“Let us visit the Golden Eagle and see Bob Sanders,” said Phil, late in the afternoon. “Perhaps he knows something about the Emma Brower, and her trip.”
The others were willing, and sundown found them aboard the vessel belonging to Phil’s father. Hardly had they stepped on deck when a grizzled old tar, with white hair, rushed up to Dave.
“If it ain’t Dave Porter!” he burst out. “Yes, sir, Dave, wot I haven’t seen in a year o’ Sundays! How be you, my boy?” And he caught the youth by both hands.
“Billy Dill!” exclaimed our hero, as his face lit up with pleasure. “Where in the world did you drop from? I thought you had given up the sea.”
Billy Dill, as my old readers will remember, was the tar who aided Dave in locating his Uncle Dunston. As related in “Dave Porter in the South Seas,” Billy Dill had traveled with our hero to that portion of the globe, in the Stormy Petrel, of which Bob Sanders was, at the time, second mate. On returning home, the old tar had been placed in a sanitarium and then a sailors’ home, and Dave had imagined he was still in the latter retreat.
“Couldn’t give up the sea, Dave,” replied the old sailor. “I tried my best, but it wasn’t no use. So I goes to Phil’s old man, an’ I says, says I, ‘Give me a berth an’ anything I’m wuth,’ an’ he says, says he, ‘How would ye like to sail with Cap’n Sanders, wot sailed with you to the South Seas?’ ‘Fust-rate,’ says I; an’ here I be, an’ likes it very much.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you looking so well,” answered Dave.
“It’s the sea air done it, lad. When I was ashore I jest knowed I wanted sea air. No more homes ashore fer Billy Dill, not much!” And the old tar shook his head with conviction.
A few minutes later, while the old sailor was shaking hands with the others, and asking and answering questions, the captain of the ship came up.
“Very glad indeed to see you again,” said Captain Sanders, with a broad smile. He looked closely at the boys. “Grown some since I saw you last.”