CHAPTER VI.
GONE TO SEA.
A little way on in his moonlight walk James's ears were saluted by the sound of some one whistling and crackling through the bushes, and soon Biah Carter, emerged into the moonlight, having been out to the same husking where Diana and Bill had been enjoying themselves.

The sight of him resolved a doubt which had been agitating James's mind.

The note to his mother which was to explain his absence and the reasons for it was still in his coat-pocket, and he had designed sending it back by some messenger at the tavern where he took the midnight stage; but here was a more trusty party.

It involved, to be sure, the necessity of taking Biah into his confidence.

James was well aware that to tell that acute individual the least particle of a story was like starting a gimlet in a pine board--there was no stop till it had gone through.