"I haven't a doubt. You were simply going to attack and rob the flatboat."

A second oath, fiercer than the first, escaped the man's lips. "You talk
that way to me! Do you forget that you're in my power?"

"Ah! Do you think so?" cried Maggie, resting her fists on her hips. "Ah,
ha, ha!" That was the first time I ever heard her laugh--and such a laugh!
"Don't you know, my dear sir, that at one turn of my hand this dog will
strangle you like a chicken? Don't you see four of us here armed to the
teeth, and at another signal our comrades yonder ready to join us in an
instant? And besides, this minute they are rolling a little cannon up to
the bow of the boat. Go, meddle with them, you'll see." She lied, but her
lie averted the attack. She quietly sat down again and paid the scoundrel
not the least attention.

"And that's the way you pay us for taking you in, is it? Accuse a man of
crime because he steps out of his own house to look at the weather? Well,
that's all right." While the man spoke he put his gun into a corner,
resumed his seat, and lighted a cob pipe. The son had leaned on his gun
during the colloquy. Now he put it aside and lay down upon the floor to
sleep. The awakened children slept. Maggie sat and smoked. My father,
Joseph, and 'Tino talked in low tones. All at once the old ruffian took
his pipe from his mouth and turned to my father.

"Where do you come from?"

"From New Orleans, sir."

"How long have you been on the way?"