“Too bad we couldn’t take Carleton along with us,” said Harvey, as the yachtViking, with all sail spread, was beating down the bay. “He ought to have asked us sooner. We might have managed to make room for him.”
“You mean, he ought to have said he was going sooner,” said Henry Burns, slyly.
“Oh, I suppose so,” replied Harvey, half-impatiently. “I see, you never will quite like our new friend. By the way, that reminds me, he wants to buy theViking. He says he will give us eighteen hundred dollars. That’s the second offer we’ve had this summer.”
“Are you sure it isn’t the same one?” suggested Henry Burns.
“Why, of course it is,” cried Jack Harvey. “Sure enough, that’s what Harry Brackett was up to. He was buying for Mr. Carleton—just trying to show off, and make us think he had all that money.”
“That’s queer, too,” remarked Henry Burns, “that Mr. Carleton should try to buy theVikingafter just that one short sail down the river.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Harvey; “he saw what the boat could do—at least, in smooth water. No, that wouldn’t quite answer, either. He must have heard about her from some of the fishermen over at Bellport.”
“Well, do you want to sell?” inquired Henry Burns.
“Not much!” replied Harvey, emphatically. “I know you don’t, either, although you don’t say so.”
“Well, that’s true; I’d rather not,” admitted Henry Burns.
The wind was light, and they had only reached Hawk Island by six o’clock. So, not caring to risk another experience making Loon Island Harbour in the night, they anchored, and sailed over the next morning. They had provided bait for two days’ fishing before they left Southport, so they stood on past Loon Island Harbour and ran out direct to the fishing-grounds.
They had a fair afternoon’s fishing, and also set two short pieces of trawl, for hake, a few fathoms off from one of the reefs. Captain Sam had provided them with these. They were long lines, each with about a hundred hooks attached at intervals by short pieces of line. At either end of the trawl-line was a sinker, and also a line extending to the surface of the water where it was attached to a buoy. This, floating conspicuously on the water, would mark the spot where the trawl had been set.
Baiting these many hooks all along the trawl with herring, bought for the purpose at Southport, they set them at a point lying between two reefs, in about twenty-five fathoms of water, where Will Hackett had informed them there was a strip of soft, muddy bottom, a feeding-ground frequented by these fish.
Then they ran in to harbour with their catch of cod, and took them up to the trader’s wharf.
“We’re going to have some hake for you, too,” said Henry Burns. “That is, we expect to. What are you paying for hake these days?”
The trader, Mr. Hollis, eyed the young fisherman with an amused expression.
“Going right into the business, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, I like to see you young fellows with some spunk. Don’t fetch in so many that I can’t handle ’em,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye; “and if you underrun your trawls twice a day, so the fish will come in here good and fresh, I’ll pay you half a cent a pound. You’ll find it some work, though, when the sea is running strong. Got to take the fish off the hooks in the morning, and then underrun again at evening and bait up all the hooks for the night’s catch.”
“We’ll do that all right,” responded Henry Burns. “We’ll bring them in fresh.”
They put in hard, busy days now, rising at the first of daylight and going outside as soon as the wind would allow. They had only one dory with which to tend the trawls, so two of the boys usually tended one, and then the other two took their turn. It proved, indeed, hard work when the sea was high.
If the night’s catch had been good, the trawls came up heavy; and there was ever the danger, with the pitching of the boat, of running one of the innumerable hooks into the hands. But they soon became expert at it, learning how to sit braced in the boat and hold the trawl with a firm grasp, so that it might not slip through the hands, and how to unhook the fish.
Then, when they had underrun both trawls, they would stand off in theVikingfor a different feeding-ground for the cod, and fish until it was time to bait up the trawls for the night.
By degrees, they came to learn other feeding-grounds than the few Will Hackett had shown them, by following the little fleet; and they went now, occasionally, clear across the bay that lay between Loon Island and South Haven Island. This was often rough water, for they were at the very entrance to the bay, at the open sea, and the waves piled in heavily, even when the wind was light, showing there had been a disturbance far out. This took them to the shoal water in about the reefs at the foot of South Haven Island, a protected spot from the north, under the lee, but open to the full sweep of the sea from the south.
It was in this place at about five of the afternoon, on the fourth day following their arrival, that they experienced a sudden and startling change of weather.
