CHAPTER XIX TED DYER, SAILOR BY MARRIAGE
Still Ab continued to hail from the bow of the motor yacht, young Captain Tom having gone forward to stand by him and give directions.
"We'll take you aboard, and have a look at you, anyway," Ab called through the megaphone. "That is, if you make us closely enough to catch a rope from us. But we won't change our course, or stop ship."
"Sa-ay, that's hardly fair!" came the indignant protest.
"If you want to get aboard this craft, do as we tell you," Ab Perkins retorted, doughtily.
"A-all right! I can't stay out on the ocean alone any longer, anyway!" came back the answer, with a new note of determination in it.
"Then stop talking," directed Ab, "and get down to your oars, so as to run just alongside of us. And stand by to catch the line that'll be thrown to you."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Catching up a coil of line, Perkins ran down nearer the waist of the ship. A seaman stood by with the ship's end of a rope boarding-ladder made fast. Captain Tom remained up in the "Panther's" bow.
Then, out of the fog, shot a dory into sight. In it sat a boy of about sixteen, wearing only a ragged shirt and hardly less ragged trousers. He bent at a pair of oars, his glance cast backward over one shoulder as he guided the craft so as to pass the "Panther" without being engulfed by her.
It was close work, and required rather fine seamanship on the part of the boy in the boat.
Had the "Panther" been going at anything like her full speed the effort to lay alongside would have ended in disaster. Even as it was, Captain Tom Halstead watched with not a little anxiety.
"Ready—catch the line!" sang Ab Perkins. The young executive officer of the "Panther" possessed fine judgment and a straight eye for such work. As the coil left Ab's hand it went whirling, uncoiling, through the air. The line landed fairly across the shoulder of the other boy below. He caught the rope, then sank down to the middle seat of the dory, bracing himself and holding on hard.
As the line became taut the bow of the dory was yanked about. The little craft heeled a bit, then righted, bumping in against the larger hull, then gliding off and riding rather easy.
The seaman at Ab's side now dropped the rope boarding-ladder overboard so that its lower end rested fairly in the dory.
"Swing onto the ladder, and kick the dory loose," directed Ab Perkins, steadily. "I reckon you can do it."
"Don't you want to recover the dory, to pay for my passage to land?" inquired the boy below.
"Not a bit of it," uttered Ab. "Too much truck aboard now."
"Then here comes—not much of anything," laughed the boy, in a clear, cool voice, as he seized the rope ladder, and sprang up onto it. As he left the dory that little craft drifted astern, soon to be lost to sight in the great fog.
In another moment the boy was aboard. No stranger was he to the sea. That much could be told by the neat, seaman-like way in which he came up the rope boarding-ladder.
"I've come on board, sir," laughed the stranger, touching the make-shift for a cap which he wore.
"So I see," nodded Tom Halstead, coming aft from the bow. "What's your name?"
"Ted Dyer."
"Hailing port?"
"'Frisco."
"Sailor, by trade?"
"No," laughed Ted, his eyes twinkling; "a sailor by marriage."
"What's that?" demanded Halstead, almost sharply. He almost suspected that the other boy was making game of him. If Dyer came from the "Victor," such levity was misplaced.
"My mother's sister married a captain of a freight schooner," Ted explained, more soberly.
"Oh. So you, so to speak, ran away to sea with your uncle?"
"No; he ran away from me at sea," answered young Dyer, more soberly.
"How long has your uncle been captain of the 'Victor'?" Halstead demanded, swiftly, hoping to catch this other boy off his guard.
"The 'Victor'?" repeated Ted, opening his eyes wide. If he was shamming, then it was a fine bit of acting.
"Didn't you come from the steam yacht 'Victor'?" demanded Captain Tom, looking hard at the boy.
"Never heard of the craft before," declared Ted. Then: "Hold on, though. I'm lying without meaning to, it would seem. Yes; I know the 'Victor.' She's a hundred and twenty-two foot steam yacht, fine and fast."
"That's the 'Victor' just over to port," went on Tom, still eyeing the other youth, closely.
"Is it?" asked Ted Dyer. "Then your eyesight is sharper than mine."
"Don't try to get funny," warned Halstead.
"I don't want to," protested Ted. "You all strike me as first-rate fellows. And, anyway, you've fished me up out of the vasty deep, so to speak. Where's your captain?"
"You're looking at him," replied Halstead.
"Again," laughed Ted, "you're crediting me with finer eyesight than I possess."
"I am the captain," Tom replied, struggling against an inclination to like this boy. Ted was so brimming over with good humor, that it seemed almost wicked to suspect him of anything worse than being hungry.
"You're the captain?" demanded Ted, taken aback, and staring hard. Then, as he took in the details of Halstead's uniform, and noted the looks on the faces of the others about him, he became convinced.
"Captain——" began Ted.
"Halstead," supplied Tom.
"Captain Halstead, as I'll have to dead-beat my passage back to San Francisco, I shall be mighty glad if you'll assign me to some work to do."
"On your word of honor you didn't come off the 'Victor'?" insisted the young skipper, still looking hard at the new arrival on board.
