



Produced by David Edwards, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)







         [Illustration: THE ADVENTURE WITH THE BASKET OF COIN.]




                                   A

                          CHANCE FOR HIMSELF;

                                  OR,

                     JACK HAZARD AND HIS TREASURE.

                                   BY

                           J. T. TROWBRIDGE,

   AUTHOR OF “JACK HAZARD AND HIS FORTUNES,” “LAWRENCE’S ADVENTURES,”
                          “COUPON BONDS,” ETC.


                    [Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]


                                BOSTON:
                      JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
            LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
                                 1872.




------------------------------------------------------------------------




        Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,

                       BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,

       in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




          UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.




------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CONTENTS.

                                -------

  CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
       I. THE THUNDER-SQUALL                                          7
      II. WHAT JACK FOUND IN THE LOG                                 13
     III. “TREASURE-TROVE”                                           19
      IV. IN WHICH JACK COUNTS HIS CHICKENS                          28
       V. WAITING FOR THE DEACON                                     32
      VI. “ABOUT THAT HALF-DOLLAR”                                   36
     VII. HOW JACK WENT FOR HIS TREASURE                             41
    VIII. JACK AND THE SQUIRE                                        49
      IX. THE SQUIRE’S PERPLEXITY AND JACK’S STRATAGEM               58
       X. “THE HUSWICK TRIBE”                                        65
      XI. THE “COURT” AND THE “VERDICT”                              70
     XII. HOW HOD’S TROUSERS WENT TO THE SQUIRE’S HOUSE              78
    XIII. HOW JACK RESCUED LION, BUT MISSED THE TREASURE             82
     XIV. SQUIRE PETERNOT AT HOME                                    89
      XV. JACK AND THE HUSWICK BOYS                                  96
     XVI. HOW JACK CALLED AT THE SQUIRE’S                           104
    XVII. HOW JACK TOOK TO HIS HEELS                                111
   XVIII. HOW THE HEELS WENT HOME WITHOUT SHOES AND STOCKINGS       116
     XIX. HOW JACK WAS INVITED TO RIDE                              122
      XX. HOW THE SHOES AND STOCKINGS CAME HOME                     128
     XXI. JACK IN DISGRACE                                          135
    XXII. JACK AND THE JOLLY CONSTABLE                              143
   XXIII. BEFORE JUDGE GARTY                                        150
    XXIV. THE PRISONER’S CUP OF MILK                                157
     XXV. JACK’S PRISONERS                                          160
    XXVI. THE OWNER OF THE POTATO PATCH, AND HIS DOG                167
   XXVII. THE RACE, AND HOW IT ENDED                                174
  XXVIII. THE SEARCH, AND HOW IT ENDED                              179
    XXIX. THE CULVERT AND THE CORNFIELD                             187
     XXX. JACK BREAKFASTS AND RECEIVES A VISITOR                    194
    XXXI. TEA WITH AUNT PATSY                                       201
   XXXII. A STARLIGHT WALK WITH ANNIE FELTON                        208
  XXXIII. A STRANGE CALL AT A STRANGE HOUR OF THE NIGHT             216
   XXXIV. HOW JACK WON A BET, AND RETURNED A FAVOR                  221
    XXXV. AT MR. CHATFORD’S GATE                                    227
   XXXVI. THE “RIDE” CONTINUED                                      234
  XXXVII. ONE OF THE DEACON’S BLUNDERS                              239
 XXXVIII. THE DEACON’S DIPLOMACY                                    246
   XXXIX. A TURN OF FORTUNE                                         251
      XL. THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH                                      257
     XLI. HOW IT ALL ENDED                                          264




------------------------------------------------------------------------




                         A CHANCE FOR HIMSELF.

                                -------

                               CHAPTER I

                          THE THUNDER-SQUALL.


[Illustration]


ON a high, hilly pasture, occupying the northeast corner of Peach Hill
Farm, a man and two boys were one afternoon clearing the ground of
stones.

The man—noticeable for his round shoulders, round puckered mouth, and
two large, shining front teeth—wielded a stout iron bar called a “crow,”
with which he pried up the turf-bound rocks, and helped to tumble them
over upon a drag, called in that region a “stun-boat.” The larger of the
boys—a bright, active lad of about fourteen years—lent a hand at the
heavy rocks, and also gathered up and cast upon the drag the smaller
stones, on his own account. The second lad—nearly as tall, and perhaps
quite as old as the other—helped a little about the stones, but divided
his attention chiefly between the horse that drew the drag, and a shaggy
black dog that accompanied the party.

