Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/336

 "Upon my word, there's that everlasting Matt Coyle again. He'll gobble the whole of us this time."

I looked over Joe's shoulder, and there in the bight of the bend, with its ugly nose just sticking around the high wooded point of which I have spoken, was a clumsy scow built of rough boards that had doubtless been stolen from some saw-mill. In the scow sat Matt Coyle and his two boys. I had heard them described so often that I should have recognized them at once, even if the canoe had not told me who they were. They held their paddles poised in the air, and Matt who sat in the bow, having raised his hand to attract the attention of his boys, was now pointing silently toward my master, and going through a series of contortions with his head and eyes that must have had a volume of meaning in them. At any rate Jake and Sam understood them, for they dipped their paddles into the water, and the scow moved around the point and turned directly toward us, while the squatter prepared himself for business by taking off his hat and pushing back his sleeves. I trembled all over