They had gone out in the morning, with a light southerly breeze blowing, which had held steadily throughout the day. But now, near sundown, it had died away, so that they had weighed anchor and were about to beat back slowly across the bay, toward harbour.
They had scarcely got under way, however, when the wind, with extraordinary fickleness, fell off altogether, a strange and unusual calm succeeding.
“That’s queer!” exclaimed Harvey, glancing about with some apprehension. “Looks as though we were hung up here for the night. It won’t do to try to anchor near these reefs, and we can’t fetch bottom where we are. I guess we are in for a row of a mile to get under the lee of one of those little islands where we can lie safe.”
They were about half a mile out from the nearest line of reefs, floating idly on the long swells, with the sails flapping and the boom swinging inboard in annoying fashion.
Henry Burns groaned.
“Oh my!” he exclaimed. “What a beastly stroke of luck. I’m tired enough to turn in now. Don’t you suppose we’ll get a little evening breeze?”
“We may,” replied Harvey, “but there’s something queer in the way the wind dropped all of a sudden. I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of the breeze for to-day.”
But Jack Harvey’s prophecy was refuted with startling suddenness.
“Jack,” said Bob, almost the next moment, “there’s something queer about the water just along the line of the reefs and the shore back of them.”
He pointed, as he spoke, to a strange, white light that lay in a long, thin line just off the land, a half-mile ahead. It was almost ghostly, with a brilliant, unnatural whiteness. And, even as they gazed, its area rapidly extended and broadened.
Harvey shot a quick glance ahead. Then he sprang from the wheel and seized the throat-halyard.
“Get the peak—quick!” he cried to Bob. “Head her square as you can for the light, Henry. Tom, cast off the jib-halyards and grab the downhaul. It’s a white squall, I think.”
Henry Burns seized the wheel, while the two boys at the halyards let the mainsail go on the run. There was no steerageway on theViking, as they had been drifting; but Henry Burns managed, by throwing the wheel over quickly and reversing it moderately, to swing the boat’s head a little.
They were not a moment too soon. Out of a clear, cloudless sky, there came suddenly rushing upon them a wind with such fury that, sweeping across the bow, it laid the yacht over; while there flew aboard, from the smother about the bow, a cloud of fine spray that nearly blinded them.
TheViking, its head thrown off by the squall, that struck the outer jib, which they had not been able to lower, careened alarmingly. Then Henry Burns brought her fairly before it, just as a sea began to roll aboard. The cockpit was ankle-deep with water; but they were scudding now safely out to sea, drenched to the skin, as the squall, whipping off the tops of the long rollers, filled all the air with a flying storm of spray.
The blast had fallen upon them so unexpectedly, and with such incredible quickness, that they scarce knew what had happened before they were running before it toward the open sea.
They got the hatches closed now, after Tom had dashed below and brought up the oilskins. True, they were soaked through and through, but the wind had a sharp, cold sting to it, and the oilskins would protect them from that. They got the outer jib down, too. Then, when they saw there was no immediate danger, as theVikingwas acting well, they collected their wits and discussed, hurriedly, what they should do.
“My! but that was a close call,” said Bob. “How did you know what was coming, Jack?”
“I didn’t, exactly,” said Harvey. “But I’ve heard the fishermen tell of the white squalls, and I thought that was one.”
“Don’t they say they are worse when they come between tides?” asked Henry Burns, quietly.
“Seems to me they do,” answered Harvey. “I guess we’re in for it. Lucky we are running out to sea, instead of in on to a lee shore, though.”
“They don’t last long, I’ve heard say,” said Henry Burns. “We may be able to face it by and by, and work back; though it will be a long beat, by the way we are driving.”
They were, indeed, being borne onward with great force. Moreover, a quick transformation had taken place over the surface of the waters; for the fury of the squall, continuing as it did for some time from the west, had calmed the waves, and there was almost a smooth sea before them.
Then, presently, there came another strange alteration of the wind. The violence of the squall abated, and the breeze fell away again. But only for a brief length of time. As often happens, with the white squall as its forerunner, the wind now changed from the southerly of the morning and afternoon, to northeasterly; and already, as they proceeded to get sail again on theViking, the water darkened away to the north and eastward, showing that a new breeze was coming from that quarter. They were fully two miles out to sea.
“Looks downright nasty, don’t it, Jack?” said Henry Burns. “Better reef, hadn’t we?”
“Yes, and in a hurry, too,” replied Harvey. “It’s coming heavy before long.”
