I was now nearing Buenos
Ayres where I had written my mother to cable me money at the American
consul's bureau. I had got enough of whaling. Adventure and travel is
all right; but I had had a taste of it, and found it to be merely an
alias for hard work!

"It's me for home on the first steamship going north," I told myself,
wisely. "I've had adventure enough to last me a while."

I was sailing on the Silver River, as the exploring Spaniards had first
called this noble stream, and there might be a lot of fun and hard work
ahead of me if I remained with old Tom and Ben Gibson until they
rejoined the Scarboro. But I wasn't tied to them. I'd probably have
plenty of money with which to pay my passage home; and just then I
wanted to see my mother, and Ham Mayberry, and lots of other folk in
Bolderhead, more than I wanted to be knocking about in strange quarters
of the world.

I glanced around at the steamship again. She had almost caught up to us,
for although the sloop had a fair wind, the Peveril was sailing three
lengths to our one. On and on she came, the smoke pouring from her
stacks. Her high, rusty side loomed up not more than a cable's length
away. I could see the passengers walking on her upper decks, and the
officers on her bridge. Below, the ports were open, their steel shutters
let down on their chains like drop-shelves.

Some of the crew were looking out idly upon the Wavecrest as the
steamship slipped by. A cook in a white cap came to one port and threw
some slop into the sea. As he emptied the bucket my eyes roved to the
very next port aft. There somebody sat peeling vegetables. I could see
the flash of the knife in the sunlight, and the long paring of potato
peel curling off the knifeblade.

It was an idle glance I had turned upon the vegetable peeler. He was
only a cook's apprentice, or scullion. There was no reason why my gaze
should have fastened upon him with interest. Yet my eyes lingered, and
suddenly the fellow raised his head and his face was turned toward the
open port.

The mental shock I experienced made me inattentive to my helm and the
Wavecrest fell off. Old Tom sang out to know what I was about, and
silently I brought the sloop's nose back again. The steamship had
slipped by us and the wake of her set the little craft to jumping.

My mind was in a fog. I steered mechanically. The face I had seen at the
open port of the Peveril was still before me, as in a vision. I knew I
had not been t