"
"Fritz, as you say, does know something of navigation, particularly as
regards coasting; but here you have a pilot, accustomed to salt water,
quite handy, why not engage him also?"
"Willis, you have yourself said that the undertaking is perilous in
the extreme, and your life is not bound up like theirs in that of
their mother."
"True; but do you not see that I am sick of dry land, and that I am
getting rusty for the want of a little sea air?"
"I felt ashamed to ask you to share in so desperate an enterprise,
otherwise I would have proposed it to you, Willis."
"But you might have seen that I was growing thin, absolutely pining
away, and drying up on land. There are ducks that can live without
water, but I am not one of them."
"Am I, then, to understand that you offer to risk your life in this
forlorn hope?"
"Certainly, Mr. Becker; a man condemned to be hanged, running the risk
of being drowned is no great sacrifice."
"Willis, I accept your offer, to share in the dangers of this
enterprise, most gratefully. I thank you in the name of my sons and of
their mother, and trust that God may enable me to recompense you for
your devotion to them and to myself."
[Illustration]
"You forget," added Willis, wiping a tear from the corner of his
eye, that he ascribed to a grain of dust, "you forget that I was on
the point of venturing out to sea in the canoe, had you yourself and
Mr.
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