The Boy Trapper

"It seems to me that I might have helped it. If I had gone to General Gordon when your father first spoke about that barrel with the eighty thousand dollars in it, and told him the whole story, things might have turned out differently. But in spite of all he said, I did not suppose that he was in earnest."

"Neither did I. That any man in his sober senses should think of such a thing! Why, mother, if there had been so much money buried in that potato-patch, the General would have known it, and don't you suppose he would have found it if he'd had to plough the field up ten feet deep? Of course he would."

"But just think of the disgrace that has been brought upon us."

"Father is the only one who has done anything to be ashamed of, and he made matters worse by running away. If he would come home and attend to his business, no one would say a word to him. The General told me so this morning."

"I am afraid you couldn't make your father believe it."

"Perhaps not, but if I knew where to find him I should try."

It was David Evans who spoke last. He and his mother were talking over the strange incidents that had happened in the settlement during the last few days, and which we have attempted to describe in the preceding volume of this series. The events were brought about by a very foolish notion which Godfrey Evans, David's father, suddenly got into his head.

During our late war it was the custom of the people living in the South to conceal their valuables when they heard of the approach of the Union army. They were also careful to take the same precautions to save their property when it became known that the rebel guerillas were near at hand; for these worthies were oftentimes but little better than organized bands of robbers, and the people stood as much in fear of them as they did of the Federals. These valuables, consisting for the most part of money, jewelry and silverware, were sometimes hidden in cellars, in hollow logs in the woods and in barns; but more frequently they were buried in the ground. The work of hiding them was sometimes performed by the planters themselves, if they happened to be at home, but it was generally intrusted to old and faithful servants in whom their owners had every confidence. It not unfrequently happened that these old and faithful servants proved themselves utterly unworthy of the trust reposed in them. Sometimes they told the raiding soldiers where the property was concealed, and at others they ran away without telling even their masters where the valuables were hidden. General Gordon's old servant, Jordan, was one of this stamp. He went off with the Union forces, who raided that part of Mississippi, and before he went he told a rebel soldier, Godfrey Evans, who happened to be at home on a furlough, and who was skulking in the woods to avoid capture, that he had just buried a barrel containing eighty thousand dollars in gold and silver in his master's potato-patch, and that none of the family knew where it was.

This Godfrey Evans had been well off in the world at one time. He had property to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars; but, like many others, he lost it all during the war, and returned home after the surrender of General Lee to find himself a poor man. His comfortable house had been burned over the heads of his wife and children, who were now living in a rude hut which some kind-hearted neighbors had hastily erected; his negroes, who had made his money for him, were all gone; his cattle had been slaughtered by both rebel and Union troops, and his mules and horses carried off; his fine drove of hogs, which ran loose in the woods, and upon which he relied to furnish his year's supply of bacon, had wandered away and become wild; and Godfrey had nothing but his rifle and his two hands with which to begin the world anew. But it was hard to go back and begin again where he had begun forty years ago. The bare thought of it was enough to discourage Godfrey, who declared that he wouldn't do it, and made his words good by becoming a roving vagabond. He spent the most of his time at the landing, watching the steamers as they came in, and the rest in wandering listlessly about the woods, shooting just game enough to keep him in powder, lead and tobacco. His sole companion and friend was his son Daniel, who, being a chip of the old block, faithfully imitated his father's lazy, useless mode of life. Mrs. Evans and the younger son, David, were the only members of the family who worked. They never lost an opportunity to turn an honest penny, and there were times when Godfrey and Dan would have gone supperless to bed if it had not been for these two faithful toilers.

