IN STRANGE LANDS

Mr. Winslow and his nephew Edward Norman were sportsmen who, as many other sportsmen had done before them and have done since, had gone as passengers with the sealing fleet that they might see the big ice and secure for themselves trophies of the seal hunt of their own killing.  And so it came about that they met Bobby, and took him under their care.  Indeed, Mr. Winslow felt an unusual interest in the lad from the moment he met him, for Bobby had an open, frank countenance and a pleasing manner.

But they would not permit him to talk or tell them much of his story until they had him on shipboard, and Bobby had eaten and bathed and changed his ill-smelling skin clothing for a suit that Edward Norman pressed upon him.  And though the clothes were a trifle large, and the trousers two or three inches longer than was necessary, they set Bobby off to good advantage and wrought a wonderful change in his appearance.

“You’re to stay in the cabin as our guest,” said Mr. Winslow when Bobby was dressed, and would have gone forward to the sailors’ quarters.  “I have arranged it with the Captain.  I am very much interested in what you said about Skipper Ed. His name, you said, is Edward Norman.  Who is he?”

“Skipper Ed’s our nearest neighbor,” Bobby explained simply.

“Do you call him ‘Skipper’ because he is a sea captain?  Has he always lived on the Labrador coast?  You see,” added Mr. Winslow, “I’m greatly interested because his name is the same as my nephew’s.  It is a strange coincidence, and we should like to learn all about him.”

“We’ve always called him ‘Skipper,’” answered Bobby.  “He was a sailor once, but that was long before I came.  He’s lived at Abel’s Bay, I heard him say, over twenty years.  He’s told Jimmy and me a lot about Harvard College, and when he was a boy he lived in a place called Carrington—­”

“What!  Carrington?” exclaimed Mr. Winslow.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby.  “He’s often told Jimmy and me about his home there when he was a boy.”

The two men looked at each other and they were plainly excited, and in an intensely expectant voice Mr. Winslow asked: 

“Did he ever speak of his family?”

“Yes, sir—­of his father and mother and brother and sister,” said Bobby.

“Anything else?”

“Why, yes, sir; about the trees and flowers and garden and—­”

“I mean about himself,” interrupted Mr. Winslow.  “Did he ever tell you about a bank, or why he left home?”

“No, sir,” said Bobby.  “I remember, though, a story he used to tell us about two boys whose father had a bank.  One borrowed some money from the bank and lost it gambling, and because he had a wife and little child the other brother told their father that he did it, though he didn’t know anything about it until after it was done.  The brother that took the money tried to stop him.  The father of the boys sent the one who said he took the money away, and he went and settled in a land like The Labrador, and never saw his old home or any of his people again.”