“I got his partner, Mike Fink, and Major Washington give me fifty pounds for the job,” said Solomon.  “They say Harpe’s son disappeared long time ago an’ I wouldn’t wonder if you an’ me had seen him do it.”

“The white man that hung back in the bushes so long?  I’ll never forget him,” said Jack.

“Them wimmen couldn’t ‘a’ been in wuss hands.”

“It was a lucky day for them and for me,” Jack answered.  “I have here a letter from Margaret.  I wish you would read it.”

Solomon read the girl’s letter and said: 

“If I was you I’d swim the big pond if nec’sary.  This ’ere is a real simon pure, four-masted womern an’ she wants you fer Captain.  As the feller said when he seen a black fox, ’Come on, boys, it’s time fer to wear out yer boots.’”

“I’m tied to my job.”

“Then break yer halter,” said Solomon.

“I haven’t money enough to get married and keep a wife.”

“What an ignorant cuss you be!” Solomon exclaimed.  “You don’t ’pear to know when ye’re well off.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that ye’re wuth at least a thousan’ pounds cash money.”

“I would not ask my father for help and I have only forty pounds in the bank,” Jack answered.

Solomon took out his wallet and removed from it a worn and soiled piece of paper and studied the memoranda it contained.  Then he did some ciphering with a piece of lead.  In a moment he said: 

You have got a thousan’ an’ fifteen pounds an’ six shillin’ fer to do with as ye please an’ no questions asked—­nary one.”

“You mean you’ve got it.”

“Which means that Jack Irons owns it hide, horns an’ taller.”

Tears came to the boy’s eyes.  He looked down for a moment without speaking.  “Thank you, Solomon,” he said presently.  “I can’t use your money.  It wouldn’t be right.”

Solomon shut one eye an’ squinted with the other as if he were taking aim along the top of a gun barrel.  Then he shook his head and drawled: 

“Cat’s blood an’ gunpowder!  That ‘ere slaps me in the face an’ kicks me on the shin,” Solomon answered.  “I’ve walked an’ paddled eighty mile in a day an’ been stabbed an’ shot at an’ had to run fer my life, which it ain’t no fun—­you hear to me.  Who do ye s’pose I done it fer but you an’ my kentry?  There ain’t nobody o’ my name an’ blood on this side o’ the ocean—­not nobody at all.  An’ if I kin’t work fer you, Jack, I’d just erbout as soon quit.  This ’ere money ain’t no good to me ‘cept fer body cover an’ powder an’ balls.  I’d as leave drop it in the river.  It bothers me.  I don’t need it.  When I git hum I go an’ hide it in the bush somewhars—­jest to git it out o’ my way.  I been thinkin’ all up the road from Virginny o’ this ’ere gol demnable money an’ what I were a-goin’ to do with it an’ what it could do to me.  An’, sez I, I’m ergoin’ to ask Jack to take it an’ use it fer a wall ’twixt him an’ trouble, an’ the idee hurried me erlong—­honest!  Kind o’ made me happy.  Course, if I had a wife an’ childern, ’twould be different, but I ain’t got no one.  An’ now ye tell me ye don’t want it, which it makes me feel lonesomer ‘n a tarred Tory an’ kind o’ sorrowful—­ayes, sir, it does.”