"Now you see what oil-clothes are good for," said he. "I'll give you your chance in a little while."
Percy had kept the Barracouta near by as Jim pulled the dory along the trawl. He could watch the process very well from the sloop, and he was by no means anxious for a personal experience with it. It looked too much like hard work. He made no reply to Jim's offer.
Refreshed by his rest, the latter resumed hauling. Up came a little cluster of yellow plums, as large as small walnuts, each on a stem six inches long, attached to a brownish bunch of roots.
"Nigger-heads! Always grow on rocky bottom; nicest kind of place for fish. Trawl must have run over a patch of ledge. We're likely to pick up something here besides hake. What's this?"
A heavy fish appeared, hanging motionless on the next ganging. Jim gave a shout.
"Haddock! Twelve-pounder. Swallowed the hook and worried himself to death. Drowned!"
"Drown a fish!" jeered Percy.
"Sure you can, any kind of fish, if you only keep his mouth open. If this fellow hadn't taken the bait in so deep he'd have been liable to break away. Fishermen call 'em 'butter-mouths,' their flesh is so tender; under jaw's the only place where a hook will hold to lift 'em by. See his red lips, and that black streak down each side. And look at these two black spots, big as silver dollars, on his shoulders; that's where they say the devil got him between his thumb and forefinger, but couldn't hold on."
It was now not far from four o'clock. The sun, rising straight from the water, lifted his fiery red disk above the eastern horizon. It was a strange sight to Percy. The sunrises he had seen could almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. He yawned. The novelty of trawling was wearing off; he wished himself back in his hard bunk.
A heavy, chunky fish of an old-gold color, with an almost continuous line of fins, was the next habitant of the sea to cross the dory gunwale. Jim held him up to show Percy.
"Look at this cusk! He likes rocky bottom as well as a haddock. He's used to deep water, and if you start him up quick his stomach will blow out of his mouth like a bladder. I've seen 'em so plenty that they floated a trawl on top of water for half a mile."
Seven or eight small haddock and cusk, and then once more the trawl began to yield hake.
"Back again on muddy bottom," said Jim. "What d'you say to trying your hand at it?"
Percy agreed, but without enthusiasm. He had seen enough to realize that pulling a trawl was no sinecure. By means of a fish-fork Jim pitched his catch aboard the sloop. The first tub of trawl was now full. He transferred it to the Barracouta and set an empty tub in its place.
"You'll find fishing is no bed of roses," he remarked as he dropped down into the standing-room.
"I believe you," answered Percy, with conviction.
He started to get aboard the dory.
"Not there!" warned Jim. "Forward of the kid-board!"
The caution came too late. Percy stepped into the slippery pen from which the fish had just been pitched; unluckily, too, he was not careful to plant his weight amidships. The dory, overbalanced to starboard, careened suddenly, and he fell sprawling on the slimy bottom. Jim could not repress an exclamation of impatience.
"Why didn't you step where I told you?"
"I didn't think she'd tip so easy," retorted Percy, angrily.
In bad humor with himself and things in general, he scrambled up and took his place back of the empty tub. Jim sheered the Barracouta off.
"Put on your nippers! If you don't your hands will be raw in a little while."
Percy thrust his fingers through the white woolen doughnuts, grasped the trawl, and began dragging it in over the roller. He made slow, awkward work of it. Jim watched him with ill-suppressed impatience, keeping up a constant stream of necessary counsel.
"Careful! Don't jerk so, or you'll catch your hooks in the gunwale. There's a good-sized one! Don't try to lift him aboard without the gaff. Press your hook down and back! Don't yank it sideways like that; you'll only hook him harder. Coil that line away more evenly, or we'll have a bad mess when we come to bait up. Don't lose that fellow! There he goes! Be more careful of the next one!"
Needful though it was, this quickfire of advice rasped on Percy's temper. The unaccustomed work tired him badly. He was soon conscious of a pain in his shoulders and across the back of his neck; his wrists ached. Every now and then the hard, wiry line slipped off the nippers and sawed across his smarting fingers or palms. But pride kept him doggedly pulling.
A dozen hake of various sizes lay behind him in the pen when a flat, kite-shaped fish, four feet long, with a caricature of a human face beneath its head, came scaling up through the water.
"What's that?" he gasped in amazement.
"Skate!"
"Shall I keep him?"
"Keep him? No! Unless you want to eat him yourself."
Bunglingly Percy tried to dismiss his unwelcome catch, but he made slow work of extricating the deeply swallowed hook. Jim had stopped the Barracouta a few feet off. With the agony that an expert feels at the unskilful butchery of a task by an amateur, he watched his mate's awkward attempts. At last he could stand it no longer.
"Come aboard the sloop, Whittington," he ordered. "I'll finish pulling the trawl."
Percy obeyed sullenly. He had almost reached his limit of physical endurance, and he was only too glad of relief for his smarting skin and aching muscles. Fishing was a miserable business, and he wanted no part of it; on that he was fully decided. But even if a job is unpleasant, a man would rather resign than be discharged. Jim's abruptness hurt his pride; the slight rankled.
