"Turn into the reeds!" I says, and we crouched there in the boat.
"It's just where the house is," I says, "or it was. There wasn't any
house then."
Monson shook with laughter though he kept it quiet, and I don't know
what pleased him. It would have pleased me then to see him dead, I
was that savage for the people in the house. One spot on a mean
little island, and they'd squatted on it! Yet it was plain enough,
for the inlet led up to the three trees, which seemed to invite a man
to do there whatever he had planned to do.
"Stuff 'em up their chimney," says Monson. "Tip the hut into the
creek. That joke's on them, ain't it?"
I didn't see how the joke was on them.
"Why, I never knew an Injy islander to dig a cellar," he says: "They
lie on the ground and get ague. Course, they might dig a hole."
The door of the little house was closed, when we came soft along the
muddy shore and crept up to the window. There were five men inside,
around a table, leaning forward, whispering together and drinking
aguardiente. That's what Kid Sadler on the _Hebe Maitland_ used
to call "affectionate water." They were small men, but fierce-looking
and black-eyed, and they appeared as if they were talking state
secrets, or each explaining his special brand of crime.
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