Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/187

 Turner flushed, but kept out of a dispute.

"When I war tied that-a-way," went on the old man, "I knowed it war a sailor that turned the trick, that's what I knowed fust."

Turner nodded in approval of his own suspicions along this line.

"I tried to turn my head, but, quick as lightning, a hand slip roun' my bandanna handkerchief, and though I jerk my derndest he got it over my eyes; but, mates, befo' he done that thing, I seed a fist on my larboard side, and 'twar his'n. I'd a knowed that claw if I'd a seen it hangin' on a monkey-tree in Africky. 'Twar Bill Perkins's."

At the harrowing thought, the Cap'n paused to recover from his emotion, and demanded another draft of his medicine.

"Bill Perkins," he continued, apparently refreshed, "had two claws on his left handle. They warn't no longer than the first joint; his fingers warn't never cut off; he come into the world that way, fer them stumps had a nail growin' on the end o' each of 'em. 'Twar Bill Perkins's left I seen. One second I seen it, but in that second I knowed. And I felt a burnin'