"O uncle, won't you teach me how to steer and to manage the sails before I go back home?" he pleaded, looking earnestly into Mr. Turner's face.
"Certainly, Mort, certainly," was the kindly reply; "and I think you ought to make a very apt pupil, too."
Mr. Turner was altogether as good as his word. He took much pains in initiating Mort into the mysteries of sailing, teaching him the way to tack, when it was permissible to jibe, how to run before the wind, and so forth, until, by the end of the first month, Mort had become tolerably proficient, and could be trusted to manage the Gleam alone in an ordinary breeze.
This special privilege he was then allowed to exercise, provided he did not go outside the "boom"—that is, the long line of shackled logs which enclosed the bay where the boathouse stood, and which was intended to keep the saw-logs from stranding on the beach.
Inside the boom was a stretch of shallow water nearly a mile long by a quarter of a mile wide, on which plenty of sailing might be had without going out through the gap into the body of the lake.
For a time Mort was content with this enclosed space, and, whenever his uncle permitted him, would get the boat out, and go tacking up and down from end to end, feeling almost as proud of his newly-acquired skill as if he had been discoverer of the science of sailing.
But of course it was not many days before he began to cast longing eyes beyond the line of swaying logs, and to feel that the thing he most desired in the world was to be allowed to sail the Gleam across the lake and back.
But when he hinted as much to his uncle he met with no encouragement.
"No, no, Mort. You must be content with staying inside the boom; for, besides the chance of a squall, there is the danger of being caught in the current and carried into the rapids, which would soon make an end of both you and the boat."
Now it happened that one morning both Mr. and Mrs. Turner had to go into the city, not to return until by the night train, and Mort was left entirely to his own resources. Of course he turned to the Gleam for company, and as soon as the morning breeze came up, taking with him two other lads about his own age, he launched the boat, and went skimming from end to end of the bay.