“Well,” he replied, “seeing as I haven’t any yacht to go out to, in the first place, and seeing as I was up at the hotel all last night, I think you must indeed have me mixed up in your mind with somebody else. However, if anybody has been using my name around here to hire a boat, I’m willing to pay, if you’re a loser.”

“Oh, no, sir,” said the man, apologetically. “I don’t want no pay. I just accommodated somebody, and it looked surprisingly like you. Excuse me. Guess I must have made a mistake.”

“Ho! that’s all right, no excuse needed,” said Mr. Carleton, lightly. “You’re going to row us out, are you, Harvey? Well, I’ll push her off and sit down astern. I’m the heaviest.”

They rowed out to where the Viking was tossing uneasily at her line, as though eager to be free and away from the lee of the land, amid the tumbling waves.

It was quite rough outside, and the wind increasing every minute; so they put a reef in the mainsail and set only the forestaysail and a single jib. Then, with anchor fished, they were quickly in the midst of rough weather, with the spume flying aboard in a way that sent them scuttling below for their oilskins.

The harbour out of which they were now beating made inland for a mile or two. The waters ran back thence in a salt river for several miles more, before they grew brackish, and then were merged into a stream of fresh water that had its origin in a pond back in the country. It followed, that the waters of the harbour flowed in and out with much swiftness and strength; and now, the flood-tide and the south wind being coincident, coming in together strongly, it was slow working out, even with as good a boat as the Viking. There was a heavy sea running, too, which served to beat them back. They tacked to and fro, but they drew ahead of the landmarks ashore very slowly.

“I say, my lad,” cried Mr. Carleton all at once, stepping aft to where Harvey held the wheel, “let me take her a few minutes and see what I can do, will you? Oh, you needn’t be afraid that I’ll upset you,” he added, as Harvey somewhat reluctantly complied. “I’ve owned boats and sailed them, too,—as good as this one, if I do say it.”

It was clearly evident, as he seated himself astride the helmsman’s seat, that he was no novice. He held the yacht with a practised hand, and, moreover, asserted himself with the rights of skipper.

“Haul in on that main-sheet a little more,” he said to Harvey.

“She won’t do as well with the boom so close aft in a heavy sea,” replied Harvey.

“Oh, yes, she will,” answered Mr. Carleton, coolly. “You are right as a general proposition, but I’ll show you something. I’ve been watching the run of the tide.”

Harvey, not agreeing, still acquiesced in the order, and hauled the boom aft.

“A little more,” insisted Mr. Carleton. “There, that will do. Now you will see us fetch out of the harbour.”

To Harvey’s surprise, and that of the other boys, the yacht certainly was doing better. Mr. Carleton held her so close into the wind that the sail almost shook. Every now and then it quivered slightly. But they surely were making better progress.

“Well,” admitted Harvey at length, “that goes against what I’ve been taught about sailing. The sheet a little off in a heavy sea and keep her under good headway is Captain Sam’s rule.”

“Quite correct,” said Mr. Carleton, smiling. “But, if you notice, the tide sets swift around that point ahead and we get the full force of it. Now, with the boat heading off as you had it, don’t you see we were getting the head wind and head tide both on the same side—both hitting the port bow and throwing her back? Now, do you see what we are doing? She’s heading up into the wind so far that the force of the tide hits the starboard bow. So we’ve got the wind on one side and the tide on the other; and, between the two forces, we go ahead.”

Harvey’s respect rose for Mr. Carleton.

“That’s right,” he said. “I’ve heard something of that kind, too. But I never thought much about it.”

“Well, the tide is three-fourths of sailing,” responded Mr. Carleton. “Now as we clear this point we’ll start the sheet off once more a little. It’s rougher, and we’ll need all the headway we can make.”

It was evident Mr. Carleton was no hotel piazza sailor. He was as happy as a boy out of school, as he held the wheel with a firm, strong hand, heading up for the deep rollers and pointing off again quickly, keeping the yacht under good headway, and watching the water ahead, and the drawing of the jib, with a practised eye. They had never seen him so enthusiastic.

He was, somehow, a picture of particular interest to Henry Burns, who had a way of observing how persons did things, and who conceived some impression of them accordingly, beyond a mere surface one.

