DAN came back to his father with the money simply because he could think of no way of avoiding it that did not involve more personal risk than he cared to encounter. He took pains, however, to keep out his share, and gave Godfrey only two dollars and a half, accompanying it with the assurance that in his (Dan’s) estimation, his father had been guilty of a very mean trick, and one that he ought to be heartily ashamed of.

“Didn’t ye tell me ye was satisfied?” asked Godfrey.

“I know it, but I told ye so kase I was afeared if I said I wasn’t, I wouldn’t get none of the money. O, I know ye, pop, an’ I don’t see why ye can’t go to work an’ make some money of yer own, ’stead of ropin’ in on me an’ spilin’ my plans. If ye’d a kept outen the way, I’d a had ten dollars as easy as fallin’ off a log.”

[Pg 142]Godfrey was too much interested in his own thoughts to carry the discussion any farther. He breathed easier when he felt the money in his fingers, and because he had no pocket that would hold it, he kept it in his hand, and stood around with the rest of the hangers-on, and saw the Emma Deane come up to the landing and deposit the passengers and cargo she had brought. Like the rest he wondered who the fashionably-dressed young gentlemen were who got into the general’s carriage and rode off with him; and he would have wondered still more had he been able to look far enough into the future to see that he, the ragged, worthless Godfrey Evans, would one day be the trusted companion of one of those spruce young fellows, and that he would be intimately connected with him in a certain piece of business which, when it became known, would set all the tongues in the country for miles around in motion.

The general and his nephews drove off; the Emma Deane, as soon as her freight and passengers were landed, backed out into the stream and once more turned her head toward New Orleans; the people who had been brought to the landing by the sound of her whistle spent a few minutes in exchanging notes, and then began to disperse; and finally the[Pg 143] street was entirely deserted except by a few of the most persistent loafers, who sat on the boxes in front of Silas Jones’s store, and whittled and chewed tobacco for want of a better way of passing the time. Among these was Godfrey, who sunned himself for an hour or two like a turtle on his log, and then, with a deep sigh of regret, shouldered his rifle and bent his steps toward the woods in which his hopeful son Dan had long ago disappeared.

When the afternoon began to draw to a close, nearly the same scenes which we have already described were enacted at Godfrey’s humble abode. The scattered family began to come in, one after the other, and they found Godfrey sitting on the bench smoking his pipe. Dan had a bunch of squirrels and a fine wild turkey thrown over his shoulder; David brought another dozen of quails which Don Gordon’s pointer had stood for him; and Mrs. Evans carried in her pocket a dollar which she had earned with her needle that day. Fortunately Godfrey did not know of that. If he had he would at once have set his wits at work to conjure up some plan to obtain possession of it. David was again called upon to chop the wood, for Dan had disappeared immediately after skinning the squirrels he brought (he had gone[Pg 144] off to hunt up another hiding-place for his valuables), and Godfrey was so wearied with his hard day’s work that he could not have lifted an axe if he had tried. So David cut the wood and kindled the fire, and his mother cooked the supper, and Godfrey ate two men’s share of it, and then once more seated himself on the bench and dozed until dark. He slept two hours or more, and was aroused by Dan, who wanted to know if he was going to make an effort to find the barrel that night. Godfrey replied that he was, and started up with much alacrity; but his enthusiasm seemed to die away utterly when he rubbed his eyes and looked about him. He could see literally nothing. It was as dark as it ever gets to be. The cabin and the clearing seemed to be surrounded by solid walls of ebony. There was not a ray of light to be seen in any direction, nor even a star.

“Splendid night,” said Dan. “Nothing can’t see us!”

“Yes,” answered his father, “an’ we can’t see nothing, too!”

“Wal, I reckon ye know whar that tater-patch was, don’t ye? Ye said ye did.”

“Yes, I do; but thar was ten acres into it, Dannie,[Pg 145] an’ that’s a power of ground to dig over with one shovel.”

“But jest think of the eighty thousand,” said Dan.

That was just what Godfrey did think of, and it was the only thing that could have induced him to brave the darkness and the terrors of the general’s lane, and undertake so herculean a task as digging up ten acres of ground with one shovel. Was there not some way in which he could secure the contents of the barrel, or at least a portion of them, without the expenditure of any great amount of energy and strength?

