The boatmen now rested their oars and proceeded to refresh themselves. And while they were doing this, and wondering what this night expedition really meant, Hanz smoked his pipe and nursed his courage. In his heart, however, he wished himself out of the affair and in a more honest occupation. As for Chapman, he told a number of stories tended to excite the cupidity of the boatmen. After resting an hour or two the party proceeded about five miles further up the river, and landed just at daybreak on a point jutting into the west side of the river, and just above which there was a dilapidated little cabin, inhabited by a laboring man and his wife. It would not do to disturb these poor people at so early an hour, Chapman said, nor to tell them what sort of a mission we were on. Thereupon Hanz and he proceeded up the bank of the river, to make, as he said, a discovery. So the boatmen were left to take care of themselves. The boatmen waited for nearly two hours, still neither Chapman nor Hanz returned. Where they had gone was fast becoming a mystery. The men at length became alarmed and disappointed, and proceeded towards the little house to enquire the name of the place, and see what they could do to get breakfast. Before they reached the house, however, the door opened and two half-naked, tow-headed urchins came toddling out, and as soon as they saw the strangers scampered back in a state of great alarm. A lusty dame, ragged and shoeless, and with her hair hanging loose about her neck, now came to the door, with a broom in one hand and a frying-pan in the other. "Where on arth are you two come from?" enquired the woman, in a surly tone, as she raised her broom. "Another lot o' fools com'd to look for Mr. Kidd's money," she continued, without waiting for a reply. "Seems as if all the folks atween this and Yonkers had got crazy about Mr. Kidd, and was a comin' up here to dig for his money." The men confessed that she was right in regard to their mission, and begged that she would get them some breakfast, for which they would pay her liberally. "Yes!" rejoined the woman, angrily, "I know'd what you'd cum fur. Thar ain't nothin' in this house to get breakfast on--nothin' fur my poor old man and the two little children. Work's hard to get up here. And them fools what comes up here to dig for Mr. Kidd's money eat up what little we had, and did'nt pay fur it, nither. Go home, like honest men, and get some honester work than comin' up here thinkin' you kin find Mr. Kidd's money. Don't believe in Mr. Kidd--I don't!" The woman kept swinging her broom as she spoke. Then the two children ventured back and peered from behind her skirts at the strangers. "Don't believe he had any money, anyhow. If he had he was a mighty fool to come up here and bury it. People round here would 'a stole every dollar on it long ago. There's a Yankee and a Dutchman diggin' a big hole a piece above here--expectin' to find Mr. Kidd's money."