nervous, I saw no cause for the boy's abject dread, having yet to learn
that anything not comprehensible to the savage mind is set down at once
as being the work of some evil spirit.

He caught my arm and looked round, the whites of his eyes showing
strangely, and his thick lips seemed drawn in as if to make a thin line.

"Come 'way," he whispered. "Run, Mass' George, run, 'fore um come and
cotch us."

"Who? What?" I said, half angrily, though amused.

"Hush! Done holler, Mass' George, fear um hear. Come take us bofe,
like um took de gun."

"I have it," I said suddenly. "Your father has come up the river after
us, and he has taken the gun to tease us. Hi! Hannibal--Vanity--Van!"

"Oh, Mass' George! Oh, Mass' George, done, done holler. Not fader.
Oh, no. It somefing dreffle. Let run."

"Why isn't it your father playing a trick?"

"Him couldn't play um trick if him try. No, Mass' George, him nebber
play trick. It somefing dreffle. Come 'way."

"Well, we were going back," I said, feeling rather ashamed of my
eagerness to get away, and still half uneasy about the gun, as I looked
up at the tree where we had slept to see if I had left it there.

No; that was impossible, because I had had it to shoot the ducks. But
still I might have put it somewhere else, and forgotten what I had done.

I turned away unwillingly, and yet glad, if that can be understood, and
with Pomp leading first, we began our retreat as nearly as possible over
the ground by which we had come.

For some little distance we went on in silence, totally forgetting the
object of our journey; but as we got more distant from the scene of our
last adventure, Pomp left off running into bushes and against trees in
spite of my warnings, for he had been progressing with his head screwed
round first on one side then on the other to look behind him, doing so
much to drive away such terror as I felt by his comical aspect, that I
ended by roaring with laughter.

"Oh, Mass' George," he said, reproachfully, "you great big foolish boy,
or you no laugh like dat all. You done know what am after us."

"No," I said; "but I know we lost one of our guns, and father will be
very cross. There, don't walk quite so fast."

"But Pomp want to run," he said, pitifully.

"And we can't run, because of the bushes and trees. I don't think there
was anything to be afraid of, after all."

"Oh! Run, Mass' George, run!" yelled Pomp; and instead of running