From the Barracouta he somewhat enviously watched Spurling deftly unhook the skate. The remainder of the trawl was pulled in in silence. Percy kept the sloop at a distance that discouraged speech, closing the gap only when Jim signaled that he wished to discharge his cargo. By ten o'clock the last hook was reached, anchor and buoy taken aboard, and the Barracouta, with two thousand pounds of fish heaped in her kids and towing astern in the dory, headed for Tarpaulin Island.
The trip home was a glum one. Two or three times Jim tried to open a conversation, but Percy responded only in monosyllables. He was tired and sleepy, and felt generally out-of-sorts. So Jim gave it up and let him alone.
They reached Sprowl's Cove at noon. Budge and Throppy had returned some time before from pulling the lobster-traps; Jim inspected their catch.
"About forty pounds," was his estimate. "Rather slim; but then the traps were down only about twelve hours. We'll do better after we get fairly started. I'm not going trawling to-morrow; so the whole crowd can make a lobstering trip in the Barracouta. Now let's have dinner. This afternoon we'll all turn to and dress fish."
Percy filed a mental negative to the last statement. He had decided that, so far at least as Tarpaulin Island was concerned, his fishing days were over. Nevertheless, he ate a good dinner.
At one o'clock the four academy boys rowed out to the Barracouta. All but Percy had on their oilskin aprons, or "petticoats."
"Where's your regimentals, Whittington?" asked Lane.
"I'm only going to look on this afternoon," replied Percy.
The other three exchanged surprised glances, but made no comments. On board the sloop Jim was soon busily engaged in demonstrating the process of dressing fish. Budge and Throppy learned quickly. Percy's refusal to take part in the work did not prevent him from watching it with interest from the cabin roof.
The fish were split and cleaned. Their heads were cut off and thrown into a barrel, to serve later as lobster bait, and the livers tossed into pails. Their "sounds," the membrane running along the backbone, were removed and placed in a box. After the bodies had been rinsed in a tub of water, and the backbones cut out, they were flung into the dory, taken ashore and plunged into another tub of water, and then salted down in hogsheads. Three pairs of hands made speedy work.
"What do you do with those?"
Percy pointed to the pails containing the livers.
"Leave 'em in a barrel in the sun to be tried out," responded Jim. "The oil is worth more than sixty cents a gallon."
"And those?"
He indicated the box of "sounds."
"Cut 'em open with a pair of shears, press out the blood, and spread 'em on wire netting to dry for three days; then sew 'em up in sacks, to be shipped to some glue-factory. Four pounds of 'em'll bring a dollar. These things and some others are the by-products of the fishing business. They're worth too much to throw away."
Percy's eye dwelt on the knives and aprons of his three associates.
"I'm glad I don't have to fish for a living," he said.
Percy slept soundly that night. To be sure, the alarm routed out the Spurlingites at the unseemly hour of four, but that was far better than twelve. After breakfast he enjoyed a cigarette on the beach while the others were helping Filippo clear away. It was a calm, beautiful morning, and as young Whittington gazed over the smooth, blue sea he felt that even a fisherman's life might have its redeeming features.
At six they all started to make the round of the lobster-traps, on the Barracouta. The first string of white buoys, striped with green, was encountered off Brimstone Point.
"Here's where we make a killing," said Jim.
As he approached the first buoy he opened his switch, stopping the engine. Putting on his woolen mittens, he picked up the gaff. Close under the starboard quarter bobbed the brown bottle that served as a toggle. Reaching out with his gaff, he hooked this aboard, and began hauling in the warp. At last the heavily weighted trap started off bottom and began to ascend. In a half-minute its end, draped with marine growths, broke the surface.
Holding the trap against the side, Jim tore off its incumbrances. The trailing mass was composed principally of irregular, brownish-black, leathery sheets at the end of long stems.
"Kelp!" answered Jim to Percy's inquiry. "Devil's aprons! They grow on rocky bottom. I've seen a trap so loaded with 'em that you could hardly stir it."
He dragged the lath coop up on the side. It contained a miscellaneous assortment, the most interesting objects in which were four or five black, scorpion-like shell-fish clinging to the netted heads and sprawling on the bottom. Unbuttoning the door at the top, Jim darted in his hand and seized one of these by its back. Round came the claws, wide open, and snapped shut close to his fingers; but he had grasped his prize at the one spot where the brandishing pincers could not reach him.
"He's a 'counter,' fast enough! No need of measuring him! Must weigh at least two pounds."
Jim dropped the snapping shell-fish into a tub in the standing-room.
"I thought lobsters were red," remarked Percy.
"They are—after you boil 'em."
Spurling's hand went into the trap again. This time the result was not so satisfactory. Out came a little fellow, full of fight. Jim tested his length by pressing his back between the turned-up ends of a brass measure screwed against the side of the standing-room.
"Thought so! He's a 'short'!"
He tossed the lobster overboard.
"What did you throw him away for?" asked Percy. "Isn't he good to eat?"
"Nothing better! But it's the State law. Everything that comes short of four and three-fourths inches, solid bone measure, from the tip of the nose to the end of the back, has to be thrown over where it's caught."
"Why's that?"
"To keep 'em from being exterminated. It's based on the same principle as the law on trout or any other game-fish. Lobsters are growing scarcer every year, and something has to be done to preserve 'em."
