“Just as you please,” answered corporal Nixon.  “By and bye, sogers go to the Fort—­take Injin with ’em.”

“Wah!  Injin cross here,” and as he spoke, he sprang again to the bow of the boat, and at a single bound cleared the intervening space to the very stern.

Several heavy splashes in the water.—­a muttered curse from the corporal—­some confusion among his men, and the savage was seen nearly half-way across the river, swimming like an eel to the opposite shore.

“Damn the awkward brute!” exclaimed the former, angrily.  “How many muskets are there overboard, Jackson?”

“Only three—­and two cartouch boxes.”

“Only three indeed!  I wish the fellow had been at old Nick, instead of coming here to create all this confusion.  Is the water deep at the stern?”

“Nearly a fathom I reckon,” was the reply.

“Then, my lads, you must look out for other fish to-day.  Jackson, can you see the muskets at the bottom?”

“Not a sign of them, corporal,” answered the man, as lying flat on the boat, he peered intently into the water.  “The bottom is covered with weeds, and I can just see the tails of two large pikes wriggling among them.  By Gemini, I think if I had my rod here, I could take them both!”

“Never mind them,” resumed the corporal, again delivering himself of a little wit; “muskets will be of far more use to us just now than pikes.  We must fish them up—­there will be the devil to pay if we go home without them.”

“Then there’s no other way than diving for them,” said Jackson, still looking downwards.  “Not even the glitter of a barrel can I see.  They must have buried themselves in the weeds.  I say, Weston,” slightly raising his head and turning his face to the party named, “You’re a good diver?”

“Yes, and Collins is better than me.”

“Well then, here’s at it,” resumed Jackson, rising and commencing to strip.  “It’s only by groping and feeling that we can find the arms, and when once we’ve tumbled on ’em, it will be easy enough to get ’em up with one hand, while we swim with the other.  We must plunge here from the stern,” he added, as the men whom he had named jumped on board and commenced stripping themselves.

“How came the Injin to knock the muskets overboard, Corporal?” inquired one of the party who had not yet spoken—­a fat, portly man, with a long hooked nose, and a peaked chin.

“I’m dashed,” replied Nixon, “if I can tell myself, though I was looking at him as he jumped from one end of the boat to the other.  All I know is, the firelocks were propped against the stern of the boat as we placed them, with the backs of the cartouch boxes slung under the ramrods, and I suppose, for I don’t know how else it could be done, that instead of alighting on the seat, he must have passed it, and putting his foot on the muzzles, tipped them with the weight of his body, head over heels into the water.”