Godfrey disliked this aimless, joyless existence as much as he disliked work, and even Dan at times longed for something better. They both wanted to be rich. Godfrey wanted to see his fine plantation, which was now abandoned to briers and cane, cultivated as it used to be; while it was Dan's ambition to have two or three painted boats in the lake, to have a pointer following at his heels, and to do his shooting with a double-barrel gun that "broke in two in the middle." He wanted to take his morning's exercise on a spotted pony--a circus horse, he called it; and to wear a broadcloth suit, a Panama hat and patent leather boots, when he went to church on Sundays. Don and Bert Gordon had all these aids to happiness, and they were the jolliest fellows he had ever seen--always laughing, singing or whistling. Dan thought he would be happy too, if he could only have so many fine things to call his own, but he could see no way to get them, and that made him angry. He hated Don and Bert so heartily that he could never look at them without wishing that some evil might befall them. He threatened to steal their horses, shoot their dogs, sink their boats, and do a host of other desperate things, believing that in this way he could render the two happy brothers as miserable as he was himself.

Godfrey and Dan lived in a most unenviable frame of mind for a year or more, and then the former one day happened to think of the barrel which old Jordan had told him was hidden in the potato-patch. He spoke of it while the family were at dinner, and announced that he and Dan would begin the work of unearthing the BURIED TREASURE that very night. If they didn't find it the first time they tried, they would go the next night; and they would keep on digging until they obtained possession of it, if they had to dig up the whole state of Mississippi. Dan almost went wild over the news. He and his father spent a few minutes in building air-castles, and then Godfrey, who felt as rich as though he already had the money in his possession, hurried down to the landing, entered the store there and called for a plug of tobacco, which the merchant refused to give him until he showed that he had twenty-five cents to pay for it.

Although Dan and his father had great expectations, which they believed would very soon be realized, they did not neglect to pay attention to small matters, and to pick up any stray dollars that chanced to fall in their way. David was a famous dog-breaker, and Don Gordon had offered him ten dollars to train a pointer for him. The offer was made in the presence of Dan and his father, and the former at once laid his plans to obtain possession of a portion of the money. While the two were on their way to the landing, where a shooting-match was to be held that afternoon, Dan stopped at General Gordon's barn, and having borrowed a shovel, with which to dig up the buried treasure, he went to the house, where he found Bert reading a book. He told him that David had sent him there after five dollars, as he wished to buy a new dress for his mother, and Bert, although he was well aware that, according to the agreement his brother had made with David, the money was not to be paid until the pointer was thoroughly broken for the field, advanced him the amount he requested. Arriving at the landing, Dan got the bill changed for notes of smaller denomination, and, while he was picking up his money, was surprised by his father, who was greatly amazed to see his son with such a roll of greenbacks in his hand. Knowing that Dan was too lazy to work--too much of a gentleman was the way Godfrey expressed it--he could not imagine where the money came from, and Dan refused to enlighten him on this point, fearing that if he did his father would go straight to Don Gordon and ask for the rest of the ten dollars. Godfrey urged and commanded to no purpose, and was obliged to be satisfied with the loan of a dollar, which he promised to return with heavy interest as soon as the barrel was found. He paid seventy-five cents of it for the privilege of entering as one of the contestants in the shooting-match, and the rest he used in purchasing the plug of tobacco for which the grocer had refused to credit him. He won nothing during the match, while Dan, to his father's great disgust, came in for one of the first prizes--a fine quarter of beef.

When the shooting-match was over, the father and son returned to the little hovel they called home. Dan at once put the mule into the cart and started back to the landing to bring home his quarter of beef; while Godfrey, by pretending to fall asleep on the bench in front of the cabin, was able to carry out a little stratagem that suddenly suggested itself to him. He knew that Dan was a thrifty lad in spite of his laziness, and that he believed in laying by something for a rainy day. He was never out of ammunition for his rifle, but he always took care to keep his little stock hidden away, so that his father could not find it. By watching him on this particular day, Godfrey was lucky enough to find out where the boy's hiding-place was. He went to it as soon as Dan drove away in the cart, and found there a goodly supply of powder, lead and caps, and also three dollars and twenty-five cents in money; all of which he put into his pocket.