MISSING
Mr. Henry Wise, Mr. Bruce Norton's secretary, was enjoying himself. The mail boat did not offer the luxuries to which he was accustomed, to be sure, but it was much more to his liking than a hunting camp in the wilderness, particularly in frosty weather and flying snow. He could not keep his shoes properly polished, nor creases in his trousers, nor a spotless collar tramping upon rough trails through underbrush, and the very thought of sleeping in a tent, and upon the ground, was horrible.
When he had suggested to Mr. Norton that Charley was too young to follow his father on the trail, he had done so with the hope that he might be permitted to remain at St. John's in charge of Charley, and there enjoy the comfort of a hotel in idleness. That the hunting trip might prove too strenuous for Charley had not occurred to Mr. Norton until the suggestion came from Mr. Wise after their arrival in St. John's. Mr. Wise amplified his suggestion with the argument that it was quite too great a physical undertaking for any boy of thirteen, and might therefore create in Charley a distaste for future camping in the wilds.
This appealed to Mr. Norton as reasonable. He wished his boy to love the wilds as he loved them. Perhaps, he admitted, Mr. Wise was right, and if he took Charley with him, and Charley found the trails too hard, not only his own holiday would be spoiled, but Charley would have anything but a pleasant time.
In expectation that he would take him on his hunting expedition, Mr. Norton had promised Charley a unique and enjoyable experience. Now that he had decided against it, he cast about for a substitute. Mr. Norton was a man of his word. Charley had looked forward with keen anticipation to the hunting trip with his father, and had asked innumerable questions concerning it, and talked of little else since leaving New York. The prospect of camping in a real wilderness with his father,—the association with his father in camp, rather than the camp itself,—was the source of Charley's anticipated pleasure.
Not realizing this, and believing that any unusual experience would please Charley quite as well, whether or not he was to take part in it himself, Mr. Norton received with satisfaction the suggestion that Charley be sent upon the Labrador cruise. This, he was satisfied, was a solution of his difficulty. A cruise on the mail boat would be an experience to be remembered, and he had no doubt would prove much more interesting to Charley than the hunting expedition.
This settled, he engaged passage on the mail boat for Charley and Mr. Wise, to the chagrin and disappointment of the latter gentleman, who was forced, however, to accept the situation with good grace. Mr. Wise had no love of the sea.
He was to be Charley's companion on the voyage. He was to learn the interesting features of the coast along which the mail boat cruised, and to explain them and point them out to Charley. In general, he was to do his utmost to make the voyage one which Charley would remember with pleasure.
But as Mr. Wise expressed himself to the mail boat doctor, he was "employed as secretary and not as nurse maid." He had no intention of shivering around in the cold. He was going to make this voyage, which had been thrust upon him, as pleasant for himself as circumstances would permit. He pleaded sickness, and, as Charley had complained to Barney MacFarland, lay in his bunk reading novels, or sat in the smoking room playing checkers with the mail boat doctor, while Charley was left to his own resources.
It was eleven o'clock in the morning when the mail boat departed from Pinch-In Tickle. Mr. Wise was engrossed in a particularly interesting novel, and was so deeply buried in it that he failed to hear or respond to the noonday call to dinner. When, an hour later, hunger called his attention to the fact that he had not eaten, he rang for the steward, and a liberal tip brought a satisfactory luncheon to his stateroom. Thus it came to pass that he did not observe Charley's absence from the dinner table.