"Does everybody throw the little ones away?"
"No! If they did there'd be more of legal size. The Massachusetts law allows the sale there of lobsters an inch and a half shorter than the length specified here; so their smacks come down, lie outside the three-mile limit, and buy 'shorts' of every fisherman who's willing to break the Maine law to sell 'em. Besides that, most of the summer cottagers along the coast buy and catch all the 'shorts' they can. So it's no wonder the lobster's running out."
While Jim talked he was emptying the trap. Another "counter" went into the tub, and two more "shorts" splashed overboard. The financial side of the question interested Percy.
"How many 'shorts' will you probably get a week?"
"Five hundred or more."
"And how much would a Massachusetts smack pay you for 'em?"
"Ten or twelve cents apiece."
"Then you expect to throw more than fifty dollars a week over the side, just to obey the law?"
"That's what!"
Percy lapsed into silence. The lobsters disposed of, Jim began to clear the trap of its other contents. A big brown sculpin was floundering on the laths. Taking him out gingerly, Jim tossed him into the bait-tub upon the hake heads.
"He'll do for bait in a few days."
He picked out and threw over three or four large starfish, or "five-fingers." The hake head stuck on the bait-spear in the center was almost gone; Jim replaced it with a fresh head from the bait-tub. Then he seized a mottled, purplish crab that had been aimlessly scuttling to and fro across the bottom of the pot, and impaled him, back down, on the barb of the spear. Shutting and buttoning the door, he slid the trap overboard, started his engine, and headed for the next buoy.
Its trap was caught among the rocks on the bottom, and Jim, unable to start it by hand, was obliged to make the warp fast and have recourse to towing. Just as it looked as if the line were about to part, the trap let go. It yielded one "counter" and three "shorts." Also, it contained more than a dozen brown, unhealthy-looking, membranous things, shaped like long coin-purses, lined with rows of suckers, and with mouths at one end.
"Sea-cucumbers! I've seen a trap full of 'em, almost to the door. They're after the bait, like everything else."
Trap after trap was pulled, with varying success. Occasionally from a single one three or four good-sized lobsters would be taken; occasionally one would yield nothing at all. But the majority averaged one "counter." Percy could not accustom himself to the seeming waste of throwing over the "shorts."
"I should think you might sell those little fellows to the Massachusetts boats, and nobody be the wiser for it."
"I could; but I won't. I'll make clean money or I won't make any at all."
There was a finality in Jim's tones that closed the subject for good. Half the traps had now been hauled and there were about seventy-five pounds of lobsters in the tub. Spiny, egg-like sea-urchins, green wrinkles, and an occasional flounder or lamper-eel gave variety to the catch. There was always the hope that the next trap might yield five or six big fellows.
"Now and then," said Jim, "you get one so large he can't crawl into a pot. He'll be on the head, just as you start pulling, and he'll hang to the netting until he comes to the top. After they take hold of anything, they hate to let go."
"What's the biggest one you ever saw?" asked Lane.
"One day when I was in Rockland, a smack brought in a fifteen-pounder she'd bought at Seal Island. But of course they grow a good deal larger than that. The big ones don't taste nearly so good as the little ones. After they get to be a certain age, seven or eight years, the fishermen think, they don't 'shed.' Then you find 'em covered with barnacles, their claws cracked into squares, all wrinkled up. Those old grubbers belong to the offshore school; they stay outside, and never come in on the rocks."
Percy was listening with all his ears.
"What do you mean by saying they don't 'shed'?" he asked.
"Harken to the lecture on lobsters by Professor James Spurling!" announced Lane in stentorian tones.
The next group of traps was some distance off, so Jim had a chance to talk without interruption.
"In the spring a lobster that is growing begins to find his shell too tight, so he has to get out of it. Some time after the first of July he crawls in under the rocks or kelp, where the fish can't trouble him. His shell splits down the back and he pulls himself out. He stays there for a week or ten days while a new and larger shell is forming. When he begins to crawl again, he's raving hungry. One queer thing I almost forgot. Fishermen say that, while he is lying under cover, all soft and unprotected, a hard-shell lobster, active and ugly, generally stands guard outside the hole, ready to fight off any enemy that may come along."
By the time the last trap was pulled the lobster question had been pretty thoroughly canvassed.
"Guess I've told you all I know, and more, too," said Jim.
They were back in Sprowl's Cove at half past ten, and put their lobsters into the car with the others. Hardly had they finished when a motor-sloop came round the eastern point.
"Here's a smack!" exclaimed Jim. "On time to the minute! Shouldn't wonder if it was Captain Higgins in the Calista!"
The boat swept into the cove in a broad circle, and ranged alongside the car. At the helm stood a tall, grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with gray beard and twinkling blue eyes. A lanky, freckled boy stuck his head up out of the cabin.
"Any lobsters to sell, boys?" inquired the man.
"Isn't this Captain Higgins?" asked Jim.
"That's my name—Benjamin B. Higgins, of the smack Calista, buying lobsters from Cranberry Island to Portland, and this is my son Brad, my first mate and crew. I own this boat from garboard to main truck, bowsprit-tip to boom-end, and I don't wear any man's dog-collar. I'll give you a square deal on weight and pay you as much as any smackman, neither more nor less. Do we trade?"
