- Ort Hutchins is a confirmed loafer who spends all of his time fishing while his wife toils over the washtub. One day, while digging for worms, Hutch uncovers a box containing $100,000 in bills, the loot of a bank robbed in the next town. Realizing that he cannot spend the money without arousing suspicion, Hutch resigns himself to taking a job for cover. Accepting an offer from banker Hiram Joy to work his abandoned farm in exchange for a share of the land, Hutch finds himself successful and the farm prospering. Returning to retrieve his treasure, Hutch is sickened when he finds the box gone and in its place a note from the robber. However, Hutch makes an abrupt recovery when he is offered $10,000 for his share of the farm, an offer that forces him to realize that he has become a self-made man.—AFI
- Hutch is a happy-go-lucky, but rather shiftless man. His long-suffering wife supports him and their children, while he spends his time making excuses to keep from working. One day, while digging for worms, he finds a strongbox buried by the bank of a river. The box contains fifty thousand dollars, which, unknown to Hutch, is from a bank robbery. But Hutch realizes the money is useless to him, since no one will believe he could have acquired the money honestly. So he buries the box under a nearby bush, intending to dig it up again later. He then reluctantly goes to work, to try to establish a reputation for being honest and wealthy. He goes to work on an abandoned farm, sprucing it up to appear he is prospering. He even tells everyone that the boy courting his daughter must be after her prospective inheritance. Then a group of squatters try to build near the bush where the strongbox is buried. When Hutch can't frighten them off, he buys an option on the property to get rid of them. He then digs up the box and finds it's empty, except for a note inside, which reads "I seen you dig up the money when I was hidin in a bush from the bulls. I seen you bury it agin so dug it up rite after and am goin to beat it now. Sorry to disappoint you. The Bank Robber." Hutch is completely demoralized, believing he did all that work, building up a pretense of wealth, for nothing. But then he discovers the land is needed by a steamboat company, and they pay him $10,000 for the property. Hutch becomes prosperous, in spite of himself. His daughter marries, and Hutch provides for his wife and children.
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