ff cleaning the gun, and began to fumble awkwardly in one of
his pockets. After some little time, he produced what appeared to
Zack to be an inordinately long letter, written in a cramped hand, and
superscribed apparently with two long lines of inscription, instead of
an ordinary address. Opening this strange-looking document, Mat guided
himself a little way down the lines on the first page with a very
unsteady forefinger--stopped, and read somewhat anxiously and with
evident difficulty--then put the letter back in his pocket, dropped his
eyes once more on the gun in his lap, and said with a strong emphasis on
the Christian name:--

_"Arthur_ Carr?"

"No," returned Zack. "I never met with a man of that name. Is he a
friend of yours?"

Mat went on scouring the rifle barrel.

Young Thorpe said nothing more. He had been a little puzzled early in
the evening, when his friend had exhibited the fan and tobacco pouch
(neither of which had been produced before), and had mentioned to Mr.
Blyth that they were once intended for "a woman" who was now dead. Zack
had thought this conduct rather odd at the time; but now, when it was
followed by these strangely abrupt references to the name of Carr, by
this mysterious scouring of the rifle and desperate brandy drinking
in solitude, he began to feel perplexed in the last degree about Mat's
behavior. "Is this about Arthur Carr a secret of the old boy's?" Zack
asked himself with a sort of bewildered curiosity. "Is he letting out
more than he ought, I wonder, now he's a little in liquor?"

While young Thorpe was pondering thus, Mat was still industriously
scouring the barrel of his rifle. After the silence in the room had
lasted some minutes, he suddenly threw away his morsel of sand-paper,
and spoke again.

"Zack," he said, familiarly smacking the stock of his rifle, "me and you
had some talk once about going away to the wild country over the waters
together. I'm ready to sail when you are, if--" He had glanced up at
young Thorpe with his vacant bloodshot eyes, as he spoke the last words.
But he checked himself almost at the same moment, and looked away again
quickly at the gun.

"If what?" asked Zack.

"If I can lay my hands first on Arthur Carr," answered Mat, with very
unusual lowness of tone. "Only let me do that, and I shall be game to
tramp it at an hour's notice. He may be dead and buried for anything I
know--"

"Then what's the use of looking after him?" interposed Zac