CHAPTER XII.

A VISIT FROM THE SHERIFF.

“That is as fine a string of fish as I care to take to the village,” observed Dick Langdon, as George rowed away from the bass-hole; “and if you want any more you will have to catch them yourself, Mr. Bob. I’m going to spend the afternoon in the woods, shooting squirrels.”

“All right!” responded Bob. “If you can see more sport in killing an innocent little animal, that has no chance for its life, than you can in having a hotly-contested battle with a black bass, go ahead. I shall do some more fishing, and I’ll warrant—Hallo! Who are those men?”

George and Dick turned about on their seats, and looking toward the cabin, saw there a party of a dozen or more horsemen, who seemed to be waiting for them. George took just one glance at them, and then resumed his work at the oars.

“Do you suppose they have come up here to hunt for fish?” continued Bob. “I don’t see anything that looks like a gun or rod among them. Why, George, what makes you look so sober all on a sudden?”

“Do you recognize any of the party?” asked George, in reply.

Bob and Dick shaded their eyes with their hands, and closely scrutinized every one of the horsemen in turn, but they could not see a single familiar form among them. The distance was so great that they could not see their faces.

“They are all strangers to me,” said Dick, and Bob echoed his words.

“There’s where you are mistaken,” said George, still tugging at the oars. “The one on that cream-colored horse is my Uncle Ruben—though what should bring him up here I don’t know—and those black horses are ridden by Mr. Stebbins, and Mr. Newton the deputy sheriff.”

George expected that his friends would be surprised at this announcement, and they certainly were. Their eyes grew to twice their usual size, their faces changed color, and, after looking at each other for a moment in silence, they turned about and looked at the horsemen again.

“You have certainly seen those white ponies before,” added George.

“I believe I have,” said Bob. “Don’t they belong to Wallace?”

“They do; and he is riding one, while Forbes is mounted on the other. That fellow who is standing near the cabin, holding his horse by the bridle, is Benson.”

“Whew!” whistled Dick. “I say, Bob, we are in for it.”

“So am I,” said George, calmly.

“You!” exclaimed Bob. “What have you done?”

“Nothing at all. But you wait and see if my respected uncle does not exert himself to the utmost to prove something against me.”

“Let him exert and welcome,” said Dick. “Bob and I are the ones who must stand the brunt of this business. Mr. Stebbins has brought the sheriff up here to arrest us, I suppose.”

“Of course he has,” assured George. “Didn’t I tell you that he wouldn’t let you alone?”

“I think that Wallace and his friends have good cheek,” said Bob, who had by this time succeeded in identifying every one of the horsemen. “Their safest plan would have been to stay away from here.”

“I can’t agree with you there,” observed Dick. “_I_ think, taking everything into consideration, that the boldest course was the best, and it seems they have adopted it. More than half that party came up here out of curiosity, and it wouldn’t have looked well for Wallace and the rest to remain behind.”

George knew what his friends meant by these remarks; but he made no reply to them. He pulled steadily for the shore, and, when the boat had almost reached it, Bob leaned forward and said, in an earnest whisper:

“You do the talking, Dick, and I will keep a close watch of Benson. Judging by what I heard last night, and what George told us regarding the way he acted down there at the spring, he is very timid and will be very likely to betray himself while Mr. Newton is questioning us.”

Just then the voice of Mr. Stebbins, who had been gesticulating wildly ever since the boat and its occupants came into view around the point, reached their ears.

“I tell you, Newton, them’s the very fellers who tried to rob me last night,” he asserted. “They broke open the winder in my wood-shed, shot their guns at the house, an’ then had the imperdence to go into my barn an’ go to sleep in the hay; an’ there’s where I found ’em this morning.”

At this moment the bottom of the boat grated on the sand, and Mr. Newton took the painter that Dick tossed to him, and drew the bow up on the beach.

The officer seemed to be highly amused; Uncle Ruben looked triumphant; Mr. Stebbins was furious; Wallace and Forbes tried to appear indifferent; Benson’s face was as white as a sheet; and the countenances of the others expressed nothing but interest and curiosity.

Mr. Newton, who was experienced in his calling, and had gained something more than a local reputation as a thief-taker, knew very well that Mr. Stebbins had put him on the wrong trail; but he could not make the old man think so.

As the boys sprang out of the boat, he shook them all warmly by the hand—a proceeding on his part that increased the ire of Mr. Stebbins, who called out:

“Don’t tech ’em, Newton. Two on ’em is thieves, an’ George Edwards ain’t no better, ’cause he harbors ’em!”

“What do you say to that, boys!” inquired the officer, good-naturedly.

“I say he lies!” replied Bob, forgetting in his rage that Dick Langdon was to do all the talking.

“I know he is mistaken,” said Mr. Newton, in a low tone.

“Now, look here. I ain’t a-goin’ to have no sich work as that,” declared Mr. Stebbins. “If you’ve got anything to say, speak it out so’t we can all hear it. You’ve no business to be standin’ there whisperin’ to them vagabonds an’ givin’ ’em aid an’ counsel.”

“I am not giving them aid and counsel,” denied the officer, with some dignity. “They stand in no need of either. If I had known that these were the boys you wanted me to arrest, I shouldn’t have been fool enough to come up here.”

