"Oh, come, Mr Mark, sir, don't get in a huff with a poor fellow. I warn't a-goin' to tell you where it was; I was a-goin' to tell you where it warn't."

"Oh," cried Mark, stamping his foot, "isn't it enough to aggravate a saint? These two are just alike, going on telling you a thing over and over again, especially if it is something you don't want to know. Look here, Buck; I have lost my gun."

"Yes, sir; you said so afore."

"And I know as well as you do where it is not."

"Exactly so, sir. You mean, in the arms rack as we made by driving them hard pegs into the courses of the wall."

"Yes," said Mark. "Well?"

"Well, sir, I was going to tell you--"

"What were you going to tell me?" raged out Mark.

"That when I went there this morning to get the ile bottle--"

"Yes, yes?" cried Mark.

"I run my eyes over the guns, and it struck me like as there was one short."

"The third one?" cried Mark eagerly.

"Yes, sir; that's right."

"Well, of course that was mine. Well, where is it?"

Buck took off his cap, scratched his head, and looked hard at Dean.

"Well, you needn't look at me," said the boy. "I haven't got it."

"No, sir, I can see that," said Buck, and he stared hard and questioningly at Dan, who looked back resentfully.

"Here, don't stare at me, messmate," cried the little sailor. "Think I've got it up my sleeve, or down one of the legs of my trowzes?"

"No, mate; you are such a little 'un that there wouldn't be room," said Buck thoughtfully.

"Right you are, mate; but you see I may grow a bit yet."

"Yes," said Buck, very slowly and thoughtfully, "and pigs may fly."

"Hullo!" cried Dan. "Pigs--pig--arn't likely, is it, as that little chap has took a fancy to it and sneaked it?"

"No," cried Mark indignantly. "The little fellow's as honest as the day."

"Yes, sir," said Buck dreamily, "but blacks is blacks, and whites is whites, and temptation sore long time he bore, till at last he may have given way."

"Oh, bosh!" cried Dean.

"No, sir," said Buck; "don't you say that. I've see'd that often, that little bow and arrow and spear chap looking longingly at that gun and kinder sorter was hupping of it as if it was a hidol as he'd give anything to grab."

"I don't believe he would," cried Mark. "If either of those two blacks would take anything, it would be far more likely to be Mak."

"Yes," said Dean, "but I wouldn't believe it of him. Why, we know for a fact that these blacks, who are something of the same breed, are awful thieves. But no; poor old. Mak is a very brave fellow, and now that he's beginning to talk a bit more English I'm sure he wouldn't rob us of a thing."

"Well, I don't know, Mr Dean, sir," put in Dan. "I wouldn't take upon me to say as he'd pinch a rifle, but it arn't safe to leave him anywhere near cold bones."

"Oh, food," said Mark; "that's nothing for a savage. But you have never known him dishonest over that."

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say dishonest, sir," said Dan, "but if you left a bit of one of them little stag things that we shoot and have after dinner cold for supper, he'd go and look for it again hung up in that pantry. It takes a lot of looking for; and then you don't find it, do you, mate?"

"No," said Buck, rather gruffly; "I do say that, mate. We have been disappinted three or four times and had to be contented with flapjack.

He have got a twist, and no mistake. I have known him eat as much as me and Dan Mann put together, and then look hungry; but I suppose it is his natur' to. You don't think, then, gents, as it's likely that he's n.o.bbled your rifle?"

"Well, I don't know," said Mark. "I hope not."

"So do I, sir," said Dan dreamily. "You see, it makes one feel uncomfortable about his 'bacco box and his knife. But oh, no, sir, I hope not," continued the sailor slowly. "It's true he's a bit too full of that jibber jabber of his as you calls language, but he's getting to talk English now, and since he's been what Mr Dean there calls more civilised I've begun to take to him a bit more as a mate. Oh, no, sir, he wouldn't collar your rifle; an' then as to his sneaking a bit of wittles sometimes, it arn't honest, I know, but he wouldn't take your gun, sir. Why, I put it to you; what good would it be to he? He could not eat that."

"No," said Dean, "but I have heard of savages getting hold of anything in the shape of a tube to turn into a pipe for smoking."

"Do they now, sir?" said Buck thoughtfully. "But of course he wouldn't want the stock, and it's a double gun. That'd be rather a 'spensive pipe, Dan, mate, for he'd have to have two bowls."

"Couldn't he stop up one barrel?"

"Here, I wish you two fellows would leave off chattering," cried Mark.

"Beg pardon, sir," said Buck, rather indignantly. "But it was Mr Dean who started that idea about the pipe."

"Oh, bother! Never mind; I want my rifle."

"That's right, sir; of course you do."

"And I am going to have it found."

"That's right, sir, too. Well, I hope you are satisfied, sir, that it was neither me nor Dan here as took it?"

"Of course I am."

"Then what about old Brown?"

"Oh, no!" cried the boys, in a breath.

"Look here, sir," said Buck, drawing himself up to his full height and seeming to swell out with some big idea; "it couldn't have been neither Peter Dance nor Bob Bacon, 'cause they have got guns to use, and they both tells us lots of times that a gun has been a sort of plaything to them ever since they was babbies."

"Of course," said Mark huffily. "There you go, again, telling us what we know."

Buck hit himself a sharp slap in the mouth as much as much as to say, "I've done"; and the little sailor grinned and said, "And then about old Mak and little Pig: you can't sarch them, because there's nothing to sarch."