He blew out a long wreath of smoke. "Well, it's hardly my place to criticise him," he answered, smiling, "but to be quite candid, I should get rid of him as soon as possible if I were in your shoes. I don't want to do the fellow an injustice, but from what I saw of him while I was here I mistrust him profoundly."
Ross glanced at me with rather a triumphant expression.
"I daresay you're right," I said. "He certainly doesn't err on the side of cheerfulness."
As a matter of fact, his warning, though doubtless a well-intended one, only increased my determination not to act hastily in the matter. There is a regrettable streak of obstinacy in my character which always gets up against other people's advice, and, in addition to that, I had an unaccountable feeling inside me that Bascomb was not really as black as he was painted. In spite of his surliness, he gave me the impression of being an honest fellow, and when it comes to judging character I am prepared to back my instincts against a good deal of circumstantial evidence.
Something, however, urged me to keep my ideas to myself, so, changing the conversation, I asked Manning if he could tell me anything about the prospects of wild fowling during the coming winter. I had evidently hit on the right source of information, for he at once began to discuss the subject in a fashion which showed me that he knew every creek and marsh throughout the length and breadth of the estuary.
"There's plenty of sport," he added, "any amount of it; only, if you don't mind my giving you a tip, you want to be a little careful how you go about it. The fact is that some of these fellows round here—the professional gunners, I mean—are as jealous as hell. They are a rough lot, and I wouldn't put much beyond them when they get really nasty."
I looked at him with some surprise. I had run across a certain number of these gentry when I had been messing around in the motor launch with Bobby Dean, and although they were a queer crowd in their way, I should never have suspected them of being dangerous.
"You don't mean to say they'd take a pot shot at one," I said, "or anything bloodthirsty of that sort?"
"It sounds rather a large order," he admitted. "All the same, when I first came here I had a couple of devilish narrow escapes. They may have been accidents, of course, but if so—" He shrugged his shoulders in a fashion that was sufficiently expressive.
"It doesn't seem to have interfered much with your shooting," put in Ross.