"On my honor I didn't. Why? Is it a crime to come on board from the 'Victor'?"
"Very nearly," Halstead replied, dryly. "We've got one fellow in the brig on board, charged with that very offense."
"Whew!" muttered Ted, looking grave. "Then what's the sentence for coming on board from a dory?"
"How did you come to be in that dory?" pressed the young skipper of the "Panther."
"You might call it mainly my uncle's offense," replied Ted Dyer, more gravely. "You see, my parents are dead. They left me a little money, and put me under the guardianship of my uncle. He put the money into the freight schooner, 'Nancy.' However, even at that, some of the earnings of the schooner had to be put aside as belonging to my estate. So my uncle, being a bright man, conceived the idea, night before last, of putting me adrift in the dory you fished me out of. At the time he had only a drunken sailor named Griggs on deck with him. Griggs is a fellow my uncle, Captain Dalton, by name, can depend on. Uncle got me to go into the dory that was towing astern. Made believe he wanted me to see if anything had fouled the rudder. Then he cut the line and left me adrift. I guess he figured that there was a storm coming; that I'd never be heard from again, and that he'd get the schooner all for himself."
"The infernal scoundrel!" breathed Halstead, indignantly. Then, remembering his first suspicions, he shot in, closely:
"So your uncle isn't captain of the 'Victor'?"
"What's the joke?" demanded Ted, gazing at those about him, a look of wonder in his innocent blue eyes.
Tom Halstead was beginning to soften. Despite the grave need of caution and suspicion, Ted's honest good nature was infectious. Besides, as both the yachts were going at eight miles an hour, and the "Victor" was traveling only abeam, anyway, how could a boy in a dory put off from the steam yacht be so far ahead of the position of either boat as to come down upon the "Panther" in the fashion Ted had done? Altogether, Captain Tom felt that he might do well to drop some of his suspicions. That same idea was occurring to some of the others who listened. It was Joe Dawson, however, who first gave voice to this new idea.
"I reckon Ted is all right, Captain," spoke up the young chief engineer. "At any rate, I feel willing to go bail for his good behavior on this craft."
"I guess this youngster is all right, Captain," spoke Joseph Baldwin, next stepping forward. "I'll take a chance with him, if you're willing."
Ted Dyer, meanwhile, was looking from one face to another, as though he wondered what kind of a crowd he had encountered.
"You may think us a bit strange, Dyer," spoke Tom, with a quiet smile. "The truth is, we have the best of reasons for being suspicious of the other yacht you've heard us talking about. You can stay aboard, and we'll try to make you comfortable."
"I haven't anything else to do, sir," said Joe, turning once more to the young captain. "I'll take Dyer in hand if you say so."
"Go ahead," assented Halstead. "First of all, take him below, Mr. Dawson, and introduce him to the cook. I imagine that will be agreeable."
"You're good at guessing, Captain," laughed the San Francisco boy, saluting.
"Come along then, Ted Dyer," proposed Joe, taking him by the arm with a friendly grip. "You can come below to my cabin and chat while you eat."
"I guess I can do a lot of both," admitted the San Francisco boy, going along with Joe after making a bow that was intended to include everyone.
Joe, however, did not at first press the other boy to talk much, but was delighted at seeing Dyer able to stow away so much satisfying food.
"Now," demanded the newcomer, pushing his chair back from the table, "what am I going to do aboard this craft to earn my way?"
"What do you know best how to do?" asked Dawson.
"You said you are the chief engineer?"
"Yes."
"If there's anything I'm crazy about," confessed Ted Dyer, "it's machinery. Why couldn't I go to work in your engine room?"
"That's a rather unfortunate question," returned Joe, feeling a bit uncomfortable. "You see, the fellow who really did come aboard from the 'Victor' got into the engine room and tried to put our machinery into a useless condition. So you can understand why Captain Halstead would stare if I told him I had put you in the engine room."
"What's all this business about the 'Victor,' anyway?" demanded Ted Dyer, curiously.
So Joe told him enough to enable the other boy to understand, including the fact that a United States assistant district attorney and two deputy marshals were aboard intent upon arresting a bank absconder believed to be on board the "Victor."
"And that boat is trying to lose you in the fog, so that Mr. Absconder can get away?" asked Ted Dyer, understandingly.
"That's the case, Dyer."
"Then I can understand why it wouldn't look well for me to ask for a job in the engine room," pondered Ted, thoughtfully. "I suppose, though, I could go in and help the cook. I couldn't do any harm there. Yes, I could, though; I might poison the dishes or the food."
Joe Dawson gave a hearty laugh, so completely was he disarmed of suspicion of the other boy.
"I guess perhaps we'd better leave it all to Captain Halstead," proposed Joe Dawson. "He's a fine, splendid fellow, as you'll find."
"Fine and suspicious," retorted Ted, with a grimace.
"He has to be, on a strange cruise like this. But you'll find Captain Tom Halstead as good as fine gold, Ted. Halstead is my chum."
"If he's your chum," vouchsafed Dyer, heartily, "then I'll take my oath he's all right."
"Come up on deck," nodded Joe, moving toward the companion way.