“Indeed, most interesting,” replied the stranger, arising from his seat and advancing toward the cabin bulkhead, where he stood, apparently gazing off across the river. Then, as he returned to his seat again, he added, “That’s rather an elaborate ornamenting of brass around the companionway.”
“Isn’t it, though!” exclaimed Harvey, proudly. “You don’t see them much handsomer than that often, eh?”
“Why, no, now you speak of it,” replied the man. “You don’t, and that’s a fact.
“In fact,” he added, stealing a sidelong glance at the two boys, “it’s the only one just like it that I ever saw.
“Pretty shore along here, isn’t it?” he remarked a few moments later, as they stood in near to where the spruces came down close to the water’s edge, with the ledges showing below. “What’s that you were saying about coming by the boat oddly? She looks to me as though your folks must have paid a good price for her.”
“Why, that’s the odd part of it,” answered Harvey. “The fact is, our folks didn’t pay for her at all. An old lady bought her for us. Made us a present of her. Perhaps you’d like to hear about it.”
“Indeed I should,” replied the stranger. “It will while away the time to the Landing.”
“You tell it, Henry,” said Harvey.
So Henry Burns began, while the stranger stretched his legs out comfortably and listened.
“Well,” said Henry Burns, “this yacht, the Viking, was named the Eagle when we first saw her.”