"Yes, Pat, I ain't ashamed to own it—I am scart. I tell you, 'twixt you and me, there's danger hangin' over this craft. I can smell it in the air, I can feel it in my bones. If we don't see trouble afore to-morrow morning, then I'm most mightily mistaken."
"I incline to the same opinion, though I wouldn't be saying it afore the lady down there, and frightenin' the wits out of her. I'd like to know, be the same token, what that old curmudgeon is doin' on this boat?"
"You mean the old man? I should think it would be the last place for him. Never mind, Pat, let come what will, you and I stick together, don't we?"
"Of course we do."
There is nothing that will make friends as soon as a sense of impending danger hanging over both. Let two entire strangers meet under circumstances like these, and in ten minutes they will be on as good terms, and devoted to each other, as though they had been bosom friends for a dozen years. The cause of this is very plain—it is the interest of both to be so.
Hezekiah thought he had never met so fine a fellow as Pat Mulroony; one, whose kindness of heart was so great, and whose friendship was as disinterested; and as for the Celt, although he did not express himself thus, his opinion of the New Englander was very nearly the same.
"You asked awhile ago," said Hezekiah, after a moment's pause, "whether I had ever been in these parts. If you have no objection, I should like to know whether you have been here?"
"Yes, I was about this place last summer with a party, but we didn't go any farther down the river."
"I understood that you were further west than you had ever been before; but then I might have been mistaken. If you have no objection, I should like to hear the particulars of your visit."