It being a fact, to a degree, that a boat has as many peculiarities—one might almost say individualities—all its own as a human being, or a horse, it was interesting to see how quickly Mr. Carleton took note of them and handled his boat accordingly. He seemed to realize at once just how she would take the wind; how stiffly she would stand up in a flaw; just how much the jib and forestaysail needed trimming to be at their best; just how to humour the boat in several little ways to get the most out of her. And he did it all very confidently.

That he was a man of sharp discernment, and quick to learn things, was the impression he made on Henry Burns. And if there should come a time when Henry Burns, remembering many things which he now observed, but attached no particular importance to, should put them all together and form a conclusion regarding them and of Mr. Carleton, why certainly there was nought of that in his mind now.

He did observe one thing, however, in particular, and it was in accord with what he had told Harvey concerning Mr. Carleton. The man had aggressiveness and determination. Mr. Carleton surely believed in holding a boat down to its work. There was no timidity, even to a point that bordered on recklessness, in the way he met the heavier buffetings of the wind. Where a more cautious man would have luffed and spilled a little of the wind, Mr. Carleton held the wheel firm and let the Viking heel over and take it, seeming to know she would go through all right; as though he should say, “You can stand it. Now let’s see you do it. I’ll not indulge you. I know what you can stand. You can’t fool me.”

Henry Burns rather liked him for this. There was something that he admired in his skill and courage.

The yacht Viking was weathering the seas grandly. She was a boat that did not bury deep in a smother, and flounder about and pound hard and lose headway, but rode the waves lightly and went easily to windward.

“Works well, doesn’t she?” cried Harvey, enthusiastically.

“Splendid, better than ever—better than she did coming down the river, and yesterday,” responded Mr. Carleton. “She’d almost stand a gaff-topsail even with this breeze. That’s a good clean stick, that topmast. However, I guess we’re doing well enough. We won’t set it, eh?”

“Here, you take the wheel,” he said the next moment to Henry Burns, whom he had observed eying him sharply. “Let’s see what kind of a sailor you are.”

One might have thought it was Mr. Carleton’s own boat. He said it with such an air.

Henry Burns acquiesced calmly and with that confidence he had when he knew he could do a thing right. Here was another individual who could learn things quickly, too; and if Harvey had had more experience than he in actual sailing and handling a boat, Henry Burns more than matched him in coolness and resource.

“You’ll do,” said Mr. Carleton at length. “I’ll risk my life with you and Harvey any day. How’s the crew—are they pretty good sailors, too?”

“First class,” said Henry Burns. “We’ll show you there isn’t a lubber aboard.” And he turned the wheel over first to Tom and then to Bob, who acquitted themselves very creditably, showing they had picked up the knowledge of sailing wonderfully well.

“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton. “That’s the way to run a boat. Give every man a chance to get the hang of it. One never knows what’s going to happen to a sailboat and who’s going overboard, or get tangled up in a sheet, or something the matter; and then it pays to have a crew any one of whom can take hold at a moment’s notice and lend a hand.”

So, having established himself in their confidence, and with mutual good feeling aboard, Mr. Carleton declared himself well pleased with their trip, as they beat up to Southport harbour. He hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years, he said. And he thanked them cordially for his good time, as they rowed him ashore.

“We’re much obliged to you, too,” replied Harvey, “for the fun you’ve given us.”

“Oh, that don’t amount to anything,” said Mr. Carleton.

Mr. Carleton, oddly enough, had occasion to make Henry Burns and Jack Harvey an apology not many hours afterward.

The afternoon and evening had passed, and the two yachtsmen, leaving Tom and Bob to spend the night ashore in their tent, had gone out aboard the Viking. They had sat up reading until about half-past ten o’clock,—rather later than usual,—when a most unexpected visitor appeared. It was none other than Mr. Carleton, rowing alongside in a small rowboat belonging to Captain Sam. He made this fast now and climbed aboard.

“Really this is imposing on your hospitality,” he said, appearing at the companionway. “But the fact is, I’m in a bit of a scrape. I’ve left my key in another pair of trousers in Captain Curtis’s house, and the door is locked there, and they’re evidently all fast asleep, as it’s getting on to eleven. I hated to wake them up, so I came down on the point and looked in at your friends’ tent. They were sleeping like good fellows, too, and I couldn’t see any extra blanket to roll up in. Then I spied your light out aboard here. Do you think you can spare me a bunk and a blanket for a night?”

