“Well, I reckon they’re soaked about enough,” said Adam. “All right!” said Chap, with a grand air. “You have my permission to come out now, and I have nothing more to say to you. I think you understand by this time what sort of an opinion I have of you.” And, so saying, he shouldered his gun, and went ashore, where, joining the two boys, he gave them an account of the adventure, which they received with shouts of laughter. “Now, then,” said Adam to the two dripping men, who had climbed on the deck of the Maggie, “you had better put on some dry clothes, and get out of this as quick as you can. I don’t want to see you shot; but you’ve done enough to that young man to warrant him in gettin’ any kind o’ satisfaction out o’ you, short o’ killin’, and I don’t know what he may take it into his head to do next. I s’pose you put in here for water.” The young men were dragging some old trousers and shirts from under their bunks, and while one of them surlily remarked that they had got their water, and did not want to stay there any longer, the other made an earnest appeal to have their guns restored to them. “Not much!” said Adam. “I wouldn’t trust you with ’em afore, and I guess you’re in a worse temper now than you were when I took ’em. We’ll leave the guns at the hotel in Titusville, and you can go there and git ’em; and that’s all I have to say about it.” And, with this remark, Adam left the Maggie, which in ten minutes more had pushed off and was sailing away. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. WAITING FOR A VISITOR. During the rest of that day The Rolling Stone had a fair wind, and made a good trip. An hour after starting she passed the Maggie, which kept well away on the other side of the river. Evening was coming on, when Adam ran his boat in at a point he had been very anxious to make. This was at a solitary little house, at the edge of the woods, inhabited by a man whom he knew. During his former life on the Indian River, Adam had made the acquaintance of nearly all the settlers along the shores, and he was delighted to find that his old friend, Tom Pitman, still lived at this place. Pitman was a tall, wiry man, full of action, and very talkative. He had a small house near the shore, where he lived, with his wife and two half-grown daughters, and, back in the woods, he had cleared a field, which he had planted with pine-apples. Everything about the place seemed neat and in good order. The field and a small yard in front of the house were well fenced, and there was a little pier running out into the water, near which a small boat was moored, while a sail-boat was in course of repair on the beach near by. Pitman came out of his house as The Rolling Stone sailed up, and gave Adam and his companions a hearty welcome; but, in spite of his cheerful manner, Adam noticed that there seemed to be something on his mind. He was continually looking about him, and seemed to be in a great hurry to get the party disposed of for the night.