“One would think years and gray hairs should bring wisdom, boy.”
“Yorpy there, dear uncle; think you his grizzled locks thatch a brain improved by long life?”
“Am I Yorpy, boy? Keep to your oar!”
Thus padlocked again, I said no further word till the skiff grounded on the shallows, some twenty yards from the deep-wooded isle.
“Hush!” whispered my uncle, intensely; “not a word now!” and he sat perfectly still, slowly sweeping with his glance the whole country around, even to both banks of the here wide-expanded stream.
“Wait till that horseman, yonder, passes!” he whispered again, pointing to a speck moving along a lofty, riverside road, which perilously wound on midway up a long line of broken bluffs and cliffs. “There—he’s out of sight now, behind the copse. Quick! Yorpy! Carefully, though! Jump overboard, and shoulder the box, and—Hold!”
We were all mute and motionless again.
“Ain’t that a boy, sitting like Zaccheus in yonder tree of the orchard on the other bank? Look, youngster—young eyes are better than old—don’t you see him?”
“Dear uncle, I see the orchard, but I can’t see any boy.”
“He’s a spy—I know he is,” suddenly said my uncle, disregardful of my answer, and intently gazing, shading his eyes with his flattened hand. “Don’t touch the box, Yorpy. Crouch! crouch down, all of ye!”