“We’ll be only too glad to return your favour of last night,” replied Henry Burns.

“Though you didn’t make use of it yourself, eh,” said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

They were off to sleep then in short order, Henry Burns and Harvey occupying the cushioned berths amidships, and their guest one of the same just forward, where Tom or Bob usually slept.

There was really nothing of consequence occurring in the night, to be recorded, except a slight incident that showed Mr. Carleton to be a bad sleeper.

Perhaps it was the strange quarters he was in that made him restless, so that he lay for an hour or two listening to the deep breathing of the boys, himself wide awake. Yet he was considerate, was Mr. Carleton, and made no move to arouse them.

Even when he sat up, after a time, and threw the blanket off, and lit a match under the cover of the blanket to read the face of his watch by, he did it very softly. Perhaps, even then, he was solicitous lest their sleep be disturbed; for he stole quietly along to where they lay, and made sure he had not aroused them.

By and by, Mr. Carleton made another move. Taking the blanket that had covered him, he pinned it up so that it hung from the roof of the cabin as a sort of curtain. Then he lighted one of the cabin lamps, turning it down so that it shone only very dimly.

“Hang it, I don’t know what makes me so wakeful,” he said, in a low voice. “That light doesn’t disturb either of you boys, does it?”

There was no answer. But Mr. Carleton, apparently to make certain, repeated the question two or three times, very softly, so as not to arouse them if they were sleeping, but to be overheard in case one of them should be awake. And he repeated also the remark several times about his sleeplessness.

And also did he mutter to himself, so that none other could by any possibility have overheard, “Perhaps a light will show. I couldn’t make anything out by daylight.”

A moment or two after that, Henry Burns, opening one sleepy eye to an unusual though faint ray of light, escaping from behind the blanket, beheld the figure of Mr. Carleton moving about the forward part of the cabin. He lay still for a moment wondering, drowsily, what was the matter. Perhaps he might have observed the figure for some time in silence, but of a sudden he was seized of an overpowering impulse to sneeze, and did so lustily.

The figure with the lantern jumped as though it had received a blow. Then, by the light of the lantern, the blanket being whisked aside, Mr. Carleton was revealed, with a paper-covered novel in one hand, seating himself in the attitude of one reading.

“That’s too bad,” he said, softly. “I thought the blanket would hide my light. I got restless, you see, and have been reading a bit. I’m all right now though, I think. I’ll douse the light and try again. Sorry I disturbed you.”

The light went out. Hence neither Henry Burns nor any one else could by any possibility have seen the look of anger and disappointment on the face of Mr. Carleton as he turned in and lay down to sleep—this time in earnest.

While thus living his boyhood over again with his new youthful acquaintances, Mr. Carleton did not neglect to establish friendly relations with older persons. Squire Brackett admired him greatly. As matter of fact, to a designing person, the squire was the easiest man in the world to win admiration from.

He had an inordinate vanity and love of flattery, which, united with a pompous manner, made him unbearable to those of discrimination; and this entrance to his good graces was quickly espied by Mr. Carleton. The squire liked that quiet, but perceptible, deference that came to him from a person of such apparent means.

There was, however, another reason that appealed even more strongly to the squire why he should cultivate Mr. Carleton, and that was a hint the squire had gained that his new acquaintance might prove profitable to him.

“Squire Brackett,” said Mr. Carleton, seated for the evening on the squire’s front porch, “that’s a pretty little island just below here, close to shore, between here and where those four boys are camping. Do you know, I’d like to own that. I have an idea a man could throw out a neat, rustic bridge from shore, just big enough to take a horse and carriage across, build a cottage out there, and have the most beautiful place about here.”

“Well, why don’t you buy it?” replied the squire. “It would, indeed, be a rare cottage site—prettiest spot around here, I say.”

“I think perhaps I will,” said Mr. Carleton; “that is, if it is for sale. Do you know anything about that?”

“Why,” answered the squire, “I guess I come about as near as anybody to owning it. You see, I hold a mortgage on it.”

“How much do you value it at?” asked Mr. Carleton.

“Why, let me see,” said the squire; “about twenty-five hundred dollars, I should say.”

