"T'asing you is the last thing I'd be thinking of, Nelly darlin', except it was t'asing ye to marry me. No, alanna, it's the truth I'm telling you, and if you can't believe me just ax him. At the same time, I'm sore hurted that ye should be caring whether he's bespoke or no."
"I will ask him," answered the girl, "and until I do I'll thank you, Mr. Connell, never to mention Mr. Peril's name again."
"Not even to tell you what a brave, bowld lad he is, and how handsome?"
"You'd not be telling me anything I don't know."
"But, darlin', when he tells you with his own mouth that he's already bespoke and not to be had at all, you'll not refuse a bit of hope to one who loves the very ground trod by your two little feet."
"Good-night, Mr. Connell. Here's the door, and I'm going in."
In the meantime Peveril, after bidding good-bye to Mrs. Trefethen, had been whirled away by the little timber train to a landing on the lake shore, where he found the tug Broncho awaiting him. Towing behind it was a light double-ended skiff, and on its narrow deck he saw three men, dressed very much as he was himself, whom he knew must be those chosen to assist him in his forthcoming labors. One of them was a bright-looking French Canadian, while the others were evidently foreigners of the same class as the car-pushers in the mine. The captain of the tug was a Yankee named Spillins.
The latter glanced over the note from Major Arkell that the new-comer handed him, and said, "All right, Mr. Peril; if you're ready for a start, I am."
"Yes," replied Peveril, "I'm ready," and in another minute they were off. As they got under way the young leader of the expedition walked aft to make the acquaintance of his men. He was annoyed to find that, while two of them were brawny fellows who looked well fit for work, they could not muster a dozen words of English between them. Noting his efforts to converse with them, the third man, who introduced himself as Joe Pintaud, came to his assistance.
"No goot you talk to dem Dago feller, Mist Pearl," he said; "zey can spik ze Anglais no more as woodchuck. You tell 'em, 'dam lazy scoundrel,' zey onstan pret goot; but, by gar, you talk lak white man you got kick it in hees head."