LITMIR.BIZ

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and made a mental note of the other’s evident antipathy to the boys he referred to.

      “You don’t mean the Viking?” he inquired. “Somebody in the town here was speaking about her the other day.”

      “Yes, that’s the one,” replied young Brackett. “But I don’t think you can buy her.”

      “Oh, most any one will sell a thing, if you only offer him enough,” said Mr. Carleton, carelessly. “Somehow I think she is about the boat I want. I had a talk with a captain here the other day, and he said she was the best sailer about here.

      “Oh, by the way,” he added, apparently intent upon his game and studying a shot with great care, “did you ever hear of anything queer about that yacht – anything queer discovered about her?”

      “Why, no!” cried young Brackett, in a tone of surprise. “Is there anything queer about her? Do you know about her? That is a funny question.”

      If Mr. Carleton, making his shot unmoved, had got exactly the information he was after, he did not betray the least sign of it. Instead, he laughed and said:

      “No, no. You don’t understand. I mean any ‘out’ about the boat. Has she any faults, I mean. Does she sail under? Run her counters under? Knock down in a wind and heavy sea? Carry a bad weather helm – or still worse, a lee helm? You know what I mean. When a man is buying a boat he wants to know if she is all right.”

      He said it easily, in his deep, full voice, that seemed to emerge from behind his heavy moustache, without his lips moving.

      “Oh, I understand,” said young Brackett. Then he added, mindful of his anger at the owners of the Viking, “I guess the boat is good enough – better than the crowd that owns her.”

      “Well, I want you to do something for me,” continued Mr. Carleton. “I think I want her. When you return to Southport, I wish you would make them an offer for me. Do you know what they paid for her?”

      “Why, I think she brought only about eight hundred dollars,” said young Brackett. “She’s worth twice that, I guess. But there wasn’t anybody to buy her. She went cheap.”

      “Tell them you know of a party that will give them fifteen hundred dollars for the boat,” said Mr. Carleton. “And if you buy her for me for that price I will give you two hundred dollars. The boat is worth all of that from what I hear.”

      Young Brackett’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

      “Oh, I am in earnest,” said the man. “I can afford it. I’m out for a good time this summer. I’ll be much obliged if you will do the business for me. Business is business, and I don’t ask you to go to the trouble for nothing. Here’s something on account.”

      He handed young Brackett a ten-dollar bill, which the boy pocketed promptly. It seemed a queer transaction, but he was satisfied.

      “And, say, don’t mention my name,” said Mr. Carleton, carelessly. “You see, if a man that has any money is known to be looking for a particular boat, they always put the price up.”

      “All right, I won’t,” replied Harry Brackett.

      “I hate to tackle that fellow, Harvey,” he thought, as he turned the matter over in his mind. “But it’s worth trying for two hundred dollars.”

      Then, in great elation, he proceeded to beat Mr. Carleton at the game; though that person’s intimate friends, wherever they might be, would have laughed at his attempts to make poor shots instead of good ones. It pays to be a loser sometimes, was his way of looking at it. At least, he and Harry Brackett parted excellent friends.

      The day came in warm and pleasant down in the Thoroughfare, and the boys were early astir.

      “Any more swimming to do to-day, Henry?” inquired George Warren, as the fires were building in the cabin stoves, preparatory for breakfast.

      “Only a plunge for one of us,” answered Henry. “I’ll do that. And that reminds me; I’d better do it before breakfast, for one doesn’t want to swim right after eating. Just throw us a line and trip your anchor, and we will draw you up close astern of the Surprise, opposite us.”

      The Warren boys did as he requested, and the two boats were soon almost side by side, astern of the sunken yacht. Then Henry Burns, getting George Warren to unhook the tackle from the throat of the mainsail of the Spray, did likewise aboard the Viking. Taking the two pieces of tackle in hand, while the boys let the halyards run free, he ducked down at the stern of the sunken yacht and hooked in the tackle to one of the stout ropes that had been passed under the boat’s keel.

      “That will do till after breakfast,” he said, coming to the surface and clambering out aboard the Viking.

      “No, let’s have a pull on the thing now,” exclaimed Harvey. “I’m eager to see the old Surprise above water – that is, if she is going to float.”

      “All right,” said Henry Burns. “Come on, fellows.”

      The boys on each yacht caught hold of the halyards with a will, and hoisted as they would have done to raise the throat of the mainsail. The tackle, hooked on to the stern of the sunken yacht, was at first as so much dead weight on their hands. Then, of a sudden, it began to yield ever so little, and the halyards began to come home.

      “She’s coming up, boys!” cried Harvey, gleefully. “Pull now, good and hard.”

      But the next moment something seemed to have given way. The ropes ran loose in their hands, and the boys that held the ends sprawled over on the decks.

      “Oh, confound it! The rope must have slipped off the stern,” exclaimed Harvey.

      “No, it hasn’t,” cried Henry Burns, joyfully. “There she comes to the surface. Look! Look! Quick, get in the slack of the ropes and make them fast.”

      The yacht buoyed by the numerous casks and lifted by the tackle, had, indeed, hung on bottom only for a moment. Then, released by the strain from the ledge and the seaweeds and slime that had gathered about it, it had come to the surface with a rush. Loaded with ballast as it was, however, and with the weight of water still within it, it could not rise above the surface. Its rail showed just at the top of water, and the cabin deck slightly above.

      “Hooray! that’s great!” cried Harvey, slapping Henry Burns on the shoulder. “That will do now. Let’s have some breakfast.”

      “It’s about time,” said young Joe.

      They spent little time at breakfast, however, for they were eager to resume. With each yacht alongside the Surprise, they began bailing that yacht out with pails tied to ropes, which they slung aboard. When they had lightened her sufficiently, two of them sprang over into the cockpit and bailed to better advantage there.

      Then, while they took turns at the pump, the others got up a part of the floors, and began lifting out the pieces of pig-iron ballast, passing them aboard the other two yachts. Finally they rigged the tackle on to the mast of the Surprise and, with great care so as not to wrench the boat, lifted it clear and lowered it into the water alongside.

      Now it would be safe to beach the yacht; and this they did at high tide that afternoon, towing it in on to a beach that made down in a thin strip between the ledges, and drawing it up as far as it would float, where they made it fast with a line passed ashore to a small spruce-tree.

      It had been a good job, and Henry Burns surveyed it proudly. But he merely remarked to young Joe, “Well, she’s up, isn’t she?”

      The yacht Surprise was at present a sorry-looking sight. The bottom was very foul, covered with long streamers of slimy grass and encrusted with barnacles. These had fastened, too, upon the mast and spars; and inside the yacht was in the same condition. The sails were slime-covered and rotten. Everything was snarled and tangled, twisted and broken about the rigging. The bowsprit had been broken off short in the collision of the fall before. This, with the carrying away of the bobstay, necessitated the taking out of the mast now. Rust from the iron ballast had stained much of the woodwork.

      “There’s

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