First of all Thad threw the traps aboard, trying to look disappointed while so doing.
"Oh! come off, you!" cried his chum, who could see that there was something assumed in the actions of the returned sportsman; "think I don't just glimpse a tail like a round file sticking up over the gunnel? Just as you said last night, it's only a question of HOW MANY."
"One!" said Thad, as he tossed a young 'possum on deck.
"But that tail is still there!" cried his comrade.
"Two!"
"My! you make my mouth water some. That tail—"
"Three, and that takes your old tail. Now, what d'ye say to that for good hick. Ain't we going to live high for a while? I don't suppose you happened to see anything suspicious around?" and Thad, as he spoke, handed up the gun which he had made sure to carry with him "in case any more vicious dogs chanced to be roaming near by," he had explained at the time he departed.
"Why, no, of course not; but what makes you ask such a silly question as that, Thad?"
"Silly it may be, but I give you my word I heard a man cough just as I climbed into the dinghy," asserted Thad.
But Maurice only smiled. Truth to tell he felt positive that there had been nothing to the scare of the preceding night. Surely the ordinarily alert Dixie must have barked had any stranger been moving about on the deck while they sat in the cabin.