ing for a job. I may get one helping carry out some light
freight, and I need the money."

"How much will you get?"

"Oh, if I'm lucky I may make a dollar."

"I'll give you more than that for saving my boat. I want to explain
that I didn't understand what you had done when I spoke so quickly."

"Oh, that's all right," said Nat good-naturedly. "But if you're going
to give me a dollar I guess I can afford to quit here," and he stepped
out of the line, the gap immediately closing up, for there were many
in search of odd jobs to do about the dock whenever a steamer came in.

"Here are five dollars," went on the young man, producing a bank bill.

"Five dollars!" exclaimed Nat. "Say, mister, it ain't worth all
that--saving the boat."

"Yes, it is. That craft cost my father quite a sum, and he would have
blamed me if she had been smashed. I'm much obliged to you. I'm sorry
I thought you were stealing her, but it looked----"

"Forget it," advised Nat with a smile. "It's all right. I'll save
boats for you regularly at this price."

"Do you work around the docks--er----"

"My name's Nat Morton," said the lad.

"And mine is John Scanlon," added the other, and he explained how he
had come to leave his boat at the float. "I don't know that I will
have any more boats to save, as my father's yacht will soon be leaving
for Lake Superior. Wouldn't you like a place on her better than your
regular job?"

"My regular job? I haven't any. I do whatever I can get to do, and
sometimes it's little enough."

"Where do you live?"

"Back there," replied Nat with a wave of his hand toward the tenement
district of Chicago.

"What does your father do?"

"I haven't any. He's--he's dead." And Nat's voice broke a little, for
his loss had been a comparatively recent one.

"I'm sorry--I beg your pardon--I didn't know----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Nat, bravely keeping his feelings under
control. "Dad's been dead a little over two years now. He and I lived
pretty good--before that. My mother died when I was a baby. Dad was
employed on a lumber barge. He had a good job, and I didn't have to
work when he was alive. But after he was lost overboard in a storm
one night, that ended all my good times. I've been hustling for myself
ever since."

"Didn't he have any life insurance, or anything like that?"

"Not that I know of. I remember he said just before he went on--on his
last trip--he told me if it turned out all right he'd have