“Hello,” said Henry Burns, espying the figure on the wharf, “there’s a tribute to the beauty of the _Viking_. Somebody probably thinks this is the president’s yacht and is saluting us.”
“Well, he means us, sure enough,” replied Jack Harvey, “and no joke, either. He’s really waving. He wants to hail us.”
The man had his hat in hand and was, indeed, waving it to them vigorously.
They had been standing across the river in an opposite direction to the wharf; but now, as Jack Harvey cast off the leeward jib-sheets, Henry Burns put the helm over, and the yacht swung gracefully and swiftly up into the wind and headed off on the tack inshore. Jack Harvey let the jibs flutter for a moment, until the yacht had come about, and Henry Burns had begun to check her from falling off the wind, by reversing the wheel. Then he quickly trimmed in on the sheets, and the jibs began to draw.
“Most beginners,” he said, “trim the jib in flat on the other side the minute they cast off the leeward sheet. But that delays her in coming about.”
Again the quiet smile on the face of Henry Burns, but he merely answered, “That’s so.”
They stood down abreast the wharf and brought her up, with sails fluttering. Jack Harvey, looking up from the side to the figure above on the wharf, called out, “Hello, were you waving to us?”
“Why, yes,” responded the man, “I was. Are you going down the river far?”
“Good!” exclaimed the stranger, and added, confidently, “I’ll go along with you part way, if you don’t mind. I’m on my way to Burton’s Landing, five miles below, and the steamboat doesn’t come along for three hours yet. I cannot get a carriage and I don’t want to walk. You don’t mind giving me a lift, do you? That’s a beautiful boat of yours, by the way.”
The man had an air of easy assurance; and, besides, the request was one that any yachtsman would willingly grant.
“Why, certainly,” replied Harvey, “we’ll take you, eh, Henry?”
“Pleased to do it,” responded Henry Burns.
They worked the yacht up alongside the wharf, and the stranger, grasping a stay, swung himself off and leaped down on to the deck. Then he pushed the boat’s head off with a vigorous shove and advanced, smilingly, with hand extended, to greet the boys. The _Viking_ gathered headway and was once more going down-stream.