The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry BurnsSmith, Ruel Perley
General
The Rival Campers; Or, The Adventures of Henry Burns
Smith, Ruel Perley
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Camping -- Juvenile fiction
“Believe it!” cried the other. “Why, you know I wouldn’t believe it. I
know you too well for that. What would I do? What would Ed Chambers do? I
tell you what we would do. After that job,—after coming way down here for
you,—why, man, we’d hunt you to the end of the earth, if you got away
with those jewels, but we’d have you and the jewels, too.”
With this angry utterance, the tall man laid a heavy hand on the other’s
shoulder.
“Nonsense, man,” returned the other, impatiently, shaking off his grasp.
“What a way to talk about nothing. You’re in a precious bad humour, seems
to me. You know right well I wouldn’t go back on you and Ed.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” snarled the other “I know you, I tell you.
I know you left us when things got hot, and took the jewels that we
risked our necks for. Don’t I know that we shouldn’t have seen or heard
of you again till we had hunted for you—which we would have done—if that
man Mason hadn’t got so close up on to you that you didn’t dare try to
get out of here alone.”
“Well, have it so, have it so, then, since you are bound to quarrel,”
said Craigie, sullenly; and the boys heard no more. The two men passed
beyond hearing and entered the haunted house.
“I don’t intend to miss this,” whispered Henry Burns, for once thoroughly
excited. “There’s going to be the worst kind of trouble when that big
black-looking fellow finds the box gone. Burton’s going to let them dig
for it—he told me so. Said he was curious to see what they would do.”
“Rather he would have that sort of fun than I,” said Bob. “It’s a good
deal like watching a keg of powder blow up. I say we’d better stay right
here, as Burton advised, till we hear from them. We might upset the whole
thing.”
“I don’t mind saying I’m scared clear down to my boots,” said George,
“but I’m going to see the thing through. I’ll go if you will, Henry.”
So the two left Bob in the woods, close by the path to the shore, and
crept up on their hands and knees to that same cellar window through
which they had before witnessed the hiding of the box.
By the light of a lantern placed on the cellar floor they saw the two
men. Craigie had removed his coat, and was digging in the earth where he
had hidden the box. He worked vigorously, throwing up spadefuls of the
soil with quick, nervous jerks. His tall companion looked on with an
expression of mingled anger and contempt on his face.
As the box failed to come to light after some minutes of hard work, the
drops of perspiration stood out in great beads on Craigie’s face, and he
redoubled his efforts with the spade.
“It’s down deeper than I thought I buried it,” he muttered, with a sort
of nervous laugh.
“You’re a fool!” was all the other said.
“Have it so,” said Craigie, and resumed his work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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