Chase raised his lantern above his head, and surveyed the cave with a smile of satisfaction. In one corner were the remains of a fire which he and his companions had built the last time they camped there, and over it was a narrow crevice extending to the tops of the bluff, and answering all the purposes of a window and chimney. In the opposite corner was a supply of wood sufficient to cook his meals for three or four days, and in another was a pile of leaves that had more than once served him for a bed. His camp was all ready for occupation, and he had nothing to do but to bring up the outfit he had left at the foot of the bluff. This required two journeys up and down the sail. He brought the meat first, the blankets next, and after stowing them away in the cave was ready to carry out the second and most dangerous part of his programme. He tied the lantern to the bushes at the mouth of the cave so that its rays would shine down into the gulley below, divested himself of his coat, and sliding down the sail to the ground, shouldered his axe and started back for the beach. He left the axe by the pirogue, and approached the camp on tip-toe to look at Coulte and his son. They were still sleeping soundly, and Chase, lingering long enough to shake his clenched hand at each of them, and to mutter something about their being astonished when they awoke in the morning, hurried back to the pirogue and caught up his axe. “Turn about is fair play, Pierre,” said he, as he swung the implement aloft. “You have had things all your own way this far, and now I’ll manage affairs for awhile. I’ll teach you to think twice before you tie a boy hand and foot again and take him to sea in a dugout.”
Whack! came the axe upon the pirogue, the force with which it was driven sinking it almost to the handle in the soft wood, and opening a wide seam along the whole length of the little vessel. Another blow and another followed; but just as he raised his axe for the fourth time he heard an exclamation of wonder, and looked up to see Pierre and Coulte standing at the foot of the bluff.
“Ah! whew!” exclaimed the latter, comprehending the state of affairs at once.
“Ah! oui!” replied Chase, exactly imitating the old Frenchman’s way of talking; “somedings is wrong again, and dis times it is somedings pooty bad. Whew!”
“What are you about there?” demanded Pierre.
“O, nothing,” answered Chase, bringing his axe down with greater force than before; “only I am tired of seeing this old boat lying around. You don’t want to use her any more, do you? You’ll go back to the village in style, you know. The people there think so much of you that they’ll send a yacht after you.”
Pierre uttered something that sounded very much like an oath, and came down the beach with all the speed he could command; but Chase, as active as a cat, darted into the woods and was half way up the gulley before the clumsy smuggler had taken a dozen steps. It was dark in the bushes, and the noise he made in running through them guided his enemies in the pursuit; but he succeeded in climbing up the sail, encumbered as he was with the axe, and pulled it up after him. He did not have time to remove the lantern before Coulte and Pierre came up. The former, as usual, expressed his astonishment and rage by loud whistles, while Pierre looked about for some means of ascending the bluff. Knowing himself to be in a safe position, Chase was disposed to be facetious.
“I say, Pierre,” he exclaimed; “what will you give me if I will pass the sail down to you? That’s the only way you can come up here, seeing that you have no axe to cut a pole with.”
“I’ll give you something you won’t like when I get my hands on you,” hissed Pierre, between his clenched teeth. “Come down from there.”
“Do you want me to come now, or will you wait till I do come? You won’t go back to the village to-morrow and leave me here all alone, will you? You’ll stay, like a good fellow, till the yacht comes, won’t you? If you want anything to eat in the mean time, you can catch a wild duck, you know.”