"Father," he said one day, "you'd a big sight better let me alone, if
you don't want to drive me out of this ranch. I wasn't born to make a
nigger of myself in a free country, and you can just bet your life I
ain't a-going to do it."
These things grieved Saul Matchin so that his anger would die away. At
last, one morning, after a daring burglary had been committed in
Buffland, two policemen were seen by Luke Matchin approaching the shop.
He threw open a back window, jumped out and ran rapidly down to the
steep bluff overlooking the lake. When the officers entered, Saul was
alone in the place. They asked after his boy, and he said:
"He can't be far away. What do you want of him? He hain't been doing
nothing, I hope."
"Nothing, so far as we know, but we are after two fellows who go by the
names of Maumee Jake and Dutch George. Luke runs with them sometimes,
and he could make a pile of money by helping of us get them."
"I'll tell him when he comes in," said Saul, but he never saw or heard
of his son again.
With his daughters he was scarcely more successful. For, though they
had not brought sorrow or shame to his house, they seemed as little
amenable to the discipline he had hoped to exert in his family as the
boys were.
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