“Here, you take the wheel,” said Henry Burns. “I’m quick at tying in reef-points. Come on, Tom. Bob will set the forestaysail. How many reefs do you want, Jack?”
“Two, I think,” replied Harvey. “We’ll watch her close, though. I’m afraid we shall need a third. But we’ll work her back as far as we can before we tie another. It’s growing dark, and we must make time.”
It was true, and ominously so. With the alteration of the wind the sky had darkened, and was becoming overcast. Night would soon be upon them, and a stormy one.
Nor had they beaten back more than a half-mile, in the teeth of the wind, before Harvey luffed and hauled the main-sheet in flat.
“We’ve got to put in a third reef,” he said, soberly. “We don’t need it quite yet, but we shall very soon, and we don’t want to have to reef out here in the night.”
They lowered the sail a little and tied in the reef, and theVikingstood on again. But already the sea was beginning to roll up heavily from the northeast, having a long sweep of water to become agitated in—the stretch of bay that lay between Loon and South Haven Islands. The wind had become a storm, a black, heavy nor’easter. In another half-hour, rain began to drive upon them.
But the good yachtVikingstood it well, and they had worked up to within about half a mile of the foot of Loon Island, though still a mile away from it out in the bay, when the wind and sea perceptibly increased.
“We can’t make the harbour,” muttered Harvey. “We’ll try for the little harbour at the head of the island.”
The inhabitants of Loon Island called that end the head which fronted seaward, and there was a good harbour there; that is, not what the fishermen called a “whole” harbour, protected on all quarters, but good as the wind now blew. They headed more to the eastward and stood up for that.
But when, at length, Harvey peered ahead, straining his eyes in the gathering darkness for a favourable moment to come about, he could see no apparent difference in the seas. They were all huge, and they beat over the bows of theVikingin one steady, dashing spray.
“She won’t do it,” said Harvey.
But he eased her and headed off, while theVikingrolled dangerously. Then he put the helm hard down.
“Ready, about,” he cried.
But his fears were realized. The seas were too heavy, with the sail that they could carry.
“Well, we’ll wear her about,” said Harvey. “Drop the peak, Henry; and climb to windward, boys, when the boom comes over.”
There was peril in this manœuvre, jibing a boat in such a sea and wind; but it was clearly the only thing to be done. There was scant sail on, with the peak lowered; and Harvey did the trick pluckily and sailor-fashion. The sheet was well in and the boat almost dead before the wind, before he threw the wheel over and let the wind catch the sail on the other side. The yacht came around against a flying wall of foam and spray, with the boys clinging for one moment to the weather rail, and throwing all their weight on that side. Then Tom and Henry Burns, with united strength, raised the peak of the sail, though it filled in the gale and was almost too much for them.
They stood up again toward harbour.
“What do you think, Jack?” asked Henry Burns, finally.
“I don’t think—I know!” exclaimed Harvey, doggedly. “We can’t make the harbour. We’ve got to ride it out somehow. I don’t know but what the best thing, after all, is to leave just a scrap of sail on, to steady her, and ran to sea again. We’ve got to decide pretty soon, though.”
“Wait a minute,” said Henry Burns, quietly. “I’ve got a scheme. If it doesn’t work, we’ll scud for our lives again.”
Making a quick dash into the cabin, he emerged with a spare line, a heavy anchor-rope. Then he made a second trip and brought forth some smaller and shorter pieces.
“Get the sweeps and the boat-hook,” he cried to Tom and Bob, “and fetch up that water-cask and the big wooden fish-box.”
The boys waited not a moment to inquire the reason, though Henry Burns’s design was an enigma to them. They scrambled forward and then below, handed the sweeps aft, and tumbled the box and cask out on deck.
“Pass some lashings around the cask and the box,” commanded Henry Burns.
The boys lost no time in obeying orders, while Henry Burns, himself, quickly took a hitch around either end of one of the sweeps, with one of the short pieces of rope. He then tied the spare anchor-line at the centre of this rope, so that, if the sweep were cast overboard, it would be dragged through the water horizontally, offering its full resistance.
To this sweep he then rapidly hitched the other one, and then the boat-hook; and, finally, he hitched to this the big box and the cask, by their lashings.
“What in the world are you going to do with that stuff, Henry?” inquired Bob.
But Harvey had perceived the other’s purpose.
