“What’s the matter with you, Barney?” said Mark, at length, addressing himself to the captain of the Dragoons; “you seem to be mad about something.”
“What business have you got here? That’s what I want to know,” replied Barney, angrily. “The best thing you can do is to leave here sudden.”
“I am well satisfied of that. It is pretty cold, and I am not at all comfortable sitting here in my wet clothes. If you will tell me how to reach dry land, I shall be greatly obliged to you. But, I say, Barney!”
“Well, what do you want?”
“What’s been going on here?”
“Who said any thing had been goin’ on?” demanded Luke Redman, in a tone of voice which indicated considerable alarm.
And as he spoke, he cast a sidelong glance over his shoulder toward his skiff, which was stranded on the edge of the falls.
There was something so stealthy in the action that Mark’s suspicions were aroused in an instant. He followed the man’s glance, and one look was enough to clear up every thing which, but a moment before, had appeared so mysterious.
“Thar hain’t been nothin’ goin’ on here that I knows on,” repeated Mr. Redman. “I come down the bayou, same as you did, an’ got ketched in the current an’ upsot; an’ if it hadn’t been for this yere tree, I’d ’a gone over the falls, I reckon.”
“What’s that hanging to the row-lock of your skiff?” asked Mark, suddenly.