"Well, if that doesn't beat everything!" said the young engineer, with a comical tone of despair. "I thought that after finding you the discovery of the raft would follow as a matter of course; but now it begins to look farther away than ever."
"But in finding me," said Winn, "you have found some one to help you find the raft."
"You?" said the other, quizzically. "Why, I was thinking of sending you home to your mother; that is, if the Sheriff here will allow you to go."
"I don't know about that," said the officer. "It seems to me that I still know very little about this young man. Who is to prove to me that he is the son of Major Caspar?"
"Oh, I can speak for that," replied Billy Brackett.
"And I suppose he is ready to vouch for you; but that won't do. You see, you are both suspicious characters, and unless some one whom I know as well as I do Cap'n Cod here can identify you, I must take you both back to Dubuque."
"Captain Cod," repeated Billy Brackett, thoughtfully. "I seem to have heard that name before. Why, yes, I have a note of introduction from Major Caspar to a Captain Cod, and I shouldn't wonder if you were the very man. Here it is now."
"I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the veteran, heartily, after glancing over the note thus handed to him. "It's all right, Sheriff. This is certainly the Major's handwriting, for I know it as I do my own, and I don't want any better proof that this gentleman is the person he claims to be."
"Would you be willing to go on his bond for a thousand dollars?" asked Mr. Riley.
"I would, and for as much more as my own property, together with what I hold in trust for my niece, would bring," answered the old man, earnestly.