“Good for you, Henry!” he exclaimed. “Where did you ever hear about a sea-anchor?”
“Read about it in a book, once,” responded Henry Burns, coolly. “What do you say—shall we try it? We lose all the stuff if it don’t work. We’ll have to cut it loose.”
“You bet we’ll try it,” said Harvey, hurriedly. “We can’t be in much worse shape than we’re in. Get it up aft now, fellows; and Tom, you and Bob be ready to jump for the halyards and lower the sail, when it goes overboard. Then we’ll tie in that fourth reef in a jiffy.”
The other end of the spare anchor-rope, to which the stuff was tied, was yet to be made fast forward. This was a dangerous task, with the yacht pitching heavily, as it was, and the seas flying aboard. So Henry Burns passed a line about his waist, which was held by Tom and Bob, while he scrambled forward in the darkness and accomplished the feat.
Then they got the mass of stuff which they had tied together up to the stern rail, and, at the word, heaved it overboard. Harvey kept the yacht away from it for a few moments, so that the attraction that floating objects have for one another should not bring it in alongside; and then, when the line had nearly run out, brought theVikingas close into the wind as the seas would allow, and held her there.
The yacht lost headway, and drifted back. Lowering the mainsail, they hurriedly tied in the fourth and last reef. The forestaysail had been taken in, long before.
The line brought up; the clean-built, shapely hull of the yacht drifting back faster than the bulky mass of stuff at the other end of it; and, as the tension came on the line, the bow of theVikingswung around, and she was heading fairly up into the seas, which broke evenly on either side.
“It’s great!” cried Harvey, exultantly. “You’ve got a wise head on you, Henry Burns. Now let’s get the scrap of a mainsail up, and she will lie steadier.”
They hoisted the shred of sail, hauled the boom inboard so that it was as nearly on a line with the keel as they could bring it, and lashed it securely. The sail, thus getting the wind alike on either side, served to steady the yacht, and she rolled less. They had given the improvised sea-anchor the full length of the line, which was a long one, so that the strain would be lessened; and the yacht was riding fairly well.
“She’ll stay like a duck, if the gear only holds,” said Henry Burns.
They waited, watching anxiously, till a half-hour had gone by. The yacht was standing it well. The great seas lifted her bows high and dropped her heavily into the deep, black furrows, and the rain and spray drove aboard in clouds. But the yacht held on.
“She’ll stay, I think,” said Henry Burns; and added, yawning wearily, “if she don’t, I hope she will let us know right away, for I’ll fall asleep here in the cockpit pretty soon. Oh! but this is hard work. I don’t know but what I’ll quit and dig clams for a living.”
“Turn in and take a wink of sleep,” said Harvey. “She’s riding all right. We’ll call you if anything goes wrong.”
“Go ahead,” urged Tom and Bob.
“I believe I will,” said Henry Burns. “But it won’t be a wink, when I get started. You’ll have hard work to wake me. Let me know, though, when it’s my turn to take the wheel, and give one of you fellows a chance.”
With which, Henry Burns, satisfied in his mind that his scheme was working well, went below and fell asleep, unmindful of the bufferings of the seas, the straining of theViking’scabin fixtures, and the heavy pitching and tossing that shook the yacht from stem to stern.
“Go ahead, one of you,” said Harvey, addressing Tom and Bob. “Two of us can watch, and if we need you we’ll call you.”
But they shook their heads.
“I’m dead tired,” admitted Bob; “but I couldn’t sleep a wink down in that cabin in this storm. We’ll stick it out till morning, won’t we, Tom?”
“I’d rather,” replied Tom.
“So would I,” said Harvey. “But that’s just like Henry Burns. When he takes a notion a thing is so, he believes it out-and-out. I honestly believe he thinks he is as safe as he would be on an ocean liner.”
Evidently, Henry Burns was satisfied with the situation; and clearly he was a good sleeper. For daybreak found him still wrapped in slumber. Nor did he waken when, the storm abated and theVikingsafe at anchor in the harbour at the head of Loon Island, Jack Harvey and the others tumbled below and laid their weary bones beside him.
But, to make return for their kindness in not arousing him to help work the boat, he was up before them, and had dinner piping hot when they opened their eyes at noontime.
The storm that had so suddenly overtaken theVikinghad raged over all of Samoset Bay. The yachtSurprise, running up before the afternoon southerly, had been becalmed when near the foot of Grand Island, a mile or so out, and had felt the first force of the succeeding nor’easter. But the squall that so nearly inflicted disaster upon theVikinghad passed over them.
