"Because, if you are," said Marco, "I have lost your bucket."
"Lost my bucket!" repeated the gentleman. "How did you lose it?"
"I lost it overboard," said Marco.
Here the gentleman laughed, and said, "No, I'm not captain; but you seem to be an honest sort of boy. I don't know where the captain is."
All this, though it has taken some time to describe it, took place in a very few minutes; and the boat had now advanced only so far as to be opposite the steam mill which Marco had seen just before he had left Forester. Marco happened to see the mill as the boat moved by it, and he went immediately to the side of the boat to get a better view of it.
There was a chimney for the smoke, and a pipe for the waste steam, at the mill. From the steam-pipe there issued a dense column of vapor, which came up, however, not in a regular current, like the smoke from the chimney, but it was puffed up in regular strokes, making a sort of pulsation. While Marco was looking at it, Forester came along, and stood looking at it too. There were a great many logs lying about the shore, and enormous piles of boards, which had been sawed, and which were ready for the vessels that were to come and take them away.
"What makes the steam come up in puffs?" asked Marco.
"Because, it is what they call a high pressure engine," said Forester. "It works against the pressure of the atmosphere. All such engines throw out the steam in puffs."
"Why do they?" asked Marco.