Part 15

"Hold him fast, boys," he ordered. "Seems like he's gone mad. Don't let him hurt himself."

In five seconds the raving man was trussed up helpless as a chicken, his hands tied behind his back, his legs lashed together at the knees, so that he could neither run nor kick. Then he was lifted to his feet, and held thus, inexorably but with commiseration.

"Sorry to be rough with ye, Sam," said one of the constables, "but ye've gone crazy as a bed-bug."

"Never knowed Sam was such a friend o' Jake's!" muttered another, with deepest pity.

But Blackstock stood close beside the body of the murdered man, and watched with a face of granite the efforts of Jim to dig under the big white stone. His absorption in such an apparently frivolous matter attracted the notice of the crowd. A hush fell upon them all, broken only by the hoarse, half-smothered ravings of Sam Hawker.

"'Tain't no woodchuck Jim's diggin' for, you see!" muttered one of the constables to the puzzled Stephens.

"Tug don't seem to think so, neither," agreed Stephens.

"Angus," said Blackstock in a low, strained voice to the constable who had just spoken, "would ye mind stepping round an' givin' Jim a lift with that there stone!"

The constable hastened to obey. As he approached, Jim looked up, his face covered thickly with earth, wagged his tail in greeting, then fell to work again with redoubled energy.

The constable set both hands under the stone, and with a huge heave turned it over. With a yelp of delight Jim plunged his head into the hole, grabbed something in his mouth, and tore around the pool with it. The something was long and whitish, and trailed as he ran. He laid it at Blackstock's feet.

Blackstock held it up so that all might see it. It was a painted Indian belt, and it was stained and smeared with blood. The constable picked out of the hole a package of bills.

For some moments no one spoke, and even the ravings of Hawker were stilled.

Then Tug Blackstock spoke, while every one, as if with one consent, turned his eyes away from the face of Sam Hawker, unwilling to see a comrade's shame and horror.

"This is a matter now for jedge and jury, boys," said he in a voice that was grave and stern. "But I think you'll all agree that we hain't no call to detain this gentleman, who's been put to so much inconvenience all on account of our little mistake."

"Don't mention it, don't mention it," protested the book agent, as his guards, with profuse apologies, released him. "That's a mighty intelligent dawg o' yours, Mr. Blackstock."

"He's sure done you a good turn this day, mister," replied the Deputy grimly.

III. The Hole in the Tree

It was Woolly Billy who discovered the pile--notes and silver, with a few stray gold pieces--so snugly hidden under the fishhawk's nest.

The fish-hawk's nest was in the crotch of the old, half-dead rock-maple on the shore of the desolate little lake which lay basking in the flat-lands about a mile back, behind Brine's Rip Mills.

As the fish-hawk is one of the most estimable of all the wilderness folk, both brave and inoffensive, troubling no one except the fat and lazy fish that swarmed in the lake below, and as he is protected by a superstition of the backwoodsmen, who say it brings ill-luck to disturb the domestic arrangements of a fish-hawk, the big nest, conspicuous for miles about, was never disturbed by even the most amiable curiosity.

But Woolly Billy, not fully acclimatized to the backwoods tradition and superstition, and uninformed as to the firmness and decision with which the fish-hawks are apt to resent any intrusion, had long hankered to explore the mysteries of that great nest. One morning he made up his mind to try it.

Tug Blackstock, Deputy-Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County, was away for a day or two, and old Mrs. Amos, his housekeeper, was too deaf and rheumatic to "fuss herself" greatly about the "goings-on" of so fantastic a child as Woolly Billy, so long as she knew he had Jim to look after him. This serves to explain how a small boy like Woolly Billy, his seven-years-and-nine-months resting lightly on his amazingly fluffy shock of pale flaxen curls, could be trotting off down the lonely backwoods trail with no companion or guardian but a big, black dog.

Woolly Billy was familiar with the mossy old trail to the lake, and did not linger upon it. Reaching the shore, he wasted no time throwing sticks in for Jim to retrieve, but, in spite of the dog's eager invitations to this pastime, made his way along the dry edge between undergrowth and water till he came to the bluff. Pushing laboriously through the hot, aromatic-scented tangle of bushes, he climbed to the foot of the old maple, which looked dwarfed by the burden of the huge nest carried in its crotch.

Woolly Billy was an expert tree-climber, but this great trunk presented new problems. Twice he went round it, finding no likely spot to begin. Then, certain roughnesses tempted him, and he succeeded in drawing himself up several feet. Serene in the consciousness of his good intentions, he struggled on. He gained perhaps another foot. Then he stuck. He pulled hard upon a ragged edge of bark, trying to work his way further around the trunk. A patch of bark came away suddenly in his grip and he fell backwards with a startled cry.

He fell plump on Jim, rolled off into the bushes, picked himself up, shook the hair out of his eyes and stood staring up at a round hole in the trunk where the patch of bark had been.

A hole in a tree is always interesting. It suggests such possibilities. Forgetting his scratches, Woolly Billy made haste to climb up again, in spite of Jim's protests. He peered eagerly into the hole. But he could see nothing. And he was cautious--for one could never tell what lived in a hole like that--or what the occupant, if there happened to be any, might have to say to an intruder. He would not venture his hand into the unknown. He slipped down, got a bit of stick, and thrust that into the hole. There was no result, but he learnt that the hole was shallow. He stirred the stick about. There came a slight jingling sound in return.

Woolly Billy withdrew the stick and thought for a moment. He reasoned that a thing that jingled was not at all likely to bite. He dropped the stick and cautiously inserted his hand to the full length of his little arm. His fingers grasped something which felt more or less familiar, and he drew forth a bank-note and several silver coins.

Woolly Billy's eyes grew very round and large as he stared at his handful. He was sure that money did not grow in hollow trees. Tug Blackstock kept his money in an old black wallet. Woolly Billy liked money because it bought peppermints, and molasses candy, and gingerpop. But this money was plainly not his. He reluctantly put it back into the hole.