“Sure I will, Cap’n Ira,” said the young man heartily.  “It’s a good move, and I’ll say all I can to get the girl to come down here.”

“That’s the boy!  You’re going on an errand of mercy; that’s as sure as sure.  Prue and me need that gal.  And maybe she needs us.  I don’t know what sort of a place she works at, but no city job for a gal can be the equal of living down here on the Cape, with her own folks, as you might say.  Yes, Tunis, you’ll be doing an errand of mercy mebbe both ways.”

CHAPTER V

LOOKING FOR IDA MAY

The Seamew was put in commission in a very few days.  Tunis Latham had many friends in and about Big Wreck Cove, and he had little difficulty in picking up a cargo, which was loaded right at the port.

As for the schooner’s crew, Tunis could have filled every billet four times over had he so desired.  But he had already picked his crew with some care.  Mason Chapin was mate, a perfectly capable navigator who might have used his ticket to get a berth on a much larger craft than the Seamew.  But he had an invalid wife and wished only to leave home on brief voyages.  Johnny Lark was shipped as cook, with a Portygee boy, Tony, to help him.

Forward, Horace Newbegin served as boatswain and Orion Latham was a sort of supercargo and general handy man.  He was Tunis’ cousin, several times removed.  There were four Portygees to make up the company, a full crew for a sailing vessel of the tonnage of the Seamew.  Yet every man was needed in handling her lofty canvas and in loading and unloading freight.

With a well-stowed cargo below deck the schooner sailed even better than she had in ballast.  She slipped out of the cove through the rather tortuous channel like an eel through the meshes of a broken trap.  In the dawn, and with a fresh outside breeze just ruffling the sea into whitecaps, they broke out her upper sails and caught the very last breath of the gale the canvas would draw.

Cap’n Ira, and even Prudence, had got up before daybreak to see the schooner pass.  They watched her, turn and turn about at the spyglass, till she was blotted out by the distant fog bank.

“I swan,” said the old man, “when she heaves into view again I hope she’ll have Ida May Bostwick aboard!  That is what I hope.”

“The dear girl!” breathed Prudence.

It never crossed their simple minds that Ida May Bostwick might see this chance they offered her in a different light from that in which they looked at it.  The old couple made their innocent plans for the welcoming of the “grandniece,” positive that a happy future was in store for both Ida May and themselves.

In Tunis Latham’s mind there was more uncertainty regarding the mysterious Ida May Bostwick than there was in the minds of Cap’n Ira and Prudence.  Whenever he considered his “errand of mercy” the captain of the Seamew had a flash of that girl with the violet eyes who worked in the restaurant on Scollay Square.  The Balls did not know where Ida May worked.  Prudence only had obtained the lodging-house address of her young relative from Annabell Coffin, “she who was a Cuttle.”