Dabney was so tired in mind if not in body, that he postponed until the morrow anything he may have had to say about the tramp.  He was not at all sure whether the latter had recognized him, and at all events the matter would have to wait.  So it came to pass that all the village and the shore was deserted and silent, an hour or so later, when a stoutly built “cat-boat” with her one sail lowered, was quietly sculled up the inlet.  There were two men on board,—­a tall one and a short one,—­and they ran their boat right alongside the “Swallow,” as if that were the very thing they had come to do.

“Burgin,” remarked the tall man, “what ef we don’t find anything arter all this sailin’ and rowin’?  Most likely he’s kerried it to the house.  In course he has.”

The keenly watchful eyes of Burgin had followed the fortunes of that apple-jack from first to last.  To tell the truth, he had more than half tried to work himself in as one of the “sufferers,” but with no manner of success.  He had not failed, however, to see the coveted treasure stowed away, at last, under the half-deck of the “Swallow.”  That had been all the inducement required to get Peter and his boat across the bay, and the old “wrecker” was as anxious about the result as the tramp himself could be.  It was hard to say which of them was first on board the “Swallow.”

* * * * *

A disappointed and angry pair they were when the empty jug was discovered; but Burgin’s indignation was loudest and most abusive.  Peter checked him, at last, with: 

“Look a yer, my friend, is this ’ere your boat?”

“No, I didn’t say it was, did I?”

“Is that there your jug?  I don’t know ‘at I keer to hev one o’ my neighbors abused all night jest bekase I’ve been an’ let an entire stranger make a fool of me.”

“Do you mean me?”

“Well, ef I didn’t I wouldn’t say it.  Don’t git mad, now.  Jest let’s take a turn ’round the village.”

“You go and I’ll wait for ye.  ’Pears like I don’t keer to walk about much.”

“Well, then, mind you don’t run away with my boat.”

“If I want a boat, there’s plenty here better’n your’n.”

“That’s so.  I wont be gone a great while.”

He was, however, whatever may have been his errand.  Old Peter was not the man to be at any loss for one, even at that time of night, and his present business kept him away from the shore a full hour.  When at last he returned he found his boat safe enough, and so, apparently were all the others; but he looked around in vain for any signs of his late companion.  Not that he spent much time or took any great pains in looking, for he muttered to himself: 

“Gone, has he?  Well then, a good riddance to bad rubbidge.  I aint no angel, but he’s a long ways wuss than I am.”

Whether or not old Peter was right in his estimate of himself or of Burgin, in a few moments more he was all alone in his cat-boat, and was sculling it rapidly up the crooked inlet.