"We do," answered Jim. "Let's have your dip-net!"
Stepping upon the car, he was soon bailing out the lobsters. Captain Higgins placed them in a tub on his deck scale.
"Going to be here long, boys?"
"We've taken the island for the season from my Uncle Tom Sprowl."
"So you're Cap'n Tom's nephew? Must be Ezra Spurling's boy."
Jim nodded.
"Glad to meet you! Made a trip once to the Grand Banks with Ezra; must be all of thirty years ago. Well, time flies! If you'll save your lobsters for me, I'll look in here every Thursday. How does that hit you?"
"Right between the eyes."
After the lobsters were bailed out, Jim and Budge went on board the smack. Captain Higgins weighed the heaping tub of shell-fish.
"One hundred and seventy pounds. Market price 's twenty-five."
He glanced inquiringly at Jim.
"All right!" agreed the latter.
"Then we'll put 'em in the well."
He lifted off a hatch aft of the scale, opening into a compartment containing something over three feet of water; it was twelve feet long and thirteen wide, and divided into two parts by a low partition running lengthwise of the sloop. Two water-tight bulkheads separated it from the rest of the boat, and several hundred inch-and-a-quarter holes, bored through its bottom to allow free access to the water outside, gave it the appearance of a pepper-box. It already contained hundreds of live lobsters.
Picking the shell-fish carefully from the tub, Jim and the captain dropped them, one by one, into the well. Soon all were safely transferred to their new quarters, and the hatch was replaced. Captain Higgins invited Jim and Budge down into his little den of a cabin. Unlocking an iron box, he took from it a wallet and began counting out bills.
"Forty-two dollars and a half!"
He passed the amount over to Jim.
"You carry quite a sum of ready money, Captain," said Lane.
"Yes; I have to. This business is cash on the nail. My boat can take over twelve thousand pounds of lobsters, and sometimes she's almost filled. I've started out with three thousand dollars in that box, and I rarely go with less than two thousand. It'd surprise you to figure up the amount of cash these smacks spread along the coast. They say that one winter, when lobsters were specially high, a Portland dealer paid a smackman over fifty-five hundred dollars for a single trip."
"Somebody must make a big profit. Think what a lobster costs in a market!"
"Somebody does—sometimes. But it isn't the smackmen. Lobsters ought not to be kept in a well longer than a few days. A friend of mine started out from Halifax with ten thousand pounds of Cape Breton lobsters. He got caught in a gale of wind and lost forty-seven hundred pounds before he landed in Boston. Some years ago a Maine dealer put one hundred and five thousand lobsters in a pound during May and June; he fed them chiefly on herring, and the total cost was over ten thousand dollars. Things went wrong and he took out just two hundred and fifty-four live ones. Not much profit about that!"
Arranging to call near noon the next Thursday, Captain Higgins had soon rounded Brimstone Point and was on his way to Head Harbor on Isle au Haut, his next stopping-place. In the middle of the afternoon, while the boys were baiting trawls on the Barracouta, another boat chugged into the cove. It was a smack from Boston.
"Got any lobsters, boys?" asked the captain, a red-faced, smooth-shaven man of forty.
"All sold!" was Jim's reply. "And we've arranged to let the Calista have what we get."
"What do you do with your 'shorts'?"
"Heave 'em overboard."
"Save 'em for me and I'll give you ten cents apiece for 'em."
"Nothing doing!"
"You and your crowd could clean up fifty dollars more a week here just as well as not. What are you afraid of? The warden can't get out here once in a dog's age."
"The State of Maine doesn't have to hire any warden to keep me honest."
"You're a fool, young fellow!" said the man, heatedly.
"That may be," retorted Jim, "but your saying so doesn't make me one. Besides, I'd rather be a fool than a crook."
The smackman's red face grew redder.
"Don't you get fresh with me!" he warned, threateningly. "Do you mean to say I'd do anything crooked?"
"You're the best judge about that."
Jim was tiring of the conversation. He turned his back on the stranger and resumed baiting his trawl. Finding that nothing was to be gained by a longer stop, the man, muttering angrily, started his engine and left the cove.
"I'm not saying whether this lobster law's a good thing or not," said Jim to the other boys. "Some fishermen say it isn't. But so long as it's the law it ought to be kept, until we can get a better one. I don't believe in breaking it just for the sake of making a few dollars."
"Then the law doesn't suit everybody," ventured Throppy.
"Not by a long shot! Each session of the Legislature they fight it over, and make some changes, and then a new set of people are dissatisfied. What's meat to one man is poison to another. It's impossible to pass a law somebody wouldn't find fault with."
"What keeps one man from pulling another man's traps?" asked Percy.
"His conscience, if he has any; and, if he hasn't, his dread of being found out. It's a mean kind of thieving, but more or less of it's done alongshore. Sometimes it costs a man dear. I know of two cases, within twenty-five miles of this island, where men have been shot dead for that very thing. About as unhealthy as stealing horses out West, if you're caught. Like everything else, now and then it has its funny side. Once a lobsterman lost his watch, chain and all; for a day or two he was asking everybody he met if they'd seen it. A neighbor of his went out to pull his own traps. In one of them he found the first man's watch, hanging by its chain to the door, just where it had been caught and twitched out of its owner's pocket when he had slid the trap overboard, after stealing the lobsters in it. It was a long time before he heard the last of that."
