Chapter 10 MR. SNIDER

It was hard to get them started-they were clustered so thick around the Deacon and his little box, all talking and laughing and discussing. Everyone was awake now, and animated,-if those six little yellow lumps of gold had appeared sooner, even the Hon. J. Harvey Bowditch couldn't have put the people to sleep.

By sending the Deacon and the gold nuggets ahead, the procession was formed again for the wharf. The band stayed in the yard, playing tune after tune, and enjoying themselves immensely.

The "May Queen" was lying at one side of the wharf, so Mr. Snider, the Deacon, and Mr. Bowditch went to the end, while the people gathered around them in a semi-circle. Mr. Snider had a small tin box, which might once have held a pound of crackers. It was punched full of tiny holes. Two wires were soldered on one side of the box, and he connected these by long coils of fine wire with the jars of an electric battery. A little tin tube had been fastened to the bottom of the box so that it stood upright. Into this Mr. Snider poured some powder which he took from two little vials,-first he put in some white powder, and then some of a dark blue color. He sealed up the top of the tube with beeswax and then let everyone look into the box and see that, except for the little sealed tube, it was absolutely empty.

Then he put on the cover, wound a cord completely around it, got the wires clear, and with the greatest care lowered the box over the end of the wharf. He kept on lowering until the box must have been eight or nine feet below the surface. Then he stood waiting, with the most solemn expression upon his face. Mr. Bowditch stood beside him, holding a watch, and counting the minutes. Every now and then he would say, like the tolling of a great bell: "One minute gone! ... Two minutes gone! ... Three minutes gone! ..."

The people had watched the preparations with the utmost attention. Not a movement made by Mr. Snider escaped them. Now they all stood in profound silence. Some of the men had taken out their watches and were keeping count of the time. After "Eight minutes gone!" had tolled forth from the big man, he began counting the seconds: "And ten seconds! ... Fifteen! Twenty! ... Thirty! ... Thirty- five! ... Six! Seven! Eight!"

At eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds Mr. Snider began to pull up the box. The excitement was intense. Men from the "May Queen" had joined the group,-everyone was leaning forward to watch, with faces set and eager. You could hear the people breathe,-a sort of miracle was being performed, gold was being made right before their eyes!

The box came to the top and Mr. Snider had it at last in his hands. He disconnected the wires of the battery, unwound the cord which tied the box, and lifted the cover. One woman drew in her breath so quickly that she almost sobbed, and then choked, and had to be slapped on the back. Everybody crowded around, even closer than before, as Mr. Snider exhibited the box. There was a little mud and gravel inside and this they rinsed away very carefully with a cup and basin of water. Sticking to the tin tube were two or three dozen glittering golden grains! The box was passed about, and everyone looked at the gold in silence.

"Well, I snum! Yer've done it! I didn't believe yer could, but yer've done it!"

This remark, from a man in front, made most of the people laugh. One very serious old man kept the box in his hands. He had neither laughed nor smiled when the man in front spoke, but he looked earnestly at Mr. Snider.

"Just let me test them little bits of dust, will yer, Mister?"

"Test them? Oh, yes,-certainly, certainly. By all means."

"That's right," said two or three, "let Melvin test 'em."

After giving the box to someone else to hold, Melvin fished out of his pocket a little china dish and a bottle of some liquid. They scraped off some of the gilt particles with a pocket knife, and put them in the dish. Melvin had his bottle poised above them.

"If it aint genyewine," said he, solemnly, "it'll fizzle when I pour this acid onto it, but if it is genyewine, it won't fizzle."

Then he poured the acid into the dish. There was a pause.

"It don't fizzle," said he.

"Three cheers for Brother Snider!" bellowed the Hon. J. Harvey

Bowditch.

The old man who had made the test advanced toward Mr. Snider. He had a roll of money in his hand, and I saw a hundred dollar bill on top.

"I'll take a hundred of them shares, Mister," said he.

"I come first here," said another man, "I've had this fixed up with Harvey Bowditch ever since we come. Gimme fifty shares."

"I'll take fifty of 'em," said another man.

"Here's twenty-five dollars," said another, "that's good for five shares, aint it?"

"Just one moment, friends," said Mr. Snider, "just one moment."

