“Have a care, boy,” cried Bounce, stooping down and clearing away the earth with his hands. “P’r’aps it’s easy broken. No—why—it’s a keg!”
“So it am,” cried Gibault; “p’r’aps it am poudre.”
At this moment Big Waller and Bounce gave the keg a violent tug and disentombed it, an operation which proved Gibault’s surmise to be wrong, for the shake showed that the contents were liquid. In a moment the plug was driven in, and Bounce, putting his nose to the hole, inhaled the result. He drew back with a look of surprise, and said—
“Brandy!”
“Ha! here is one oder ting,” cried Gibault, laying hold of a bundle and dragging it to light. “Vat can dis be?”
The question was soon answered; the string was cut, the leathern cover unrolled, and a considerable quantity of tobacco was disclosed to the view of the trappers, whose looks showed pretty clearly that this latter discovery was much more agreeable than the former.
After digging deep all round the tree, they came to the conclusion that this was all that the cache contained.
“Now,” said Bounce, after some talk in reference to their newly-found treasure, “wot’s to be done with dis here keg o’ brandy? As for the baccy, we’ll carry that along with us, of course, an’ if Master Redhand’s a liberal feller, we’ll help him to smoke it. But the brandy keg’s heavy, an’ to say truth, I’m not much inclined for it. I never wos fond o’ fire-water.”
“If you’d allow me, friends, to suggest,” said Bertram, whose experience among trappers in other regions had convinced him that spirits was a most undesirable commodity, “I would recommend that you should throw this brandy away. I never saw good come of it. We do not require it for health, neither do we for sickness. Let us throw it away, my friends; it is a dangerous and deceitful foe.”
“Mais, monsieur,” interposed Gibault with a rueful countenance; “you speak de trooth; but though hims be dangereux an’ ver’ bad for drink oftin, yet ven it be cold vedder, it doo varm de cokils of de hart!”