When we rounded the point we were within less than thirty yards of our camp, and in plain sight of it; but its occupants were so deeply interested in their own affairs that they did not see us. I felt a thrill of indignation run all through me when I caught a glimpse of my master’s pale face, and was proud of him when I saw that there were no signs of cringing in him. Matt bared his brawny arm clear to the shoulder, caught up a switch, gave it a flourish or two to make sure that it would stand the work to which he intended to put it, and then said in a loud voice, as if he were addressing some one on the other side of the spring-hole:
“Now, then, where is it? You see that we are in dead ’arnest, I reckon, don’t you? What have you done with it?”
“I tell you I don’t know any thing about it,” said Joe’s clear, ringing voice in reply. “I never saw it.”
For some reason or other these words seemed to set Jake Coyle beside himself. He yelled like a wild Indian, leaped from the ground, and made his heavy switch whistle as it cut the air in close proximity to the prisoner’s unprotected back. As soon as he could speak plainly he shouted—
“You have seed it too, an’ you do know somethin’ about it. Whoop! Put it onto him, pap, or else stand away from there an’ let me get at him. Don’t you mind how he slapped me in the face with that paddle of your’n? An’ now he’s gone an’ stole—”
“Don’t be in a hurry, Jakey,” interrupted Matt. “Your turn’ll come after I get through with him. I’ll let you at him directly. Look here,” he went on, once more addressing himself to Joe. “You won’t get no help from your friends, an’ you needn’t look for it. When we was comin’ through the woods, we seen ’em puttin’ for Injun Lake tight as they could go. Didn’t we, Jakey? Now if you will ax our parding for your meanness to us, an’ tell us where it is, we’ll let you off easy. What do you say?”
“I say I won’t do it,” answered Joe, in undaunted tones. “I shan’t ask your pardon, and you can’t make me. I haven’t done any thing to you.”
“You ain’t?” roared Matt, drawing back the switch as if he were about to let it fall on Joe’s back. “Don’t you call drivin’ honest folks outen Mount Airy ’cause they ain’t got no good clothes to w’ar, an’ keepin’ ’em from earnin’ a livin’ that they’ve got jest as good a right to as you rich ones have—don’t you call that doin’ somethin’?”