Josh Owen was on his feet, his taste for tobacco gone.  He was listening, peering between the trees, and making many impatient remarks under his breath.

“Hullo, uncle!  Gettin’ weary, carryin’ ’round my share of the money?” chuckled the voice of Dan Jaggers.  Then that shaggy young bully stepped out from behind a tree.

“Ye’ve been long enough,” growled his relieved uncle.  “But I’m glad t’ see ye’re in good enough shape.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” admitted Jaggers, serenely, as he came forward.  “I’ve been back here for hours.”

“What are ye telling me?” demanded Josh Owen.

“The facts.  Ye see, Uncle Josh, I wanted to know whether ye’d forgit ye had my money, an’ stray off.  So I’ve been watchin’ round, ’thout making no noise, for hours.”  Josh Owen had no means of knowing whether this statement was the truth or not, but he growled: 

“Then ye must know for sure, now, lad, that I’m square with my own nephew.  What’d ye bring back with ye?”

“Something to eat.”

“And something to drink, hey?  I guess we’ll eat first.”

Dan retraced his way through the woods a few paces, returning with packages.

“You younkers can see us eat, if you want to,” said Josh Owen, with a malicious leer, as he spread a piece of paper on the ground and began to lay out the meal.  “When are you two going to eat?  I don’t know.  Maybe not for a few days yet.  Ye see, it ain’t so easy to make an enemy of a man by sneaky tricks, and then get on his right side again.”

This picnic breakfast lasted a long time, it seemed to watchful Jack Benson.  But at last it was over.  Josh brought out his ill-smelling pipe once more, settling himself, with his back against a tree-trunk, to enjoy himself.

“Bring anything to drink, Danny boy?” inquired Owen, after a few minutes.

“Here’s some beer,” proposed Jaggers, passing over the bottle.

Josh opened it, took a long drink, then sat with the bottle poised on one of his knees.

“I don’t believe ye’d better have any of this, Danny, lad,” declared Owen, with a grin.

“Don’t want any,” responded Jaggers, in a rather sulky voice.

Dan got up and strolled about, his hands in his pockets, whistling softly but cheerily.  Josh Owen finished his unwise beverage, and tossed the bottle a few feet away.  Presently the man’s eyes closed, but he opened them as though with an effort.

“S’here, Danny,” he demanded, thickly, drowsily, “watcher put in that stuff?”

Dan Joggers did not reply, but he turned to watch his uncle, a look of the lowest cunning in the young bully’s eyes.  For a brief space of time Owen fought against his drowsiness.  Then he lurched, falling over on one side, unconscious—­drugged.

In a twinkling, then, Dan Jaggers knelt beside his uncle, rifling the other man’s pockets until he had brought to light both their shares in the evil-doing of the night.