It's risky sort of business ours for a greenhorn, but if he is anyways teachable, we will soon make a man of him." The speaker was a wiry, active man of some forty years old, with a weatherbeaten face, and a keen gray eye.

Jonathan, his comrade, was a head taller, with broad shoulders, powerful limbs, and a quiet but good-tempered face.
"That's so, isn't it, Jonathan ?" Nat asked.
Jonathan nodded.

He was not a man of many words.
"Have you ever been in a canoe before ?" Nat inquired.
"Never," James said; "but I am accustomed to boats of all sorts, and can handle an oar fairly." "Oars ain't no good here," the scout said.

"You will have to learn to paddle; but, first of all, you have got to learn to sit still.

These here canoes are awkward things for a beginner.