They got a stool from the "May Queen," and a little table. Mr. Snider sat down at the table, with Mr. Bowditch and Deacon Chick hovering near. They produced a bundle of certificates, all printed in bright purple ink, with a picture of Washington, and a big eagle, and a flag at the top. At the bottom was a great gold seal, with two red ribbons fluttering from it. Mr. Snider filled in the names with a fountain pen, and the number of shares that each man purchased.

He sat there and simply raked in money. I counted three thousand dollars before I got tired counting. But they got more than that, for the black-eyed man-the man who groaned during the speech- making-told me that old Melvin Eaton, who had tested the gold, walked away for a while and thought it over, and then came back and bought four hundred more shares, giving Mr. Snider five hundred dollars in cash and a check for fifteen hundred. This had such an effect on the others-for Melvin had a reputation for being "closer'n the bark of a tree"-that several of them doubled their previous purchases. One man had already bought a hundred shares, and now he counted ten more fifty dollar bills into Mr. Snider's hand. The money went into a black bag, and Mr. Snider raised the number of shares on his certificate to two hundred.

"No need to waste another certificate," said he.

The black-eyed man pulled me by the sleeve, and led me up the wharf, away from the crowd.

"You didn't come on the boat with us," he said, "perhaps you're part of the Company?"

"I am not!" I said, "I came here last night to look for a boat I had been cruising in. They made me stay here over night,-Mr. Snider and the Professor did, but I'm going back on the steamer with you."

"How do they work this fake anyhow?"

I stared at him.

"Oh, come! You know it's a fake as well as I do. I knew it was one before I came,-anything that Bowditch is in is always a fake. I'm sort of sorry, you know, to see these old roosters getting skinned so badly. It'll do some of them good, for believing in Bowditch,-he never had to do with anything straight yet."

"Why do they believe in him now?"

"Oh, it's Chick. Chick is an innocent old Betty, he's as much fooled as the others. He told me that he had put a thousand into this a week ago, and I don't doubt he has. Bowditch would have got a few of them,-there are always some who believe in a wind-bag, no matter how many bunco games he has been in, but Chick got most of them. Who knows anything about Snider? Now I've seen him, I wouldn't let him hold my coat while I ran across the street and back,-not if there was two cents in the coat that I ever wanted to see again. But they swallow him because Chick does, I guess. And Chick does because Bowditch does. And there you are... Where's this Professor? Everything Chick and Bowditch told us while they were rounding us up for this trip was about the Professor. It was Professor this and Professor that,-and now we get here, and he isn't to be seen. What's happened to him?"

"He went to Lanesport just before the steamer came."

"Did you see him go?"

"Why, yes...I..."

"Did you really see him set out on the road and depart?"

"Well, no...I don't know that I did. He went around one corner of the house, as I went around the other with Snider... Why? What do you mean?"

"He aint down under the wharf salting these gold-boxes or doing some other kind of monkey business with 'em? Hey?"

"Why, no," I persisted, weakly, "he's gone to Lanesport, I tell you."

But the idea struck me for the first time,-"down under the wharf,"-that was where I had seen them both yesterday.

"Gone to Lanesport?" he continued, "but you say yourself that you have only his word for it. Why should he go there today? That looked fishy to me, right on the start. Now the easiest way to account for that trick Snider did out there on the wharf is that there's someone down there hitching on another box or stuffing in that gold. It was a pretty good trick, and you saw how it took with them."

"But they say that was real gold, and that those nuggets are real."

"Of course they're real. What of it? They could buy that amount of gold ten times over-twenty times over-with what they've taken in this morning. And they expect another boat-load of suckers this afternoon. And this is only the beginning,-Snider's been rustling around amongst a lot of women and old people over in Lanesport, and they're about ready to make over their bank- accounts to him. They LIKE him, you know,-a lot of folks DO like just that kind of slippery snake. It's funny,-you'd think anyone with ordinary common-sense would grab hold of his watch and his small change, and hang on to it-hard, as soon as Br'er Snider hove in sight. But no,-they try to crowd their money onto him... Real gold! Of course it was real,-that's what fetched 'em. They don't stop to think that there's no connection proved between the gold and the sea-water. What got 'em interested at first was old man Chick's reputation for honesty. He is honest,-no doubt about that, honest as the day is long. Only he's been fooled like the rest of 'em,-he was over here two weeks ago, and they did their trick for him then, with the tin box and the battery, and the blue and white powders, and all the rest of it. They gave him some of the gold they made then, and he carried it up to the city and had it analyzed. But they could make gold in J. Harvey Bowditch's tall hat just as well as in that old tin box."