“Come, boy!” said the man,—enunciating the _m_ and _b_ by closing the
said front teeth upon his nether lip,—“ye better quit fool’n’, an’ ketch
holt and help. ’S go’n’ to rain.”

“Ain’t I helping?” retorted the smaller boy. “Don’t I drive the horse?”

“A great sight,—long’s the reins are on his back, an’ I haf to holler to
him half the time to git up an’ whoa. Git up, Maje! there! whoa!—Jack’s
wuth jest about six of ye.”

“O, Jack’s dreadful smart! Beats everything! And so are you, Phi
Pipkin!” said the boy, sneeringly. “You feel mighty big since you got
married, don’t ye?—I bet ye Lion’s got a squirrel under that big rock!
I’m going to see!” And away he ran.

“That ’ere Phin Chatford ain’t wuth the salt in his porridge,—if I do
say it!” remarked Mr. Pipkin. “I never did see sich a shirk; though when
he comes to tell what’s been done, you’d think he was boss of all
creation. Feel as if I’d like to take the gad to him sometimes, by
hokey!”

“O Jack!” cried Phin, who had mounted a boulder much too large for Mr.
Pipkin’s crow-bar, “you can see Lake Ontario from here,—’way over the
trees there! Come and get up here; it’s grand!”

“I’ve been up there before,” replied Jack. “Haven’t time now. We shall
have that shower here before we get half across the lot.”

“Come, Phin!” called out Mr. Pipkin, “there’s reason in all things!
We’ll onhitch soon’s we git this load, an’ dodge a wettin’.”

“Seems to me you’re all-fired ’fraid of a wetting, both of ye,” cried
Phin. “’T won’t hurt me! Let it come, and be darned to it, I say!”

This last exclamation sounded so much like blasphemy to the boy’s own
ears, and it was followed immediately by so vivid a flash of lightning
and so terrific a peal of thunder, from a black cloud rolling up
overhead, that he jumped down from the rock and crouched beside it,
looking ludicrously pale and scared; while the dog, dropping ears and
tail, and whining and trembling with fear, ran first for Jack’s legs,
then for Mr. Pipkin’s, and finally crouched by the boulder with Phin.

“You’re a perty pictur’ there!” cried Mr. Pipkin, with a loud, hoarse
laugh. “Who’s afraid now?”

“Lion, I guess,—I ain’t,” said Phin, with an unnatural grin. “Only
thought I’d sit down a spell.”

“It’s as cheap settin’ as standin’,—as the old hen remarked, arter she’d
sot a month on rotten eggs, an’ nary chicken,” said Mr. Pipkin, whose
spirits rose with the excitement of the occasion.

“There’s a good reason for the dog’s skulking,” said Jack. “He’s afraid
of thunder, ever since Squire Peternot fired the old musket in his face
and eyes. Hello! another crack!”

“I never see sich thunder!” exclaimed Mr. Pipkin. “Look a’ them
rain-drops! big as bullets!”

“It’s coming!” cried Jack; and instantly the heavy thunder-gust swept
over them.

“Onhitch!” roared out Mr. Pipkin, in the sudden tumult of rain and wind
and thunder. “I must look out for my rheumatiz! Put for the house!”

“We shall get drenched before we are half-way to the house,” replied
Jack, dropping the trace-chains. “I go for the woods!”

“I’ll take Old Maje, then,” said Mr. Pipkin.

But before he could mount, Phin, darting from the imperfect shelter of
the rock, ran and leaped across the horse’s back. As he was scrambling
to a seat, holding on by mane and harness, kicking, and calling out,
“Give me a boost, Phi!” Mr. Pipkin gave him a boost, and lost his hat by
the operation. That was quickly recovered; but before the owner,
clapping it on his head, could get back to the horse’s side, the
youthful rider, using the gathered-up reins for a whip, had started for
the barn.

“Whoa! hold on! take me!” bellowed Mr. Pipkin.

“He won’t carry double—ask Jack!”

Flinging these parting words over his shoulder, the treacherous Phin
went off at a gallop, leaving Mr. Pipkin to follow, at a heavy
“dog-trot,” over the darkened hill, through the rushing, blinding storm.

