David could not say a word in reply.  He felt as if every drop of blood in his body had been turned into ice.  He wiped the water from his eyes, glanced over his shoulder, to make sure that his father had not followed him into the bayou, and struck out for the opposite bank.  Godfrey coaxed, promised and threatened to no purpose.  David would not come back, and neither would he make any answer.  He held as straight across the bayou as the current would permit, and when he reached the shore, he climbed out and disappeared in the bushes.

“He’s gone,” thought Godfrey, throwing away his switch and slowly retracing his steps toward the camp, “an’ here’s more trouble for me.  The pinter’s gone too, an’ that takes money outen my pocket an’ puts it into the pockets of them pizen Gordons.  Dave’ll tell everything he knows as soon as he gets hum, an’ that’ll bring the constable up here arter me.  I must go furder back in the cane, but I won’t go outen the settlement, an’ nobody shan’t drive me out nuther, till I get my hands onto them hundred an’ fifty dollars.  Then nobody won’t ever hear of me ag’in—­Dan nor none of ’em.  It’s jest a trifle comfortin’ to know that that thar mean Dave can’t do no more shootin’; he lost his gun.”

Yes, David’s faithful friend and companion was gone.  It slipped from his grasp as he struck the water, and was now lying at the bottom of the bayou.  He felt the loss as keenly as Don Gordon would have felt the loss of his fine breech-loader.

David thought he had never before been so nearly frozen as he was when he struck the opposite bank of the bayou; but a few minutes’ vigorous exercise put his blood in circulation again, and then he began to feel more comfortable.  He followed the bayou until he reached the lake, and then he plunged into the water again, and swam across to the other shore.  It was cold work, but he had no boat, and so there was nothing else he could do.  He was a very forlorn-looking object indeed, when he reached the cabin.  Dan, who was still sunning himself on the bench, must have thought so, for when his brother first appeared in sight, he jumped up and stared at him as if he could not quite make up his mind whether the approaching object was David Evans, or one of the dreaded haunts that lived in the General’s lane.  He could not wholly satisfy himself on this point until he had made some inquiries.  “Is that you your own self, Davy?” he asked, holding himself ready to take to his heels in case a satisfactory answer was not promptly returned.

David replied that it was.

“What’s the matter of you, an’ whar you been?” continued Dan.  “Whar’s your gun?”

“I have swam the bayou twice, and I have been taking a walk in the woods.  My gun is in the water near the foot of Bruin’s Island.”

Dan opened his eyes and was about to propound a multitude of questions, when something that came around the corner of the cabin just then checked him.  It was Don Gordon’s pointer.  He had found his way to the cabin and taken quiet possession of his bed in the kennel, and Dan was none the wiser for it until that moment.  Hearing the sound of David’s voice, the dog came out to meet him, and the two appeared to be overjoyed to see each other again.  Dan opened his eyes wider than ever, and backed toward his seat on the bench without saying a word.