The new outrage, coming at a time when they were slowly recovering
confidence, had turned the men surly. The loss of the axe, the
handle of which I had told them would, under skillful eyes, reveal
the murderer as accurately as a photograph, was a serious blow.
Again arose the specter of the innocent suffering for the guilty.
They went doggedly about their work, and wherever they gathered
there was muttered talk of the white figure. There was grumbling,
too, over their lack of weapons for defense.

The cook was a ringleader of the malcontents. Certain utensils
were allowed him; but he was compelled at night to lock them in the
galley, after either Burns's inspection or mine, and to turn over
the key to one of us.

On the morning after the attack, therefore, Tom, carrying Singleton's
breakfast to him, told him at length what had occurred in the night,
and dilated on his lack of self-defense should an attack be directed
toward him.

Singleton promptly offered to make him, out of wire, a key to the
galley door, so that he could get what he wanted from it. The cook
was to take an impression of the lock. In exchange, Tom was to fetch
him, from a hiding place which Singleton designated in the forward
house, a bottle of whiskey.

The cook was a shrewd mulatto, and he let Singleton make the key.
It was after ten that morning when he brought it to me. I was
trying to get the details of his injury from Burns, at the time, in
the tent.