In fact they belonged to the class known as river boatmen, though they had no hesitation to venturing out to sea on an emergency.
The elder of these men, who might have seen some fifty years or more, was a short, thick set man with dark complexion, and small grey eyes overshadowed by thick, shaggy brows as black as night.
His mouth was large when he chose to open it, but his lips were thin and generally compressed.
He looked at you from under his eyebrows like one looking at you from a place of concealment, and as if he was afraid he would be seen by you.
His name was David Rider, but was better known among his associates under the title of Old Ropes.
The other was a man of about twenty-five or thirty, and was a taller and much better-looking man, but without anything very marked in his countenance. His name was Jones Bradley.
"I tell you what, Joe," said his companion, "I don't like the captain's bringin' of this gal; there can't no good come of it, and it may bring us into trouble."
"Bring us into trouble! everything that's done out of the common track, accordin' to you's a goin' to bring us into trouble. I'd like to know how bringing a pretty girl among us, is goin' to git us into trouble?"
"A pretty face is well enough in its way," said Old Ropes, "but a pretty face won't save a man from the gallows, especially if that face is the face of an enemy."
"By the 'tarnal, Ropes, if I hadn't see you fight like the very devil when your blood was up, I should think you was giten' to be a coward. How in thunder is that little baby of a girl goin' to git us into trouble?"