Pocket Island | Page 6

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