Page:Barbour--Captain Chub.djvu/402

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384
CAPTAIN CHUB

lars!’ over and over. And finally one of them hove in sight, and I ducked quick. I heard him fussing around back of the bale of hay, and thought he was getting some of the canned things for supper. I lifted the canvas a little way and saw that he wasn’t looking toward me at all. He was leaning over the bale and pulling a piece of brown paper out between the layers of hay. When he had it out he opened it, and I felt like kicking myself. For there were bills and silver and coppers wrapped up in it, and I knew it was the money I’d been looking for. But I kept still and watched. He took a two-dollar bill out of the bunch, did the rest up, and put it back where it had been before, shoving his hand ’way into the hay. Then he went off, and I heard them squabbling again, only they weren’t so peevish now.

“Then, thinks I, it’s my time. So I squirmed back until I had my head and shoulders in the tent again. By stretching I could reach the bale, and in the shake of a lamb’s tail I had that little bundle of money in my pocket. Then I thought it would be a good scheme to have a look at the chaps so I could tell them again. That’s where I made my mistake, for, just as I got my head