“I don’t believe a word of it!” cried Phil and Phœnix, almost in a breath.
“It’s a lie on the face of it,” said Adam, stepping up to the last speaker and lifting his hatchet. “Now, if you scoundrels don’t want to be brained right here, you’d better speak out and tell the truth. You stole the boat, and we know it.”
“I didn’t say the young man was altogether willin’ to trade, but we did trade. Didn’t we leave our boat? and haven’t you got it? We was a-goin’ to leave all your things for you, but your pardner, as soon as he went ashore, began a-hollerin’ for you all, and we thought you’d be firin’ at us the next minute, and so we had to put off.”
“You meant to steal this boat and everything in it,” said Adam, “and you made that young man go ashore.”
“We told him he’d better,” said the other.
“Yes,” added his companion; “but he got mad, and the minute he set foot on the sand, he ran into the woods a-hollerin’ for you all.”
Phœnix had said little during this time, but his feelings were rapidly reaching the boiling-point. At this moment he sprang on board The Rolling Stone, and, seizing one of the young men by the collar, he shouted,—
“If I hear any more of that talk, you’re going overboard. Where is the boy that was on this boat?”
The young man thus suddenly attacked raised his arm to defend himself, but Adam pushed between the two.
“Don’t fight yet,” he said to Phœnix. “We’ll see directly what’s to be done to ’em.”