Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/188

 feel I ain't never felt so powerful since that 'ar duel. But I ain't tried to call his name fer, if he'd a knowed 'twar me, he'd a killed me cold-blooded on the spot—that ornery critter would 'a done it."

"Look here, Cap'n," put in the doubting Turner once more. "Why couldn't somebody else have had a hand like that?"

"Nobody but the Old Scratch. Blister my boots, thar ain't no other hand like it created."

To humor the old man, Turner did not insist on this doubt, but nevertheless put another query, "If this was your Bill Perkins—"

"He ain't no Bill Perkins o' mine!" exploded the Cap'n.

"I mean," corrected Turner, smiling. "If this was Bill Perkins, why hasn't he found out you were the Buffum he knew, while he's been prowling around here?"

"He never would 'a knowed no Buffum," explained the old man, "because, when I fust shipped to sea, I warn't Bill Buffum no longer. To make my old daddy easy I called myself out o' my name. I war Jim Happer to all who knowed me aboard ship. That war the name