The Rival Campers Afloat: or, The Prize Yacht Viking. Smith Ruel Perley

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      “Do you come from around this way?” asked the stranger, as they proceeded to play.

      “Yes,” answered young Brackett. “My home is at Southport. Harry Brackett is my name. I’m Squire Brackett’s son.”

      “Indeed!” said the stranger, as though the answer was a matter of information, whereas he had distinctly heard the boy’s companion refer to him as coming from Southport. “But you are not an islander. You’ve been about some, I can see.”

      Most persons would have said that it would have been better for the boy if he had had more of the sturdy qualities of the islanders and less of those manners to which the stranger referred. But young Brackett took the remark as a compliment, as it was intended, and answered, “Oh, yes, I’ve been about a good deal – up Boston way and that sort of thing – Benton and different cities. But I live at Southport. My father owns a good deal of the place, you see.”

      “Well, I’m glad to know you, Mr. Brackett,” said the stranger, with a renewed show of cordiality. “My name is Carleton. I come from Boston, too. I am just living around at any place I take a fancy to for the summer. Oh, by the way, I came here to look at some boats. Do you know of a good one over your way that a man might buy?”

      “Why, no, I don’t know as I do,” replied young Brackett. “That is, not what you would want. There’s only one elegant boat, and I guess she is not for sale. She belongs to some boys. They’d better sell her, though, if they get the chance. They think they are smart, but they can’t sail her a little bit.”

      “Hm!” ejaculated Mr. Carleton, and made a mental note of the other’s evident antipathy to the boys he referred to.

      “You don’t mean the Viking?” he inquired. “Somebody in the town here was speaking about her the other day.”

      “Yes, that’s the one,” replied young Brackett. “But I don’t think you can buy her.”

      “Oh, most any one will sell a thing, if you only offer him enough,” said Mr. Carleton, carelessly. “Somehow I think she is about the boat I want. I had a talk with a captain here the other day, and he said she was the best sailer about here.

      “Oh, by the way,” he added, apparently intent upon his game and studying a shot with great care, “did you ever hear of anything queer about that yacht – anything queer discovered about her?”

      “Why, no!” cried young Brackett, in a tone of surprise. “Is there anything queer about her? Do you know about her? That is a funny question.”

      If Mr. Carleton, making his shot unmoved, had got exactly the information he was after, he did not betray the least sign of it. Instead, he laughed and said:

      “No, no. You don’t understand. I mean any ‘out’ about the boat. Has she any faults, I mean. Does she sail under? Run her counters under? Knock down in a wind and heavy sea? Carry a bad weather helm – or still worse, a lee helm? You know what I mean. When a man is buying a boat he wants to know if she is all right.”

      He said it easily, in his deep, full voice, that seemed to emerge from behind his heavy moustache, without his lips moving.

      “Oh, I understand,” said young Brackett. Then he added, mindful of his anger at the owners of the Viking, “I guess the boat is good enough – better than the crowd that owns her.”

      “Well, I want you to do something for me,” continued Mr. Carleton. “I think I want her. When you return to Southport, I wish you would make them an offer for me. Do you know what they paid for her?”

      “Why, I think she brought only about eight hundred dollars,” said young Brackett. “She’s worth twice that, I guess. But there wasn’t anybody to buy her. She went cheap.”

      “Tell them you know of a party that will give them fifteen hundred dollars for the boat,” said Mr. Carleton. “And if you buy her for me for that price I will give you two hundred dollars. The boat is worth all of that from what I hear.”

      Young Brackett’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

      “Oh, I am in earnest,” said the man. “I can afford it. I’m out for a good time this summer. I’ll be much obliged if you will do the business for me. Business is business, and I don’t ask you to go to the trouble for nothing. Here’s something on account.”

      He handed young Brackett a ten-dollar bill, which the boy pocketed promptly. It seemed a queer transaction, but he was satisfied.

      “And, say, don’t mention my name,” said Mr. Carleton, carelessly. “You see, if a man that has any money is known to be looking for a particular boat, they always put the price up.”

      “All right, I won’t,” replied Harry Brackett.

      “I hate to tackle that fellow, Harvey,” he thought, as he turned the matter over in his mind. “But it’s worth trying for two hundred dollars.”

      Then, in great elation, he proceeded to beat Mr. Carleton at the game; though that person’s intimate friends, wherever they might be, would have laughed at his attempts to make poor shots instead of good ones. It pays to be a loser sometimes, was his way of looking at it. At least, he and Harry Brackett parted excellent friends.

      The day came in warm and pleasant down in the Thoroughfare, and the boys were early astir.

      “Any more swimming to do to-day, Henry?” inquired George Warren, as the fires were building in the cabin stoves, preparatory for breakfast.

      “Only a plunge for one of us,” answered Henry. “I’ll do that. And that reminds me; I’d better do it before breakfast, for one doesn’t want to swim right after eating. Just throw us a line and trip your anchor, and we will draw you up close astern of the Surprise, opposite us.”

      The Warren boys did as he requested, and the two boats were soon almost side by side, astern of the sunken yacht. Then Henry Burns, getting George Warren to unhook the tackle from the throat of the mainsail of the Spray, did likewise aboard the Viking. Taking the two pieces of tackle in hand, while the boys let the halyards run free, he ducked down at the stern of the sunken yacht and hooked in the tackle to one of the stout ropes that had been passed under the boat’s keel.

      “That will do till after breakfast,” he said, coming to the surface and clambering out aboard the Viking.

      “No, let’s have a pull on the thing now,” exclaimed Harvey. “I’m eager to see the old Surprise above water – that is, if she is going to float.”

      “All right,” said Henry Burns. “Come on, fellows.”

      The boys on each yacht caught hold of the halyards with a will, and hoisted as they would have done to raise the throat of the mainsail. The tackle, hooked on to the stern of the sunken yacht, was at first as so much dead weight on their hands. Then, of a sudden, it began to yield ever so little, and the halyards began to come home.

      “She’s coming up, boys!” cried Harvey, gleefully. “Pull now, good and hard.”

      But the next moment something seemed to have given way. The ropes ran loose in their hands, and the boys that held the ends sprawled over on the decks.

      “Oh, confound it! The rope must have slipped off the stern,” exclaimed Harvey.

      “No, СКАЧАТЬ