"Where have you been all the morning? It has got to be an old story by this time. The Au Sable was run on shore, and sunk. No one was lost; but several were injured,—how many, I don't know."
"But how came she ashore? It wasn't even foggy last night," said Pearl.
"That's the mystery. The boat ran on to a point of rocks. The report thinks the pilot in charge was trying to run the boat over the land. His name was Dornwood; and he must have been either drunk or asleep, or both. But all this is neither here nor there. What about this boy? He may be the son of this pilot for aught we know."
"I don't know any Dornwood. He was not a pilot in her when I was on the Au Sable."
"How do you know that the boy who was with your father bought the Goldwing, Pearl?" inquired the landlord, who had told his news and lost his interest in it till another uninformed person came along. "I don't want to accuse any person of robbing my house without the means of proving the charge."
"Oh, it's all straight, you may depend upon it!" replied Pearl. "I thought the boy looked like a young rascal, and now I know that he stole the money. Of course it is no sale, so far as the boat is concerned. How is that?" asked Pearl, who seemed to realize for the first time, that, if the money paid for the Goldwing was stolen, it would have to be returned to the rightful owner.
"I should say it would be no trade under the circumstances. But you don't tell me how you know it was this boy that was with your father last night in my house," said the landlord impatiently.
"I don't know that he was in your house with my father. He was with my father last night, for he told me so. He brought me a letter from my father this morning. When we were bidding on the Goldwing, I found it was the same boy. That's how I know it; and there is no mistake about it," added Pearl.
"It looks as though there might be something in it. At any rate we will have the thing looked into. Where is the boy now? What has become of him?"
"The last I saw of him he was in the Goldwing, at anchor off the breakwater, on the outside. I have no doubt he is going to Burlington in the boat as soon as the weather is fit for him to sail."