He hastened to interest her in another theme.

It was the tail of the afternoon watch. Because of the light and
shifting airs the _Seamew_, in spite of her wonderful sailing
qualities, had only then raised the northern extremity of the Cape
and, turning on her heel, was now running out to sea again on the
long leg of a tack into the southeast.

Horry hung to the spokes of the wheel while the skipper was helping
Orion make up the manifest. The steersman had jettisoned his usual
quid of tobacco when the girl approached him, and without that aid
to complacency Horry just had to talk.

"Did you see the wheel jerk then, miss? That tug to sta'bo'd is the
only fault I find with this here schooner. She's a right tidy craft,
and Cap'n Tunis is a good judge of sailing ships, as his father was
afore him.

"But although this _Seamew_ looks like a new craft, she isn't. Sure,
he knowed she wasn't new, Cap'n Tunis did, when he bought her up
there to Marblehead. Only trouble is, he didn't seem to go quite
deep enough into her antecedents, as the feller said. He bought her
on the strength of her condition and the way she sailed on a trial
trip."

"Well, isn't that all right?" asked his listener. "How would one go
about buying a ship?"

"Huh--ship? Well, a schooner ain't a ship, Miss Bostwick.
Howsomever, buying a schooner is like buying a race horse. You want
to know _his_ pedigree. They said the _Seamew_ had been brought up
from the Gulf to sell. And maybe she was. But she is Yankee built,
every timber and rope of her. She warn't built down South none."

"Shouldn't that make the bargain all the more satisfactory?"
queried the girl, smiling.

"Ordinarily, yes, ma'am. But it looks like they was hidin'
something. It looks like, too, she was built for sailing and
fishing, not to be a cargo boat."

"I think she is beautiful."

"She is sightly, I grant ye," said Horace. "But there's something to
be considered 'sides looks when a man is putting his money into a
craft. As I say, her pedigree oughter be looked up. What was the
schooner before they changed the slant of them masts, painted her
over, and put a new name under her stern?"

"I don't understand you at all, Mr. Newbegin," said the girl,
staring at him with a strange look dawning in her own countenance.

He bent toward her, after casting a knowing glance aloft. His
weather-bitten face was preternaturally solemn.

"Ye can't help havin' your suspicions 'bout ships or fol