“Corporal,” Ventured Collins, as he removed his last garment, “you asked that painted chap if he saw anything green in your eye.  Now, that’s as it may be, but hang me, if it wasn’t a little green to take him for a Pottawattamie?”

“And how do you know he was’nt a Pottawattamie?  Who made you a judge of Indian flesh?” retorted the corporal, with an air of dissatisfaction.

“Didn’t he say he was, and didn’t he wear a chiefs medal?”

“Say?  Yes, I’ll be bound he’d say and wear anything to gull us, but I’m sure he’s no Pottawattamie.  I never seen a Pottawattamie of that build.  They are tall, thin, skinny, bony fellows—­while this chap was square, stoat, broad-shouldered, and full of muscle.”

Corporal Nixon pondered a little, because half-convinced, but would not acknowledge that he could have been mistaken.  “Are you all ready?” he at length inquired, anxious, like most men, when driven into a corner on one topic, to introduce another.

“All ready,” answered Jackson, taking the first plunge in the direction in which he knew the muskets must have fallen.

Before following his example, the others waited for his report.  This was soon made.  He had got hold of one of the muskets, and partly lifted it from its bed, but the net-work of strong weeds above it, opposing too much resistance, he had been compelled to quit his hold, and came to the surface of the water for air.

“Here’s for another trial,” shouted Collins, as he made his plunge in the same direction.  In a few seconds he too, reappeared, bearing in his right hand, not a firelock, but the two missing cartouch boxes.

“Better luck next time,” remarked corporal Nixon.  “I think my lads, if two of you were to separate the weeds with your hands, so as to clear each musket, the other might easily bring it up.”

The suggestion of the corporal was at once acted upon, but it was not, until after repeated attempts had been made to liberate the arms, from their Web-like canopy, that two were finally brought up and placed in the boat.  The third they groped for in vain, until at length, the men, dispirited and tired, declared it was utterly useless to prosecute the search, and that the other musket must be given up as lost.

This, however, did not suit the views of the correct corporal.  He said, pointedly, that he would almost as soon return without his head as without his arms, and that the day having been thus far spent without the accomplishment of the object for which they were there, he was determined to devote the remainder to the search.  Not being a bad diver himself, although he had not hitherto deemed it necessary to add his exertions to those of his comrades, he now stripped, desiring those who had preceded him to throw on their shirts and rest themselves for another plunge, when he should have succeeded in finding out where the missing musket had lodged.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Jackson, pointing to a small, dark object, of a nearly circular shape, which was floating about half way between the surface of the place into which the divers had plunged, and the weeds below.