“Stop!  They carry him off!  It is meestake!  Oh!  Oh!”

The Boy was standing for’ard, Nig beside him.

O’Flynn rushed to the wharf’s edge and screamed at the Captain to “Stop, be the Siven!” Mac issued orders most peremptory.  Muckluck wept as excitedly as though there had never been question of the Boy’s going away.  But while the noise rose and fell, Potts drawled a “Guess he means to go that way!”

“No, he don’t!”

“Stop, you--------, Captain!”

“Stop your——­boat!”

“Well,” said a bystander, “I never seen any feller as calm as that who was bein’ took the way he didn’t want to go.”

“D’ye mean there’s a new strike?”

The suggestion flashed electric through the crowd.  It was the only possible explanation.

“He knows what he’s about.”

“Lord!  I wish I’d ‘a’ froze to him!”

“Yep,” said Buck One, “never seen that young feller when he looked more like he wouldn’t give a whoop in hell to change places with anybody.”

As O’Flynn, back from his chase, hoarse and puffing, stopped suddenly: 

“Be the Siven!  Father Brachet said the little divil ’d be coming back to Howly Cross!”

“Where’s that?”

“Lower River camp.”

“Gold there?”

“No.”

“Then you’re talking through your hat!”

“Say, Potts, where in hell is he goin’?”

“Damfino!”

THE END