IN WHICH I MAKE MY BOW.
"Scotland's a-burning! Look out, fellows! Put on the brakes, or you will be right on top of it the first thing you know."
"On top of what?"
"Why, can't you see? If it hadn't been for my lamp I should have taken the worst header anybody ever heard of. How some fellows can run around on their wheels after dark without a light, and take the chances of breaking their necks, beats my time, I wouldn't do it for any money."
"Great Scott! How do you suppose that pile of things came on the track?"
"It isn't a pile of things. It is a big rock which has rolled down from the bank above, and we have discovered it in time to prevent a terrible railroad disaster."
"The rains loosened it, probably."
"Well, what are we standing here for? Let's take hold, all hands, and roll it off before the train comes along."
"We can't roll it off. It's half as big as Rube Royall's cabin. It seems strange to me that it stopped so squarely in the middle of the track. I should think it ought to have gathered headway enough during its descent to roll clear across the road-bed, and down into the gulf on the other side."
The speakers were your old friends Joe Wayring and his two chums, Roy Sheldon and Arthur Hastings; and I am one of the Expert Columbians who were introduced to your notice in the concluding chapters of the second volume of this series of books. I have been urged by my companions to describe the interesting and exciting incidents that happened during our vacation run from one end of the State to the other and back again, on which we set out just a week ago to-day. I have begun the task with many misgivings. This is my first appearance as a story-teller; but then my friends, Old Durability and the Canvas Canoe, labored under the same disadvantage. When I am through it will be for you to decide which one of us has interested you the most.
You will remember that when the Canvas Canoe's adventures were ended for the season and he was "laid up in ordinary" (by which I mean the recess in Joe Wayring's room), it was midwinter. The ponds and lakes were frozen over, and the hills surrounding the little village of Mount Airy were covered with snow. The canoe had just been hauled up from the bottom of Indian River, where he had lain for four long, dismal months, wondering what was to become of him and the six thousand dollars he had carried down with him when he was "Snagged and Sunk" by the big tree that was carried out of Sherwin's Pond by the high water. You know that Roy Sheldon discovered him with the aid of his "water-scope," that Joe got his canoe back (a little the worse for his captivity, it must be confessed, for there was a gaping wound in his side), and that the money quickly found its way into the hands of the officers of the Irvington bank, from whom it had been stolen by the two sneak-thieves who were finally captured by Mr. Swan and his party.
Before this happened Matt Coyle's wife and boys had been shut up in the New London jail to await their trial, which was to come off as soon as Matt himself had been arrested. The truth of the matter was, the Indian Lake guides were so incensed at Matt for his daring and persistent efforts to break up their business and to ruin the two hotels at the lake, that they threatened to make short work of him and all his worthless tribe; and as the guides were men who never said a thing of this sort unless they meant it, the authorities were of opinion that the old woman and the boys would be safer in the New London lock-up than they would be if confined in the tumble-down calaboose at Irvington. But now it appeared that Matt Coyle could not be arrested and brought to trial, for the good and sufficient reason that he was dead. He was drowned when the canvas canoe was snagged and sunk.
Joe Wayring and his chums declared, from the first, that if the squatter had attempted to run out of the river into Sherwin's Pond during the freshet that prevailed at the time of his flight, he had surely come to grief. If three strong boys, who were expert with the oars, could not pull a light skiff against the current that ran out of the pond, how could Matt Coyle hope to stem it in a heavily-loaded canoe and with a single paddle? If he had been foolish enough to try it, he would never be heard of again until his body was picked up somewhere in the neighborhood of the State hatchery. The finding of the canoe and his valuable cargo at the bottom of the river led others to Joe's way of thinking, and it was finally conceded on all hands that the squatter would never again rob unguarded camps, or renew his attempts to "break up the business of guiding." Nothing remained, then, but to remove his wife and boys to Irvington and hold them for trial at the next term of the circuit court. The grand jury first took the matter in hand, and Joe Wayring and his chums, much to their disgust, were summoned to appear before it as witnesses.
When Tom Bigden and his cousins, Loren and Ralph Farnsworth, heard of that, they shook in their boots. And well they might; for, as you know, Tom was accessory to some of Matt's violations of the law. More than that, rumor said that the old woman had told all she knew, and that she had even gone so far as to assure the officers of the Irvington Bank that she and her family would not have been half so bad as they were, if one Tom Bigden had not advised and urged them to commit crime.