Jack was already leaping a wall which separated the pasture from a
neighboring wood-lot. Plunging in among the reeling and clashing trees,
he first sought shelter by placing himself close under the lee of a
large basswood; but the rain dashed through the surging mass of foliage
above, and trickled down upon him from trunk and limbs.

Looking hastily about to see if he could better his situation, he cast
his eye upon a prostrate tree, which some former gale had broken and
overthrown, and from which the branches had mostly rotted and fallen
away. It appeared to be hollow at the butt, and Jack ran to it, laughing
at the thought of crawling in out of the rain. He put in his head, but
took it out again immediately. The cavity was dark, and a disagreeable
odor of rotten wood, suggestive of bugs and “thousand-legged worms,”
repelled him.

“Never mind!” thought he. “I can clap my clothes in the hole, and have
’em dry to put on after the shower is over.”

He stripped himself in a moment, rolled up his garments in a neat
bundle, and placed them, with his hat and shoes, within the hollow log.

“Now for a jolly shower-bath!” And, seeing an opening in the woods a
little farther on, he capered towards it, laughing at the oddness of his
situation, and at the feeling of the rain trickling down his bare back.
A few more lightning flashes and tremendous claps of thunder, then a
steady, pouring rain for about five minutes, in which Jack danced and
screamed in great glee,—and the storm was over.

“What a soaking Phi and Phin must have got!” thought he. “And now won’t
they be surprised to see me come home in dry clothes!”

The wind had gone down before; and now a flood of silver light, like a
more ethereal shower, broke upon the still woods, brightening through
its arched vistas, glancing from the leaves, and glistening in countless
drops from the dripping boughs. A light wind passed, and every tree
seemed to shake down laughingly from its shining locks a shower of
pearls. Jack was filled with a sense of wonder and joy as he walked back
through the beautiful, fresh, wet woods to his hollow log. He waited
only a minute or two for his skin to dry, and for the boughs to cease
dripping; then put in his hand where he had left his clothes. His
clothes were not there!

Jack was startled: in place of the anticipated triumph of going home in
dry garments, here was a chance of his going home in no garments at all!
Yet who could have taken them? how was it possible that they could have
been removed during his brief absence? “Maybe this isn’t the log!” He
looked around. “Yes, it is, though!”

No other fallen trunk at all resembling it was to be seen in the woods.
Then he stooped again, and thrust his hand as far as he could into the
opening. He touched something,—not what he sought, but a mass of hair,
and the leg of some large animal. He recoiled instinctively, with—it
must be confessed—a start of fear.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CHAPTER II

                      WHAT JACK FOUND IN THE LOG.


JACK’S first thought was, that the creature, whatever it might be, was
in the log when he placed his clothes there, and that it had afterwards
seized them and perhaps torn them to pieces. Then he reflected that the
hair he touched felt wet; and he said, “The thing ran to its hole after
I put the clothes in, and it has pushed ’em along farther into the log.
Wonder what it can be!” It was evidently much too large for a raccoon or
a woodchuck: could it be a panther? or a young bear? “He’s got my
clothes, any way! I must get him out, or go home without ’em!”

Naked and weaponless as he was, he naturally shrank from attacking the
strange beast; nor was it pleasant to think of going home in his present
condition. It was not at all probable that Mr. Pipkin and Phin would
return to their work that afternoon; and he was too far from the house
to make his cries for help heard. He resolved to call, however.

“Maybe I can make Lion hear. I wonder if he went home.” He remembered
that the frightened dog was last seen crouching with Phin beside the
rock, and hoping he was there still, he began to call.

“Lion! here, Lion!” and, putting his fingers to his mouth, he whistled
till all the woods rang. Then suddenly—for he watched the log all the
while—he heard a tearing and rattling in the cavity, and saw that the
beast was coming out. Stepping quickly backwards, he tripped over a
stick; and the next moment the creature—big and shaggy and wet—was upon
him.

“You rogue! you coward! old Lion! what a fright you gave me! what have
you done with my clothes? you foolish boy’s dog!” For the beast was no
other than Lion himself; frightened from his retreat beside the boulder,
he had followed his young master to the woods, and crept into the hollow
of the log, after Jack had left his clothes in it.

Jack returned to the log, and with some difficulty fished out his
garments. He unfolded them one by one, holding them up and regarding
them with ludicrous dismay. Lion had made a bed of them; and between his
drenched hide and the rotten wood, they had suffered no slight damage.

