"Why now, officer," said the Yankee, rapidly assuming a dogged air, as if ashamed of the discovery that had been so acutely made, "I expect you won't hurt a poor fellor 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?" "True," said Middlemore, imitating, "if he fires, the hole will be something more than SKIN deep I reckon--these pistols, to my knowledge, send a bullet through a two inch plank at twenty paces." As Middlemore thus expressed himself, both he and Grantham saw, or fancied they saw, the blankets slightly agitated. "Good place for HIDE that," said the former, addressing his pun to the Yankee, on whom however it was totally lost, "show us those said skins, my good fellow, and if we find they are not filled with any thing it would be treason in a professed British subject to export thus clandestinely, we promise that you shall depart without further hindrance." "Indeed, officer," muttered the settler, sullenly and doggedly, "I shan't do no sich thing. Yon don't belong to the custom-house I reckon, and so I wish you a good day, for I have a considerable long course to run, and must be movin'." Then, seizing the paddles that were lying on the sand, he prepared to shove the canoe from the beach. "Not at least before I have sent a bullet, to ascertain the true quality of your skins," said Grantham, levelling his pistol. "Sure-LY," said Desborough, as he turned and drew himself to the full height of his bony and muscular figure, while his eye measured the officer from head to foot, with a look of concentrated but suppressed fury, "you wouldn't dare to do this--you wouldn't dare to fire into my canoe-- besides, consider," he said, in a tone somewhat deprecating, "your bullet may go through her, and you would hardly do a fellor the injury to make him lose the chance of a good cargo." "Then why provoke such a disaster, by refusing to show us what is beneath those blankets?" "Because it's my pleasure to do so," fiercely retorted the other, "and I won't show them to no man." "Then is it my pleasure to fire," said Grantham. "The injury be on your own head, Desborough--one--two--."