“No, Mr. Jukes is away on a cruise on his yacht,� he said, “and down at the offices of the company I’ve got no pull.�
“Well, see here,� said Travis, slapping him on the back, “I know of a job that would just suit a fellow with your cut of jib. My brother is wireless man on the Thespis revenue cutter. She’s just been assigned to the iceberg patrol. Jim is going to get married, though, and can get leave of absence if he can furnish a substitute of the right sort. You could make the cruise, it wouldn’t last long, and be back in time to meet old Jukes when he returns. What do you say?�
“That it would be just the job for me—if I could land it!â€� cried Jack delightedly.
“No trouble about that,� declared Travis breezily. And so it proved. Jack was placed under a rather severe examination by the commander of the Thespis. But he came through with flying colors.
Another thing that gladdened him about his new job was that it would take him into the far regions of the north whither Uncle Toby, on his hare-brained treasure quest, had gone. Jack felt that he might get a chance to come in contact with his uncle. He had a vague feeling that all was not well. He had visited the offices of the firm that had financed Uncle Toby’s venture and did not much like what he saw there. He talked to a ferret faced man who told him that Mr. Rufus Terrill, a member of the firm, had gone along on the treasure hunting echoonet, as “our representative,� but from a passing glint in the man’s eyes Jack guessed that Mr. Rufus Terrill was on board to see that he and his partners got the lion’s share.
“Still,� the boy had mused, as he left the offices in a shabby building off Wall Street, “Uncle Toby must have pretty good proofs that he was on a legitimate venture or he wouldn’t have interested such sharp folks as Terrill & Co. What a queer thing it would be if, after all, he did come back rich. Well, stranger things have happened.�
A week after he “signed on� as wireless man, for the nonce, of the Thespis, the trig revenue cutter nosed out of New York harbor bound for the frozen north, there to patrol the margin of the giant wastes of ice till the danger of icebergs for the year was over.
CHAPTER XIII: POMPEY MYSTIFIED.
As the days slipped by and they worked farther north, the Polly Ann began to encounter nipping weather. Raynor, who had no thick clothes, suffered a good deal, but fortunately most of his work was in the galley where it was apt to be uncomfortably warm.
Noddy continued to play his tricks on Pompey, much to the latter’s mystification. The darky had come to believe that the Polly Ann was haunted. In this way Noddy worked on his superstitious feelings till the black was quite as anxious as the boys to leave the schooner. But they did not deem the time yet ripe to broach their plans to him.