"And are you quite certain there is nothing under those blankets?--nay do not protest--you cannot answer for what may have occurred while your back was turned, on your way to the hut for the rifle." "By hell," exclaimed the settler, blusteringly, "were any man to tell me, Jeremiah Desborough, that there was anythin' beside them blankets in the canoe, I would lick him into a jelly, even though he could whip his own weight in wild cats." "So is it? Now then, Jeremiah Desborough, although I have never yet tried to whip my own weight in wild cats, I tell you there is something more than those blankets; and what is more, I insist upon seeing what that something is." The settler stood confounded. His eye rolled rapidly from one to the other of the officers, at the boldness and determination of this language. Singly, he could have crushed Henry Grantham in his gripe, even as one of the bears of the forest, near the outskirt of which they stood; but there were two, and while attacking the one, he was sure of being assailed by the other--nay, what was worse, the neighborhood might be alarmed. Moreover, although they had kept their cloaks carefully wrapped around their persons, there could be little doubt that both officers were armed, not, as they had originally given him to understand, with fowling pieces, but with (at the present close quarters at least) far more efficient weapons--pistols. He was relieved from his embarrassment by Middlemore exclaiming: "Nay, do not press the poor devil, Grantham; I dare say the story of his hunting is all a hum, and that the fact is, he is merely going to earn an honest penny in one of his free commercial speculations--a little contraband," pointing his finger to the bows, "is it not, Desborough?" "Why now, officer," said the settler, rapidly assuming a dogged air, as if ashamed of the discovery that had been so acutely made, "you won't hurt a poor feller for doin' a little in this way. Drot me, these are hard times, and this here war jist beginnin' quite pits one to one's shifts." "This might do, Desborough, were your present freight an arrival instead of a departure, but we all know that contraband is imported, not exported." "Mighty cute you are, I guess," replied the settler warily, with something like the savage grin of the wild cat to which he had so recently alluded; "but I expect it would be none so strange to have packed up a few dried hog skins to stow away the goods I am goin' for." "I should like to try the effect of a bullet among the skins," said Grantham, leisurely drawing forth and cocking a pistol, after having whispered something in the ear of his companion. "Nay, officer," said Desborough, now for the first time manifesting serious alarm, "you sure-_ly_ don't mean to bore a hole through them innocent skins?"