"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." "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. Nigger 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.