"A bustle within, and the sudden opening of the door announced that the noise had been overheard. I held up my finger impressively to Sambo, and we both remained motionless.
"'Who the hell's there?' shouted Desborough, and the voice rang like the blast of a speaking trumpet along the skirt of the forest.
"'Some raccoon looking out for Hartley's chickens, I expect,' said his companion, after a short pause. 'There's nothin' human, I reckon, to be seen movin' at this hour of the night.'
"'Who the hell's there?' repeated Desborough—still no answer.
"Again the door was closed, and under cover of the slight noise made by the settler in doing this, and resuming his seat, Sambo and I accomplished the circuit of the hut. Here we had an unobstructed view of the persons of both. A small store room or pantry communicated with that in which they were sitting at a table, on which was a large flagon, we knew to contain whiskey, and a couple of japanned drinking cups, from which, ever and anon, they 'wetted their whistles,' as they termed it, and whetted their discourse. As they sat each with his back to the inner wall, or more correctly, the logs of the hut, and facing the door communicating with the store-room, left wide open, and in a direct line with the back window at which we had taken our stand, we could distinctly trace every movement of their features, while, thrown into the shade by the gloom with which we were enveloped, we ran no risk of detection ourselves. It is almost unnecessary to observe, after what has occurred this morning, that the companion of Desborough was no other than the soi-disant Ensign Paul Emilius Theophilus Arnoldi; or, more properly, the scoundrel son of a yet more scoundrel father. He wore the dress in which you yesterday beheld him, but beneath a Canadian blanket coat, which, when I first saw him in the hut, was buttoned up to the chin so closely as to conceal everything American about the dress.
"'Well now, I reckon we must lay our heads to do this job;' said the son, as he tossed off a portion of the liquid he had poured into his can. 'There's only that one gun-boat I expect in t'other channel.'
"'Only one, Phil—do you know who commands it?'
"'One of them curst Granthams, to be sure. I say, old boy,' and his eye lighted up significantly as he pointed to the opposite wall. 'I see you've got the small bore still.'
"A knowing wink marked the father's sense of the allusion. 'The devil's in it,' he rejoined, 'if we can't come over that smooth-faced chap some how or other. Did you see anythin' of him as you come along?'
"'I reckon I did. Pretty chick he is to employ for a look-out. Why I paddled two or three times round his gun-boat as it lay 'gin the shore, without so much as a single livin' soul being on deck to see me.'