I had been thinking all the time he was speaking.

"Look here," I said, "I saw them down under the wharf, yesterday afternoon."

"You did? Where?"

I told him all about it,-how I had seen them both on the platform above the water, what they were doing, and how guilty they had acted.

"There's a trap-door, then? Do you suppose you can point it out to me? Let's stroll down there now. Pretend to be talking about something else, and just cough when we are on the trap."

It was not very easy to do. There were about thirty people standing on that little wharf, and they had left baskets, coats and shawls here and there, so that the standing room was pretty well covered. Besides, when I came to look for the trap-door I found I could hardly pick it out, it had been so skilfully made. At last I thought we were on it, so I coughed, and the black-eyed man halted. He had been telling me some story all the time, and now he turned toward me and held out both his hands as if he were measuring the size of a fish or something. Then he pointed out into the bay, threw back his head and laughed. Finally he glanced down at the trap-door, looked up again quickly, and went on with his story. Then he moved off the door, looked down at it again, pinched my arm, and whispered: "Say, I think I'll come back here this afternoon, and have another look at this."

My back had been turned toward Mr. Snider all the time. He was still at the little table, folding up his certificates. Now I turned and glanced toward him, and found that he was watching us very intently. I turned again, and walked toward the end of the wharf. As I did so, the whistle of the steam-boat blew a loud toot, and the people began to crowd on board. I walked on with the rest, getting separated, for the moment, from my friend the black- eyed man. I saw him talking with two other men, and a little later saw Mr. Snider and Mr. Bowditch whispering together and glancing in my direction.

Well, I thought I was departing from Rogers's Island, and from Snider, for good and all. You would hardly believe how I got left behind. I heard someone say, "Oh, here's the boy who is going to find my shawl for me!" and I looked around and saw a nice, smiling old lady.

"Mr. Bowditch says he won't let the steamer go, if you'll run up to the house and see if you can find my grey shawl,-I must have dropped it in the grass there, where we set down."

I wouldn't have done it for Snider,-I would have suspected some kind of a trick. But I think the lady was sincere, and moreover you don't suspect an old person in a black silk dress, with gold spectacles, of laying plots and playing tricks. Her request was genuine enough,-Snider simply took advantage of it to let the steam-boat go without me.

I was less than five minutes in running up to the house, hunting in the grass until I felt sure the shawl was not there, and starting back to the wharf again. But while I had been out of sight of the "May Queen" they had cast off the lines and steamed away. There she was, going merrily, her stern pointed toward the island, a trail of thick smoke floating back, the band playing "After the Ball," and no one paying the slightest attention to me!

Yes, there was though,-just one! The old lady in the black silk dress was standing near the stern waving her hands. I held up mine,-empty-to show that I had not found the shawl, and ran down the wharf shouting: "Wait! Stop! Come back!"

It was a silly performance. No one heard me, and I do not suppose it would have made the slightest difference if they had. They would not turn the boat around and come back for someone who had no business on board anyway.

Mr. Snider was not in sight. Had he gone on the steam-boat? Or crawled through his trap-door underneath the wharf? I did not know, but I was angry with him. I felt sure that he had purposely let the boat go without me,-it was part of their scheme to keep me there, until the people had gone in the afternoon.

Now I should have to go that roundabout way by the road, and get to Lanesport two or three hours late. There was nothing else to be done, however, so I went up the wharf once more, and started along the road. At the turn, just beyond the house, I found Mr. Snider, walking up and down with his hands behind his back. His face was rather red, and he did not attempt to smile.

"Why, James," he said, "so you lost the boat! Well, you can take the one this afternoon."

"I'm going now," said I, "I'm going to walk."

And I tried to pass him. He stepped in front of me.

"Just one moment!" said he, "I would rather you stayed until this afternoon, and then-"

"Let me go," I answered, "you promised me I could go on the steam- boat, and then you let it sail without me."

