“Well,” Clay replied, “why not? We are going to the Gulf, and are in no hurry to get there. We are shy sleeping bunks, but if you boys can put up with beds on the floor you are welcome to go along with us. I reckon you’ll manage to supply your share of the provisions!”
“The prospect is an attractive one,” Gregg replied, “but I think we’d better stop at Vicksburg and find employment of some kind. Later, we may go on down the river in a houseboat of our own. That depends on how lucky we are in getting good jobs.”
“We shall be sorry to part with you,” Case put in. “We have been together only a few hours, but a great deal has happened in that time! Only for your warning, the river thieves might have sneaked aboard the Rambler and captured it. In that case, you know very well what would have become of us. We should have been murdered!”
“I have no doubt that you would have taken care of yourselves,” Eddie declared.
“There’s one thing I want to ask you,” Clay went on, “and that is about the outlaw you buried back in the swamp. He was a white man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes; a white man blacked up like a negro.”
“Did you look him over carefully enough to be able to give me a description of him?”
“Well, we washed him up a little when we saw that he was a Caucasian, and I got a fair impression of his face, which wasn’t a prepossessing one, by any means.”
“Can you give me something of a notion of it in a few words?” asked Clay.
“Some old acquaintance of yours?” asked the other, with a smile at Case.