ertainly not; I am obliged," said the captain quietly.

"He thinks, too, that you will find the best land in the river bottom."

"Of course, of course," said the captain. "Good-day, gentlemen; I am
much obliged."

"If you want any little service performed, pray send," said the doctor;
"we will execute any commission with pleasure."

"I will ask you if I do," said the captain; and the two young men raised
their hats and drew back.

"Father doesn't like men to be so civil," said Man.

"No; he doesn't like strangers," whispered back Rifle.

"Of course he doesn't," said Tim, in the same low voice. "It wasn't
genuine friendliness."

"What do you mean?" said Man.

"Why, they wouldn't have been so full of wanting to do things for us if
it had not been for the girls. They couldn't keep their eyes off them."

"Like their impudence," said Rifle, indignantly.

"Of course. Never thought of that," cried Man.

Just then the captain, a double-barrelled rifle in his hand, and well
mounted, was giving a final look round, when the dirty-looking fellow
lounged up with about a dozen more, and addressed him as duly set down
at the beginning of the first chapter.

But the laughter was drowned by the sound of wheels and the trampling of
hoofs; the wagons and carts moved off, each with a boy for driver, and
Uncle Munday came last, mounted like his brother, to act the part of
herdsman, an easy enough task, for the cattle and spare horses followed
the wagons quietly enough after the fashion of gregarious beasts.

The little caravan had gone on like this for about a mile along a track
which was growing fainter every hundred yards, when Man Bedford gave his
whip a crack, and turned to look back toward the sea.

"We're off now, and no mistake," he said to himself. "What fun to see
Uncle John driving cattle like that! why, we ought to have had Master
Ashantee--Tam o' Shanter--to do that job. I wonder whether we shall see
any fellows up the country as black as he."

His brother and cousin were musing in a similar way, and all ended by
thinking that they were off on an adventure that ought to prove
exciting, since it was right away west into an almost unknown land.

CHAPTER THREE.

"ARE YOU AFRAID?"

After the first few miles the tracks formed by cattle belonging to the
settlers at Port Haven disappeared, and the boys, though still full of
excited anticipations, gazed with something like awe at the
far-spreading park-l