"You've hit the truth at first trial," returned Skipper Tom, in an undertone, as he kept his glance ahead over the river.
"I'm not much given to exaggeration, am I, Tom?"
"I never knew that you had an acquaintance with exaggeration," Halstead answered.
"Then perhaps you'll believe me, Tom, when I tell you that I'd follow those officers over Niagara or into Vesuvius, if they happened to be bound either way."
"I know you would, Joe," Tom answered, without smiling, for he knew his chum through and through.
"Tom, those young officers would assay up a big lot of fight to the ton!"
Having thus relieved himself of that strong conviction Joe Dawson seated himself on the roof of the forward house and did not speak again for twenty minutes.
By the time that the eight miles upstream had been covered, and Skipper Tom Halstead had headed the boat down again for its straight sixteen-mile run, he called down to his chum:
"Joe, will you come up and hold the wheel for me for two or three minutes?"
"Coming," Dawson sang cheerily.