“Cheap enough!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton. “I’ll just write up to my lawyers and see how some investments I have are turning-out. I think we can make a trade later on.”

He said it as though it was a trifling matter, and the squire, who had named an exorbitant figure, was sorry he had not put it higher. He also had neglected to explain that his hold on the land was of the slightest, consisting, as it did, of a mortgage of eight hundred dollars against Billy Cook, the owner, who had paid off all but two hundred dollars of the incumbrance. However, he had no doubt he could easily buy it of Billy Cook—indeed, he had had it offered to him for only four hundred dollars above the entire mortgage the year before.

“You ought to have a good boat to cruise around here with,” said the squire. “You’re fond of sailing, I see. Reckon you know how to handle a boat pretty well yourself.”

The squire knew he hadn’t any boat to sell that would suit Mr. Carleton, calling to mind his son’s letter from him about the Viking; but he had a purpose in suggesting the buying of one. He considered that if Mr. Carleton should make such a purchase, and become fascinated with the sailing about Southport, he would be more likely to want the land to build a cottage on.

“Yes, I am very fond of sailing,” responded Mr. Carleton, “but I haven’t got so far as to think about buying a boat just yet.”

“Oh, ho! you haven’t, eh?” said the squire to himself. “Reckon I know something about that.”

The squire was vastly tickled. Here was a position that just suited his crafty nature. It didn’t signify anything, to be sure, Mr. Carleton’s dissembling,—probably that he might get a better bargain by keeping quiet and not seeming anxious to buy,—but it pleased the squire to have this little advantage in the situation.

“I think you might buy the Viking,” he suggested.

Mr. Carleton had his own doubts about this, having been informed by Harry Brackett of the failure of his attempt, but he merely said, “That so? Well, she might do. Ever hear of anything queer about her—any outs about her?”

“No,” replied the squire, “nothing queer about her, except the way they got her. I don’t know of any faults that she has.”

“Well, I might buy her if they didn’t hold her too high,” said Mr. Carleton, meditatively. “I suppose she’s worth fifteen hundred dollars easy enough.”

“Yes, and more if you had her up Boston way,” answered the squire. “You haven’t had any idea of buying her, then?”

“No,” responded Mr. Carleton. “Still, I might like to. But please don’t say anything about it.”

“Oh, no,” replied the squire, chuckling to himself. Mr. Carleton, bidding him good night and taking his departure, was more than ever an object of interest to the squire. Here was a man that spoke in the most casual and nonchalant way of investing twenty-five hundred dollars in a piece of land that he liked, and of buying a fifteen-hundred-dollar boat. The squire’s curiosity, always keen in other persons’ affairs, was aroused. He wondered—in the usual trend of such personal curiosity—how the other man had made his money.

This curiosity was not abated, to say the least, by a comparatively trifling incident that occurred a day or two following. The squire had, in the cupola of his house, which he used as a vantage-point for surveying the bay far out to sea, and the surrounding country up and down the island, a large telescope. It was a powerful glass, with which he could “pick up” a vessel away down among the islands, and read the name on the stern of one a mile away. The squire had some interests in several small schooners plying between the coast cities and Benton, and was in the habit of going up to his lookout two or three times each day.

On this particular occasion, the squire, after sweeping the bay with the glass, turned it inland and took a look down the island. He could distinguish several familiar wagons passing along the main road, but nothing unusual. But, when he happened to turn the glass almost directly back inland from the direction of the town, he caught an object in its sweep that arrested his attention. It was the figure of his new acquaintance, Mr. Carleton, leaning against some pasture bars about a quarter of a mile away, intently reading a letter.

There was surely nothing unusual nor exciting about this, and yet the squire was interested. Perhaps it was due just to the novelty of observing a man a quarter of a mile away, reading a letter, when he could by no possibility be aware that he was being observed.

But if the squire’s attention was drawn to Mr. Carleton in the act of reading the letter, it was certainly doubled and trebled when the latter, having finished his perusal of it, waved the letter in a seemingly triumphant manner about his head and then tore it into many little pieces and dropped the pieces at his feet. Squire Brackett, through the spy-glass, watched Mr. Carleton come down through the fields toward the village.

