All Adrift Part 9

"Get out, Dory!" exclaimed d.i.c.k Short, punching the skipper in the ribs.

"You are selling us too cheap, Dory."

"I'm not selling you at all!" protested Dory. "I wouldn't take twenty-five cents apiece for you, though that would make a dollar."

"You can't expect us to believe that you own such a magnificent boat as this, Dory, unless you tell us where you got her," said Corny Minkfield very seriously.

"I can expect it, and I do expect it," added Dory, taking the auctioneer's receipt from his pocket. "I shall prove to you that she is mine, and without saying another word."

Dory handed the receipt to Corny, and said nothing more. The sceptic read the paper out loud, and of course that settled the question. There was no room for a doubt after the reading of the receipt.

"Forty-two dollars!" exclaimed Corny, as he handed the receipt back to the skipper. "Judging by the cost of the Let.i.tia, she ought to be worth four or five hundred dollars."

"Forty-two dollars is nothing for a boat like this," added d.i.c.k Short, whose mother was worth money, and therefore he had less respect for forty-two dollars than most of the other members.

"But where did you get the forty-two dollars?" asked Thad, who had hardly ever possessed even half a dime at one time.

"Haven't I proved that the Goldwing is mine?" demanded Dory rather warmly; for he did not want his fellow-members of the Goldwing Club skirmishing about in the region of the great secret of his lifetime.

"All I have to say about it is, that I came honestly by the money, and I don't want any more questions asked."

Dory Dornwood, though he was rather wild, scorned to invent a lie to explain where the money came from, as perhaps some of his companions might have done under similar circ.u.mstances.

The other members of the Goldwing Club looked at one another; and Nat Long winked at Corny Minkfield, as much as to say "There is a cat in the meal somewhere." After the imperative warning from the skipper that nothing more was to be said about the forty-two dollars, no more questions were asked; but it was evident that the members all kept up a tremendous thinking on the subject. But even this matter became stale in a few minutes in the excitement of the hour.

"Forty-two dollars is dirt cheap for a boat like the Goldwing," said Dory, breaking the silence. "I have no doubt she cost four or five hundred dollars; but I ought to tell you that she has a bad name."

"A bad name! The Goldwing?" exclaimed Thad; and all of the party seemed to think it quite impossible that such a splendid boat as the Goldwing could have any thing but a first-cla.s.s reputation.

"She drowned the man that owned her. She upset, and then went to the bottom. Now, if any of you want to go on sh.o.r.e, you can."

The members of the Goldwing Club looked aghast at one another.

CHAPTER IX.

A WEATHER HELM AND A LEE HELM.

"Is the Goldwing in the habit of upsetting? Does she make a regular thing of it?" asked Thad Glovering.

"I have heard of her doing it twice before; though I believe she never drowned any one but her owner," replied Dory candidly and seriously.

"But I don't want any fellow to sail in her that don't want to."

"We can stand it as well as you can, Dory," added Corny Minkfield. "I suppose she would drown you as easily as she would any of the rest of us."

"There is nothing to make any of us stand it if we don't want to,"

continued Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and there isn't any law to make any of you sail in the Goldwing."

"But we want to sail in her; and this is the Goldwing Club now. But we don't want to be drowned," said Thad. "I think my uncle would like to get rid of me, but I don't believe he would want to have me drowned."

"I don't want to be drowned any more than you do, and I know my mother wouldn't want any such thing to happen to me. Of course I wouldn't go out in the Goldwing if I thought she was going to spill me into the lake," added Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and now you can go ash.o.r.e at Plattsburgh if you want to."

"I am willing to take my chances if you are, Dory," replied Thad with some hesitation. "It is blowing a young hurricane to-day, and you said you should not go till the weather was fit."

"I am not going to drown myself or you either, if I can help it, fellows," Dory proceeded. "I heard about the Goldwing the last time I was up here. I asked all about the drowning of the man that owned her, and a boatman who saw the whole of it told me all about it."

"How long ago was it that the man was drowned?" asked Nat Long.

"It was about three weeks ago. The boat lay on the bottom a week before they raised her," replied Dory.

"Was it blowing hard when he was drowned?" inquired Corny.

"No: it was just a good sailing-breeze. I think I know what the matter was with the boat. I believe I can make her all right, if I have not already done it; for I have been at work on her this morning."

"What was the trouble with her?" asked Thad, who considered the skipper competent to put any thing to rights about a boat.

"She was ballasted so that she carried a lee helm," answered Dory, as solemnly as though he settled the fate of a nation by his words.

"Carried a lee helm!" exclaimed d.i.c.k Short. "Is that what the matter was?"

"Carried a lee helm!" repeated Thad. "That was bad!"

"Carried a lee helm! If it was bad for her, she ought to have left her lee helm on sh.o.r.e."

"What did she carry it for?" asked Nat Long.

"She carried it because she couldn't leave it behind," replied Dory. "It is a bad habit, such as some men carry with them through life, for the reason that they can't get rid of it."

"I say, Dory, what is a lee helm?" asked Thad. "You know that we don't know any thing more about sailing a boat than we do about making a watch."

"You used to sail Mr. Jones's boat: but we never went with you then, Dory; and we never had any chance to learn how to sail a boat," added Corny. "I have no more idea what a lee helm is than I have what the man in the moon had for dinner to-day."

"That's what's the matter with all of us," added Thad, laughing.

"I didn't mean to bother you, fellows; but that is just what ailed the Goldwing, and she had it bad. But any boat would have behaved in the same way if she was not properly trimmed. I don't think Mr.

Lapham--that's the man that owned the Goldwing, and was drowned; I couldn't think of his name before--understood a boat very well. Look here, fellows!"

Dory Dornwood pointed to a mast-hole in the deck, which had been stopped. The foremast had been moved nearly two feet aft of the place where it had been stepped by the builder.

"The boatman told me that Mr. Lapham had changed the place of the foremast, so that he could make room for a locker in the head. If she had a bigger jib, it would be all right. The ballast was badly stowed, and that is what made her carry a lee helm."

"Now we know all about what did it, but we don't know what a lee helm is," added Thad, laughing. "I wish you would tell us what the thing is before you say any thing else."

"A boat ought to carry a weather helm, though not too much of it,"

replied Dory, knitting his brow as though he was struggling with a big idea, though he was only thinking how he should make his companions understand him.

The other members of the Goldwing Club could pull an oar or handle a paddle; and that was really all they knew about boating, though they were very ambitious to learn.