. Brigham—the father of that boy who was down here with me t’other day. Lester said so this mornin’. He told me too that Dave brings in just that much on the fifteenth day of every month.”