CHAPTER III.
A SCHOONER, A SKIPPER, AND A SKULL It was a few days later, when a goodly number of the late Uncle Tom's easily negotiable securities had been converted into cash, and the cash deposited in the bank, that Cleggett bought the Jasper B.
He discovered her near the town of Fairport, Long Island, one afternoon.

The vessel lay in one of the canals which reach inward from the Great South Bay.

She looked as if she might have been there for some time.

Evidently, at one period, the Jasper B.had played a part in some catch-coin scheme of summer entertainment; a scheme that had failed.

Little trace of it remained except a rotting wooden platform, roofless and built close to the canal, and a gangway arrangement from this platform to the deck of the vessel.
The Jasper B.had seen better days; even a landsman could tell that.
But from the blunt bows to the weather-scarred stern, on which the name was faintly discernible, the hulk had an air about it, the air of something that has lived; it was eloquent of a varied and interesting past.
And, to complete the picture, there sat on her deck a gnarled and brown old man.