They only knew that the wind changed with startling abruptness, and most capriciously, and that the sea began to roll up from the northeast in an unusually brief time.
They were in no danger, apparently, there being good anchorage in a harbour formed by the foot of Grand Island and a small island adjacent, where they could lie snug till the threatening weather had cleared.
Still, their apparent safety did not prevent their receiving a momentary shock of alarm, when they were within less than a half-mile of shelter.
The yachtSurprisewas beating ably up to the lee of the islands, thrashing about some and throwing the spray, as the waves came spitefully chopping and tossing under the spur of the wind, when suddenly she struck, bow on. There was a mild shock from one end to the other, and an ominous grating sound along the bottom. At the same time, the centreboard rod, hit by some object, was forced part way upward through its box.
Joe Hinman, in great alarm, threw the yacht up into the wind, and glanced anxiously about for breakers. But none was in sight.
“We can’t be in on the rocks,” he gasped. “Why, we’ve been down here with Jack fifty times, if we have once. There aren’t any reefs out here.”
“I’ll get that chart and take a look,” said Mr. Carleton.
“Better wait and see if we’ve stove a hole in the bottom,” said Joe.
But the next moment the mystery was explained. There was a continued grating sound along bottom, and presently a bundle of floating laths drifted out, clearing the rudder. Coincident with this, the yacht struck again very slightly at the bows. Then, as they scanned the water all about, the boys saw that they had run into a mass of drifting, half-submerged laths, tied into bundles. It was clear that, in some blow, or storm, the deck-load of a coaster had been carried overboard.
By their water-soaked appearance, the laths had been afloat for many days. The coasters that ran from Benton to the smaller towns down the bay often carried these for a superficial cargo; and evidently some one of them, hit by a squall, had run its deck well under and the stuff had floated off.
Joe Hinman sprang forward, seized the boat-hook, and caught one of the bundles by the rope that bound it at one end. He drew it alongside and hauled it aboard with some difficulty, as it was heavy with water. Then he took out his pocket-knife and proceeded to cut a sliver from one of the laths. Though darkened a little by its exposure, and with trails of slimy, green seaweed clinging to the bundle, the laths were sound, and the wood bright as ever beneath the surface.
“Hooray!” he cried. “They’re worth several dollars a bundle. We’re in luck. We’ll gather them all in.”
They picked up seven or eight of the bundles, stowing them in on either side of the cockpit.
“Makes us look like a cargo-carrier,” said Allan Harding.
“Yes, and a good cargo, too,” replied Joe Hinman. “They are worth several dollars each, to sell. But we won’t sell ’em. I’ve got an idea. We’ll earn as much money as Jack and Henry Burns.”
“How’s that?” asked Mr. Carleton, curiously eying the enthusiastic speaker.
Joe looked at him, beaming, and in reply exclaimed briefly, but triumphantly, “Lobster-pots!”
“That’s so,” laughed Mr. Carleton. “I guess if you can make those queer, bird-cage sort of things, you can catch all the lobsters you want around here.”
“Oh, yes, there’s money in it,” responded Joe, “though the lobsters aren’t so plenty as they used to be, the fishermen say. But we couldn’t afford to buy any pots to fish with, because it costs so much to make them nowadays.”
Joyfully, they put theSurpriseon its course again and gained the shelter of the little harbour.
Three days later, the crew might have been seen, at a point about three miles down the island from their camp, busily at work out on shore, with axe and saw and hammer and nails.
“Going to build some lath-pots, eh?” Captain Sam had queried, when they consulted him. “Yes, you can do it all right. Just go out and fetch one of mine in shore, and go by that.” Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye, and a shrewd Yankee smile, “You don’t need all them ’ere laths anyway. You give me one of them bundles, and I’ll go to work and make three of the slickest lath-pots you ever saw, for myself; and you can see just how I do it.”
“It’s a bargain,” replied Joe, “if you will let us take your tools after you get the pots made.”
“Reckon I will,” said Captain Sam, smiling.
It was a good bargain for the boys, at that; for Captain Sam was a clever workman at whatever he set his hand to do.
“One of these ’ere lath-pots,” said the captain next day, as he set to work, “is just as long as the length of a lath—four feet. Now we want three strips of board, two feet long, to lay down crosswise for the bottom pieces, at equal distances apart.”
