As he spoke, a man coming up from the cabin joined them. His figure, though slight, was firm and compact. He was of medium height; his complexion naturally fair, was somewhat bronzed by the weather, his hair was light, his eyes grey, and his face as a whole, one which many would at first sight call handsome. Yet it was one that you could not look on with pleasure for any length of time. There was something in his cold grey eye that sent a chill into your blood, and you could not help thinking that there was deceit, and falsehood in his perpetual smile. Although his age was forty-five, there was scarcely a wrinkle on his face, and you would not take him to be over thirty. Such was Captain Flint, the commander and owner of the little schooner _Sea Gull_. "Captain," said Rider, when the other had joined the group; "Joe and I was talking about that gal just afore you came up, and I was a sayin' to him that I was afeard that she would git us into trouble, and I would speak to you about it." "Well," said Captain Flint, after a moment's pause, "if this thing was an affair of mine entirely, I should tell you to mind your own business, and there the matter would end, but as it concerns you as well as me, I suppose you ought to know why it was done. "The girl's father, as you know, has all along been one of our best customers. And we suppose that he was too much interested in our success to render it likely that he would expose any of our secrets, but since he's been made a magistrate, he has all at once taken it into his head to set up for an honest man, and the other day he not only told me that it was time I had changed my course and become a fair trader, but hinted that he had reason to suspect that we were engaged in something worse than mere smuggling, and that if we did not walk pretty straight in future, he might be compelled in his capacity of magistrate to make an example of us. "I don't believe that he has got any evidence against us in regard to that last affair of ours, but I believe that he suspects us, and should he even make his suspicions public, it would work us a great deal of mischief, to say the least of it. "I said nothing, but thinks I, old boy, I'll see if I can't get the upper hand of you. For this purpose I employed some of our Indian friends to entrap, and carry off the girl for me. I took care that it should be done in such a manner as to make her father believe that she was carried off by them for purposes of their own. "Now, he knows my extensive acquaintance with all the tribes along the river, and that there is no one who can be of as much service to him in his efforts to recover his daughter, as I, so that he will not be very likely to interfere with us for some time to come. "I have seen him since the affair happened, and condoled with him, of course. "He believes that the Indian who stole his daughter was the chief Fire Cloud, in revenge for some insult received a number of years ago.