Them fellers must a seed me lookin' through the cracks, kase they didn't tell him what they was agoin' to tell him when they fust come up to the fence." Dan walked about for an hour or more, talking in this way to himself.
The squirrels frisked and barked all around him, but he did not seem to hear them.

He was so busy thinking over his troubles that he scarcely knew where he was going, until at last he found himself standing on the banks of a sluggish bayou that ran through the swamp.
The stream was wide and deep, and near the middle of it and opposite the spot where Dan stood, was a little island thickly covered with briers and cane.

It was known among the settlers as Bruin's Island.
Dan knew the place well.

Many a fine string of goggle-eyes had he caught at the foot of the huge sycamore which grew at the lower end of the island, and leaned over the water until its long branches almost touched the trees on the main shore, and it was here that he had trapped his first beaver.

More than that, the island had been a place of refuge for his father during the war.