guess the Silver Star would about hit what you want. She’s not a very large steamer, but she’s comparatively new, and a good safe boat. Captain’s nice man, too. She doesn’t carry many passengers, but her berths are not all filled, and I guess they can make room for you. If you want to stand the expense I can arrange to have the captain cruise about in the vicinity of those islands for a day or so.”
“I’ll stand the expense!” cried Tom eagerly. “We may sight something!”
“All right. Then I’ll draw up the papers. The Silver Star sails in six days from now.”
Those six days Tom spent in San Francisco, seeing the sights of the place, and fretting and worrying that time did not pass faster.
Tom made the acquaintance of Captain Amos Steerit, the master of the Silver Star, and at once took a liking to him. Our hero went on board several times, when the steamer was loading at her wharf, and made friends with some of the crew.
At last sailing day came, and the bustle and confusion that had been going on for some time seemed redoubled. But there was a certain order about the proceedings, and at last everything had been done.
“I wonder if that fellow is ever coming?” murmured the captain, as he stood on the bridge, waiting to give the word to cast off.
“Who?” asked Tom, as he stood beside the skipper, for being a sort of privileged character, our hero was allowed certain liberties.
“Oh, a passenger who is going to Honolulu, and who engaged a berth by wire. He said he couldn’t come on board until the last minute, but it’s past that now. Ah, maybe this is he coming now.”
Down the wharf came a rather stout man, followed by a stevedore carrying a steamer trunk. There was a certain familiar air about the approaching figure, and Tom found himself wondering where he had seen the man before. The glimpse of the face he had, however, was not enlightening, and our hero soon turned his attention elsewhere, for the getting of the ship under way was somewhat of a novelty to him.
“Well, you finally got here, I see,” half growled the captain from the bridge, as the belated passenger came on board.
“Yes, I – that is I – well, I came as soon as I could,” said the man, pantingly.
Tom wheeled at the sound of the voice, but he had no chance for a close inspection of the man’s face. For, no sooner had our hero shown his curiosity, than the passenger turned, and fairly ran toward the berth deck, at the same time calling:
“See you later, captain! I have forgotten something.”
“Well, it’s too late now, if it’s got anything to do with going ashore!” cried the commander. “Haul in that gang plank there!” and he swung the engine room telegraph lever over to half speed ahead. The Silver Star began slowly to leave her dock, while Tom found himself wondering who the mysterious passenger could be.
“But it doesn’t concern me,” he mused. “I’ve got enough other troubles.”
If Tom had only known, though, the belated passenger did concern him, and vitally, too.
CHAPTER IV
A PUZZLED CAPTAIN
Amid a confusing sound of tooting whistles, the clanging of bells, hoarse commands shouted back and forth, the Silver Star made her way through the shipping of the harbor, and pointed her nose toward the mysterious Pacific – the ocean that held so many strange lands and islands, – the ocean on whose broad bosom perhaps, Tom’s father and mother were drifting helplessly about, in a wreck. Or mayhap they lay beneath the waves.
But Tom did not dare dwell on that terrible possibility and, for the time being, he resolutely put all thoughts of never seeing his parents again, out of his mind.
“I’m just going to find them!” he cried bravely, though he knew he had a hard task ahead of him.
But just now the busy scenes that were taking place, as the steamer started off on her voyage, held his attention, and for a moment he even forgot the mysterious passenger who had gone to his cabin in such a hurry.
“Well, Tom, my boy!” exclaimed Captain Steerit, as he looked at our hero, “we’ve got good clean weather to start off with, and, if I’m any judge, it will hold for some time.”
“It isn’t so rough on the Pacific as it is on the Atlantic; is it?” asked Tom. “At least I’ve read so, and the name – ”
“Don’t get that idea into your head,” laughed the commander. “The Pacific is peaceful in name only. Of course I don’t mean to say that it isn’t calm a good bit of the time, at certain seasons of the year, just as the Atlantic is. But when it wants to kick up a fuss it can make a bigger one than that ocean you’ve got back east there.
“Yes, when we get a storm out here, we certainly get a bad one. But I’m not looking for trouble. We’re going to point our nose into the nicest part of the ocean, to my thinking. You’ll enjoy it, even if you have a hard trick at the wheel ahead of you. There’ll be lots to see, especially if you go all the way to Australia with me.”
“Well, I expect to go there,” answered Tom, “for I haven’t much hope of sighting anything near the place where the wreckage was seen.”
“Nor I, either,” spoke the captain, “though I didn’t want to discourage you. The drift of the current, and the wind, wouldn’t let anything stay in one place long.”
“Then I’ll just have to go on to Sydney and start my search from there,” ventured our hero earnestly.
“Well, yes, I suppose so, though of course there’s a bare possibility that we may sight something on our way out.”
“What do you mean?” asked Tom quickly, a new hope springing up in his heart.
“I mean that the Kangaroo, from all accounts, was coming over about the same path in the ocean as we’ll take going out. She was to stop at Honolulu I see by the papers, just as we are. Of course she was wrecked – or at least we’ll suppose so – before she got there. And if we sail over the same course we may sight her – or what’s left of her.
“Mind though!” the captain went on quickly, as he saw the look of despair on Tom’s face, “I’m not admitting that she was wrecked. Just as you have told me, I believe that she may have been disabled in a storm, and part of her gear, her masts and her lifeboats, may have been swept overboard. That has often happened. In fact it’s happened to me when I had charge of a big sailing ship.
“But it’s possible to rig up a jury mast, make some sort of sail, and stagger on, when by all accounts one ought to be at the bottom of the sea. So you see it doesn’t do to give up hope.”
“And I’ll not!” cried Tom. “Oh, I do hope we can pick up the Kangaroo. I’m going to keep a lookout every day.”
“Yes, you can do that,” agreed the captain. “I’ll let you take a good glass, and I’ll also instruct the lookout to keep his eyes peeled day and night. But it’s too soon to begin yet, so you might as well take it as easy as you can. Say, did you notice the passenger who came aboard in such a hurry?”
“Yes,” answered Tom, for the ship was now well on her way and there was less of interest to hold our hero’s attention.
“Did
