changed to another boat and put Sadler, Craney, Irish, Abe Dalrimple,
and Stevey Todd, into mine.

I noticed it as curious about us, that so long as the old man was at
hand, telling us what to do, we all acted chipper and cheerful, but
as soon as we'd drifted apart, we grew quieter, and Stevey Todd began
to act scared and lost, and was for seeing Spanish cruisers drop out
of the air, and for calling the old man continually. Somehow we
dropped apart in the dark.

I've sometimes fancied that Clyde put me in that boat with those men
because it was the lightest boat, and because Sadler, Craney, and
Little Irish were powerful good rowers, and Abe he had this that was
odd about him for a steersman, for though he was always a bit
wandering in his mind, yet he could tell land by the smell. Put him
within twenty miles of land at sea, no matter how small an island,
and he'd smell the direction of it, and steer for it like a bullet,
and that's a thing he don't understand any more than I. I never made
out why Clyde took to me that way, as he surely did, and left me his
shiners as sure as he could, and gave me what chance he could for
getting away, or so I fancied. Just so surely I never saw him again,
when once we'd drifted apart that night among the Windwards.

A New Orleans paper of the week after held an item more or less like
this:

"An incoming steamer from Trinidad, reports the overhauling of a
smuggler, _The Hawk_, by the Spanish cruiser, _Reina Isabella_.
The smugglers scuttled the ship and endeavoured to escape, but
were captured, and are thought to have been all hanged. This summary