He knew the exact spot to the inch where Mr. Carleton had stood. It was at the bars that divided a pasture belonging to the postmaster and a piece of town property. The squire shut the sliding glass windows that protected his lookout, hurried out-of-doors, walked briskly up through the fields, making a detour to avoid meeting Mr. Carleton, and arrived, somewhat short of breath, at the bars. He gathered up the pieces of the letter carefully. He put them into his coat-pocket, and walked briskly back to his house.

He hadn’t got them all, for the wind had carried some away. But the letter had evidently been a brief one. When the squire took the pieces out that afternoon at his desk in a little room that he called his office, there were only eleven scraps that he could assemble. Mr. Carleton had torn the letter into small bits.

The squire was disappointed. He had hoped to gratify his curiosity and be able to pry into Mr. Carleton’s private affairs a little. And withal, there were two words that interested him greatly and made his disappointment all the more keen. These were two words that followed, one the other, in the sequence in which they had been written. They were the words, “aboard yacht.” All the others had been so separated in the destruction of the letter that the squire despaired of ever being able to make anything out of them, or to restore them to anything like their original consecutive form.

However, he arranged the words and scraps of words by pasting them on a sheet of paper, as follows:

“Well, there’s a puzzle for you!” he exclaimed, dubiously. “How in the world shall I ever be able to make anything out of that?” But the next moment he gave a chuckle of exultation. “I’ve got part of it already!” he cried. “Lucky I happened to set them down just this way. Those letters, ‘mbers’ must have been part of the word ‘timbers.’ So that, after the first three scraps that I have put down, it reads, ‘sound timbers aboard yacht.’ I’ll get something out of this yet. There’s ‘starboa,’ too. That’s ‘starboard,’ of course. And ‘ays’ below may be ‘stays.’ That might make ‘starboard stays.’”

A look of perplexity came over the squire’s face the next moment.

“The queer thing about this,” he said, reflectively, “is that somebody away from here is writing him about this yacht. Perhaps they don’t mean the Viking. However, I believe that is the boat referred to. Well, he may be only getting advice from some one as to how to examine the yacht—how to look her over. The remark about ‘sound timbers’ sounds like that, anyway. So ho! he isn’t thinking about buying a yacht, eh?”

The squire chuckled.

“I’ll study this over at my leisure,” he said, as he placed the paper with the letters pasted on it carefully away in a drawer. “I’ll figure it out.”

CHAPTER XII.
THE SURPRISE SETS SAIL AGAIN

The work on the Surprise had gone on famously, though it had been a hard task. The labour of cleaning her, inside and out, had been well begun down in the Thoroughfare, but there remained still much to be done after she had been floated up into the harbour of Southport.

First, the boys had brought her in on the beach, at a point a little way up the cove from the Warren cottage, where there was a break in the rocky shore, and a clean strip of sand extended back from the water’s edge. There they had raised her on blocks and shored her up so they could work to advantage.

They swarmed over and in and out of her then like ants in an ant-hill, every boy lending a hand, from the Warren brothers to the campers down below. They scrubbed and scraped her, inside and out, and washed her insides with soap and hot water.

Then, following Captain Sam’s advice, they built a fire on the shore and melted a kettle full of pitch and tar. When they had gone over the entire planking of the boat, setting up the nails that had slackened with the straining it had undergone, and had driven many new ones in between, Harvey, equipped with an enormous brush, and having taken up the cabin flooring, smeared the inner part of the boat’s planking with the tar and pitch, filling all the seams with it.

Then they went over the entire hull on the exterior, tightening it up, scraping, sandpapering, and rubbing until their hands were blistered and their arms ached. Then came the painting of the cabin and outer hull, and the scraping and varnishing of the decks. The mast and ballast they had brought up from the Thoroughfare. The latter, cleansed of its rust and given a coating of hot coal-tar, was ready to be stowed aboard. The mast, scraped and varnished till it glistened once more, had been carefully stepped and fastened above and below. The yacht Surprise, with clean, shining spars, with polished, glistening decks, and with hull spotless white, was ready once more for the water. Long before they had tested their work with innumerable buckets of water thrown aboard, and had found her tight and not a leak remaining.

Jack Harvey eyed the yacht admiringly, as he paused, half-way up the bank from where she stood. His companions in the day’s work had gone on ahead.

“She’s a fine old boat,” he said, “and she’s just as good as new. I’ve had a lot of fun in her, too. I’ll never have any more fun in the Viking than I’ve had in her, though the Viking is bigger and handsomer. I’d be satisfied with the Surprise if I hadn’t got the other one.”

