Harry Castlemon

“ What be you lookin' for, pap?"
"Jakey allowed that he come hum to show me where them six thousand was hid; but it's my idee that he come a purpose to get his jacket dusted, 'cause the money ain't here," replied Matt. "Jakey oughter know better than to try to fool his pap that a-way."
"I ain't tryin' to fool you," protested Jake. "I put the grip-sacks into that hole, an' I don't see where they be now."
"If he is tryin' to make a fule of his pap, he deserves a lickin'," continued Matt, paying no sort of attention to Jake. ”

“ To-morrer mornin' at seven o'clock I shall have money enough to buy the furnitur' we need, an' soon's we get it we'll go up to the cove an' camp there agin. Jake hid that money somewheres around there, an' if he don't take it away to-day he won't never get it, for we shall be there to stop him. Don't you reckon that's the best thing we can do?"
Too highly excited to remain long in one place, Matt did not stop to hear his wife's answer, but posted off to the cove after the guns. He might never see a cent of the six thousand dollars, he told himself, but the guns he was sure of. ”

“ Hanson's keeping a dozen of them plunged into the woods, intent on earning the hundred dollars that had been offered for the squatter's apprehension, and ridding the country of a dangerous man at the same time. Tom Bigden and his cousins fished a little and lounged in their hammocks a good deal, and, having had time to become thoroughly disgusted with camp life, were talking seriously of going home. ”

“ But I'm glad you come after one of 'em, for it brung you plump into the arms of your pap, who has been waitin' for more'n a week for you to came an' show him where you hid them six thousand dollars. Be you ready to do it now, Jakey?"
"I allers kalkerlated to do it," replied Jake. "Sure hope to die, I did."
"I'm glad to hear it; but I'd been gladder if you had brung the money to me the minute you found it. Untie his feet, ole woman, an' we'll go back tb camp."
"An' my hands, too," added Jake.
"You don't need your hands to walk with," said Matt. ”

“ That Bigden boy didn't say, in so many words, that he had fifty dollars to pay for them, but he winked, an' that's as good an answer as I want. He wouldn't dare fool me, knowin' as he does that I can have him 'rested any time I feel like it. ”

“ They can go where they please an' do what they have a mind to, so long's they keep clear of me. I wisht I hadn't come. Jakey an' me might have been most up to the cove where the money is hid by this time. ”