"Nary a bit of it," answered Tyke. "I ain't ready to be put on the shelf yet, not by a blamed sight, and I guess if it came to a showdown, Rufe, my muscles are as good as yours."
"You're a tough old knot all right," admitted Captain Hamilton, his eyes twinkling. "But there's no sense in your doing Allen's work. Where in thunder has the boy gone anyway?"
"Oh, he'll turn up in a minute or two," returned Tyke. "Wherever he is you can bet your boots he's doing something connected with this here work of treasure seeking. It simply ain't in that boy to lay down on any job."
"Drew makes a hit with you all right," laughed the captain.
"And why shouldn't he?" asked Tyke belligerently. "He's been with me for some years now, and I've had plenty of chances of sizin' him up. If there was a yellow streak in him, I'd have found it out long ago. If I'd had a son of my own, I wouldn't have asked for him to be any better fellow than Allen is, and nobody could say any more'n that. He's got grit an' brains an' gumption, an' more'n that he's as straight as a string."
"Go ahead," laughed the captain, as Tyke paused for want of breath. "Don't let me stop you."
"I don't mind tellin' you, Rufe, what I've never told yet to any human soul," continued Tyke, waxing confidential, "an' that is that when I lay up in my last harbor, Allen is goin' to come into everything I've got. He don't know it himself yet, but I've got it down shipshape in black and white an' the paper's in my office safe."
"He's a lucky fellow," commented the captain briefly.
"An' let me tell you another thing, Rufe," said Tyke, "an' that is that Allen would make not only a good son, but a mighty good son-in-law."
He nudged the captain in the ribs as he spoke, with the familiarity of old comradeship.