A keen searching glance flashed from the ferocious eye of the ruffian. It was but momentary. Quitting his firm grasp of the knife, he suffered his limbs to relax their tension, and aiming at carelessness, observed with a smile, that was tenfold more hideous from its being forced:
"Well now, I guess, who would have expected to see two officers so fur away from the fort at this early hour of the mornin'?"
"Ah," said the taller of the two, availing himself of the first opening to a pun which had been afforded, "we are merely out on a shooting excursion."
Desborough gazed doubtingly on the speaker. "Strange sort of a dress that for shootin' I guess—them cloaks must be a great tanglement in the bushes."
"They serve to keep our arms warm," continued Middlemore, perpetrating another of his execrables.
"To keep your arms warm! well sure-ly, if that arn't droll. It may be some use to keep the primins dry, I reckon; but I can't see the use of keepin' the fowlin' pieces warm. Have you met with any game yet, officers? I expect as how I can point you out a purty spry place for pattridges and sich like."
"Thank you, my good fellow; but we have appointed to meet our game here."
The dry manner in which this was observed had a visible effect on the settler. He glanced an eye of suspicion around, to see if other than the two officers were in view, and it was not without effort that he assumed an air of unconcern, as he replied:
"Well, I expect I have been many a long year a hunter, as well as other things, and yet, dang me if I ever calculated the game would come to me. It always costs me a purty good chase in the woods."
"How the fellow beats about the bush to find what game we are driving at," observed Middlemore, in an under tone, to his companion.