“Dannie,” said he, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder and speaking in a low, confidential tone, “I’ve been thinkin’ about something to-day, an’ when ye know what it is, I want ye to tell me if I ain’t the best pop in the world to ye. I’m gettin’ old, Dannie, an’ my joints is stiff, an’ the rheumatiz bothers me fearful, an’ ’tain’t healthy to be out arter dark, kase of the fever ’n ager—leastwise fur an ole man like me; but fur an’ amazin’ strong, strappin’ feller like yerself, it don’t make no matter. Now, Dannie, if ye’ll go an’ dig up that thar bar’l by yerself,[Pg 146] I’ll give ye half of it, plump down, jest as soon as we open it—the very minute.”

“Wal, I won’t do it,” said Dan, promptly.

“What fur?” asked his father.

“Kase why, fur two reasons: If I dig up that thar bar’l all by myself, I’ll jest hold fast to the hul of it, an’ go snacks with nobody.”

“Hadn’t ye oughter give me something fur tellin’ ye about it?” inquired his father.

As Dan could not answer this question in any other way than by a reply in the affirmative, he did not answer it all, but went on to state his second reason.

“An’ in the next place,” said he, “I don’t know whar the tater-patch was—thar’s something else planted there now, I reckon—an’ if I did, ye wouldn’t ketch me out thar alone on sich a night as this, I’ll bet ye. Thar’s something white walks around out thar!”

“Don’t—don’t, Dannie!” exclaimed Godfrey, casting frightened glances on all sides of him.

“Wal, ye know it as well as me, don’t ye? I’ll go with ye an’ do my share of the diggin’, but I won’t go alone—that’s flat!”

Godfrey groaned, and for a moment was on the[Pg 147] point of backing squarely out, and saying that he didn’t believe that the barrel was there; and if it was it might stay there for all he would do toward digging it up. But he did not back out. He had the best of reasons for believing that the barrel was there, and that it was full of gold and silver. A little extra exertion might put him in possession of it. Perhaps with the very first blow of the shovel he might strike the treasure, and then his troubles would all be over. The visions of ease and happiness which this thought conjured up, gave zeal to his flagging spirits and courage to his heart; and picking up his hat, which had fallen from his head while he was dozing on the bench, he told Dan to lead on, and they would find that barrel if all the white things in the country should come there to scare them away.

Together they moved off in the darkness, and made their way to the lane behind the general’s barn, where Dan had hidden the spade in the fence corner.

It was the work of but a few seconds to find the implement, and then the father and son climbed the fence and struck off across the fields toward the potato-patch where the barrel was buried. When they reached it they found that the field was still planted to potatoes, and Dan noticed, with no little uneasiness,[Pg 148] that it was closer to the house than he would like to have had it. The noise of the spade striking against the barrel—when they found it—or a word uttered in too loud a tone of voice, would arouse Don Gordon’s hounds, and they would alarm the family, the members of which they could see passing back and forth before the windows through which the lights shone.

“Say, pop,” said Dan, suddenly; “won’t they see the holes in the mornin’? An’ if they keep on findin’ ’em, won’t they think thar’s somethin’ up, an’ watch to see who it is that’s a diggin’ ’em?”

“No, they won’t, kase they won’t see ’em,” replied his father. “We’ll dig down till we find thar ain’t no bar’l thar, an’ then we’ll shove the dirt back again, an’ dig in some other place.”

“How deep’ll we have to go?”

“O, not much more’n the deepness of a bar’l, kase why, ye see Jordan wouldn’t have no time to dig a deep hole to kiver up the bar’l in, when he knowed that the Yanks was a comin’. He done a good thing fur us, Jordan did, in runnin’ away without tellin’ his missus whar that bar’l was hid. Now, Dannie, let’s try right here fust. Ye begin, kase yer the youngest, an’ I’ll set down an’ smoke an’ watch ye[Pg 149] till yer tired. Now bar in mind that yer workin’ fur eighty thousand dollars! Throw it out with the fust shovelful an&rsqu............