Rob was silent for a few moments, and then said,—
“Well, I did think something of the kind.”
“Of course you did. It is your nature to think like that, but you may make your mind easy, for there’s only one thing likely to attack you out here.”
“What’s that?” whispered Rob—“Indians who will swim out from the shore?”
“No, wild creeturs who will fly—skeeters, lad, skeeters.”
“Oh,” said Rob, with a little laugh, “they’ve been busy enough already, two or three of them. But what’s that?”
He grasped Shaddy’s arm, for at that moment there was a plunge in the river not very far-away in the darkness from where they were moored, and then silence.
“Dunno yet,” said Shaddy in a whisper. “Listen.”
Rob needed no telling, for his every nerve was on the strain. There came a peculiar grunting sound, very unlike any noise that might have been made by a swimming Indian, and Shaddy said quietly,—
“Water hog. Carpincho they calls ’em; big kind of porky, beavery, ottery, ratty sort of thing; and not bad eating.”