"Take a look at him and see for yourself," replied Cabot.
So White crept noiselessly up the companion ladder and peeped cautiously out. Arsenic still squatted where Cabot had left him, gazing idiotically off into space. At the same time a close observer might have imagined that his beady eyes twinkled with a gleam of interest as White's head appeared above the companion coaming.
"I guess it is all right," said White, rejoining his friend.
"Of course it is. He couldn't swim ashore with the things, and there isn't any other way he could make off with them, except by taking them in the dinghy, and that chump couldn't any more manage a boat than a cow."
In spite of this assertion Cabot finished his meal with all speed, and then hurried on deck, where he uttered a cry of dismay. A single glance showed him that their guest, together with all the supplies prepared for their journey, was no longer where he had left him. A second glance disclosed the dinghy half way to the beach, while in her stern, sculling her swiftly along with practised hand, stood the wooden-headed young savage who didn't know how to manage a boat.
"Come back here, you sneak thief, or I'll fill you full of lead," yelled Cabot, and as the Indian paid not the slightest attention he drew his revolver and fired. He never knew where the bullet struck, but it certainly did not reach the mark he intended, for Arsenic merely increased the speed of his boat without even looking back.
So angry that he hardly realised what he was doing, Cabot cocked his pistol and attempted to fire again, but the lock only snapped harmlessly, and there was no report. Then he remembered that he had expended several shots the day before in a fruitless effort to attract attention on board a distant vessel seen from the lookout, and had neglected to reload.
As he started for the cabin in quest of more cartridges he came into collision with White hurrying on deck.
"What is the matter?" inquired the latter, as soon as he regained the breath thus knocked out of him.
"Oh, nothing at sill," replied Cabot, with ironical calmness, "only we've been played for a couple of hayseeds by a wooden-faced young heathen who don't know enough to go in when it rains. In his childish folly he has gone off with the dinghy, taking our provisions along as a souvenir of his visit, and he didn't even have the politeness to look round when I spoke to him. Oh! but it will be a chilly day for little Willy if I catch him again."