As for Henry Burns, his mind had been given over for some time to the consideration of a different matter. He, himself, couldn’t have told exactly just when and where he had formed a certain impression; but, once the idea had impressed him, he had turned it over and over, looking at it from all sides, and trying to recall any incident that would shed light on it.
He had a habit of thinking of things in this way, without saying anything to anybody about them until he had made up his mind. And what he had been considering in this way, for a week or more, was nothing less than the yacht Viking, and their departed friend, Mr. Carleton.
“Jack,” he said, as he and Harvey sat cooking their supper on the stove in the cabin, the evening following this same afternoon’s fishing, “do you know I believe there is something queer about the Viking.”
“Not a thing!” exclaimed Harvey. “She’s as straight and clean a boat, without faults, as any one could find in a year.”
“No, that isn’t what I meant,” said Henry Burns, smiling. “I almost think there’s something about her that we haven’t discovered. Did you ever think there might be something hidden aboard the boat that’s valuable?”
“Cracky! no,” replied Harvey. “What in the world put that into your head?”
“Mr. Carleton did,” answered Henry Burns.
“Mr. Carleton!” exclaimed Harvey. “Why, I never heard him say anything like that.”
“Neither did I,” said Henry Burns. “It’s what he did—breaking into our cabin, and that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?” asked Harvey, somewhat incredulous, despite his having considerable faith in the ideas of his companion.