Besides, he was used to being wet half the time, as he and other lads of his acquaintance frequently dived off the stringpiece and swam around in the lake. So when the owner of the rescued rowboat looked for the boy he could not see him. But he determined to make up for his unintentional rudeness, and so went after Nat.
He found the boy with a number of others crowded about the entrance to the freight office.
"May I speak to you a few moments?" asked the young man.
"Guess you'll have to excuse me," replied Nat. "I'm busy."
"I'm waiting for a job. I may get one helping carry out some light freight, and I need the money."
"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."
"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."
"Back there," replied Nat with a wave of his hand toward the tenement district of Chicago.
"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."