The man slowly waded out while the keeper trampled on the fire, stamping all over it, to extinguish the last spark, so that it should not spread, and then they separated, going in different directions.
“Row, Bob; row hard,” cried Dexter, who was in agony.
“Well, I am a-rowing, ain’t I? We warn’t doing no harm.”
“Let me have an oar.”
“Ketch hold, then,” cried Bob; and as soon as Dexter was seated they began to row as if for their lives, watching in turn the side of the river and the reach they were leaving behind in expectation of seeing the pursuers and the party who were to cut them off.
Dexter’s horror increased. He pictured himself seized and taken before a magistrate, charged with damaging, burning, and trespassing. The perspiration began to stand out in beads upon each side of his nose, his hair grew wet, and his cap stuck to his forehead as he toiled away at his oar, trying hard to obey the injunctions of his companion to pull steady—to keep time—not to dip his scull so deep, and the like.
As for Bob, as he rowed he was constantly uttering derisive and defiant remarks; but all the same his grubby face was rather ashy, and he too grew tremendously hot as he worked away at his scull for quite an hour, during which time they had not seen anything more formidable than half a dozen red oxen standing knee-deep in the water, and swinging their tails to and fro to drive away the tormenting flies.
“They hadn’t got no boat,” said Bob at last. “I know’d it all the time. Pretended to throw a stone at us when there wasn’t one near, only the one we tried to cook with, flee him take hold of it and drop it again!”
“No.”
“I did. Burnt his jolly old fingers, and serve him right. We never said nothing to him. He ain’t everybody.”