Dan hurriedly made a mental inventory of the valuables his father possessed and which he had seen in the camp, and the result showed one rifle, one powder-horn and one bullet-pouch.  All Godfrey had besides he carried on his back.  It certainly would not take him three or four hours to gather these few articles together.

“Pap’s mighty ’feared that he’ll do something he can make somebody else do fur him,” thought the boy.  “But he needn’t think he’s goin’ to get me into a furse.  I ain’t agoin’ to steal no canoe fur nobody.”

“An’ since it’s you,” added Godfrey, seeing that Dan did not readily fall in with his plans, “I’ll give you a dollar of my hard-’arned money for doin’ the job.”

“Wal, now that sounds like business,” exclaimed Dan, brightening up.  “Whar’s the money, an’ how am I goin’ to get off’n the island?”

“The money’s safe, and I’ll bring it to you in a minute,” replied Godfrey.  “You stay here till I come back.  As fur gettin’ acrosst the bayou, that’s easy done.  Thar’s plenty of drift wood at the upper end of the island, an’ you kin get on a log an’ pole yourself over.  When you get home, Dannie, make friends with Dave the fust thing you do, an’ tell him you was only foolin’ when you said you was goin’ agin him.  Help him every way you kin, an’ when he gits the money we’ll show our hands.”

So saying, Godfrey walked down the path out of sight.  After a few minutes’ absence, he came back and handed Dan the money of which he had spoken, a five-dollar bill to be expended for himself at the store, and a one-dollar bill to pay Dan for stealing the canoe.  When Dan had put them both carefully away in his pocket, he went back to the camp after his rifle, and then followed his father through the cane toward the upper end of the island.  They found an abundance of drift wood there, and from it selected two small logs of nearly the same size and length.  By fastening these together with green withes, a raft was made, which was sufficiently buoyant to carry Dan in safety to the main land.  When it was completed, the boy swung his rifle over his shoulder by a piece of stout twine he happened to have in his pocket, and taking the pole his father handed him, pushed off into the stream.

Poling the raft was harder work than rowing the canoe, and Dan’s progress was necessarily slow; but he accomplished the journey at last, and after waving his hand to his father, disappeared in the bushes.  He took a straight course for the landing and after a little more than an hour’s rapid walking, found himself in Silas Jones’s store.  He was greatly surprised at something he saw when he got there, and so bewildered by it that he forgot all about the money he had in his pocket, and the stockings, shoes and tobacco of which his father stood so much in need.  There was David making the most extravagant purchases, and there was Silas bowing and smiling and acting as politely to him as he ever did to his richest