The moment seemed almost opportune for the offer that followed.

“That’s a fine craft there,” cried a voice so close in Harvey’s ear that it made him jump, for he had been so lost in the admiration of the Surprise that he had not heard the sound of any one approaching. He turned quickly, and there was Mr. Carleton.

“Doesn’t look much as though she had been under water all winter, does she?” asked Harvey.

“I should say not,” replied Mr. Carleton. “Looks as though she was just out of the shipyard. I don’t see what you need of the Viking when you’ve got such a boat as this. You’d better let me hire the Viking from you for the rest of the summer.”

“Sorry,” replied Harvey, “but I can’t do it. You see, I’ve promised to let the crew have this boat, and they have set their hearts on it. I wouldn’t disappoint them now for a hundred dollars.”

“How about two hundred dollars?” suggested Mr. Carleton.

Harvey hesitated for a moment.

“No!” he cried, determinedly, “not for a thousand dollars. There! I’ve said it, and I mean it. I want the money bad enough, too. But the crew are going to have this boat. We’ve made all the arrangements, and we are using the Viking for fishing, and we’ve got to be off for another trip, too, for we have been about here, earning nothing, for quite awhile now.”

“I’ll give you eighteen hundred dollars if you will sell the Viking,” said Mr. Carleton.

Harvey shook his head stubbornly.

“No use,” he said. “But,” he added, “you can arrange with the crew to take you sailing easy enough when we aren’t around here. They’ll be glad to have you go.”

“Hm!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton. “Well, all right; but if you change your mind, let me know.

“When are you going to launch this one?” he added.

“Why, I think we’ll put her into the water this evening,” replied Harvey. “That is, if we don’t get a shower. The moon will be up and the tide right. That’s why we are coming away so early now. We’re going up to the Warren cottage to get out some Japanese lanterns, and get the cannon ready. When we launch her, we are going to run a line from the masthead to the stern, and hang a chain of the lanterns, light them, and tow the Surprise around to the wharf in style, and fire a salute. Then she’ll be ready for Captain Sam to fit the sails in the morning. Better come around and see the fun.”

“Will you all be over here?” inquired Mr. Carleton.

“The whole crowd,” answered Harvey.

“Then I’ll be on hand sure,” said Mr. Carleton—but added to himself, “if I don’t have something else to do.”

There seemed to be no prospect of anybody taking part in a launching on this particular evening, however, for the dark clouds that had warned Harvey spread over the sky, and a quickly gathering summer shower was soon upon them. Harvey hurried up to the Warren cottage for shelter, and Mr. Carleton started back on the run toward Captain Sam’s.

A rowboat or two out in the harbour put hurriedly in to shore. The occupant of one of these latter craft, scurrying in and dashing homeward, had, it seems, been noticed by Squire Brackett through his glass from his observation-tower.

“Harry,” he said, as that young man came into the house, somewhat red in the face and out of breath, “what were you doing just now out around the Viking? I saw you row out behind her, and it took you at least three minutes or more to come in sight again. You didn’t go aboard her, did you?”

“No, I didn’t go aboard,” replied Harry Brackett, sulkily.

“Well, see that you don’t,” said Squire Brackett, emphatically. “You might not mean any harm by it, but you’ve had some trouble with those boys already this summer, and they wouldn’t like having you aboard unless they invited you.”

“Hm! well, if I wait for that I’ll never step aboard that boat,” exclaimed Harry Brackett. “And what’s more, I don’t want to go aboard. I wouldn’t go if they asked me.”

Having thus declared himself, Harry Brackett bolted his supper and vanished.

The shower, of rapid approach, was of equally brief duration. It had begun raining big, splashing drops about half-past four o’clock. Now, an hour later, it was brightening again, the sun darting its rays forth from the breaking cloud-banks, and the rain-drops dripping only from eaves and tree-branches.

Henry Burns and Harvey were vastly elated. The launching need not be put off, for the evening would be fair. They left the Warren cottage and hurried down alongshore to where they had left their tender, rowed out to the Viking, and began their preparations for supper.

“Henry,” said Harvey, “there’s some sunlight left yet, and just enough breeze to dry the sails nicely before we leave. The sooner they are dried the less likely they are to mildew. Shall we run them up?”