"Did he get his watch back?" asked Percy.
"Don't know!" replied Jim. "But if he didn't it served him right."
On the Barracouta's next trip to Matinicus she brought back the balance of Throppy's wireless outfit. It did not take him long to get his plant in working order. Almost every evening thereafter he spent a short time picking up messages from passing steamers and the neighboring islands, and sending others in return. The wireless came to fill an important place in the life of the boys on Tarpaulin, furnishing a bond of connection between them and the outside world.
A few mornings after the first call of the Calista Budge and Percy were out pulling traps. Percy had told Jim plainly that he did not care to do any more trawling. Jim had smiled and made no reply; but after that either Throppy or Budge went out with him after hake. What the others said in private about Percy he neither knew nor cared.
On this particular forenoon the lobster-catchers had half circled the island. As they nosed along the northern shore Percy spied some strange-looking floats ahead.
"There's a red buoy!" he exclaimed. "Somebody else must be fishing here!"
Incredulously Budge glanced forward. What he saw left him sober.
"You're right! This'll be unpleasant news for Jim."
They ran up to the strange float. It was a battered wedge, painted a faded brick color. Percy gaffed it aboard.
"What's the brand?" queried Budge.
"Hasn't any."
Lane examined it and found that Percy was correct. The wood bore no marks to reveal its owner.
"Better haul the trap?" asked Percy.
He began heaving in on the warp.
"Stop that!" ordered Budge, sharply. "Throw it over. We don't want to get into any scrape. We'll have to put it up to Jim this noon. He'll know what to do."
They counted nine more of the red buoys before they reached the northeast point of the island.
"Look there!"
Percy pointed toward the landlocked Sly Hole. A thin column of blue smoke was rising above it, as if from the stovepipe of an anchored boat. Budge debated for a moment, then turned the bow of the pea-pod toward the narrow entrance.
"We'll go in and see who's there."
A dozen quick strokes sent the boat through the winding channel into the little harbor. Budge rested on his oars and they looked eagerly about.
In the center of the haven lay anchored a rusty black sloop about forty feet long, a dory swinging at her stern. From her cabin drifted the sound and smell of frying fish, mingled with men's voices.
"Might as well take the bull by the horns," said Budge.
He rowed directly up to the sloop. The sounds on board evidently drowned the dipping of his oars, for it was not until the stem of the pea-pod struck the rusty side that the voices stopped and two startled brown faces popped up out of the companionway. Both men had sharp black eyes, and black shocks of hair badly in need of the barber. One was slightly gray, and a prickly stubble of unshaven beard covered his chin. The younger man had a jet-black mustache with long, drooping ends. Both
wore red shirts, open at the neck, with sleeves rolled above the elbows. The younger held a half-smoked cigar, while his companion grasped a large fork, which he evidently had been using on the fish. For a few seconds the two couples regarded each other in silence.
Then the man with the black mustache smiled ingratiatingly.
"H'lo, boys!" he invited. "Won't you come 'board?"
"No, thank you," declined Budge. "When did you get here?"
"We come last night, from ... there," with a vague gesture toward the west. "We fish, we lobster. You live on dis island ... yes? We stay here, too. We be good friend. Wait!"
Diving below, he brought up a long-necked black bottle.
"You have drink?"
"No!" refused Budge, decidedly.
The man looked disappointed. He muttered a few words to his companion. The latter scowled. Then they drank from the bottle and replaced it below. The younger man began talking again.
"Disa good harbor! We build camp there."
He gestured toward the beach.
"We plenty lath on board. We make one ... two hundred trap. We stop all summer. Good friend, eh?"
"I guess so," returned Budge.
The program announced had taken him somewhat aback. He hardly knew what to reply. Pushing the pea-pod off, he turned her toward the channel.
"You livea 'cross dis island ... yes?" shouted the man after him. "We come see you to-night!"
Budge made no response to this advance. Steady, rapid pulling soon brought the boys again into open water.
"Well, what do you think now?" asked Percy.
"Wait till we hear what Jim says," was Lane's reply.
The remaining traps were hauled in double-quick time and they made a bee-line for Sprowl's Cove. Spurling and Throppy came in at noon on the Barracouta. Jim's brows knitted when he heard of their new neighbors.
"What should you say they were?" he inquired.
"Don't know," answered Lane. "Only I'm sure they're not Yankees."
"And they had no brand on their buoys?"
"Not a letter!"
"That's against the law. Suspicious, too. So they intend to build a camp here and spend the summer?"
"That's what they said."
The anxious furrows in Jim's forehead deepened. He brought his fist down hard on the Barracouta's cabin.
"Boys," he said, firmly, "they can't stop here. There aren't lobsters enough on these ledges for them and for us. What they get we won't. They've got to pull up those traps and get out just as quick as we can make 'em."
The others exchanged looks of surprise. Though they knew Jim's absolute fairness and sense of right, they could not help feeling that his decision was a harsh one. Jim read their faces.