He illustrated his remarks by splitting off the requisite pieces from a chunk of board. Next he took an auger and bored a hole in each end of the three pieces.
“Now,” he said, “we want three pieces of spruce that will bend up like you was going to make a bow to shoot arrows with. Here they be, too, and I’ve had ’em soaking in water all the morning, so they’ll bend better.”
Whereupon, Captain Sam, having whittled the ends of the pieces of spruce down so they would fit snugly into the holes he had made, bent them and inserted the ends in the holes of the three strips of board. The three bows stood up like the tiny beams for a miniature house, with a rounded roof, instead of a peaked one.
“Now, we’ll nail on our laths, top and bottom,” said Captain Sam, “and then we’ve got the frame-work for a lobster-pot.”
He nailed them on to the three strips of board at the bottom and to the three hoops of spruce at the top, making a cage with a flat bottom and a rounded roof. Then, in the same way, he made a lath door, three laths in width, running the entire length of the pot. This was fitted with leather hinges and a wooden button to fasten on the inside, so that, when closed, the door formed part of the roof of the pot.
“That’s the front door where Mr. Lobster always comes out,” remarked Captain Sam. “It’s more work, though, making the end doors for him to walk in at.”
These end doors, that the captain referred to, he now proceeded to fit into place. Each consisted of a funnel-shaped mesh made of knotted cord, the larger end fastened snugly all around to the end frame of the pot, and leading into a small opening, six inches in diameter, made of a wooden hoop. This hoop was held in place by Captain Sam’s tying it fast with strings to the centre of the frame.
So that the entrance, for a hungry lobster seeking the bait inside, would be the entire end of the frame, or what Captain Sam called the “street entrance,” and narrowing to an opening only six inches in diameter, where the lobster would enter the cage.
“Why don’t they walk out again?” inquired young Tim, whose experience in fishing had been limited mostly to catching flounders and cunners.
“Well, they would, I reckon, if they swam like fish,” replied Captain Sam. “But when they have followed down the slope of the mesh, and once squeezed in through that small opening, they don’t know how to get back again, because their claws spread out so. The slope of the mesh helps them to get in, and there isn’t any on the inside to help them get out. But they will crawl out again sometimes, too, if you leave the pots too long and they get all out of food.”
He next proceeded to set up, in the bottom of the pot, a small, upright post for a bait-holder. This was spear-shaped, with a barb whittled in it, after the style of a fish-hook, so that a fish once impaled thereon could not work off with the action of the water.
“There!” exclaimed Captain Sam, when he had driven the last nail and tied the last cord. “Reckon it’s done. You boys can be chopping yourselves out some buoys, to mark your pots with, while I make the other two. You come up to the house to-night, and I’ll show you how to knot that twine to make the meshes. So it won’t cost you much to make your pots, only for a little twine and some nails.”
The crew, having thus gained their experience and the use of Captain Sam’s tools, carried their stuff some three miles down the shore the next day, and proceeded to construct their own lath-pots. The intermediate waters had been fished so much by the townsfolk that they reckoned on better success farther away. Then, too, much of the water lying between was taken up with the pots of other fishermen, as was shown by their buoys floating here and there. They constructed four of the pots the first day.
“Let’s quit for the afternoon now, and get these set,” suggested Little Tim, along about half-past four in the afternoon.
“All right, if you will trot up to town and get some rope,” said Joe. “That’s the only thing we forgot. We’ll need the boat, though, to catch some bait with. You’ll have to foot it.”
“I’ll go,” replied Tim; “but, say, who’s got any money?”
“Not any of us,” said Joe. “You’ll have to get Rob Dakin to trust us for it. Tell him Jack will pay, if we can’t. But we can pay all right, if we have any luck. Let’s see, we want a lot of rope. This water is ten feet deep at low tide off those ledges, and the tide rises eight or nine feet. We’ll need about twenty-five or thirty feet of line for each pot. That will allow for its snagging, too. Come on, fellows, we’ll catch some bait.”
There was a cove just below, with mud-flats making out into it, but covered now with water. They rowed around to this, in a small boat borrowed from Captain Sam. Baiting their hooks with clams, they dropped their lines overboard; but the fish bit slowly.
“Guess they aren’t hungry,” said Joe. “Hand me up the spear, George, and the oil. I’ll make a ‘slick,’ and we’ll see what we can do.”
