CHAPTER XXI.

COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS.


The Great Discovery Company had run its race of prosperity. A few months
passed, and the prospects of those connected with it began to change.
Chapman went about Nyack shaking his head despondingly, and saying that
he had been deceived by Hanz Toodleburg, who had deceived them all with
his story about Kidd's treasure, and would be the cause of their losing
a large amount of money.

"I never would have been caught in such a trap, but I believed Hanz
Toodleburg to be an honest man, a very honest man, and I put faith in
his word. But I have been deceived. Well, it is not the first time my
confidence has been abused in this way," Chapman would say, holding up
his hands, while his face assumed an expression of injured innocence.

Hanz, on the other hand, protested his innocence. Never in all his life,
he said, had he taken a dollar of money not his own, and honestly made.
He was persuaded to do what he had done by the gentlemen whom he
supposed engaged in an honest enterprise. In truth, he had never
suspected them of a design to get honest people's money in a dishonest
way.

"If I toos t' shentlemens a favors, und ta makes t' money, und I makes
no money, und t' peoples don't get no money pack, what I cot t' do mit