"I know what you're thinking, boys. It seems as if I had no right to drive 'em off. But suppose any one of you owned a piece of woods on the mainland, and a stranger should come and begin to chop the trees down without your permission. How long would you stand it? The same principle holds good here, even if it is twenty-five miles offshore. This is my uncle Tom's island. He's been paying taxes on it for years. His living comes from it and the waters round it. He's leased it to us on shares, and we've got to look out for his interest as well as our own.
"But how can you stop them from setting traps?" queried Lane. "I thought the sea beyond low-water mark was public property."
"It is. They can set as many traps as they can bring on their sloop, and I never could trouble 'em so long as they lived aboard. If they fished with only the few they've got now I'd never say a word. But when they talk of building a camp ashore, and going into the business wholesale with one or two hundred pots, we must draw the line, and draw it sharp. They can't use any of the shore legally without my permission, and that they'll never get; and if they try to use it illegally they'll find themselves in hot water mighty quick.
"Another thing," he continued, "they're strangers to us, and drinking men. They might pull our traps or accuse us of pulling theirs. There's a chance for all sorts of mix-ups. No, they've got to go, and the sooner the better."
"They're coming across to call to-night," said Lane.
"Not if we can get over there first. We'll go round in the sloop as soon as these hake are dressed and salted."
At four o'clock the last fish was slapped down on the rounded-up tub.
"Now we'll go," announced Jim. "Come on, everybody! You, too, Filippo! Might as well show up our full force. It may help stave off trouble."
"Aren't you going to take the gun?" Percy inquired.
"Gun? No! What'd we want of that? We don't intend to shoot anybody."
Twenty minutes after the Barracouta left Sprowl's Cove she was thudding into the Sly Hole. The sloop still lay at anchor in its center, but the dory was grounded on the beach. From the woods above, ax-strokes echoed faintly.
"Either cutting firewood or beginning on that camp," said Jim.
Presently the chopping ceased. Before long the two men appeared on the top of the bank, dragging a spruce trunk about twenty feet long. On seeing the Barracouta they halted in surprise, then dropped the tree and hurried down to their dory.
"Seem to be afraid we've been mousing round aboard their boat," muttered Spurling.
Without responding to his hail the two strangers rowed hastily to their sloop and went below. A minute or two of investigation evidently satisfied them that nothing had been disturbed. As they came up again Jim ran the Barracouta alongside.
"Where you from?" he asked.
The younger man again acted as spokesman:
"Way off ... there!"
As when Budge had questioned him, he gestured vaguely toward the west. Then he launched into a repetition of what he had said that forenoon.
"We stay on dis island all summer. Make trap. Build camp. Catch plenty fish, plenty lobster. All friend, eh?"
He laid his left hand on his heart, and with his right made a sweeping gesture that included the whole group.
"You wait!"
Dropping suddenly out of sight, he reappeared with equal quickness, brandishing the black bottle.
"We drink ... all together, eh?"
Jim brushed his proffer aside.
"I've hired this island. You'll have to pay me rent if you stop here."
A shadow of wrath swept over the dark face. Instantly it was gone, and a smile replaced it.
"Rent!" he protested. "No, no! Friend no pay! We sing, we smoke, we drink, we playa cards. All good friend together. No pay money!"
The last very decided. The older man nodded vigorously in confirmation, and for the first time broke silence.
"No pay money!" he repeated. "All friend!"
The two laid their hands on their hearts and stood smiling and bowing. For a moment Jim was nonplussed. He backed the Barracouta out of earshot.
"Well, what d'you think of the outlook?" asked Lane.
"Don't like it, and I don't like them. Too much palaver! I've got 'em sized up. They're regular salt-water gipsies; I've heard of 'em before. They drift round from one place to another, fish a little, lobster a little, smoke a good deal, and drink more. They'd be worse than a pestilence on this island. Yes, sir! They've got to go! They know just as well as I do that they've no right to stop here; but they're going to bluff it through. They'll try to stave me off by pretending not to understand what I mean, but you noticed they were bright enough when money was mentioned."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Tell 'em they've got to go!"
"And if they won't?"
"Send for the sheriff!"
While the boys had been holding their council of war the two men had disappeared into their cabin, where they held an angry, but unintelligible, discussion. As Jim brought the Barracouta once more alongside their heads quickly appeared. They were scowling blackly.
"Will you pay rent?" demanded Jim.
"No pay rent," came the defiant reply from both together.
"Pull up your traps, then, and go!"
"No go!" exclaimed the younger. "You go! We stay!"
"That settles it," said Jim. "I'll send for the sheriff to-night, and have him here in the morning."
He leaned over to start his engine. At his first movement the two dropped out of sight, but before he could rock the wheel they were up again, each holding a shot-gun. They leveled these weapons at the Barracouta.
"No send for sheriff! No start engine!"
Jim straightened up and the startled boys glanced at one another. The demonstration of hostility had come like a bolt from a clear sky. Things looked ugly. Again the younger man spoke.
"S'pose you go for sheriff. We stay! Cut buoy! Sink boat! Burn cabin! Then go before you get back! How you like that, eh?"
For once Jim was at a loss. What answer could be made to such an argument? The other noted his hesitation, and smiled triumphantly.
"You let us alone, we let you alone! You trouble us, we trouble you. Now you go!"
