We have already told how the two yachts passed each other without any exchange of courtesies between the crews. The Firefly ran between the decoys and the shore and was thrown up into the wind, so that her skipper could talk to the man in the sink-boat.
“Good morning, Mr. Barr,” said Enoch, pleasantly. “Egan came along just at the wrong time, didn’t he?”
“He is always around when he ain’t wanted, and I told him so,” was the gruff response.
“Do you believe it is all unintentional on his part?” asked Jones, in a significant tone. “Don’t you think that he does it on purpose—that he is just snooping around to see what he can find that is worth looking at?”
“I know it,” answered Barr, shaking his clenched hand at the rapidly receding cutter. “When he told that detective that I was a duck-shooter, and that I and my partners had a big gun hid somewhere about the bay, didn’t he do it a purpose? Of course he did. He wanted to get me into trouble; but he wasn’t by no means as smart as he thought he was. We had more’n one big gun, me and my partners did, and—by the way, did you know that we had got our best gun back?”
“No!” replied Enoch, who was surprised to hear it.
“Well, we’ve got it safe and sound, and if one of them detectives ever gets a chance to put an ugly hand on it again, I’m a Dutchman. Simpson, he—but I don’t reckon I had best say any more,” said Barr, with a hasty, suspicious glance at Lester.
“O, you need not be afraid of my friend Brigham,” exclaimed Enoch. “He is true blue, and he hates Egan and all his crowd as cordially as Jones and I do. What about Simpson?”
“Mebbe I will tell you all about it some other time,” answered Barr, cautiously. “’Tain’t best to say too much to nobody these times.”
“I know that. Those ‘gentlemen sportsmen’ (Enoch sneered as he uttered the words), who live up north, and rent some of our shooting-points, are bound to break up your business if they can.”