Jim Spurling, Fisherman Part 31

"Fish!" almost screamed Lane. "Not on your life! I've eaten so much fish the last two months that I'm ashamed to look a hake or haddock in the face. None for mine! Beefsteak and onions are good enough for me."

Jim glanced at Percy. Percy nodded.

"Three of the same," said Jim to the waiter.

They starved until the viands came on, then turned to. Fifteen minutes later the three orders were duplicated and despatched without undue delay.

"Try it again, Budge?"

"I'd like to," returned Lane, truthfully, "but I can't."

Jim broke a five-dollar bill at the cashier's desk, and they filed out.

"Sorry Throppy and Filippo aren't with us," said Percy.

"So am I; but we'll even it up with 'em somehow, later."

After an evening with Sherlock Holmes at the movies the three went down to the _Barracouta_ and turned in. The next morning the fog was not so thick. They started at sunrise, and reached the island before eleven o'clock. At noon Stevens and the Italian came in with a good catch of lobsters.

And now came some of the most enjoyable weeks of the summer. The five boys were thoroughly acquainted and on the best of terms. Their work had been reduced to a frictionless routine that left them more leisure than at first. Lane was treasurer and bookkeeper for the concern, and his reports, made every Sat.u.r.day night, showed that returns, both from the fish and from the lobsters, were running ahead of their estimates at the beginning of the season.

Percy, in particular, was learning to enjoy the free, out-of-door life, so different from anything to which he had been accustomed. At the close of pleasant afternoons, when a land breeze had driven the fog to sea and the work of the day was finished, he liked to take his Caesar or Virgil up to the beacon on Brimstone, and lie at ease on the cushion of wiry gra.s.s, while he followed the great general through his Gallic campaigns or traced the wanderings of pious aeneas over a sea that could have been no bluer or more sparkling than that which surrounded the island.

Sometimes it pleased him to explore the sheep-paths through the scrubby evergreens with gray wool-tags clinging to the branch ends, and to emerge at last from the tangle of dwarfed, twisted trunks on the northeast point. There he would throw himself at full length on the summit of the bluff, with the surf in his ears and the cool, salt breeze on his face, and watch the sun flashing from the brown gla.s.s toggles near the white lobster-buoys; or, lifting his gaze to the horizon beyond the purple deep, he would trace the low, rolling humps of the mainland hills, the cleft range of Isle au Haut, or the heights of Mount Desert.

But no studies or scenery caused him to forget his daily trip with sweater and rockweed.

The glades on the southern edge of the woods were overgrown with raspberry-bushes. When Filippo's daily stint about the camp was finished, he visited these spots with his pail; and while the season lasted, heaping bowls of red, dead-ripe fruit or saucers of sweet preserve varied their customary fare. There were blueberries, too, in abundance, and these also made a welcome addition to their table.

"Boys," said Lane, one morning, "I'm meat hungry. I can still taste that beefsteak we got the other night at Rockland. Think of the ton or so of mutton chops running loose on top of this island, while we poor Crusoes are starving to death on the beach!"

"No need of waiting until you're in the last stages, Budge," observed Jim. "Uncle Tom told me we could have a lamb whenever we wanted one. All we've got to do is to kill it."

A silence settled over the camp. The boys looked at one another. n.o.body hankered for the job.

"Budge spoke first," suggested Throppy.

"I'm no butcher," returned Lane. "Come to think of it, I don't care much for lamb, after all."

"Now see here!" said Jim. "What's the use of beating round the bush?

We're all crazy for fresh meat. The only thing to do is to draw lots to see who'll sacrifice his feelings and do the shooting. We'll settle that now."

He cut four toothpicks into uneven lengths.

"Filippo's not in this."

He had noticed that the Italian's olive face had grown pale.

"Now come up and draw like men!"

The lot fell to Lane.

"You're it, Budge! Don't be a quitter! There's the gun and here's our last sh.e.l.l. Don't miss!"

Lane's lips tightened. But he took the gun, put in the sh.e.l.l, and started up over the bank.

"Don't follow me," he flung back. "I'll do this alone."

Five minutes of silence followed. Then--_bang!_

"He's done it!" exclaimed Throppy.

The boys felt unhappy. In a few minutes Lane came crunching down the gravel slope. His face was sober.

"Where's the lamb?" asked Jim.

"Up there! I didn't agree to bring it down."

"Come on, boys!"

Jim, Percy, and Stevens went up to the pasture; Lane remained in the cabin. A careful search failed to reveal the victim. Jim walked to the edge of the bank.

"Oh, Budge!" he called.

Lane came out of the camp.

"Where's that lamb?"

"Don't know! Running around up there, I s'pose!"

"Didn't you shoot him?"

"No! I couldn't. And I know none of the rest of you could, either. So I fired in the air."

Jim's laugh spoke his relief.

"Well, I guess that's the easiest way out of it for everybody. Next trip to Matinicus I'll order a hind quarter from Rockland. It'll mean a little more wear and tear on the company's pocketbook, but a good deal less on our feelings."

One of the accompaniments of the heat and fog of those August days was a kind of salt-water mirage. Ships and steamers miles away below the horizon were lifted into plain view. Low, distant islands rose to perpendicular bluffs, distorted by the wavering air-currents; other islands appeared directly above the first, and came down to join them.

Percy watched these novel moving pictures with great interest.

Every few mornings either the trawl or the lobster-traps would yield something unusual. Now it might be a dozen bream, called by the fishermen "brim," "redfish," or "all-eyes"; again up would come a catfish, savage and sharp-toothed, able to dent an ash oar; and rarely a small halibut would appear, drowned on the trawl. Sometimes the lobstermen would capture a monkfish, whose undiscriminating appet.i.te had led him to try to swallow a gla.s.s float; or a trap would come to the surface freighted with huge five-fingers or containing a short, ribbon-shaped eel, blood-red from nose to tail-tip.

Spurling & Company were dressing a big catch of hake on the _Barracouta_ early one afternoon when a rockety report resounded close to the island.

Percy, who was wielding his splitting-knife with good effect, as his oilskins showed, glanced up quickly.

"That's a yacht's gun!"

Sixty seconds revealed that he was right. Into the mouth of the cove shot a keen-pro wed steam-yacht, resplendent with bra.s.s fittings and fresh, white paint. Five or six flanneled figures lounged aft, while a few members of her crew, natty in white duck, dropped anchor under the direction of an officer. Side-steps were lowered and an immaculate toy boat swung out; a sailor occupied the rowing-thwart, while one of the yachtsmen stepped into the stern and took the rudder-lines. The boat sped straight toward the _Barracouta_, which grew dingy and mean by contrast.

Presently the strangers were near. The yachtsman touched his cap. He was a good-looking fellow of perhaps nineteen, with a light, fuzzy mustache and eyes that were a trifle shifty.