The spear was a long, light pole of spruce, with a trident at one end—three sharp prongs, the middle blade with a clean point, the outer blades barbed.
They rowed into shallow water, but the bottom could not be seen, because of a slight ruffling of the surface by the wind. Taking the bottle of fish-oil that George Baker handed to him, Joe Hinman poured some of it out on to a rag tied to the end of a stick. With this, he scattered the oil for some distance about the boat. The oil spread out over the surface of the water, smoothing its tiny chopping, so that through it the bottom could be plainly seen.
Joe Hinman lay flat at the bow of the boat, holding the spear down in the water. Presently he gave a jab with it, into the mud, and brought to the surface a huge sculpin, wriggling, but fast on the prongs.
“They aren’t exactly handsome,” he remarked, as he dropped the sculpin into the bottom of the boat, “but lobsters aren’t particular about looks.”
The next jab brought up a big flounder that had wriggled its head into the mud, and fancied itself safe. The bottom of the boat was soon covered with them.
By the time young Tim was back with the rope, they had enough fish to bait the four pots, and more, and a mess of flounders for supper.
They cut the line into proper lengths, tied one end of each length to the end frame of a pot, and fastened a wooden buoy, previously boiled in coal-tar to prevent its becoming water-logged, to the other end. Then they took the pots, one by one, and rowed out with them to the off-lying ledges.
They baited each pot, by impaling the fish on the wooden spear-head sticking up from the bottom, closed the door, turned the wooden button that fastened it, and dumped it overboard. The pots, weighted with stones, sank slowly to the bottom.
“Great!” exclaimed Joe, as the last of the four went overboard. “Everything complete, except we might have painted a sign, ‘Walk in,’ on each one. What do you think about that, Tim?”
“No, they don’t need it,” said Tim, emphatically. “You might want me to go to the store again for the paint.”
They were down bright and early the next morning to haul the pots. In three of them, their efforts had been rewarded. In the fourth, the bait had been untouched. But one of the pots had begun as a money-maker in earnest. There were three good-sized lobsters in it. The other two had one each.
They had saved some fish from the catch of the night before, so they baited up the pots again, put them overboard, and resumed their occupation ashore of constructing more pots, delegating young Tim to sell their catch among the cottagers, who had nearly all arrived for the summer.
Young Tim was gone not a great while, either. He came back, whooping hilariously, and opened a small and rather begrimed fist, to disclose to their admiring gaze the sum of a dollar and twenty-five cents in silver money.
“Hooray!” cried Joe Hinman, throwing up his cap. “At this rate, we’ll have the rope paid for, and the nails, and something more besides, when Jack and Henry Burns get back. We’ll come pretty near taking care of ourselves for the rest of the summer.”
Already the crew, with visions of being self-supporting, began to have an increased respect for themselves. It was an agreeable sensation.
They soon found, however, that they were handicapped by the need of a car to store their catch in; for, on some days when they had lobsters to sell, the cottagers didn’t happen to want any; and again it happened that they hadn’t any on hand when they were wanted. They began the construction of a car, therefore, out of some old packing-boxes, after they had finished a few more pots, and were hard at work on it when the yachtVikinghove in sight on an afternoon.
TheViking, following its frightful experience in the storm, had had a prosperous trip. The boys had made some heavy catches, and were returning with twenty-two hard-earned dollars.
There was a joyful celebration down on the shore that evening, in honour of theViking’sreturn, and to commemorate their luck as fishermen.
“You’ve been buying the stuff for us all along,” Joe Hinman had said to Jack Harvey. “Just come down to the camp to-night, and bring Tom and Bob and the Warren boys. We’ll get the food this time.”
And they did, in generous style. There were seven of the biggest and fiercest-looking lobsters that they had caught in the last two days, broiling over a bed of red coals, when the visitors arrived. There were two tins of biscuit, baked in the sheet-iron oven. There were provisions that the crew had been able to buy with their own earnings. There were potatoes baked in the ashes, and coffee, steaming hot.
“Yes, and what’s more, Jack,” said Joe Hinman, as they sat about the fire on the shore, “there’s enough stuff left to make about seven more pots. You fellows can go ahead and make the rest, if you want to; and we’ll take turns tending them and getting the bait.”
“All right,” replied Harvey; “and if we get a bigger stock in the car than we can dispose of around here, we’ll load up theViking, when we get a strong westerly some day, and run down to the big hotel at Stoneland. They’ll pay bigger prices than we can get at the market.”
