It was the other’s turn to be surprised.
“Why, yes, Jack Harvey was his name,” he said. “Did you know him?”
Henry Burns briefly told of his friendship and his hunt for his missing friend. “I thought there must be some mistake,” he said, “when I didn’t find him aboard here. But tell me, how did he get away?”
Wallace Brooks related the circumstances of the escape, as George Haley, the cook, had told of it; of the flight to shore on the hatch, and of Haley’s rage at losing both men and property.
Henry Burns smiled at that part of the adventure, despite his chagrin. Then he grew serious.
“I’ll bet it was poor old Jack and Edwards who slept in Edward Warren’s barn,” he said. “There were two strangers seen about the landing the next day. Where could Jack have gone to? Up river, I suppose, on a steamer—and here I am in his place! Isn’t that a mess?”
That same afternoon, Artie Jenkins, in passing Henry Burns, remembered that his face seemed familiar. He halted and stared for a moment. Then his face lighted up with a certain satisfaction in the other’s plight.
“Hello,” he said, “so you landed here, too, eh? I reckon you’re not quite so smart as you thought you were, coming down the river.”
“Yes, I’m here,” answered Henry Burns, coolly; “too bad you didn’t make ten dollars out of it; now wasn’t it?”
“What’s that to you?” snarled Artie Jenkins, angrily. “I don’t know what you mean, anyway.”