"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?"