But the pilot had left the house and taken the glass with him.

The Judge continued: 

“I saw the whole transaction through the window.  I was so close that I saw the sheriff’s assailant’s very eyes.  I’d know that fellow’s face if I saw it in Africa.”

“Why, they’re both hurt!” exclaimed the captain.  “They’ve thrown a coat over one, and they’re crowdin’ around the other.  What the—­They’re comin’ back without ’em—­need whisky to bring ’em to, I suppose.  Why didn’t I send whisky down by the other boat?  There’s an awful amount of time being wasted here.  What’s the matter, Mr. Bell?” shouted the captain, as the boat approached the steamer.

“Both dead!” replied the officer.

“Both?  Now, ladies and gentlemen,” exclaimed the captain, turning toward the passengers, who were crowded forward just below him, “I want to know if that isn’t a streak of the meanest kind of luck?  Both the Chums gone!  Why, I won’t be able to hold up my head in New Orleans.  How came it that just those two fellows were knocked out?”

“Red tumbled out, and Black jumped in after him,” replied the officer.  “Red must have been caught in an eddy and tangled in the old tree’s roots—­clothes torn almost off—­head caved in.  Black must have burst a blood-vessel—­his face looked like a copper pan when he reached shore, and he just groaned and dropped.”

The captain was sorry, so sorry that he sent a waiter for brandy.  But the captain was human—­business was business—­the rain was falling, and a big log was across the boat’s bow; so he shouted: 

“Hurry up and bury ’em, then.  You ought to have let the second boat’s crew gone on with that, and you have gone back to your soundings.  They was the Chums, to be sure, but now they’re only dead roustabouts.  Below there!  Pass out a couple of shovels!”

“Perhaps some ladies would go down with the boat, captain—­and a preacher, too, if there’s one aboard,” remarked the mate, with an earnest but very mysterious expression.

“Why, what in thunder does the fellow mean?” soliloquized the captain, audibly.  “Women—­and a preacher—­for dead roustabouts?  What do you mean, Mr. Bell?”

“Red’s a woman,” briefly responded the mate.

The passengers all started—­the captain brought his hands together with a tremendous clap, and exclaimed: 

“Murder will out!  But who’d have thought I was to be the man to find out the secret of the Carmi Chums?  Guess I’ll be the biggest man on the New Orleans levee, after all.  Yes, certainly—­of course some ladies’ll go—­and a preacher, too, if there’s such a man aboard.  Hold up, though—­we’ll all go.  Take your soundings, quick, and we’ll drop the steamer just below the point, and tie up.  I wonder if there’s a preacher aboard?”

No one responded for the moment; then the Judge spoke.

“Before I went into the law I was the regularly settled pastor of a Presbyterian Church,” said he.  “I’m decidedly rusty now, but a little time will enable me to prepare myself properly.  Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.”