"He's making bad weather of it," said the sailor. "Poor chap. If he comes aboard——"
"Oh! we'll feed him and mend his wing," cried Rose. "He's just like—Why, Russ Bunker! that poor bird is just what Aunt Jo called poor Sam, a tramp. That is what he is."
"A sea-going tramp, I guess," said the sailor, laughing.
But he watched the coming sea bird quite as interestedly as did the two children. The creature seemed to have selected the steamship as its objective point, and it beat its good wing furiously so as to get into the course of the Kammerboy.
"Can we have the bird if it gets aboard, Mr. Officer?" asked Russ eagerly.
"If I can catch it without killing it—for they are very fierce birds—it shall be yours," promised the man.
At once, therefore, the eagerness and interest of Russ and Rose Bunker were vastly increased. They clung to the rail and watched the approaching bird with anxious eyes. It was coming head on toward the bow of the ship. Would the Kammerboy get past so swiftly that the sea-eagle could not reach it?
The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly a little farther, greatly excited the two older of the six little Bunkers.