It was half a permission, half a command, backed by the leveled guns. Jim was on the point of starting the engine when Filippo interrupted him.
"Misser Jim, let me talk to 'em," he begged in a low tone.
Spurling glanced at him in surprise.
"What for, Filippo? Are they countrymen of yours?"
"Don't know! I see!"
"Go ahead, then! It can't do any hurt."
"Hi!" called out Filippo. "Listen! Ascoltatemi!"
The two men started as if they had been shot; they fixed their gaze on Filippo. He began talking rapidly to them in Italian, gesturing freely. They replied in the same language. For fully ten minutes the heated dialogue continued. Jim and his mates listened in silence, now and then catching a word they had learned from Filippo, but not comprehending the drift of the debate.
At last it was clear that some conclusion had been reached. Shaking their heads in disgust, the two sullenly restored their guns to the cabin. Filippo turned to Jim.
"All right! They go to-night, after they pull traps. Now we start—right away!"
Jim looked at the Italian in amazement; but he started the engine and the sloop forged out of the cove. Once in the passage, he broke silence.
"How did you ever manage it, Filippo?"
"I tell them your uncle own island; you hire it of him for summer. You lots of friends. If they no go, you send for sheriff right away. We too many for them. Guard cabin with gun till you get back. Sheriff come in night, while they sleep. Take them, take boat, take trap. Put them in jail. They break rock, work on road rest of summer. They not like that. They go!"
"Good enough, Filippo! Guess you didn't strain the truth much. You certainly have got us out of an unpleasant hole. I'm free to say I was at my wits' end. Good thing for us we ran across you on the wharf at Stonington!"
"Better thing for me!" answered Filippo.
That evening after supper the boys stole silently through the woods to the northeastern end of the island. The Sly Hole was empty! The sloop had gone!
Stepping out of the evergreens, Jim looked westward along the shore.
"There they are!"
The dory towing astern was piled high with traps.
"Shouldn't wonder if they had some of ours among 'em!" exclaimed Jim. "No matter! We're getting rid of 'em cheap, if they scoop a dozen! But look at that! They've got all they want, and now they're cutting away our buoys! Here's where I call a halt!"
He sprang out upon the bank in plain sight.
"Hi, there! Stop that!"
One of the men had just gaffed a buoy. At Jim's hail he glanced up and waved his hand nonchalantly. Then he deliberately cut the warp. The other man dropped into the cabin and reappeared with the two guns. Jim threw himself flat on his face.
"Down, boys!" he cried.
A hail of birdshot peppered the bluff and the woods behind it as both the double-barrels roared out in unison. One leaden pellet drew blood from the back of Jim's hand, while Throppy, a little slow in dropping to cover, was stung on the cheek. The others were untouched. Percy shook with fright and excitement. Lane was boiling with anger.
"Let's take the Barracouta and follow 'em!" he proposed.
"Cool off, Budge!" laughed Jim. "That's just a parting salute. Besides, they've got two guns to our one. Let 'em go! And good riddance to bad rubbish! See! They're on their way now!"
The sloop's head swung to the north and she filled away.
"They've done what damage they've dared and they're gone for good. They'll be up at Isle au Haut to-night, either in Head Harbor or Kimball's Island Thoroughfare. Forget 'em!"
"Lucky my temper isn't hitched up with your strength," said Lane.
Late on the afternoon of July 3d, when the morning's catch of eighteen hundred pounds of hake had been split and salted, Spurling called a council of war. Percy attended with the others. He had gone out with Budge in the morning to haul the lobster-traps; the rest of the day he had loafed, lying on the soft turf below the beacon on Brimstone Point and reading The Three Musketeers.
Of the work that pleased him he had determined to do only as much as he liked, and not a stroke more. Lobstering was really attractive; there was enough novelty and excitement about it to keep him interested. When a pot came up it might contain no shell-fish or a half-dozen; the element of uncertainty appealed to his sporting instincts. But fishing he had stricken utterly from his list. It was too hard and too dirty. Slogging at the heavy trawls and afterward dressing the catch was too plebeian a business for the son of a millionaire.
So he let the others tire their muscles and soil their hands and clothing while he attended strictly to the business of pleasing himself. He could not help being aware of a growing coolness on the part of his associates, but it gave him no concern. His month of probation was almost up, and he had decided that, come what might, he would leave at its end. Only a few days more, and this hard, monotonous island life would be behind him forever. He would send back a check to cover the expense of his board, and that would permanently close his relations with Spurling & Company.
This resolve to pay for meals and lodging gave him a feeling of independence. Hence, though he knew the others did not care whether he attended or not, he felt himself entitled to a place at the council.
The meeting took place on the beach in front of the cabin. Spurling and Stevens had just come from the Barracouta, their oilskin "petticoats" bearing gory evidence of their work for the last two hours.
"Fellows," proposed Jim, "to-morrow let's celebrate! We can't set the trawls, for we haven't anything to bait up with. And even if we had, I don't believe in working on the Fourth. When I was at Matinicus the other day I saw a poster advertising a ball-game and big celebration at Vinalhaven. We'll have an early breakfast and run up there in the Barracouta. First, we'll go to Hardy's weir and take in a lot of herring for bait. Then we can slip round to Carver's Harbor and spend the rest of the day ashore. What d'you say?"
