AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
From the morning Joe Wayring and his friends left Ogden up to the time they wheeled over the old familiar road that led into Mount Airy, not a single thing happened to mar the pleasure of their trip. I do not mean to say that the roads were always good, or that they were never weather-bound; for those petty annoyances fall to the lot of every tourist, he expects them, and knows how to make the best of them. But they found no more train-wreckers along the route, nor were there any Buster bands or Matt Coyles to be afraid of. They spent many a night in camp; their pocket rifles brought them all the young squirrels they cared to eat; they encountered tramps on nearly every mile of the way, and although they never had the least trouble with these social outcasts, they listened to a story from the lips of two of them that interested them exceedingly, and proved to Roy Sheldon's entire satisfaction that the clear-sighted Joe Wayring had hit pretty close to the mark when he declared that Roy's presence aboard the White Squall had not been brought about by accident.
Their destination was Plymouth, a little sea-port town situated on a bay of the same name. They spent a day roaming about the wharves, looking at everything there was to be seen, especially the ships, which would hardly have attracted more than a passing notice from them, had it not been for Roy's experience in New London harbor. They went aboard of one, looked all over it, marveled at its strength and more at the power of the winds and waves which could so easily make a wreck of man's best handiwork. They turned up their noses at the dingy forecastle, smelling of tar and bilgewater, and wondered how any one could bring himself to bunk in it during a long voyage.
"I would much rather sleep on a bed of hemlock boughs," said Joe, "and go out in the morning and catch my own breakfast from the sparkling waters of a lake or brook, and serve it up on a piece of clean bark. If I had been in love with the sea when I came here, I would be all over it now."
"It's rough, isn't it?" said Roy, as he and his companions went down the gang-plank to the wharf; and he trembled all over when he thought how near he had come to being carried to distant countries against his will. "The little I saw of a sailor's life while I was on the White Squall convinced me that the officers are more to be dreaded than the forecastle. They can be as brutal as they please when they are out of sight of land, and there's no law to touch them."
"There's law enough," answered Joe, "but the trouble is, a sailor man can't use it. Suppose he has the officers of his vessel arrested for cruelty while he has the rest of the crew at hand to prove it against them. They are put under bonds, but the case is postponed on one pretext or another, and while that is being done, how is Jack going to live? Of course the minute he gets ashore he makes haste to spend his wages, and when his last dollar is gone what recourse has he but to ship for another voyage? Then the case is called, and there being no one to prosecute, the captain and his mates are discharged and go aboard their vessel to play the same game over again."
"That's about the way those light-ship men put it when I threatened to have Captain Jack punished for kidnapping me," said Roy. "That may be law, but it isn't justice. I wonder where the White Squall and Tony and Bob are now."
"I shouldn't think you would care," replied Arthur. "I know I shouldn't if I had been treated as you have."
"I don't much care what becomes of the ship and her officers, but I am sorry for the crew. I tell you that Tony and Bob were shanghaied the same as I was."