[RICK DALE.]
BY KIRK MUNROE.
CHAPTER V.
FIRST MATE BONNY BROOKS.
Alaric Todd's sensations as he sat on that log and watched the ship in which he was supposed to be a passenger steam away without him were probably as curious as any ever experienced by a boy. He had deliberately abandoned a life of luxury, as well as a position that most people are striving with all their energies to obtain, and accepted in its place—what? He did not know, and for the moment he did not care. He only knew that the Sonntaggs were gone beyond a chance of return, at least for some weeks, and that during that time there was no possible way in which they could reach him or communicate with his family.
He realized that he was in a strange city, not one of whose busy population either knew or cared to know a thing about him. But what of that? If they did not know him they could never call him by the hated name of "Allie." If he succeeded in making friends, it would be because of himself, and not on account of his father's wealth. Above all, those now about him did not know and should never know, if he could help it, that he was thought to be possessed of a weak heart. Certainly if excitement could injure his heart, it ought to be completely ruined at the present moment, for he had never been so excited in his life, and doubted if he ever should be again.
With it all the lad was filled with such an exulting sense of liberty that he wanted to jump and shout and share with every passer-by the glorious news that at length he was free—free to be a boy among boys, and to learn how to become a man among men. He did not shout, nor did he confide his happiness to any of those who were coming up from the wharf, where they had just witnessed the departure of the great ship; but he did jump from the log on which he had been sitting and fling his baseball high in the air. As it descended and he caught it with practised skill, he was greeted by the approving remark: "Good catch! Couldn't do it better myself!" and looking round he saw the lad with whom he had passed ball a short time before.
"It seems mighty good," continued the stranger, "to see a baseball again, and meet a fellow who knows how to catch one. These chaps over here don't know anything about it, and I've hardly seen a ball since I left Massachusetts. You don't throw, though, half as well as you catch."