e to look
about we shall find lots of other things are gone."

"Yes, sir," said Dan, "no doubt about it, and we have got the right pig
by the ear, Mr Mark. I don't mean our little Pig, but you know what I
do mean; and now, I don't like to take too much upon myself, sir."

"Take an inch, Dan; take an ell. You being a sailor, take as many
fathoms as you like, only find my gun."

"That's just what I'm going to try and do, sir, and old Buck's knife
too, if I can; so if you will allow me, gentlemen, I'll just make a
propogishum."

"Go ahead then, and be smart, before old Brown gets here. Yonder he
comes."

"Well, it's just this way, gentlemen. I say, let's get our two niggers
here, and don't let them think for a moment as we 'spects them, but drum
it into their heads somehow as something's missing. Teach 'em same as
you would a dog, and show them a rifle and a knife, and tell them to
seek. I don't quite know how you are going to make them understand as
it's a black who crawled up in the night, but I daresay you two clever
gents will manage that."

"And what then?" cried the two boys, in a breath.

"What then, sir? Strikes me as them two, the little 'un and the big
'un, will turn theirselves into traps, and we shall wake up some morning
to find that they have got the thief as they caught in the night."

"Well done, mate! I didn't think you had got it in you," growled Buck.

"Bravo!" cried the boys together. "Splendid!"

"Now then," said Mark, "the next thing will be to take the two blacks
into our confidence. Hold hard; there's Brown."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

THE LOST RIFLE.

The long, weary-looking fellow came up, looked sadly from one to the
other, nodding to his companions shortly, and then, turning to the boys,
"Very sorry, gentlemen," he said slowly; "your rifle, Mr Mark. Just
heard from Sir James."

"Yes, it's a nuisance, Dunn. Haven't seen it, I suppose?"

"No, sir, no," replied the man, with a sigh. "Haven't stood it up
against a rock or a tree--"

"There, there, stop that. We have gone all over it, and found out where
it's gone."

"Found--out, sir?"

"Yes; we think some of the blacks have come in the night, crept in and
stolen it."

"Ah!" ejaculated the man, almost animatedly.

"Hullo! Do you know anything about it?" cried Mark.

"My ponies--two nights--uneasy," said the man, very slowly.

"And you got up in the night to see if there were any beasts about?"
cried Mark