There was no doubt regarding the vote.
"The ayes have it!" shouted Spurling. "Now let's get everything in trim for day after to-morrow! We won't pull the traps again until then."
Filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of a holiday, Budge, Throppy, and Jim dispersed to their various tasks. Yawningly, Percy returned to Brimstone Point and The Three Musketeers. After all, doing nothing on an island twenty-five miles out at sea was pretty dull work.
The boys had an early supper and were soon asleep. Turning out at daybreak, they despatched a hearty meal of corn-bread and bacon. Everybody but Percy took hold with the dishes and helped tidy up the camp. Shortly after sunrise they were sailing out of the cove in the Barracouta.
The trip in past Saddleback Light to Vinalhaven was uneventful. By eight o'clock they were lying alongside Hardy's weir, and its owner was dipping bushel after bushel of shining herring into the pen aboard the sloop. Before ten they were anchored off the steamboat wharf at Carver's Harbor.
The town was in gala dress. Bunting streamed everywhere. Torpedoes, firecrackers, bombs, and revolvers rent the air with deafening explosions. The brass guns on two yachts in the harbor contributed an occasional salvo. As the boys rowed in to the shore the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" came floating over the water, and round the outer point appeared one of the small bay steamers, loaded with excursionists, including a brass band. On board also was the Camden baseball team, scheduled to play the opening game in the county league series with the home team that afternoon.
Bedlam broke loose as the steamer made fast to the wharf and the crowd aboard streamed ashore. To Spurling and his friends, after three weeks of Tarpaulin Island, the narrow, winding street with its holiday crowd afforded the bustle and varied interest of a city. Even Percy deigned to allow himself to be tempted out of the sulky dignity which he had assumed since the council of the previous afternoon.
The group scattered. Lane and Stevens wandered about town, taking in the sights and dodging the torpedoes and firecrackers of enthusiastic patriots of a more or less tender age. Spurling found an old 'longshore acquaintance from a visiting boat and went off aboard to inspect his new type of engine. Filippo struck up an eternal friendship with a fellow-countryman from the granite quarries on Hurricane. Percy, left to his own resources, invested in a new brand of cigarettes and promenaded back and forth along the main street, smoking and eying the passers-by superciliously.
Noon found the restaurants packed with hungry excursionists; but the crowds were good-natured and everybody was able to get plenty to eat. At two o'clock there was a grand rush to the baseball-grounds.
Spurling, Lane, and Stevens sat together in the front of the stand; Percy perched at the extreme right of the topmost row; while Filippo lay on the grass back of third base with his new-found, swarthy compatriot.
Evidently there was some hitch about beginning the game. The Vinalhavens had taken the field for practice. The Camden team, bunched close together, were talking earnestly, meanwhile casting anxious glances toward the street that led to the water.
The Vinalhaven scorer passed before the stand with his book.
"What's the trouble?" asked Stevens.
"Camden catcher and third-baseman haven't shown up. They started out with a party in a power-boat before the steamer. Engine must have broken down. Here it is time to call the game, and the visiting team two men short! And the biggest crowd of the season here! Can you beat that for luck?"
The Camden pitcher separated himself from his companions and strolled toward the stand.
"Anybody here want to put on a mitt and stop a few fast ones?" he inquired.
"That means you, Jim!" said Lane. "Come on! Don't be too modest!"
Spurling climbed out over the front of the stand.
"I'll try to hold you for a little while," he volunteered.
Soon he was smoothly receiving the pitcher's curves and lobbing them back. The combination went like clockwork. In the mean time the rest of the Camden team had taken the field and were warming up. The missing members had not yet appeared.
"That'll do for a while," said the pitcher.
The two drew to one side.
"What team have you been catching on?" asked the Camden man, suddenly.
"Graffam Academy."
"I knew you must have traveled with a pretty speedy bunch. My name's Beverage."
"Say, old man, I want you to do us a big favor. Catch this game for Camden, will you?"
"I've been out of practice for over a month," objected Jim.
"Never mind about that! I don't mean to flatter you, but we've got nothing in this league that can touch you. Come, now! As a personal favor to me!"
"All right. I'll do my best."
"Good for you! Now we've got to pick up a third-baseman!"
Jim hesitated.
"Our Academy shortstop is here," he said, slowly. "He can play a mighty good third at a pinch."
"If he's willing, we'll take him on your say-so, and snap at the chance."
Jim walked to the front of the stand.
"You're signed for third for this game, Budge! I'm going to catch."
"We've got a couple of spare suits," said Beverage. "Come on over to the hotel and change."
In fifteen minutes Lane and Spurling were back on the field in Camden uniforms and the game had begun.
The contest was a hot one. The teams were evenly matched, and the result hung in doubt up to the last inning. The crowd boiled with enthusiasm and the supporters of each team cheered themselves hoarse.
In the middle of the fifth inning, when the excitement was running highest, a slim, bareheaded figure with a tow pompadour sprouting above a fog-burnt face leaped suddenly up at the right end of the top row in the stand.
It was Percy. Exhilarated by the closeness of the game, he had forgotten his grudge against Spurling & Company. He flourished a roll of bills.