It was impossible to deny the man’s earnestness.
“All right, then,” he cried heartily. “If you believe me, I don’t care! But they won’t! That teamster found it, and Abe’s got away clear. Half Kilmarnock’s hanging about Alward’s; other half out chasing me, pitchfork and blunderbuss. Get the boat, will you? I doubled and slipped ’em, up there in the woods—”
In the act of nodding toward the hill, he paused and listened.
“Oh, did I, though?” he drawled satirically; then laughing like a schoolboy, he shook his fist at the landscape, whirled about, and darted into the house.
A squad of men bobbed into sight above the crest, and came running heavily down. The first was Old-Hab; the last—fat, cautious, and far behind—was Quinn the postmaster. They swarmed about Miles at the door, all seven or eight, like men who had their fill of running; but their eyes were sharpened, their tongues loosed, with the excitement of a lifetime; and their firearms, though of a quaint variety, were solid and efficacious.
Of the many questions, Old-Hab’s rose loudest.
“Where’s the murd’rer?” he shouted, grounding a “Zulu” fowling-piece. “Which way’d he run, Mile?”
“What murderer?” said Miles, giving Tony all benefits.
“Why,” began Habakkuk, “the black man with the teeth—this Ital—”
But his followers sent up a roar.