“Dave’s goin’ to pay the bill,” added Dan.  “I done heard him say so.”

“The ongrateful an’ ondutiful scamp!” exclaimed Godfrey.  “If he’s got that much money, why don’t he give it to me, like he had oughter do?  I need it more’n Silas does.  Hear anything else, Dannie?”

“Yes; General Gordon says, why don’t you come home an’ go ’have yourself?  Nobody wouldn’t pester you.”

“Does you see anything green in these yere eyes?” asked Godfrey, looking steadily at Dan.  “That would do to tell some folks, but a man what’s fit the Yanks ain’t so easy fooled.  I’m safe here, an’ here I’ll stay, till——­Hear anything else, Dannie—­anything ’bout them two city chaps, Clarence an’ Marsh Gordon?”

“O, they’ve gone home long ago.”

“You didn’t hear nothing about them gettin’ into a furse afore they went, did you?”

“Course I have.  Everybody knows that you an’ Clarence thought Don was ole Jordan an’ shet him up in the tater-hole.”

“An’ sarved him right, too,” exclaimed Godfrey.  “I reckon he’s well paid fur cheatin’ me outen that chance of making eighty thousand dollars.  I heard Clarence was robbed afore he went away,” added Godfrey, at the same time turning away his head and looking at Dan out of the corner of his eyes.

“I didn’t hear nothing about that,” said Dan.

Godfrey drew a long breath of relief.  Ever since he took up his abode on the island he had been torturing himself with the belief that the robbery of which he was guilty was the talk of the settlement, and that he would be arrested for at if he should ever show himself at the landing again.  He breathed much easier to know that his fears on this score were groundless.

“Hear anything else, Dannie?” asked Godfrey, and his voice was so cheerful and animated that the boy looked at him in amazement.  “What’s Dave an’ the ole woman doin’?”

“That thar Dave is goin’ to git rich, dog-gone it,” replied Dan, in great disgust.  “He got a letter from some feller up North this mornin’ tellin’ him if he would trap fifty dozen live quail fur him, he’d pay him so’t he could make three dollars a dozen on ’em.  I seed Don give him the letter, an’ I heard ’em a talkin’ and a laughin’ about it.”

“That’s what makes me ’spise them Gordons so,” said Godfrey, slapping the side of the canoe with his open hand.  “They’re all the time a boostin’ Dave, an’ me and you could starve fur all they keer.  Now jump out, an’ we’ll go up to my house an’ talk about it.  We’ll leave the boat here, so’t it will be handy when you want to go back.”

As Godfrey spoke the bow of the canoe ran deep into the soft mud which formed the beach on that side of the island, and the father and son sprang out.  Godfrey led the way along a narrow, winding path which ran through the cane, and after a few minutes walking ushered Dan into an open space in the centre of the island.  Here stood the little bark lean-to that he called his house.  The cane had been cleared away from a spot about fifteen feet square, and piled up around the outside, so that it looked like a little breastwork.