here. This is Brooklyn," Dave said.
"Do you know the way around here?" the boy asked. "I want to get out of this quick."
"Come with me," said Dave, growing more interested. He had learned every turn and corner of the docks. Three minutes later they were in a busy street, and the boy seemed to breathe more freely. His face began to wear a triumphant smile.
"That's fine!" he said. "I'll be safe now."
"Safe from what?"
"I've skipped the ship. I was scared to death somebody would spot me. I've got all my things in my pockets."
"What did you skip the ship for?" Dave asked, hugely pleased at being concerned, even in a small way, with a nautical adventure.
"Wanted to see America," responded the youth. "Don't you let on that you 've seen me. So long."
A moment later the owner of the red hair and dirty face was swallowed up in Brooklyn, and Dave went back to the steamer with new interest. An idea had occurred to him. It was only a vague idea, but it concerned the fact that he felt perfectly capable of doing anything that red-headed, undersized chap had done on the ship; and moreover, the ship was now short of a boy.
A curious tight feeling gripped him at the throat. For the space of perhaps five minutes he stood still, thinking hard, and then he boldly walked down the gangway.
"Can I see the captain, please?" he said to a tall man who was standing on deck talking to a companion.
"What do you want the captain for?"
"I want to see him on—on business," said Dave.
The man looked down into the boy's grey eyes which showed neither fear nor disrespect.
"Well, sonny, I'm the captain," he said. "What is it?"
"I guess you want a boy, sir," said Dave. "The other one's gone. I'd like his job."
CHAPTER III
OFF TO SEA
"Gone! Gone where?" asked the captain, with a frown of annoyance.
"I met him on the wharf and he said he'd left the ship, sir," Dave replied.
Suddenly the captain's face wore a smile. The situation appeared to amuse him.
"What d' you know about that!" he said, with a deep laugh. "You 'll get on, son, if you 're always as smart as this. Come back and talk to me in a week. From what I can see of you, I reckon you 'll fill the billet, but I'm too busy to waste time on you now. Come along next Thursday, and then I'll run the rule over you."
Dave's heart beat a little faster than usual as he walked home. Nothing had been farther from his mind earlier in the day than definitely to ask for a job on a vessel. Now he was as good as booked to sail in a week! In the excitement of the moment he had quite forgotten to ask where the ship was bound for. All he knew was her name—the Pacific Queen. As a matter of fact, he was not deeply concerned as to her destination. Any point of the compass was equally satisfactory to him. Perhaps he rather favored China or Japan, but any other old place would do nearly as well. He felt supremely happy and much more important than he ever remembered. Although he had not officially "signed on," the big captain with the deep laugh had said he would fill the billet, and Dave was prepared to take the captain's word for it. The only thing that made him thoughtful was the fact that he would have to go without telling his father or Aunt Martha. There did not seem to be any way out of that difficulty. If he told Aunt Martha, she would make a fuss and his father would hear of it, and Dave knew what that would lead to. Captain Hallard had definitely said his son was not to go to sea until the following year, and when Captain Hallard said a thing he meant it. Dave weighed the whole situation up carefully on his way home and decided the best thing was to disappear quietly to prevent a scene. He would just leave a note for his dad, explaining matters, and promising to return home immediately he got back to America.
That programme was all right in theory until he reached the house. As soon as he entered the door he felt that Aunt Martha's eyes were on him, and that she somehow knew. As a matter of fact Aunt Martha did glance at him, but not more closely than she always did. He was as dear to her as her own son would have been. David tried to act in a perfectly natural manner, but when a boy has just arranged to go to sea on the impulse of the moment, he would be more than human if he failed to show that something unusual was in the wind.
"What's come over the lad?" Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while. "You 're dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan."
This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that he was exceptionally quiet.
"You 're all excited and worked up," declared Aunt Martha. "I expect you 've been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the movies, have n't you?"
"No," replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.
"Then I guess you 're feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed."
Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was a sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor. In seven short days school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be "outward bound." The words had a fine ring to them. There was to be no waiting for twelve dreary months.
Dave lay awake many hours that night, and, with the first streaks of dawn, crept quietly down the stairs, for he wanted to set his eyes on the Pacific Queen again. He felt an air of proprietorship in regard to the vessel. Also, he half dreaded to find she had disappeared in the night, and it was with positive relief that he saw her lying snugly tied up at her berth.
He had learned in recent months to judge the cut of a vessel, and the Pacific Queen looked a trim craft to him. She was a single-screw steel freighter that had not been launched more than three years. No mail-boat that ever tore her way out of New York seemed half so magnificent in Dave's eyes as the Pacific Queen lying at her moorings that early summer morning. There was no sign of life on board except a thin stream of smoke from the galley stack, and the boy stood feasting his eyes on his future home for a full hour before a healthy appetite sent him hurrying home to see what Aunt Martha had for breakfast.
The problem of what to take on the voyage puzzled him somewhat. There were not many things he could take, as the money-box into which he had been dropping dimes and five-cent pieces for a couple of years contained only a few dollars. A large clasp-knife, of course, must be included. Of that there was no question. Whoever heard of a sailor without a clasp-knife? Dave was not absolutely certain what it was for, but he knew it was indispensable, so he boldly laid out a dollar and a half on a fearsome weapon with a bone handle. Fortunately, he had a new pair of heavy shoes. One problem gave him many uneasy hours. His father had once told him that when the time came for him to go to sea he could have the binoculars that formed one of Captain Hallard's souvenirs of the sea. The clasp-knife was a treasure already, but those binoculars were the crowning point of Dave's desires. They had cost an awful lot of money at one time and were not a necessary part of a boy's outfit, but Dave felt it would be a great thing to have them with him.
Choosing a suitable opportunity, he asked:
"Dad, do you remember saying I could have your glasses when the time came?"
"Surely," his father agreed, "and I hope you will remember always to treat 'em as carefully as I have done. They 've got fine lenses in them, and I don't know that I ever handled a better pair of binoculars in my life. There's many a sea-captain tramping round the ocean who'd give a whole lot to own a pair of glasses like them, so you 'll have to be careful or they will get stolen. Not that stealing is common on board ship. It's