“Yes, let’s be quick about it,” replied Henry Burns. “The fire’s ready for the biscuit.”

They seized the halyards, one the throat and the other the peak, and began hauling. The sail went up smartly—when, all at once, there was an ominous, ripping sound.

“Hold on!” cried Harvey, “something is caught.”

“Well, I should say there was!” exclaimed Henry Burns, when he had made his halyard fast, and started to examine. “Cracky! but there are two big tears in the sail.”

“I don’t see how that can be,” said Harvey, joining him. “It’s a stout, new mainsail.”

“Why, I see what did the mischief,” he exclaimed, the next moment. “The reefing-points are caught in two places. That’s funny. We shook all the reefs out the last time we brought her in.”

“Look and see if it’s funny,” said Henry Burns, quietly. “I suppose somebody thought it was funny. Those knots didn’t tie themselves.”

Harvey examined them, while his face reddened with anger.

“I’ll bet I could guess who did that!” he cried.

“We’ll attend to his case if you guess right,” responded Henry Burns.

The knots certainly could not have caught themselves. There had been design in the act. In two places along the sail, one of the points for the fourth reef had been tied with one of the first. The consequence of this was, that when the united strength of the boys had come to bear directly on these two places, instead of being exerted evenly along the entire sail, the canvas had given away.

Harvey clinched his fist for a moment, opened his lips, as though about to give vent to his anger, and then suddenly subsided, with an expression on his face that half-amused Henry Burns.

“Say, Henry,” he said, “I’ve played the same kind of a joke myself before this, so I guess I might as well grin and bear it. But,” he continued, doubling up his fist once more, “perhaps I won’t take it out of that young Harry Brackett just the same, if I find out he did it.”

Henry Burns smiled assent.

“Never mind,” he said. “We can mend the tears so they won’t show much.”

They untied the knots, raised the sail, and let it dry while they ate their supper.

“Say, Tim,” said Harvey, an hour later, as they stood on shore by Tom and Bob’s tent, where the campers from down below had also assembled, “will you do something for me?”

“Sure,” replied Little Tim. “What is it?”

“Well, we want you to stay out aboard the Viking while we go up the cove and get the Surprise off and float her around,” said Harvey. “You see, Henry and I have decided not to leave the Viking deserted at night after this—that is, unless we have to. But what we want to-night particularly is for you to stay aboard and keep watch, and see if you notice Harry Brackett around the shore or the wharf, looking off toward the Viking. He’s played us a fine trick, and made us tear our mainsail—that is, we think he did it. But whoever it was will probably be around to see if the trick worked. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No-o-o,” answered Tim; “but don’t fire the cannon till you get around the point.”

“We won’t,” said Harvey. “Here’s the key to the cabin.”

Little Tim rowed out aboard.

It seemed, however, as though his vigil was to be a fruitless one. Certainly, Harry Brackett failed to put in an appearance. Little Tim stretched himself out on the seat and waited impatiently.

“I don’t see what Jack wanted to make me stay here for,” he remarked, when eight o’clock had come and gone and it was close upon nine, and the moon was rising.

Presently, however, he sat up and listened. Yes, there was somebody rowing out from shore. Tim strained his eyes eagerly. Then shortly he made out a somewhat familiar figure.

“Hello, Mr. Carleton,” he called; “I thought they said you were going up to the launching.”

The man in the boat stopped rowing abruptly, and turned in his seat. But if he was surprised to find anybody aboard the Viking he did not show it.

“So I am,” he replied. “Don’t you want to go up with me?”

“Can’t do it,” replied Little Tim. “I’m on watch. You’d better hurry, though. The tide is about up. She’ll be afloat soon now.”

Mr. Carleton rowed away. But he was not over-impatient, it would seem, for he rowed leisurely. In fact, he did not get up to the place of the launching at all, but paused off the wharf and sat idly in the stern of his boat, smoking and enjoying the beauty of the rising moon.

The yacht Surprise was at last afloat in all its glory of new paint and shining spars. She came around the point presently, towed by two boats filled with the boys, the string of lanterns, with candles lighted, swaying almost dangerously in the night breeze. The rowers halted abreast the Viking, the report of the cannon rang out over the waters and up through the quiet town, and the Surprise, now at anchor, lay waiting for the morrow, when Captain Sam should stretch the sails.

