"Don't shoot!" cried Frank. "You might hit the girl."
Bart was in a white rage; he quivered with anger.
"Oh, I won't shoot!" he said; "but, if he were alone I'd give him a few lead pills, hang him!"
After the shot, which seemed flung at the boys in derision, the man resumed paddling, and the canoe glided on.
But that shot had aroused some on the opposite side of the cove, for a man came bursting out of the trees, rushed down to the shore, and stared after the canoe.
He was a gigantic fellow, being at least six feet and six inches in height, roughly dressed in woolen clothes, wearing long-legged boots and a wide-brimmed hat. He had a heavy mustache, and a long imperial.
Suddenly his voice rang in a roar across the cove:
"Hold on, thar! Whatever are you doin' with my canoe? Ef yer don't bring it back, burn my hide ef I don't turn a cannon on yer an' sink yer at sea!"
The man in the canoe made no immediate reply, but pulled the harder at the paddle.
"Derned ef yer don't git grapeshot an' canister!" howled the big man. "I'll riddle yer!"