“My! but this lobster is good,” said young Joe Warren. “Henry, pass over that melted butter and vinegar.”
“Isn’t it a great feast, though?” exclaimed young Tim. “Beats city grub all hollow.”
And, indeed, it probably did surpass the sort of living Tim got at home.
“How’s our friend, Mr. Carleton?” asked Bob. “It’s a wonder he hasn’t been around to welcome us back.”
“Perhaps he is offended with me for not taking him aboard on our fishing trip,” said Henry Burns.
“Why, he hasn’t been to see us for two days,” replied Joe. “By the way, though, last time I met him he asked me if I had seen anything of a ruby scarf-pin aboard theSurprise. Said he’d lost one.”
“He asked me that, too,” said Arthur Warren. “He was up near the cottage yesterday. Said he thought he might have dropped it out aboard theViking.”
“I think not,” said Harvey. “If he had we should have found it, for we air that bedding out every clear day.”
“I don’t recall seeing him wear one,” said Henry Burns.
It is quite possible that Mr. Carleton might have been on hand to greet the fishermen on their return, had he not been away down the island for the day, in a rig he had hired of Captain Sam. The horse, though well recommended by Captain Sam, was modelled somewhat on the same generous lines as the captain’s boat, theNancy Jane; that is, broad and beamy, solid and substantial, but not especially speedy; more inclined to thrash up and down, with considerable clatter, than to skim along and make time. The result on this occasion was, that it was about half-past nine o’clock when Mr. Carleton drove into Captain Sam’s dooryard, rather weary, and not in the best of temper.
However, good-hearted Mrs. Curtis had supper waiting for him, and he lost no time in stretching his legs under the table, where, at his ease over a hot cup of tea, he was inclined to improve in spirits and rally the captain on the slowness of his horse.
“Well,” said Captain Sam, with imperturbable good humour, “I’m sorry the old nag didn’t fetch you up a little quicker. She’s a safe, steady driver, though. Reckon the youngsters would have liked to see you over to their shore supper. They’re all over there. Guess you must have seen their fire down on the shore as you drove up. You know theVikinggot in this afternoon. Had real good luck, too, so Henry Burns was saying.”
Mr. Carleton, leaning back in his chair and leisurely passing his cup for another serving of tea, straightened up suddenly at this remark. But he only said, indifferently, “That so? I’ll have to look them up in the morning. I’m afraid I’m too tired to walk down there to-night.”
“Oh, they will be coming up before long now,” said Captain Sam.
“Why, don’t seem as if you was eating much,” he added, as Mr. Carleton rose from the table.
Mr. Carleton had swallowed his last cup of tea in two gulps.
“First rate, first rate,” he said. “Had a good supper. I’ll take a little stroll with a cigar, before turning in.”
Mr. Carleton walked leisurely out of the yard; but, when he had passed down the road a few steps, he quickened his pace and reached the shore almost running. Taking the first boat that came to hand, at random, he pushed off and rowed out to theVikingwith a few quick, powerful strokes. Then, pausing for a moment alongside, he listened for the sounds of any one approaching. It was still. Mr. Carleton sprang aboard.
He rushed to the companionway. But the hatch was drawn, the cabin doors shut, and the lock set. Mr. Carleton uttered an exclamation of anger. Stooping over, he felt along under the seats on either side of the cockpit. His search was rewarded, for his hand rested presently on the blade of a small hatchet, which was used by the yachtsmen for all sorts of work, from chopping bait to splitting kindling.
Mr. Carleton sprang to his feet, gave one quick glance about, then rushed to the companionway and smashed the lock with two smart blows. The next moment, he shoved back the hatch, opened the doors, and vanished below.
But, though unseen, Mr. Carleton had not been unheard.
Only a few moments before this, Tom and Bob and Henry Burns and Harvey had gone down to the shore, after bidding the crew good night.
“How did you happen to bring the canoe, Jack?” inquired Allan Harding. “I thought you wasn’t going to use that any more.”
“Well, I did say so last year,” replied Harvey. “I thought I had come too near drowning ever to enjoy it again. But Tom and Bob were coming down in theirs, so Henry and I got mine down from the Warren’s shed.”
“We’ll race you up,” said Tom.
“All right,” said Harvey. “I think you can beat us, though.”