Captain Nat had no record to look up or inquiries to make as to the character or fitness of Sam Green.

He was the man who the winter before had slipped a rope about his body, plunged into the surf and swam out to the brig Gorgus and brought back three out of the five men lashed to the rigging, all too benumbed to make fast the shot-line fired across her deck.
Charles Morgan's name followed in regular order, and then Parks--men who had sailed with Captain Holt, and whose word and pluck he could depend upon; and Mulligan from Barnegat, who could pull a boat with the best of them; and last, and least in years, those two slim, tightly knit, lithe young tiger-cats, Tod and Archie.
Captain Nat had overhauled each man and had inspected him as closely as he would have done the timber for a new mast or the manila to make its rigging.

Here was a service that required cool heads, honest hearts, and the highest technical skill, and the men under him must be sound to the core.

He intended to do his duty, and so should every man subject to his orders.

The Government had trusted him and he held himself responsible.