r. Ackerman agreed. "The fate of all the
others hung on that ship."

"Why?" was the boy's prompt question.

"Oh, it is much too long a yarn to tell you now," laughed his host.
"Were we to begin that tale we should not get to the theater to-night,
say nothing of having any dinner."

"I'd like to hear the story," persisted Stephen.

"You will be reading it from a book some day."

"I'd rather hear you tell it."

"If that isn't a spontaneous compliment, Ackerman, I don't know what
is," laughed Mr. Tolman.

The steamboat man did not reply but he could not quite disguise his
pleasure, although he said a bit gruffly:

"We shall have to leave the story and go to the show to-night. I've
bought the tickets and there is no escape," added he humorously. "But
perhaps before you leave New York there will be some other chance for me
to spin my yarn for you, and put your father's railroad romances
entirely in the shade."

The butler announced dinner and they passed into the dining room.

If, however, Stephen thought that he was now to leave ships behind him
he was mistaken, for the dining room proved to be quite as much of a
museum as the library had been. Against the dull blue paper hung
pictures of racing yachts, early American fighting ships, and nautical
encounters on the high seas. The house was a veritable wonderland, and
so distracted was the lad that he could scarcely eat.

"Come, come, son," objected Mr. Tolman at last, "you will not be ready
in time to go to any show unless you turn your attention to your
dinner."

"That's right," Mr. Ackerman said. "Fall to and eat your roast beef. We
are none too early as it is."

Accordingly Stephen fixed his eyes on his plate with resolution and
tried his best to think no more of his alluring surroundings. With the
coming of the ice-cream he had almost forgotten there were such things
as ships, and when he rose from the table he found himself quite as
eager to set forth to the theater as any other healthy-minded lad of his
age would have been.

The "show" Mr. Ackerman had selected had been chosen with much care and
was one any boy would have delighted to see. The great stage had, for
the time being, been transformed to a western prairie and across it came
a group of canvas-covered wagons, or prairie schooners, such as were
used in the early days by the first settlers of the West. Women and
children were huddled beneath the arched canopy of coarse cloth and
inside this s