“Never mind about the handle,” growled Buck. “I wouldn’t have lost that knife for anything—almost as soon lost my head. You know what a good one it was, Mr Mark, sir. Why, you might have shaved yourself with it, sir, if you had waited till you was grown up.”
“Here, none of your chaff, Buck. You can’t joke easily. I know I have got no beard, but when it does come I hope it won’t come carroty like somebody’s.”
“Carroty, sir? Not it! Last time I see my mother it had growed while I had been away three years, and she said it made her feel proud, for it was real hauburn.”
“Well, never mind about your beard, messmate,” said Dan, in a deep, gruff voice. “Do you feel sure as you have lost the knife?”
“I feel sure that it’s gone in the night, along of Mr Mark’s rifle.”
“What, out hunting together?” said Mark, laughing.
“Well, good companions,” said Dean. “One shoots the game, and the other skins and cuts it up.”
“I don’t quite see what you mean, gentlemen,” said Dan; “but it seems to me, Mr Mark, that you and me see the beggar that comes hanging about and that sneaked your gun and his knife.”
“Yes,” said Mark, “that’s it; and I feel sure that if we come to look about we shall find lots of other things are gone.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dan, “no doubt about it, and we have got the right pig by the ear, Mr Mark. I don’t mean our little Pig, but you know what I do mean; and now, I don’t like to take too much upon myself, sir.”