"James, I am sorry to hear you accuse me-"

I tried again to dodge by him, but he reached out one of his long arms and grabbed me by the coat-sleeve. I jerked it out of his grasp however, and jumped to the side of the road and tried to pass him in the gutter. He headed me off with two strides,-he couldn't dodge as quick as I, but his long legs gave him an advantage. Then I lost my head and threatened him.

"You'd better let me pass," I said, "I know all about your game here,-and your trap-door in the wharf!"

His face became pale again in an instant, not white,-lead color.

"You little brat!" he squeaked, "I'll wring your neck for you!"

And he made another grab at me. I dodged again, and a third time, and as I did so caught one foot in the grass, stumbled and fell. He had me by the coat collar hi a second, and in another second I was out of the coat and running back toward the house. I did not wish to go there, but I didn't have time to choose. The thing to do then was to get away from Mr. Snider. He dropped the coat and came after me on the run.

He was a good runner, was Mr. Snider, but I knew I could beat him if I had any sort of a start. His stride was longer, but he couldn't move as quick. Besides, he was out of practice. When I dashed in at the front door he was just coming up the path. I slammed the door and tried to lock it. But the bolt was rusty and it stuck. I gave that up and ran upstairs, two steps at a time. When I reached the landing I ran along the passage toward the rear in order to get to the stairs to the third storey. Just as I started up them I heard Mr. Snider burst in at the front door. On the third storey I had to hunt about a little for the stairs to the attic. I found them in a moment or two, and ran up into the attic, and hid behind a trunk in a dark corner.

That had been my idea,-to hide in the attic. And a very foolish idea it was,-I can see that now. It is quite easy-sitting here and writing about it-to think of three or four better plans. I ought to have kept outdoors, and then I could have run around the house, dodged Mr. Snider, and got a clear start again for the road across the marsh. He could not have caught me then. The hero of "The Rifle Rangers," for instance, would have planned all that out while he was running up the road with Mr. Snider ten feet behind. But I hadn't planned it. My one idea was to get away from Mr. Snider. He looked as if he would murder me,-or, at any rate, half-murder me, and I did not wish to be murdered, nor even half- murdered. I had rushed into the house without thinking what I was doing, and now here I was, caught like a rat in a trap, in this hot, dark, and dusty attic.

For I very soon saw that if Mr. Snider came up into the attic there was no place to retreat. I could hear him now, hunting through all the rooms and closets down below. As soon as he found I was in none of them, up the attic stair he would come. And then he would simply poke about among the boxes and trunks until he found me. I had run up one flight after another until I had reached the top, and now I could go no higher.

No higher? How about the roof? There must be a ladder and a scuttle in the roof. If I could get up there and close the scuttle again perhaps I would be safe. Mr. Snider might stop at the attic. I jumped up from behind the trunk and hunted about in the semi- darkness. There were other trunks and boxes, old shoes and old umbrellas on the floor, and I stumbled and bumped against all of them. Two or three coats or suits of clothes were swinging from hooks, dangling unpleasantly, like hanging men. But I found the ladder at last. There was a faint rim of light above, at the edge of the scuttle. It was high time I found it, for I could hear Mr. Snider in the room below now, and I felt sure he would come upstairs in a minute.

The ladder was rickety, but it held, and I got to the top, and began to fumble for the hasp or lock of the scuttle. It was thick with cob-webs and dust, and for a while it refused to move. While I was working at it I heard Mr. Snider open the door at the foot of the attic stairs.

I stood perfectly still on the ladder. In books they tell how, when you are frightened, your heart comes into your mouth. It isn't at all what happens. Your heart stays right where it always is, but it thumps so loud that you feel as if it could be heard in the next room. And your throat becomes horribly dry, all of a sudden, and seems to be closing up. It gets so narrow that you can scarcely breathe.

Mr. Snider paused for a moment and seemed to listen. Then he closed the door again and tip-toed away. I went to work at the hasp again, and finally I had it open. I raised the scuttle, as quietly as I could, and stepped out on the roof.

The glare of the sun almost blinded me at first. Then I saw that I was on a flat part of the roof,-the highest point in the house. The roof sloped on either side toward an enormous chimney. The shingles were old and rotten.

