Doubloons-and the Girl Part 15

Drew would have liked to ask whether the captain's wife were going too, but he felt that he might be treading on delicate ground, so he used a round-about method.

"I don't suppose there'll be any other women in the company?" he said lightly.

"No," replied the captain, a little soberly. "When my wife was alive she used to go with me occasionally on my voyages. The schooner's named for her. But she's been dead for three years now, and as Ruth is the only child I have, she and I will be thrown together more closely than ever. She's finished school.

"But I'm keeping you," he added, rising from the table at which they had been sitting; "and I suppose you've got more work on your hands than you know how to attend to."

Drew rose with alacrity.

"I am pretty busy, for a fact," he a.s.sented. "That accident to Mr.

Grimshaw has just about doubled my work. But it isn't getting the upper hand of me, and by the time we are ready to sail I'll have tied all the lose ends."

"That's good. By the way, speaking of Tyke, how did you find him this morning? I suppose you stopped in at the hospital on your way downtown as usual?"

"Yes. He's getting along in prime shape, but he's as sore as the mischief because he can't go along."

"It's too bad," remarked the captain sympathetically. "I'd have liked to have him along, not only for his company, but for his shrewdness as well. He's got a level head on those shoulders of his, and his advice at times might come in mighty handy.

"I won't go on deck with you, if you'll excuse me," continued the captain, reaching out his hand for a farewell shake, "because I've some work to do in connection with my clearance papers. Good-bye."

The young man was perfectly willing to be deprived of the captain's further company, much as he liked him. The captain's daughter would make a very good subst.i.tute. He hoped ardently that she, unlike her father, would have no business to keep her below.

His hopes were realized, for he caught sight of her leaning on the rail and gazing out upon the river with as much absorption as though she had never seen it before.

Possibly it did interest her. Possibly, too, she had forgotten all about the handsome young man who was in conference with her father in the cabin. Possibly she had not been stirred by the adoration in his eyes or the agitation in his voice. So many things are possible!

Anyway, despite a heightened color in her cheeks and a starry brightness in her eyes, her start of surprise, as she looked up and saw Drew standing beside her, was done very well indeed.

"So you conspirators have got through plotting already," she said lightly.

"Yes," Drew laughed; "we've been going over every link of the chain and have decided that it is good and strong. Not that my judgment was worth very much, I fear, this morning."

"Why not?" she asked demurely.

"Because I couldn't put my mind on it," he answered. "My wits were wool gathering. I scarcely heard what your father said. I'm glad he isn't a mind reader."

"So few people are."

"I wish you were," he said earnestly.

She stiffened a little, and from that he took warning. He must check the impetuous words that strove for utterance. He had but barely met her. How was she to know the feelings that had possessed him since their casual encounter on the pier? He must not frighten her by trying to sweep her off her feet. This citadel was to be captured, if at all, by siege rather than by storm. He would risk disaster by being premature.

"Do you know," he said in a lighter tone, "that it was the surprise of my life when I found that your name was Hamilton?"

"Why should it have been a surprise?" she asked.

"Because I had been thinking all along that your name was Adams."

"What made you think that?" she inquired in genuine surprise.

"W--why," he stammered, "I saw that name on one of the letters when I picked up the packet from the grating of the boat."

She flushed.

"You mustn't think," he said earnestly, "that I tried to pry. If I'd done that, I'd have found out the address at the same time. The name just looked up at me, and I couldn't help seeing it."

His tone carried conviction, and she unbent.

"I can see how you made the mistake," she smiled. "The letter on top of the packet was addressed to a very dear friend whose first name happens to be the same as mine. She and I were great chums in boarding school. The letter had been sent to her by a girl we both knew and who had been traveling abroad, and as Ruth knew I would be interested in it, she sent it on for me to read."

"That explains the foreign stamp," he commented.

"You noticed that too, did you?" she asked, flashing a mischievous glance at him. "Really, you took in a lot at a single look. You ought to be a detective."

"I wish I were," said Drew, as he thought ruefully of the unavailing plans he had made to find her. "I'm afraid I'm a pretty bungling amateur."

"Well, you were only half wrong, anyway," she answered. "The first part of the name was right."

"Yes," he admitted. "But that didn't help me much. The last one didn't either for that matter. There are so many Adamses in the city."

"How do you know?" she challenged.

He grew red. "I--I looked in the directory," he confessed.

She thought it high time to change the subject.

"I suppose it will be quite a wrench to say good-bye to your people here," she remarked.

"I haven't any," replied Drew. "My father and my mother died when I was small. The only brother I have is out West, and I haven't seen him for years. I've been boarding since I came to the city, five years ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said with ready sympathy. "I know something of how you feel, because I lost my own mother three years ago. I've been in boarding school most of the time since then. So I know what it is to be without a real home. Sometimes our only home was on shipboard."

"But it's always possible to make a real home," said Drew daringly.

Then he checked himself and bit his lip. That troublesome tongue of his! When would he learn to control it?

She pretended not to have heard him.

"I have my father left," she went on; "and he's the best father in the world."

"And the luckiest," put in Drew.

"He didn't want to take me on this trip at first," she continued, "but the most of my relatives and friends are in California, and I knew I'd be horribly lonely in New York. So I begged and teased him to let me go along, and at last he gave in."

"Of course he would," Drew said with conviction. "How could he help it?"

He knew that if she should ask him, Allen Drew, for the moon he would promise it to her without the slightest hesitation. He wished he dared tell her so.

"Have you ever been to sea?" she asked.