ion of purchase."

"Leave the bargaining to me," I said quickly, at sight of the
shrewd-faced Yankee who came down the wharf as we stepped out into the
open prow.

"The affair is entirely in your hands, doctor," assented the senor.

The Yankee stepped aboard with an air of brisk business.

"I cal'clate ye want a boat," he began. "Let ye have this 'un dirt
cheap."

"How much?" I demanded.

"One seventy-five."

"Lumber cordelled by keelboat from New Orleans?" I rallied him in
smiling irony.

He looked me up and down with a speculative eye.

"We-ell, stranger, I might knock off ten dollars."

"You mean fifty."

Again he surveyed me; then appraised the rich broadcloth of my
companion.

"Be ye buyin' fer him?" he queried.

"We make the trip together. I can go as high as a hundred and
twenty-five. We could do better at Pittsburg, but are willing to give
you the bargain, to save our boots."

He looked again from my mud-smeared buckskins to the senor's fine
apparel, and smiled sourly. "Ye'll git no such boat at the price, here
or at Pittsburg, if ye wait till the next freeze. One fifty is my best
offer. Take it or leave it."

"Skiff, kedge, sweeps, poles, and steer-oar included," I stipulated.

He assented, with well-feigned reluctance: "As she stands--lock, stock,
and barrel."

I handed him a five-bit piece. "Taken! Yet I'd have had you down fifteen
more if we were not in haste."

"I'd ha' eased your high-nosed don of a round two hundred, my lad, had
he done his own dickering," muttered he, as, at a word from me, the
senor drew out a bulging purse and counted into my palm the hundred and
fifty dollars in American gold.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HOSPITABLE BLENNERHASSETS

While our sour-faced boat-dealer made out his bill of sale, I wrote down
a list of provisions and furnishings for the boat. Upon reading this to
the senor, he suggested the addition of some articles which I would have
regarded as needless luxuries. Leaving these to his own selection, I
jogged to the store of a gruff old German ship-chandler, one of the
Hessians against whom my father had fought at Monmouth and Trenton, and
whose wife, on my last trip, I had been so fortunate as to cure of a
quinsy.

The good Frau came in as I was giving my list into the charge of her
husband, and would not take a refusal to her offer of hospitality.
Horse, list, and all were taken from me before I could defend myself,
and I am not sure but what