"Look out, Don! Look out!" he exclaimed. "He is coming!"

"Let him come," replied Don, retreating backward along the path.

"Run! run!" entreated Bert.

"That's quite impossible. I'm doing the best I can now. If he shows
himself I'll fill his head full of number six shot."

Godfrey continued to growl and rattle the cane at intervals, but
there was no need of it, for Don was quite as anxious to reach his
boat and leave the island as Godfrey and Dan were to have him do so.
He retreated along the path with all the speed he could command,
holding himself ready to make as desperate a fight as he could if
circumstances should render it necessary, and presently a rattling of
oars and a splashing in the water told the listeners that he and his
brother were pushing off and making their way down the bayou. In
order to satisfy himself on this point, Godfrey crawled over the pile
of cane, behind which he had been concealed and moved quickly, but
noiselessly along the path, closely followed by Dan. On reaching the
edge of the cane they looked down the stream and saw the brothers
twenty rods away in their boat, Bert tugging at the oars as if his
life depended on his exertions. The danger of discovery was over for
the present, but how were Dan and his father to leave the island now
without swimming? Don had taken his canoe away with him.

"If I could have my way with them two fellers they'd never trouble
nobody else," exclaimed Godfrey, shaking his fist at the departing
boat. "Whar be I goin' to hide now, I'd like to know?"