'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around
on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what
he sees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it.
Pretty soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to
stabboard and quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I
says--

'"What's that?" He says, sort of pettish,--

'"Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l."

'"An empty bar'l!" says I, "why," says I, "a spy-glass is a fool to your
eyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?" He says--

'"I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be,"
says he.

'"Yes," I says, "so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a
body can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that," I says.

'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I
says--

'"Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, I
believe."

'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it
must be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into the
crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the