“Oh, I know you’re all ag’in me!” cried the old man, whose face was fairly black with rage. “I hain’t got a friend among the hull kit of you.”

“We’ll not stop to discuss that point,” said Mr. Newton. “What do you know about this affair, Dick? Did you camp in Mr. Stebbins’ barn last night?”

“I know _all_ about it,” answered Dick, promptly and with emphasis.

There were two in that party who knew that these words contained a deeper meaning than the officer supposed, and there was a third who suspected it; for when Bob Howard suddenly recalled to mind the part he had set himself to perform, and began to look around for Benson, he found that that young gentleman had sought concealment in the rear of all the horsemen, so that he could listen unobserved.

But Bob was not to be balked in any such way as that. He seated himself on the bench, where he could hear every word that passed between Dick and the sheriff, and at the same time keep a sharp eye on Benson’s countenance.

“I know all about it, and I did sleep in Mr. Stebbins’ barn last night,” said Dick.

And then he went on to tell the story of his night’s experience, just as Bob Howard had told it to George that morning.

He did not mention Benson’s name; he did not say that the voices sounded familiar to him; nor did he so much as hint at his suspicions; but, nevertheless, his narrative produced a startling effect.

Benson’s hand trembled so violently that he could hardly retain his hold upon the stick he was trying to cut with his knife, while the expression of indifference on Wallace’s face and Forbes’ gave place to a look of genuine alarm.

“They are the guilty ones, as sure as I am a foot high,” said Bob Howard to himself; “but, I declare, I can hardly bring myself to believe it. Why should they want to steal the old man’s money, when their fathers are so rich and give them all they want to spend?”

“What’s the matter, Bob?” inquired the officer—for the boy, all unconscious of what he was doing, had brought both his hands down upon his knees with a ringing slap. “Do you wish to add anything to what Dick has told us?”

“No, sir; he has told you everything—I mean—that is to say—pretty nearly everything that happened last night.”

“Suppose you tell what he left out?”

“Dick is a better talker than I am, and he will do it himself when the time comes.”

“Well, Mr. Stebbins,” said the sheriff, “our young friend has told a straightforward story, hasn’t he?”

“Oh, ’most anybody could tell a smooth tale, if he thought he could keep himself out of the penitentiary by doing it,” replied the old man, who had made several persistent but unsuccessful attempts to interrupt the boy while he was speaking. “There hain’t a word of truth in what he said, except about sleepin’ in my barn.”

“Do you suppose that if we had been guilty of an attempt to break into your house, we would have gone to sleep in your barn?” demanded Dick.

“That was only a blind. You wanted me to suspicion some innocent persons.”

“But Dick says there were three of the robbers, and you saw only two,” said Mr. Newton. “How do you account for that? Who was the other, and where did he go?”

“I reckon mebbe it was George Edwards, an’ that he took himself safe home. He looks kinder guilty.”

“There, now, what did I tell you, young man?” spoke up Uncle Ruben, shaking his riding whip at his astonished nephew. “Didn’t I say that you had better take up with my offer and go home with me? Didn’t I say that all the folks in the village suspicioned you of knowin’ how all them stores got broke into an’ robbed, an’ that you’d be sartin’ to git yourself into trouble by livin’ up here in the woods like a wild Injun—eh?”

George was so utterly bewildered by this unexpected turn of events that he could not utter a word.

He stood speechless and motionless, growing red and pale by turns, and almost any one would have said he looked guilty. Bob Howard was the first to recover himself.

“Mr. Newton,” said he, earnestly, “we did not see George last night. If he had met us at the road, as he would have done if we had not got lost in the woods, we should not have been obliged to sleep in that barn.”

“Uncle Ruben,” said George, who had managed to get a few of his wits together, “you don’t suspect me of being dishonest; and I know it as well as you do. Your object is to drive me away from this lake, under the impression that if you succeed I shall be forced to work for you for nothing; but you may as well give it up, for I will never do a hand’s turn for you as long as I live.”

“I’ve always heard,” replied Uncle Ruben, running his eye over the cabin and its surroundings, as if he were looking for something—“I’ve always heard that when thieves steal anything they hide it somewheres, most ginerally in the ground. I think it would be a good plan to s’arch the premises.”

“But they didn’t git my money,” said Mr. Stebbins. “They only tried to get it.”

“I wasn’t thinkin’ about you, neighbor,” was Uncle Ruben’s reply. “There’s been a heap of stealin’ an’ thievin’ goin’ on about the village, an’ if George is the one who done it, I say he had oughter suffer for it, if he is my nephew.”

“But I can’t search the house,” said the sheriff. “I have no warrant.”

“That’s your own fault,” rejoined Uncle Ruben. “I told you, when we was down to the village, to take out a s’arch warrant the very first thing.”

“And I didn’t do it, because I knew I shouldn’t find anything.”

“Never mind the warrant, Mr. Newton,” said George, whose face was red with indignation. “Come right in and go to work. But perhaps you had better let Uncle Ruben do it. He seems very anxious to prove me guilty of something.”

As he spoke, he threw open the door of the cabin and stood aside, so that the officer could enter; but the latter did not seem disposed to do anything of the kind.