s soon whistling in the
trees behind the Captain's house. Bascom had scarcely settled himself
under the live-oak when Sonny Ladnier and his younger brother came in
sight with their red-sailed cat-boat, bent on an early trip to Potosi.
They saw the pile of melons, and it drew them like an undertow.

"Wheah yo' ged all dem melons?" they shouted.

"Growed 'em," replied Bascom; "do you want some?"

"Yo' bet yo'!" cried Sonny, tying up the boat. "Hand one ovah."

"What for?"

"W'at faw? W'y, to eat."

"I mean, what will you give me?" Bascom explained.

"Two bits faw two."

Bascom shook his head. There was only one way in which those melons
could be had. After some argument Sonny and his little brother repaired
to the fig-trees, each with a chunk of melon in one hand and a basket in
the other. Sonny Ladnier was big enough to have tried to bully Bascom,
but the people on the bay had a respectable fondness for him, not to
mention his partner.

During the hour, Narcisse Fontaine, big Noel Roget, Rubier Peer, who
came to look for Peter, and Patrice Rodriguez, with his pointed beard
and his reputation for duelling, added themselves to Bascom's force
behind the Captain's house, and the figs were fairly charmed from the
trees. Bascom did not think it safe to leave the melon pile for more
than a moment at a time, and he was sitting alone beside it, and had
just cleaved open the crack of a long striped "rattlesnake," when a
strange schooner passed by a length or two, then came about, and
anchored off the point. She was the _Luna May_, from Pass Christian, and
he had never seen her before. As three men got down in her tender he
could hear their voices as plainly as if they were talking to him.

"'Cose dey sell dem. Wat dey have dem faw?"

"Bud we got no money. We spen' it all las' night."

"We can trade 'im out of some. I give my knife faw one o' dem big ones.
It's a terrib' hot day. Dat little chap be mighty easy to bargain wid.
_Yo'_ see."

"You see," echoed Bascom, chuckling, as they left their skiff, and came
sauntering up to him. "Somethin' I can do for you gentlemans to-day?" he
inquired.

"Whose is dese melons?" asked the first schooner-man.

"Mine, jus' now," said Bascom.

"Aw, get away."

"Well, they is."

"Den I reckon yo' lookin' faw a chance to get rid o' some o' dem."

"Not as I knows on," Bascom said.

"Wat?" cried the second schooner-man. "I'll give yo' dis." He took out a
big Spanish pocket-kn