"Ho! ho!" laughs Corkey. "Let's see them fingers! Got any more in
your pockets?"

"N-n-n-noah," answers the boy.

"Got six toes, too?"

"Y-y-yes, sah!"

"A dead mascot!" says Corkey. It is an auspice of the most eminent
fortune. Corkey from this moment rejects the collectorship, and stakes
all on going to Congress. Thoughts of murdering Lockwin out here in
this wilderness come into the man's mind.

"I wouldn't do that, nohow. Oh, I'll never be worked off--none of that
for me!"

In Corkey's tongue, to be worked off is to be hanged.

"Nixy. I'll never be worked off. But it would be easy to throw him
from the deck to-night. Some of the boys would do it, too, if they
knew him."

The man grows murderous.

"Easy enough. Somebody slap his jaw and get him in a fight. Oh, he'll
fight quick enough. Then three or four of 'em tip him into the lake.
Why, it ain't even the lake out here. It's Georgian Bay. It's out of
the world, too. My father was in Congress. My grandfather was in.
Wonder how they got there? Wonder if they did any dirt?"