Looking off, I could see a great distance in almost every direction. Across the bay, so far that I could hardly see the steam-boat herself, was a trail of black smoke from the "May Queen." The water on the other side of the house was hidden by the trees.

I turned again to make sure that I had replaced the scuttle. As I did so I heard Mr. Snider's footsteps in the attic beneath. My first thought was to sit on the scuttle hoping to keep it closed. But I knew that I was not heavy enough to hold it down. Would he think of the roof? If he did, and if he came up the ladder, of course he would find the scuttle unlocked, and he would know that I was on the roof. The thing to do was to wait there until he raised the scuttle and then bat him over the head. But unfortunately, I had nothing to bat him with.

Sure enough, here he came up the ladder! I retreated down the slope of the roof,-it was a ticklish job, but again my rubber- soled shoes stood me in good stead-and crawled around to the other side of the broad chimney, and hid behind it.

I had not been there more than a second before he raised the scuttle. I could hear him puffing. Once more my heart began to thump and my throat to contract. He stepped out upon the roof and I suppose he decided immediately that I was behind one of the chimneys. At any rate he started down the roof in my direction. The instant that he did so he slipped and came down on the roof with a crash. Several shingles must have come out, and he clawed and scraped at a great rate. I thought-and hoped-that he was going to slide right off the roof, but he managed to save himself. His slide was checked somehow, and he commenced to crawl back toward the scuttle. As he did so he uttered a string of curses that would have horrified his friends in Lanesport very much.

I heard him descend the ladder. It struck me that he was going down to the side of the house, to look up to the roof and see if I were really behind the chimney. I hurried out from my hiding-place and crawled on my hands and knees up the slope of the roof. But when I reached the scuttle I found it closed and locked. I could not raise it. He had caught me now,-I might stay on that roof forever, for all that I could do.

Unless-and I already had my jack-knife out-unless I could cut through the scuttle and get at the hasp. The wood was old, frail, and half rotten,-in three minutes I had the point of the blade through. In five, I had cut a hole large enough to admit two fingers. I knew that I was safe from being seen,-anyone on that part of the roof would not be visible from the ground near the house. After cutting for a little while longer I put enough of my hand through the hole to unfasten the hasp. Then I raised the scuttle, with the pleasant sensation that this was quite in line with our escape from the jail at Bailey's Harbor. Even better than that,-I was alone here, and cutting my way out,-or rather down, with a jack-knife. It gave me a thrill like some of the adventures in "The Rifle Rangers," and various other story-books.

No more of the roof, no more of the attic for me! I was tired of being chased about like an animal in a cage,-I was going to get down stairs and outdoors if I possibly could. I preferred to take a chance with Mr. Snider in the open.

So I went down the ladder very cautiously and listened in the attic. Then came the attic stairs, at the foot of which there was a door to open. I got it open, and stepped into the passage-way. I could hear nothing. Mr. Snider thought I was safely locked up there on the roof. Little by little and pausing for two or three minutes on each landing, I crept quietly down stairs.

When I reached the lower hall I was in doubt whether to go out the front or the back door. But the back door was open, and so I chose that. I walked quietly out, crossed the back yard, and nearly ran into Mr. Snider's arms, as he came out of the woodshed with an ugly looking club in his hand!

He was more surprised than I, and that gave me the start I needed. He was after me in a second, but I ran around the corner of the house and headed for the front yard. Coming through the driveway was the Professor! I suppose that he had just come up from his hiding-place beneath the wharf, for his arms were full of his boxes. As soon as I saw him I turned sharply to the right, ran through the side-yard by the speakers' stand, and climbed a rail fence on the far side of the garden.

Then I ran down a little slope toward a clump of trees. As I did so, I looked back and saw Mr. Snider crawling through the fence.

The trees stood on a little hummock,-there were about a dozen of them, with some undergrowth. I ran through this, and came out on a rough ledge of rocks, which ended in a little beach. I had come to the shore on the other side of the island. Here was a small bay, not more than a hundred yards in width.

Sailing slowly out of this bay was a cat-boat, with a skull and cross-bones pirate-flag at the mast-head. It was the "Hoppergrass"!