"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 niggers 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.