A Volunteer with Pike. Robert Ames Bennet

      "There will be rain—there is always rain in this northern country of yours. No. You will do me the favor of sharing this cabin with me. There are two berths, as you see."

      I looked gravely at the rude bunks built, one above the other, on the left wall, and bowed my acceptance of the offer.

      "It is well," he continued. "My niece and her woman will share the middle room. There remains only the question of purchase."

      "Leave the bargaining to me," I said quickly, at sight of the shrewd-faced Yankee who came down the wharf as we stepped out into the open prow.

      "The affair is entirely in your hands, doctor," assented the señor.

      The Yankee stepped aboard with an air of brisk business.

      "I cal'clate ye want a boat," he began. "Let ye have this 'un dirt cheap."

      "How much?" I demanded.

      "One seventy-five."

      "Lumber cordelled by keelboat from New Orleans?" I rallied him in smiling irony.

      He looked me up and down with a speculative eye.

      "We-ell, stranger, I might knock off ten dollars."

      "You mean fifty."

      Again he surveyed me; then appraised the rich broadcloth of my companion.

      "Be ye buyin' fer him?" he queried.

      "We make the trip together. I can go as high as a hundred and twenty-five. We could do better at Pittsburg, but are willing to give you the bargain, to save our boots."

      He looked again from my mud-smeared buckskins to the señor's fine apparel, and smiled sourly. "Ye'll git no such boat at the price, here or at Pittsburg, if ye wait till the next freeze. One fifty is my best offer. Take it or leave it."

      "Skiff, kedge, sweeps, poles, and steer-oar included," I stipulated.

      He assented, with well-feigned reluctance: "As she stands—lock, stock, and barrel."

      I handed him a five-bit piece. "Taken! Yet I'd have had you down fifteen more if we were not in haste."

      "I'd ha' eased your high-nosed don of a round two hundred, my lad, had he done his own dickering," muttered he, as, at a word from me, the señor drew out a bulging purse and counted into my palm the hundred and fifty dollars in American gold.