At that moment, the front door swung open unceremoniously, and a pair of very extraordinary human forms came stalking in.
"Up-na-tan!" shouted Guert, with boyish eagerness. "Coco! All loaded down with muskets! What have they been up to?"
"Heap more, out on sled," replied a deep, mellow, African voice. "Ole chief an' Coco been among lobsters. 'Tole a heap."
"Thee bad black man!" said Rachel Tarns. "Up-na-tan, has thee been wicked, too? What has thee been stealing?"
"Ole woman no talk," came half humorously from the very tall shape which had now halted in front of her. "Up-na-tan been all over own island. See King George army. See church prison. Ship prison. See many prisoners. All die, soon. Ole chief say he kill redcoat for kill prisoner. Coco say, too. Good black man. Good Indian."
He might be good, but he was ferociously ugly. The only Indian features discernible about his dress were his moccasons and an old but hidden buckskin shirt. Over this he now had on a tremendous military cloak of dark cloth. On his head was a 'coonskin cap, such as any Connecticut farmer boy might wear. He now put down on the floor no less than six good-looking muskets, all duly fitted with bayonets. Coco did the same, and he, for looks, was equally distinguished. His tall, gaunt figure was surmounted by an undipped mop of white wool, over a face that was a marvel of deeply wrinkled African features. He also wore a military cloak, and both garments were such as might have been lost in some way by petty officers of a Hessian battalion. They were not British, at all events.
Guert glanced at the muskets on the floor and then sprang out of the door to discover what else this brace of uncommon foragers had brought home with them. Just outside the gate there was quite enough to astonish him. It was not a mere hand-sled, but what the country people called a "jumper." It was rudely but strongly made of split saplings, its parts being held together mostly by wooden pins. It had no better floor than could be made of split shingles, and on this lay, now, a closely packed collection of muskets, with several swords, pistols, and a miscellaneous lot of belts, cartridge-boxes, and knapsacks. Coco and Up-na-tan had plainly been borrowing liberally, somewhere or other, and Guert hastened back into the house to get an explanation. Curiously enough, however, both of the foragers had refused to give anything of the kind to the assembly in the Avery dining room.
"Where has thee been, chief?" had been asked by Rachel Tarns. "Tell us what thee and Coco have been doing. We all wish to hear."
"No, no!" interrupted the Indian; "Coco shut mouth. Ole chief tell Guert mother. Where ole woman gone? Want see her!"
"That's so," said Guert. "Mother's about the only one that can do anything with either of them. They used to live a good deal at our house, you know."