“Great success, wasn’t it?” cried Tom Harris to the occupant of a rowboat that had drifted up to them.

“Great!” replied Mr. Carleton. “Great! Sorry I didn’t get over in time to see her go into the water.”

Mr. Carleton made up for his delinquency the next day, however, for he was on hand early, and was much interested in the work of Captain Sam. He knew something of reeving rigging, too, it seemed, and lent a hand now and then. Joe Hinman and the crew liked him better than ever for it.

He was down again after dinner, too, and ready as ever to be of assistance.

“Hello,” he said, looking over toward the Viking, “are the other chaps going to play truant this afternoon, and leave us to rig the Surprise? I see they’ve got sail up.”

“Oh, they’re off for a week’s fishing down among the islands,” said Joe. “Jack said for us to go ahead and run the Surprise as soon as Captain Sam gets her ready. There they start now. They’ve cast off.”

The Viking was, indeed, under way, with Henry Burns and Harvey and Tom and Bob waving farewell.

“Where are you bound?” called Mr. Carleton, springing to the rail and hailing the Viking.

“Down the bay, fishing,” answered Harvey.

“Great!” cried Mr. Carleton. “Bring her up a minute, and I’ll come aboard and make the trip with you.”

Harvey looked at Henry Burns inquiringly.

Henry Burns glanced back at Mr. Carleton, but without altering the course of the yacht.

“Good-bye,” he called, pleasantly. “Sorry, but we’ve got a full crew. Couldn’t pay you high enough wages, anyway. Next trip, perhaps. Good-bye, fellows.”

Mr. Carleton watched the yacht, footing it fleetly southward; and there was a look of genuine disappointment on his face.

“Never mind,” said Joe Hinman, “come along with us. We’re off for a little cruise ourselves, in the morning. We’d like to have you go.”

“No, thanks,” replied Mr. Carleton. “I think I will wait ashore this trip—yes, I will go, too,” he said in the next breath. “I tell you where we will go. We’ll sail down to Stoneland. I haven’t been down that far yet. I’m with you.”

“All right,” said Joe. As a matter of fact, he had not contemplated so long a trip until the sails had been fully stretched and fitted under Captain Sam’s eye. But there was something positive about Mr. Carleton’s assertion. He said it with an assurance that seemed to take it for granted that that settled it. So Joe good-naturedly acquiesced.

“By the way,” said Mr. Carleton the next morning, when they had met outside Rob Dakin’s store, “have you got a chart of these waters aboard?”

“No,” answered Joe. “Jack has all that stuff aboard the Viking. But we don’t need a chart around this bay, do we, fellows? Not to go as far as Stoneland even. We know the bay all right.”

“Well, I don’t doubt that,” responded Mr. Carleton; “but I like to see where I am sailing for my own information. I’ll get one in the store.”

Mr. Carleton providing not only a chart for the voyage, but a quantity of provisions as well, they set out in high feather. It certainly was a stroke of luck, now that Harvey’s pocket-money was low, to have so liberal a passenger.

He was an interested and discerning sailor, too, was Mr. Carleton. He had a sailor’s interest to read the depth of water on the chart as they sailed, and to note the points of land off at either hand, and the islands by name, as they went southward. And he traced it all accurately on the chart as they progressed, with a little pencilling, especially when they sailed between some small islands at the foot of Grand Island.

“I like to know where I am, don’t you?” he asked of Joe Hinman. “I may buy a yacht of my own down here some day.”

He was interested in the harbour of Stoneland, too, and in the town; and he took them all up to a store there and bought them bottled soda, and bought their supper the night of their arrival there—which was the second night after their departure from Southport.

Then, at his suggestion, they cruised a little way down the channel that was the thoroughfare out to sea, on the following morning, and would have liked to go farther, but that Joe Hinman declared they must be getting back, as the crew had an idea of doing some fishing on their own account, to help Harvey out with expenses.

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton, as they headed about finally, “there’s our course by the chart, laid down as fine as you please. I’m going to give this chart to you—after I amuse myself with it awhile.”

But be it recorded that when the trip had been ended, several days later, Mr. Carleton did not leave the chart aboard the Surprise, but took it ashore with him.