"Three or four days! why your bag contains"—and the officer partly raised a corner of the sail, "provisions for a week, or, at least, for two for half that period."
The manner in which the two was emphasised did not escape the attention of the settler. He was visibly disconcerted, nor was he at all reassured when the younger officer proceeded:
"By the bye, Desborough, we saw you leave the hut with a companion—what has become of him?"
The settler, who had now recovered his self-possession, met the question without the slightest show of hesitation:
"I expect you mean, young man," he said, with insufferable insolence, "a help as I had from Hartley's farm, to assist gittin' down the things. He took home along shore when I went back to the hut for the small bores."
"Oh ho, sir! the rifles are not then concealed near the Sandusky swamp, I find?"
For once the wily settler felt his cunning had overreached itself. In the first fury of his subdued rage, he muttered something amounting to a desire that he could produce them at that moment, as he would well know where to lodge the bullets—but, recovering himself, he said aloud:
"The rale fact is, I've a long gun hid, as I said, near the swamp, but my small bore I always carry with me—only think, jist as I and Hartley's help left the hut, I pit my rifle against the outside wall, not being able to carry it down with the other things, and when I went back a minute or two after, drot me if some tarnation rascal hadn't stole it."
"And if you had the British rascal on t'other shore, you wouldn't be long in tucking a knife into his gizzard, would you?" asked Middlemore, in a nearly verbatim repetition of the horrid oath originally uttered by Desborough. "I see nothing to warrant our interfering with him," he continued in an under tone to his companion.
Not a little surprised to hear his words repeated, the man lost somewhat of his confidence as he replied, "Well now, sure-ly, you officers didn't think nothin' o' that—I expect I was in a mighty rage to find my small bore gone, and I did curse a little hearty, to be sure."