"I would, and for as much more as my own property, together with what I
hold in trust for my niece, would bring," answered the old man,
earnestly.

"And would you be willing that your money should be risked on any such
a venture?" asked the Sheriff, turning to Sabella with a smile.

"Indeed I would," answered the girl, promptly. "After the splendid way
Mr. Brackett helped us last evening, I know whatever he says must be
so."

"That will do," said Mr. Riley. "With such sureties I am well content,
and am willing to make public acknowledgment that these gentlemen are
what they represent themselves to be. Now, for their future guidance,
I will tell them what I have not yet hinted to a living soul. It is
that their raft has probably been stolen and taken down the river by
the most noted gang of counterfeiters that has ever operated in this
part of the country. There are three of them, and I thought I had
surely run them to earth when I traced them to the island just above
Dubuque. You must have seen them there, didn't you?"

"No, sir," replied Winn, to whom this question was addressed. "I only
saw one man on the island. He said he was a river-trader, and would
help me float the raft. We went to look for his partners, and when I
came back, it and he were both gone. After that I did not see a soul
until you came along and arrested me."

"That confirms my belief that they have appropriated your raft to their
own uses," said the Sheriff; "and it is a mighty good scheme on their
part, too. We were watching all the steamboats, and even the trading
scows, but never thought of finding them on a raft. They have probably
disguised it, and themselves too, long before this, so that to trail
them will be very difficult. I suppose you will try to follow them,
though?"

"Certainly I shall," answered Billy Brackett, promptly. "I haven't
undertaken this job only to give it up after a week's trial. As for
Winn, though, I don't know but what I really ought to send him home."

"Now look here, Uncle Billy. You know you don't mean that. You know
that, much as I want to see mother and Elta, I simply _must_ find that
raft, or, at any rate, help you do it. You couldn't send me home,
either, unless you borrowed a pair of handcuffs from the Sheriff and
put me in irons. Anyway, I don't believe you'd have the heart. If I
thought for a moment that you had, I'd--well, I'd disappear again,
that's all."

"All right," laughed