"It's all over with me, boys," groaned Tom, when one of his school-fellows incidentally remarked in his hearing that he had seen Joe Wayring and his two friends take the train for Irvington that morning to testify before the grand jury. "You know Joe is jealous of me and that he will do anything he can to injure me."
"Well," said Ralph, plunging his hands deep into his pockets and looking thoughtfully at the ground, "what would you do to a fellow who was the means of having you tied to a tree with a fair prospect of a good beating with hickory switches on your bare back? Would you be friendly to him or feel like shielding him from punishment?"
"But I didn't tell Matt to tie Joe Wayring to a tree and thrash him," retorted Tom. "I never thought of such a thing."
"I didn't say you did," replied Ralph. "I said you were the cause of it, and so you were; for you told Matt that you had seen the valises that contained the six thousand stolen dollars in Joe's camp-basket."
"Matt was a fool to believe it," said Loren. "One little camp-basket wouldn't hold both those gripsacks."
"That doesn't alter the facts of the case," answered Ralph. "Matt did believe the story, ridiculous as it was, and Tom's fate is in the hands of a boy whom we have abused and bothered in all possible ways ever since we have been here."
"And we didn't have the slightest reason or excuse for it," added Loren.
"So you're going back on me, are you?" exclaimed Tom.
"Not at all. We are simply telling you the truth."
"Perhaps Joe doesn't know that Tom put it into Matt's head to follow him and his friends to No-Man's Pond," suggested Loren. "I haven't heard a word said about it."
"Neither have I; but that's no proof that Joe doesn't know all about it," answered Ralph.
"Who do you think told him?" asked Tom. "It couldn't have been Matt Coyle, for I told him particularly not to mention my name in Joe's hearing, or drop a hint that would lead him to suspect that Matt had seen me in the Indian Lake country."
"The squatter didn't care that for your injunctions of secrecy," said Ralph, snapping his fingers in the air. "What he said to you during those interviews you held with him ought to convince you that he would just as soon get you into trouble as anybody else. Being a social outcast, Matt believes in making war upon every one who is higher up in the world than he is."
"Well," said Tom, with a sigh of resignation, "if Joe knows as much as you think he does, my chances of getting out of the scrapes I've got into are few and far between. He'll tell everything, and be glad of the chance. I wish from the bottom of my heart that we had never seen or heard of Mount Airy."
"Joe Wayring will tell nothing unless it is forced out of him," said Ralph stoutly; and for the first time in his life Tom did not scowl and double up his fists as he had been in the habit of doing whenever either of his cousins said anything in praise of the boy he hated without a cause. If Joe was as honorable as Ralph seem to think he was, Tom thought he saw a chance to escape punishment for his wrong-doing. "He'll not commit perjury nor even stretch the truth to screen you," continued Ralph, as if he read the thoughts that were passing in Tom's mind. "But he'll not volunteer any evidence; I am sure of that."
If Ralph had been one of Joe Wayring's most intimate friends he could not have read him better. The latter was very much afraid that he would be compelled to say something that would criminate Tom, but to his surprise and relief the members of the grand jury did not seem to know that there was such a fellow in the world as Tom Bigden, for they never once mentioned his name. If the old woman and her boys had tried to throw the blame for their misdeeds upon his shoulders, they hadn't made anything by it. All the jury cared for was to find out just how much Joe and his friends knew about the six thousand dollars that had been stolen from the Irvington Bank; and as the boys knew but little about it, it did not take them long to give their evidence. Finally one of the jurymen said:
"Matt Coyle bothered you a good deal by stealing your canvas canoe and other property, I believe."
Joe replied that that was a fact.
"Would you prosecute him for it, if you had a chance?"
Joe said he never expected to have a chance, because Matt was dead.
"Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn't," said the juryman, with a laugh. "Matt Coyle is a hard case, if all I hear about him is true, and it sorter runs in my mind that he will turn up again some day, as full of meanness as he ever was."
"You wouldn't think so if you could see Indian River booming as it was on the day we came home," said Joe, earnestly. "It must have been a great deal worse when Matt saw it, but he had the hardihood to face it."
"And went to the bottom," added Roy.
"Would you have the law on him for tying you to a tree and threatening to wallop you with switches?" asked the juryman.
"No sir, I would not," said Joe, truthfully. "All we ask of Matt Coyle or any other tramp is to keep away from us and let us alone."
"Do you believe any one told Matt that you had the bank's money and sent him to No-Man's Pond to whip it out of you?"
