“Of course.”
“Did you ever meet any whalers?”
“Oh, yes, quite a number. Some of them go north quite a distance. They have to sail many miles to get the right kind of whales.”
“Did you—did you ever meet a whaler named the Betsey Andrews?”
“The Betsey Andrews?” mused Barwell Dawson. “Where was she from?”
“From New Bedford, Captain Jacob Spark.”
“Why, yes, I did. What do you know of her?”
“I don’t know much, excepting that my father sailed on her some years ago, and the vessel has failed to come back—so far as I know.”
“That’s too bad. So far as I can remember, the ship was all right when I saw her. If I remember rightly, however, our captain said he thought she was pretty far north for a whaler.”
“Do you think she was wrecked in a storm?”