"Oh, he ain't a bit stuck up," said Jim quickly, "that's what I
like about him. He's ez nat'ral ez you be, and tuck my arm,
walkin' around, careless-like, laffen at what he was doin', ez ef
it was a game, and he wasn't sole commander of forty men. He's
only a year or two older than me--and--and"--he stopped and looked
uneasily at Maggie.

"So ye've bin craw-fishin' agin?" said Maggie, in her deepest and
most scornful contralto.

"Who's craw-fishin'?" he retorted, angrily.

"What's this backen out o' what you said yesterday? What's all
this trucklin' to the Fort now?"

"What? Well now, look yer," said Jim, rising suddenly, with
reproachful indignation, "darned if I don't jest tell ye everythin'.
I promised HIM I wouldn't. He allowed it would frighten ye."

"FRIGHTEN ME!" repeated Maggie contemptuously, nevertheless with
her cheek paling again. "Frighten me--with what?"

"Well, since yer so cantankerous, look yer. We've been robbed!"

"Robbed?" echoed Maggie, facing him.

"Yes, robbed by that same deserter. Robbed of a suit of my
clothes, and my whiskey-flask, and the darned skunk had 'em on.
And if it hadn't bin for that Leftenant Calvert, and my givin' him
permission to hunt him over the Marsh, we wouldn't have caught