Again the yacht swung out into the river, gathering headway quickly and skimming along, heeling very gently.
The strange man stood watching her from the pier.
“No,” he said, softly, to himself, “I never saw but one boat just like her before. But who would have thought I should run across them the first thing? That was a stroke of luck.”
CHAPTER II.
THE COLLISION
“Pleasant sort of a man, wasn’t he?” commented Harvey, as the Viking left the pier astern, and the stranger could be seen walking briskly up the road toward the town.
“Why, yes, he was, in a way,” responded Henry Burns. “Most persons manage to make themselves agreeable while one is doing them a favour. Really, though, he isn’t one of the open, hearty kind, though he did try to be pleasant. I don’t know why I think so, but he seemed sort of half-concealed behind that big moustache.”
Harvey laughed.
“That’s a funny notion,” he said.
“Well,” responded Henry Burns, “of course it wasn’t just that. But, at any rate, he is the kind of a man that has his own way about things. Did you notice, he didn’t exactly ask us to take him into the boat. He said, right out at the start, that he was going along with us—of course, if we were willing. But he was bound to come aboard, just the same, whether we were willing or not.”
“Hm!” said Harvey. “You do take notice of things, don’t you? I didn’t pay any attention to what he said; but, now I think of it, he did have that sort of way. However, we shall probably never set eyes on him again, so what’s the odds?”