“O, my trousers!” Jack lamented. “And just look at that shirt! I’d
better have worn them in fifty showers! So much for having a dog that’s
afraid of thunder!” And he gave the mischief-maker a cuff on the ear.

Jack recovered everything except one shoe, which he could not get
without going considerably farther than he liked into the decayed trunk.

“Here, Lion! you must get that shoe! That’s no more than fair.
Understand?” And showing the other shoe, he pointed at the hole.

In went Lion, scratching and scrambling, and presently came out again,
bringing the shoe in his mouth. Encouraged by his young master’s
approval, and eager to atone for his cowardice and the mischief he had
done, he went in again, although no other article was missing, and was
presently heard pawing and pulling at something deep in the log.

“After squirrels, maybe,” said Jack, as, dressing himself, he stepped
aside to avoid the volleys of dirt which now and then flew out of the
opening.

He thought no more of the matter, until the dog came backwards out of
the hole, shook himself, and laid a curious trophy down by the shoe.
Jack looked at it, and saw to his surprise that it was a metallic
handle, such as he had seen used on the ends of small chests and trunks,
or on bureau-drawers. He scraped off with his knife some of the rust
with which it was covered, and found that it was made of brass. At the
ends were short rusty screws, which, upon examination, appeared to have
been recently wrenched out of a piece of damp wood.

“It’s a trunk-handle,” said Jack. “Lion has pulled it off. And the trunk
is in the log!”

He grew quite excited over the discovery, and sent the dog in again for
further particulars, while he hurriedly put on his shoes. Lion gnawed
and dug for a while, and at last reappeared with a small strip of
partially decayed board in his mouth.

“It’s a piece of the box!” exclaimed Jack. “Try again, old fellow!”

Lion plunged once more into the opening, and immediately brought out
something still more extraordinary. It was a round piece of metal, about
the size of an American half-dollar; but so badly tarnished that it was
a long time before Jack would believe that it was really money. He
rubbed, he scraped, he turned it over, and rubbed and scraped again,
then uttered a scream of delight.

“A silver half-dollar, sure as you live, old Lion!”

The dog was already in the log again. This time he brought out two more
pieces of money like the first, and dropped them in Jack’s hand.

“Here, Lion!” cried the excited lad. “I’m going in there myself!”

He pulled the dog away, and entered the cavity, quite regardless now of
rotten wood, bugs, and “thousand-legged worms.” His heels were still
sticking out of the log, when his hand touched the broken end of a small
trunk, and slid over a heap of coin, which had almost filled it, and run
out in a little stream from the opening the dog had made.

Out came Jack again, covered with dirt, his hair tumbled over his eyes,
and both hands full of half-dollars. He dashed back the stray locks with
his sleeve, glanced eagerly at the coin, looked quickly around to see if
there was any person in sight, then examined the contents of his hands.

“If there’s no owner to this money, I’m a rich man!” he said, with
sparkling eyes. “There ain’t less than a thousand dollars in that
trunk!”

To a lad in his circumstances, five-and-twenty years ago, such a sum
might well appear prodigious. To Jack it was an immense fortune.

“And how can there be an owner?” he reasoned. “It must have been in that
log a good many years,—long enough for the trunk to begin to rot, any
way. Some fellow must have stolen it and hid it there; and he’d have
been back after it long ago, if he hadn’t been dead,—or like enough he’s
in prison somewhere. Here, Lion! keep out of that!” and Jack cuffed the
dog’s ears, to enforce strict future obedience to that command. “Nobody
must know of that log,” he muttered, looking cautiously all about him
again, “till I can take the money away.”

But now, along with the sudden tide of his joy and hopes, a multitude of
doubts rushed in upon his mind. How was he to keep his great discovery a
secret until he should be ready to take advantage of it? The thief who
had stolen the coin might be dead; but was it not the finder’s duty to
seek out the real owner and restore it to him? Already that question
began to disturb the boy’s conscience; but he soon forgot it in the
consideration of others more immediately alarming.

“The thief may have been in prison, and he may come back this very night
to find his booty! Or the owner of the land may claim it, because it was
found on his premises.” And Jack remembered with no little anxiety that
the land belonged to Mr. Chatford’s neighbor, the stern and grasping
Squire Peternot. “Or, after all,” he thought, “it may be counterfeit!”

That was the most unpleasant conjecture of any. “I’ll find out about
that, the first thing,” said Jack; and he determined to keep his
discovery in the meanwhile a profound secret.

