"What have you seen?" queried the party in the buggy in a low, agitated voice,--a voice I knew I had heard before, and instinctively reached forth my hand and placed it on my companion's arm. "Seen! Not a d--d thing. Your blue-bellied skunk has been too smart for you, Cap. He not only hasn't come himself, but he's got his friends out here on your track." "He has come, I tell you," answered the first speaker. "You know yourself they were asking for him at Gaston's, and that fellow at the bridge told you he saw him ride across." "Then where'd he go to?" said the other, sulkily and savagely. "No man passed Gaston's on horseback, I can swear to that; and if he came at all as far as the bridge, why didn't he come the rest of the way? Where did he go? How did he get back? Are you sure you wrote plain directions?" "Plain! Of course I did. I wrote turn towards the lake, to the south, after crossing the bridge, and he'd find me; and so he would, d--n him!" added the younger man between his teeth. His voice was growing more and more familiar to me every moment in its sulky, peevish tones. "But you said he was a stranger here. How was he to know where the lake lay?" "Suppose he didn't! I told him to turn south. Any man knows north from south I reckon. Perhaps the white-livered sneak was a Yank at bottom, and lost his nerve." "Tain't likely. Not from what I seen of him. His kind don't scare so d--d easy at yours, and he came out here to find you, you bet. Why didn't you say turn to the right instead of south? Damfino which is north or south here anyhow. How was he to know?" "Don't be a fool!" said the other, impatiently, "everybody knows the river runs north and south, and Canal Street runs out right angles to the river, and you turn to the right to go to the lake. It must be south." Here I couldn't help nudging my neighbor, the aide, who was chuckling with delight at this scientific statement. "Well, by Gawd! you may know more 'bout it than I do; but when I got off that boat yesterday morning up there by Julia Street, d--n me if the sun wasn't rising in the west then,--over there across Algiers,--and if the Yank is no better posted on the points of the compass than I am, strikes me he's slipped out of your trap easy enough." "You mean he's gone to the left--past here?" asked the other, snarlingly. "Just that. He's taken the turn to the left. None of these places this side have been open since we came out; and seeing no one, he's kept on, and probably got back to town some other way. Like enough he's in bed and asleep by this time, and here we've been fooling away the whole night." Chilled as I was, trembling 'twixt cold and excitement, I was beginning to enjoy this conversation hugely. More than that, both the aide and myself were beginning to feel assured that Amory was safe.