Presently the two men could be seen through the trees. Quintal was sitting on a felled tree, looking fiercely at McCoy, who stood beside him.
“I tell you the baccy is mine,” said Quintal.
“It’s nothin’ o’ the sort, it’s mine,” answered McCoy, snatching the coveted weed out of the other’s hand.
Quintal jumped up, hit McCoy on the forehead, and knocked him down.
McCoy instantly rose, hit Quintal on the nose, and tumbled him over the log on which he had been sitting.
Not much the worse, Quintal sprang to his feet, and a furious set-to would have immediately followed if the arrival of Christian and his party had not prevented it. It was no easy matter to calm the ruffled spirits of the men who had treated each other so unceremoniously, and there is no doubt the bad feeling would have been kept up about the tobacco in dispute if Christian had not intervened. McCoy reiterated stoutly that the tobacco was his.
“You are wrong,” said Christian, quietly; “it belongs to Quintal. I gave it to him this morning.”
As there was no getting over this, McCoy returned the tobacco with a bad grace, and Christian was about to give the assembled party some good advice about not quarrelling, when the mother of little Sally appeared suddenly, wringing her hands, and exclaiming in her native tongue, “My child is lost! my child is lost!”
As every one of the party, even the roughest, was fond of Sally, there was an eager and anxious chorus of questioning.
“Where away did ’ee lose her?” asked McCoy; but the poor mother could only wring her hands and cry, “Lost! lost!”