Accordingly, after due deliberation, he crept back into the log, and
replaced the piece of the trunk, with the handle, and all the coin
except one half-dollar; then, having partially stopped the opening with
broken sticks and branches, he started for home.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER III

                           “TREASURE-TROVE.”


TAKING a circuitous route, in order that, if he was seen emerging from
the woods, it might be at a distance from the spot where his treasure
was concealed, Jack came out upon the pasture, crossed it, took the
lane, and soon got over the bars into the barn-yard. As he entered from
one side he met Mr. Pipkin coming in from the other.

“Hullo!” he cried, with a wonderfully natural and careless air, “did ye
get wet?”

“Yes, wet as a drownded rat, I did! So did Phin,—and good enough for
him, by hokey!” said Mr. Pipkin. “Where’ve you been?”

“O, I went into the woods. Got wet, though, a little; and dirty
enough,—just look at my clothes!”

“I’ve changed mine,” remarked Mr. Pipkin. “Wasn’t a rag on me but what
was soakin’ wet. I wished I had gone to the woods.”

“I’m glad ye didn’t,” thought Jack, as he walked on. “O,” said he,
turning back as if he had just thought of something to tell, “see what I
found!”

“Half a dollar? ye don’t say! Found it? Where, I want to know!” said Mr.
Pipkin, rubbing the piece, first on his trousers, then on his boot.

“Over in the woods there,—picked it up on the ground,” said Jack, who
discreetly omitted to mention the fact that it had first been laid on
the ground by Lion.

“That’s curi’s!” remarked Mr. Pipkin.

“What is it?” said Phin, making his appearance, also in dry garments. He
looked at the coin, while Jack repeated the story he had just told Mr.
Pipkin; then said, with a sarcastic smile, “Feel mighty smart, don’t ye,
with yer old half-dollar! I don’t believe it’s a good one.” And Master
Chatford sounded it on a grindstone under the shed. “Couldn’t ye find
any more where ye found this?”

“What should I want of any more, if this isn’t a good one?” replied
Jack. “Here! give it back to me!”

“’Tain’t yours,” said Phin, with a laugh, pocketing the piece, and
making off with it.

“It’s mine, if I don’t find the owner. ’Tisn’t yours, any way! Phin
Chatford!”—Phin started to run, giggling as if it was all a good joke,
while Jack started in pursuit, very much in earnest. “Give me my money,
or I’ll choke it out of ye!” he cried, jumping upon the fugitive’s back,
midway between barn and house.

“Here, here! Boys! boys!” said a reproving voice; and Phin’s father,
coming out of the wood-shed, approached the scene of the scuffle.
“What’s the trouble, Phineas? What is it, Jack?”

“He’s choking me!” squealed Phineas.

“He’s got my half-dollar!” exclaimed Jack, without loosing his hold of
Phin’s neck.

“Come, come!” said Mr. Chatford. “No quarrelling. Have you got his
half-dollar?”

“Only in fun. Besides, ’tain’t his”; and Phin squalled again.

“Let go of him, Jack!” said Mr. Chatford, sternly. Jack obeyed
reluctantly. “Now what is it all about?”

“I’ll tell ye, deacon!” said round-shouldered Mr. Pipkin, coming
forward. “It’s an old half-dollar Jack found in the woods; Phin snatched
it and run off with ’t. Jack was arter him to git it back; he lit on him
like a hawk on a June-bug; but he ha’n’t begun to give him the chokin’
he desarves!”

“Give me the money!” said the deacon. “No more fooling, Phineas!”

“Here’s the rusty old thing! ’Tain’t worth making a fuss about, any
way,” said Phin, contemptuously. “Ho! Jack! you don’t know how to take a
joke!”

“You _do_ know how to take what don’t belong to you,” replied Jack. “Is
it a good one, Mr. Chatford? That’s what I want to know.”

“Yes, I guess so,—I don’ know,—looks a little suspicious. Can’t tell
about that, though; any silver money will tarnish, exposed to the damp.
I’ll ring it. Sounds a little mite peculiar. Who’s got a half-dollar?”

“I have!” cried Phin’s little sister Kate.

In a minute her piece was brought, and Jack’s was sounded beside it on
the door-stone; Jack listening with an anxious and excited look.


[Illustration: SOUNDING THE HALF-DOLLAR.]


“No, it don’t ring like the other,” observed the deacon. Jack’s heart
sank. “Has a more leaden sound.” His heart went down into his shoes. “It
may be good, though, after