that hour of the night; and his present business, perhaps, did not
particularly require company.

When he returned at last, he found his own boat safe enough, and he
really could not tell if any of the others had walked away; but he
looked around in vain for any signs of his late comrade. Not that he
spent much time or wasted any great pains in searching for him; and he
muttered to himself, as he gave it up,--

"Gone, has he? Well, then, it's a good riddance to bad rubbidge. I ain't
no aingil, but that feller's a long ways wuss'n I am."

Whether or not old Peter was right in his estimate of himself or of
Burgin, in a few moments more he was all alone in his "cat-boat," and
was sculling it rapidly out of the crooked inlet.

His search for Burgin had been a careless one, for he had but glanced
over the gunwale of "The Swallow." A second look might have shown him
the form of the tramp, half covered by a loose flap of the sail, deeply
and heavily sleeping on the bottom of the boat. It was every bit as
comfortable a bed as he had been used to; and there he was still lying,
long after the sun had looked in upon him, the next morning.

Other eyes than the sun's were to look in upon him before he awakened
from that untimely and imprudent nap.

It was not so very early when Ham Morris and Dabney Kinzer were stirring
again; but they had both arisen with a strong desire for a "talk," and
Ham made an opportunity for one by saying,--