"Ah!" cried Mark. "I had forgotten all about that. I know now."

"Hooroar!" said Dan. "He knows now! Found out where you have put it, sir?"

"No, Dan. What about that dark thing that we saw crawling through the clearing the other night, and which neither of us was sure about?"

The little sailor answered by bending his knees and then bringing his right hand down with a tremendous slap upon his right thigh.

"That's it, sir. You've got it. n.i.g.g.e.r crawling up from outside come pickling and stealing. See that, messmate?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Well," said Dan, "it must have been some black beggar from outside come creeping up at night to see what he could smug."

"Yes, Dan," cried Mark, eagerly.

"Well, I'm blessed!" cried Buck. "And--and--and--" He looked first at one lad and then at the other, as he rummaged first with one hand and then with the other in his pockets, and then with both together, before turning savagely upon Dan and roaring out, "Here, who's got my knife?"

"Well, not me, messmate. Here's mine;" and laying hold of the short lanyard about his neck he hauled out his big jack knife from inside the band of his trousers. "You don't call that yourn, do you?"

"Na-ay!" growled Buck. "Wouldn't own a thing like that. Mine was made of the best bit of stuff that ever came out of Sheffield."

"Only a Brummagem handle, though," said Dan.

"Never mind about the handle," growled Buck. "I wouldn't have lost that knife for anything--almost as soon lost my head. You know what a good one it was, Mr Mark, sir. Why, you might have shaved yourself with it, sir, if you had waited till you was grown up."

"Here, none of your chaff, Buck. You can't joke easily. I know I have got no beard, but when it does come I hope it won't come carroty like somebody's."

"Carroty, sir? Not it! Last time I see my mother it had growed while I had been away three years, and she said it made her feel proud, for it was real hauburn."

"Well, never mind about your beard, messmate," said Dan, in a deep, gruff voice. "Do you feel sure as you have lost the knife?"

"I feel sure that it's gone in the night, along of Mr Mark's rifle."

"What, out hunting together?" said Mark, laughing.

"Well, good companions," said Dean. "One shoots the game, and the other skins and cuts it up."

"I don't quite see what you mean, gentlemen," said Dan; "but it seems to me, Mr Mark, that you and me see the beggar that comes hanging about and that sneaked your gun and his knife."

"Yes," said Mark, "that's it; and I feel sure that if we come to look about we shall find lots of other things are gone."

"Yes, sir," said Dan, "no doubt about it, and we have got the right pig by the ear, Mr Mark. I don't mean our little Pig, but you know what I do mean; and now, I don't like to take too much upon myself, sir."

"Take an inch, Dan; take an ell. You being a sailor, take as many fathoms as you like, only find my gun."

"That's just what I'm going to try and do, sir, and old Buck's knife too, if I can; so if you will allow me, gentlemen, I'll just make a propogishum."

"Go ahead then, and be smart, before old Brown gets here. Yonder he comes."

"Well, it's just this way, gentlemen. I say, let's get our two n.i.g.g.e.rs here, and don't let them think for a moment as we 'spects them, but drum it into their heads somehow as something's missing. Teach 'em same as you would a dog, and show them a rifle and a knife, and tell them to seek. I don't quite know how you are going to make them understand as it's a black who crawled up in the night, but I daresay you two clever gents will manage that."

"And what then?" cried the two boys, in a breath.

"What then, sir? Strikes me as them two, the little 'un and the big 'un, will turn theirselves into traps, and we shall wake up some morning to find that they have got the thief as they caught in the night."

"Well done, mate! I didn't think you had got it in you," growled Buck.

"Bravo!" cried the boys together. "Splendid!"

"Now then," said Mark, "the next thing will be to take the two blacks into our confidence. Hold hard; there's Brown."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

THE LOST RIFLE.

The long, weary-looking fellow came up, looked sadly from one to the other, nodding to his companions shortly, and then, turning to the boys, "Very sorry, gentlemen," he said slowly; "your rifle, Mr Mark. Just heard from Sir James."

"Yes, it's a nuisance, Dunn. Haven't seen it, I suppose?"

"No, sir, no," replied the man, with a sigh. "Haven't stood it up against a rock or a tree--"

"There, there, stop that. We have gone all over it, and found out where it's gone."

"Found--out, sir?"

"Yes; we think some of the blacks have come in the night, crept in and stolen it."

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man, almost animatedly.

"Hullo! Do you know anything about it?" cried Mark.

"My ponies--two nights--uneasy," said the man, very slowly.

"And you got up in the night to see if there were any beasts about?"

cried Mark excitedly. "Oh, do go on! Make haste."

"Yes," continued Dunn, more deliberately than ever. "Coming back-- dark--fancied I saw something crawling.--Jumped aside.--Like baboon."

"That was it, Brown, safe. Dan and I saw one too. Now, what's to be done?"

"Shoot," said the man laconically.

"Oh, we don't want to kill them."

"Small shot," said Brown softly.

"Pepper," said Dean.