"Me no sell boat," he said, when the offer was made. "Me want sloop long time."
Wolf, who valued all things from a miser's standpoint, could not understand that there might lurk in the Indian a tinge of sentiment. He was mistaken, and the mistake was a little pitfall placed in his way.
There was another which he was also to blame for, and yet, like the first, he was not aware of it. In the cave where he had stored his cargo and prepared it for smuggling, he kept a large can of cheap and highly inflammable oil on a rock shelf, just above the flat stone where he, by the light of two lamps, had counted his wealth time and again. True to his nature, when he bought the oil he bought the cheapest, and unknown to him the can had sprung a leak and while he had been absent for weeks at a time, the oil had run out, saturating the rock below and forming little pools on the cave floor among the loose stones. Wolf had not noticed this, or, if he had, had thought nothing of it. Neither did he realize how fate could utilize his miser's instinct in purchasing the cheap can as a means to bring together and bless two lives unknown to him. We seldom do notice the snags in life that usually trip us.
By the time the last voyage of the Sea Fox had been made and she returned to The Pocket, the relations between Wolf and the Indian were in danger of rupture. Wolf distrusted his partner, and yet believed he had lulled all suspicion. He had never failed before in duping any one he had set out to; why should he in this case? Still, he was uneasy and resolved to end it all as soon as possible. But Indians have one peculiarity that will baffle even the shrewdest Jew. They never talk. Their faces are always as expressionless as a graven image. While contemplating the most cruel murder they never show the least change in expression, nor do their eyes show the faintest shadow of an emotion. They are stolid, surly and Sphinx-like always. Wolf's partner was like his race, and not even by the droop of an eyelid did he betray the slowly gathering storm of hate and rage within. He brooded over the hurt he felt when Wolf had wanted to buy his sloop, and believing the Jew meant to rob him of her, he grew suspicious and watched Wolf. Not by word or sign did he show it, and the Jew saw it not. Wolf watched the Indian as closely, only the Indian knew it, and Wolf did not. It was now Wolf against fox and fox against Wolf, and the swarthy fox was getting the best of it. Meanwhile the loading of the sloop for her final departure proceeded.
Wolf had planned to use the Indian's help to the last, and when all was ready, enter the cave, secure the money about his person and sail away. The cave entrance was under water for about two hours of high tide, and Wolf waited until a day came when the tide served early. He had planned to go in just before the rising water closed the entrance, thus securing himself from intrusion; and then, when the tide fell away, to come out ready to start. The day and hour came and he entered the cave.
Unknown to him the Indian followed!
Wolf lighted a lamp and sat down. When the sea had closed the entrance, no sound entered. Wolf waited. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed, and all sound of the ocean ceased. He believed himself alone. He lighted the other lamp, placing both on the flat rock. Then he went to the rocking stone, and pushing it back, took from the niche, one by one, the bags of coin. These he carried to the table stone and poured their contents into a glittering pile.
From behind a rock a pair of sinister eyes watched him!
He felt that he had two hours of absolute seclusion and need not hurry. He began to slowly pile the coins in little stacks and count them. There was no reason for haste and he counted carefully. He enjoyed this beyond all else in his vile life, and desired to prolong the pleasure. The money was all his, and he gloated over it. No sense of awe at his separation from all things human in that damp, silent cavern, still as a tomb, came over him. No thought of the murder he was soon to commit; no feeling of remorse, no impulse of good; no thought of the future or of God—entered his soul. Only the miser's joy of possession. Not a sound entered the cavern and only the chink of the coin, as he counted it, disturbed the deathly silence.
Still the sinister eyes watched him from out the darkness!
Stack after stack he piled till all was counted—eight of one thousand dollars each, and twelve of five hundred dollars, all in gold; and twenty of one hundred dollars each in silver.
A tall, swarthy form crept noiselessly toward him!
It was the supreme moment of his life, and as he gloatingly gazed on the stacks glittering in the dim light before him, a delirium of joy hushed all thought and deadened all sense, even that of hearing.
Nearer and nearer drew the swarthy form!
And as Wolf tasted the sublime ecstasy of a miser's joy, his heaven, his God, suddenly two cold, massive hands closed tight about his throat. But men die hard! Even while unable to breathe, and as he writhed and twisted beneath the awful menace of death bearing him down, his hand suddenly touched the pistol in his belt! The next instant it was drawn and fired full against the Indian's breast! Then a shriek of death agony, as his swarthy foe leaped upward against the rocky shelf; a crash of breaking glass; a flash of fierce flame bursting into red billows, curling and seething all about him and turning the cave into a mimic hell!
Outside could be heard the sound of a bellowing bull!
CHAPTER IV.
THE BOY.
A boy is an inverted man. Small things seem to him great and great ones small. Trifling troubles move him to tears and serious ones pass unnoticed. To snare a few worthless suckers in the meadow brook is to the country boy of more importance than the gathering of a field of grain. To play hooky and go nutting is far better than to study and fit himself for earning a livelihood. He works at his play and makes play of his work. He disdains boyhood and longs for manhood. In spite of his inverted position I would rather be a boy than a man, and a country boy than a city-bred one.
The country boy has so much the greater chance for enjoyment and is not so soon warped by restrictions and tarnished by the sewers of vice. He has deep forests, wide meadows and pure brooks to play in; and if his feet grow broad from lack of shoes, he hears the song of birds, the whispers of winds in the trees, and knows the scent of new-mown hay and fresh water lilies, the beauty of flowers, green fields and shady woods. He learns how apples taste eaten under the tree, nuts cracked in the woods, sweet cider as it runs from the press, and strawberries picked in the orchard while moist with dew. All these delights are a closed book to the city boy. The country boy is surrounded by pure and wholesome influences and grows to be a better man for it. The wide range of forest and field, pure air, sweet water, plenty of sun and rain are all his, and worth ten times the chance for life, health, enjoyment and a good character than ever comes to the city boy. He may sooner learn to smoke or gather a choice selection of profane and vulgar words; he may have smaller feet and better clothes, but he often fails in attaining a healthy body and pure mind and never knows what a royal, wide-open chance for enjoying boyhood days he has missed. He never knows the delight of wading barefoot down a mountain brook where the clear water leaps over mossy ledges and where he can pull trout from every foam-flecked pool! He never realizes the charming suspense of lying upon the grassy bank of a meadow stream and snaring a sucker, or what fun it is to enter a chestnut grove just after frost and rain have covered the ground with brown nuts, or setting traps, shaking apple trees, or gathering wild grapes! He never rode to the cider-mill on a load of apples and had the chance to shy one at every bird and squirrel on the way; or when winter came, to slide down hill when the slide was a half-mile field of crusted snow! All these and many other delights he never knows; but one thing he does know, and knows it early, and that is how much smarter, better dressed and better off in every way he is than the poor, despised greeny of a country boy! He may, it is true, go early to the theatre and look at half-nude actresses loaded with diamonds, but he never sees a twenty-acre cedar pasture just after an ice storm