Dan looked behind him, and allowed his eyes to roam up and down the bank, before he replied.
"I'm 'most afraid to tell you," said he, in a scarcely audible voice. "Joey," he added, straightening up, and giving emphasis to his words by pounding his knee with his fist—"Joey, I wouldn't live up there in old man Warren's shanty two days—no, nor half of one day—for all the money there is in—"
Dan was about to say, "for all the money there is in that robbers' cave," but he caught himself in time, and finished the sentence by adding, "for all there is in Ameriky."
"I can't, for the life of me, make out what you are trying to get at," said Joe, rising from the ground and turning his face toward the cabin, "and neither can I waste any more time with you. I came down after father's watch, and as soon as I get it I must hurry back. I don't want the dark to catch me—"
"I should say not!" gasped Dan, shivering all over. "Say, Joe," he continued, reaching up and taking his brother by the hand, "don't go up there no more. Go and tell old man Warren that he'll have to get somebody else to be his game-warden."
Joe was more amazed than ever. Dan was in sober earnest, there could be no doubt about that, and he could not imagine what he had seen to scare him so badly.
"Don't go back," pleaded Dan. "The hant is in the gulf now, but as soon as it gets dark it will come out—that's the way they all do—and come up to your shanty; and when you see it walking around there, all in white, like me and pap seen it, I tell you—Say, Joey, you won't go back, will you?"
"Dan, I am surprised at you, and heartily ashamed as well," said Joe, who was more than half inclined to be angry at his brother. "You've heard some foolish story or other, and it's frightened you out of a year's growth. There's no such thing as a 'hant.'"