Jim Spurling, Fisherman Part 27

"I want to send something that'll please him," he thought. "He hasn't had much satisfaction, so far, out of me."

Finally, after mature deliberation, he indited the following:

DEAR DAD,--I'm sticking.

Your affectionate son,

PERCY.

_The Three Musketeers_ gathered dust on the wooden shelf. Percy had faced squarely the fact of his college conditions, and had determined that they must be made up at the opening of the fall term; so his spare time went into Virgil and Caesar and algebra and geometry, instead of being spent on Dumas. He rarely asked for a.s.sistance from the others; they had little leisure, and it was his own fight. He buckled down manfully.

Another task that he set before himself was the establishment of cordial relations with the other members of the party. He realized that his own fault had made this necessary. It had been an easy matter to get on good terms with Jim, Budge, and Throppy. With Filippo it was a little harder; but soon he, too, thawed out when he found that Percy treated him courteously and was willing to do his share of the camp work. Even Nemo wagged his tail when Percy appeared, and the crow grew tame enough to eat fish out of his hand.

One afternoon, when the fog had lifted sufficiently to make it possible to see a few hundred feet from the island, a motor-boat unexpectedly appeared from the north and swung round Brimstone Point into the cove.

She ran up alongside the _Barracouta_, where the boys were baiting their trawl.

"I'm the warden," said one of the two newcomers, a gray-mustached, keen-eyed man. "I've come to look over your car."

Jim took his dip-net and stepped into the motor-boat, and they ran up to the lobster-car. A few minutes' investigation of its contents satisfied the official that it contained no "shorts."

"Glad to be able to give you a clean bill of health," said he as he set Jim back on board the sloop. "I wish some other people I know of did business as clean and aboveboard as you young fellows."

A quarter-hour later the sound of his exhaust had died away in the fog to the northward.

"What would he have done if he'd found any 'shorts'?" asked Percy.

"Fined us a dollar for every one," answered Jim. "Taken the cream off the summer, wouldn't it? Sometimes it pays, even in dollars and cents, to be honest."

The next morning was hot and muggy. The sea about the island was clear of fog for one or two miles. Jim and Budge had started long before light to set the trawl, and Throppy wished to make some changes on his wireless; so Filippo was glad enough of the chance to go out with Percy to haul the lobster-traps.

The little Italian had lost much of his melancholy. He enjoyed his work and the good-fellowship of the camp. The weeks of a.s.sociation with his new friends had made of him an entirely different fellow from the lonely, homesick lad they had picked up on the steamboat wharf at Stonington.

The two boys started in the pea-pod at six o'clock. A gla.s.sy calm overspread the sea. Even the perpetual ocean swell seemed to have lost much of its force.

"I'll row!" volunteered Percy.

He stripped off his oil-coat and sweater and rolled up his shirt-sleeves.

"It'll be hot up in the granite quarries to-day, hey, Filippo? S'pose you're sorry not to be there?"

"_Io sono contento_" ("I am satisfied"), replied the Italian.

Hauling and rebaiting the hundred-odd traps was a good five hours' job and more for the couple, neither of whom had ever handled a small boat or seen a live lobster before the previous month. As the forenoon advanced the air seemed to grow thicker and more breathless. Over the water brooded a languid haze, through which the sun rays burned with a moist, intense heat.

Percy's bare arms began to grow red and painful.

"Feel as if they were being scalded," he complained. "I've heard Jim say a fog-burn was worse than any other kind. Now I know he's right."

Eleven o'clock, and still twenty-five traps to be pulled. Most of these were on the Dog and Pups, a group of ledges more than a mile northeast of the island. It was the best spot for lobsters anywhere about Tarpaulin. Percy hesitated.

"Fog seems to be closing in a little," he observed, "and we haven't any compa.s.s. Should hate to get out there and have it shut down thick.

Might be hard work to find the island again."

He glanced at the tub of lobsters.

"If the Dog and Pups keep up anywhere near their average, we'll beat the record. What d'you say, Filippo? Shall we take a chance and surprise the rest of 'em?"

Filippo flashed his white teeth.

"I go with you," he smiled.

"Then go it is!" decided Percy.

He headed the pea-pod for the Dog and Pups.

"We'll keep a sharp lookout, and if it starts to grow anyways thick we'll strike back for old Tarpaulin."

A pull of about twenty minutes brought them to the ledges, around which the traps were set in a circle. They began hauling at the point in the circ.u.mference nearest to the island, following the buoys west and north.

The catch exceeded their hopes.

"We'll need another tub, if this keeps up," chuckled Percy.

Filippo laughed jubilantly. The fog was forgotten. Their entire attention was centered on the contents of each trap as it was pulled.

Round on the edge of the circle farthest from the island a pot refused to leave bottom. Percy tugged till he was red in the face, but he could not start it.

"Catch hold with me, Filippo!" he puffed.

The Italian joined his strength to Percy's, but to no avail. The slacker still clung to the bottom. The boys straightened up, panting.

"We'll have to leave it," acknowledged Percy, disappointedly. "Probably there's half a dozen two-pound lobsters in it."

He looked about and gave a startled cry.

"Where's the island?"

The wooded bluffs of Tarpaulin had disappeared. While they had been wrestling with the stubborn trap the fog had stolen a march on them. On all sides loomed a horizon of gray mist, not a half-mile distant and steadily drawing nearer. They must locate the island and get back to it at once.

Percy tossed over the buoy and the warp at which they had been pulling.

Tarpaulin lay southwest; but which way was southwest? Busied with the trap, he had utterly lost all sense of direction. The sun? He glanced hopefully up. No; that would not help any. The fog was too dense. Ha!

The surf?

"Listen hard, Filippo!" he exhorted.

They strained their ears. No sound. The swell was so gentle that it did not break on the ledges of the island loudly enough to be heard a mile and a quarter off. The heaving circle of which they were the center was contracting fast. Its misty walls were now less than five hundred feet away.

"Guess we'd better take a buoy aboard, and hang to it till Jim comes out to hunt us up. It'd make me feel cheap to do it, but it's the only safe way. But wait! What's that?"