The man sat down and looked kind of miserable. We walked off.
“We got to keep him and George apart,” says Mark, “till I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” says I.
“Oh,” says he, “I got a sort of a kind of a s-scheme.”
He said it with that kind of a way he has that means he ain’t going to tell and there’s no use to ask him. All of us knew him well enough not to waste breath on questions. So we went along till we came to George Piggins, still gaping at the money Mark gave him and staring every little while at the shore as if he had something on his mind and didn’t know just exactly what.
“Man just l-landed,” says Mark.
“Who?” says George.
“Detective feller,” says Mark.
“Eh?” says George. “What’s that? What you tryin’ to tell a feller? What’s a detective a-doin’ on this island, I want to know? Eh? Say.”
“He let on he was interested in hogs,” says Mark.