BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST. 
217 
thropic proposition at once, and was instantly seconded by 
my friend H , who was liimself a wary and experienced 
traveller. A comparative stranger to this whole region, I had 
no definite suspicion, and for all I knew to the contrary, this 
proposition might have been as unsophisticated and simply un- 
meaning as any expression of the security of property that 
might have fallen from the lips of a piping shepherd peasant 
of Arcadia. But of a sooth, I had somehow learned to dis- 
trust Arcadias in general, and river-shore Arcadias in partic- 
ular. To be sure, my friend's manner had not been unnoted ; 
but as he had not chosen to tender an explanation, I did not 
choose to ask one, and besides, there was in the manner of 
this man of the torch, whom I had closely watched, a some- 
thing which I did not understand — in the way in which he 
tried the weight of those unfortunate silver-mounted boxes as 
they were passed on to him by the boat's crew, for him to 
keep in a convenient place upon the shore ! Our Yankee, 
whom self-sufficiency had evidently — ^as we say in the 
West — "struck with the blind staggers," could not help 
making the matter worse by joking with the fellow about 
them. 
" Aint they very heavy?" asked he, with a shrewd wink 
at us. " They had oughter have somethin' in 'em, I guess !" 
Therewith he snapped his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, 
licked out his tongue and guffawed obstreperously. The fel- 
low said — ^" Yes, they is !" — and looking up with a furtive 
glance, he too laughed — ^but it v/as with a strange laugh — 
" You seem to be all right !" 
I noticed this incident and it threw me at once into the im- 
perative mood, and seizing one end of the trunk of my friend, 
which I knew to contain a large amount of valuables, I or- 
dered the fellow to take the other, and whispering to H , 
as I passed him, said, 
" Stay here ; I will watch in the cabin !" 
The cabin of our compulsory host was about fifty paces 
from the landing, and to reach it we had to pass through piles 
