CHAPTER II

WHAT JACK FOUND IN THE LOG.

JACK’S first thought was, that the creature, whatever it might be, was in the log when he placed his clothes there, and that it had afterwards seized them and perhaps torn them to pieces. Then he reflected that the hair he touched felt wet; and he said, “The thing ran to its hole after I put the clothes in, and it has pushed ’em along farther into the log. Wonder what it can be!” It was evidently much too large for a raccoon or a woodchuck: could it be a panther? or a young bear? “He’s got my clothes, any way! I must get him out, or go home without ’em!”

Naked and weaponless as he was, he naturally shrank from attacking the strange beast; nor was it pleasant to think of going home in his present condition. It was not at all probable that Mr. Pipkin and Phin would return to their work that afternoon; and he was too far from the house to make his cries for help heard. He resolved to call, however.

“Maybe I can make Lion hear. I wonder if he went home.” He remembered that the frightened dog was last seen crouching with Phin beside the rock, and hoping he was there still, he began to call.

“Lion! here, Lion!” and, putting his fingers to his mouth, he whistled till all the woods rang. Then suddenly—for he watched the log all the while—he heard a tearing and rattling in the cavity, and saw that the beast was coming out. Stepping quickly backwards, he tripped over a stick; and the next moment the creature—big and shaggy and wet—was upon him.

“You rogue! you coward! old Lion! what a fright you gave me! what have you done with my clothes? you foolish boy’s dog!” For the beast was no other than Lion himself; frightened from his retreat beside the boulder, he had followed his young master to the woods, and crept into the hollow of the log, after Jack had left his clothes in it.

Jack returned to the log, and with some difficulty fished out his garments. He unfolded them one by one, holding them up and regarding them with ludicrous dismay. Lion had made a bed of them; and between his drenched hide and the rotten wood, they had suffered no slight damage.

“O, my trousers!” Jack lamented. “And just look at that shirt! I’d better have worn them in fifty showers! So much for having a dog that’s afraid of thunder!” And he gave the mischief-maker a cuff on the ear.

Jack recovered everything except one shoe, which he could not get without going considerably farther than he liked into the decayed trunk.

“Here, Lion! you must get that shoe! That’s no more than fair. Understand?” And showing the other shoe, he pointed at the hole.

In went Lion, scratching and scrambling, and presently came out again, bringing the shoe in his mouth. Encouraged by his young master’s approval, and eager to atone for his cowardice and the mischief he had done, he went in again, although no other article was missing, and was presently heard pawing and pulling at something deep in the log.

“After squirrels, maybe,” said Jack, as, dressing himself, he stepped aside to avoid the volleys of dirt which now and then flew out of the opening.

He thought no more of the matter, until the dog came backwards out of the hole, shook himself, and laid a curious trophy down by the shoe. Jack looked at it, and saw to his surprise that it was a metallic handle, such as he had seen used on the ends of small chests and trunks, or on bureau-drawers. He scraped off with his knife some of the rust with which it was covered, and found that it was made of brass. At the ends were short rusty screws, which, upon examination, appeared to have been recently wrenched out of a piece of damp wood.

“It’s a trunk-handle,” said Jack. “Lion has pulled it off. And the trunk is in the log!”

He grew quite excited over the discovery, and sent the dog in again for further particulars, while he hurriedly put on his shoes. Lion gnawed and dug for a while, and at last reappeared with a small strip of partially decayed board in his mouth.

“It’s a piece of the box!” exclaimed Jack. “Try again, old fellow!”

Lion plunged once more into the opening, and immediately brought out something still more extraordinary. It was a round piece of metal, about the size of an American half-dollar; but so badly tarnished that it was a long time before Jack would believe that it was really money. He rubbed, he scraped, he turned it over, and rubbed and scraped again, then uttered a scream of delight.

“A silver half-dollar, sure as you live, old Lion!”

The dog was already in the log again. This time he brought out two more pieces of money like the first, and dropped them in Jack’s hand.

“Here, Lion!” cried the excited lad. “I’m going in there myself!”

He pulled the dog away, and entered the cavity, quite regardless now of rotten wood, bugs, and “thousand-legged worms.” His heels were still sticking out of the log, when his hand touched the broken end of a small trunk, and slid over a heap of coin, which had almost filled it, and run out in a little stream from the opening the dog had made.

Out came Jack again, covered with dirt, his hair tumbled over his eyes, and both hands full of half-dollars. He dashed back the stray locks with his sleeve, glanced eagerly at the coin, looked quickly around to see if there was any person in sight, then examined the contents of his hands.

“If there’s no owner to this money, I’m a rich man!” he said, with sparkling eyes. “There ain’t less than a thousand dollars in that trunk!”

To a lad in his circumstances, five-and-twenty years ago, such a sum might well appear prodigious. To Jack it was an immense fortune.

“And how can there be an owner?” he reasoned. “It must have been in that log a good many years,—long enough for the trunk to begin to rot, any way. Some fellow must have stolen it and hid it there; and he’d have been back after it long ago, if he hadn’t been dead,—or like enough he’s in prison somewhere. Here, Lion! keep out of that!” and Jack cuffed the dog’s ears, to enforce strict future obedience to that command. “Nobody must know of that log,” he muttered, looking cautiously all about him again, “till I can take the money away.”

But now, along with the sudden tide of his joy and hopes, a multitude of doubts rushed in upon his mind. How was he to keep his great discovery a secret until he should be ready to take advantage of it? The thief who had stolen the coin might be dead; but was it not the finder’s duty to seek out the real owner and restore it to him? Already that question began to disturb the boy’s conscience; but he soon forgot it in the consideration of others more immediately alarming.

“The thief may have been in prison, and he may come back this very night to find his booty! Or the owner of the land may claim it, because it was found on his premises.” And Jack remembered with no little anxiety that the land belonged to Mr. Chatford’s neighbor, the stern and grasping Squire Peternot. “Or, after all,” he thought, “it may be counterfeit!”

That was the most unpleasant conjecture of any. “I’ll find out about that, the first thing,” said Jack; and he determined to keep his discovery in the meanwhile a profound secret.

Accordingly, after due deliberation, he crept back into the log, and replaced the piece of the trunk, with the handle, and all the coin except one half-dollar; then, having partially stopped the opening with broken sticks and branches, he started for home.