"No, miss. Cap'n Abe, I mean. This here Am'zon Silt, 'tis plain to be seen, has got more salt water than blood in his veins. Cap'n Abe's a nice feller—not much again him here where he's lived and kep' store for twenty-odd year. 'Ceptin' his yarnin' 'bout his brother all the time. But from the look of Cap'n Am'zon I wouldn't put past him anything that Cap'n Abe says he's done—and more.
"But Abe himself, now, I'd never believed would trust himself on open water."
"Yet," cried Louise, "he's shipped on a sailing vessel, Uncle Amazon says. He's gone for a voyage."
"Ye-as. But has he?" Washy retorted, his head on one side and his rheumy old eyes looking up at her as sly as a ferret's.
"What do you mean?"
"We none of us—none of the neighbors, I mean—seen him go. As fur's we know he didn't go away at all. We're only taking his brother's word for it."
"Why, Mr. Gallup! You're quite as bad as Betty. One would think to hear you and her talk that Cap'n Amazon was a fratricide."
"Huh?"
"That he had murdered his brother," explained the girl.
"That's fratter side, is it? Well, I don't take no stock in such foolishness. Them's Bet Gallup's notions, Cap'n Am'zon's all right, to my way o' thinkin'. I was talkin' about Cap'n Abe."