"Boys," said Jim as they got up at its close, "this is the best dinner we've had since we came out here."

Percy's heart warmed toward the speaker. He knew that it was not the food alone that made Jim say what he did.

It had been Percy's habit to smoke three or four cigarettes during the half-hour of rest all were accustomed to take after the noon meal. He went, as usual, to his suit-case, and this time took out, not merely one package, but all he had, including his sack of loose tobacco and two books of wrappers.

"Got a good fire, Filippo?" he inquired, approaching the stove.

A burst of flame answered him as he lifted the cover. In went the whole handful. He watched it burn for a moment before dropping the lid.

"I'm done with you for good," he said.

As Lane and Spurling started for the _Barracouta_ to dress the fifteen hundred pounds of hake they had taken off the trawls that morning Percy joined them, clad in oilskins.

"Jim," he pet.i.tioned, "I want you to teach me how to split fish."

"Do you mean it, Percy?" asked Spurling.

"You heard what I said this noon about shirking. I'm through with dodging any kind of work just because it's unpleasant. I want to take my part with the rest of you."

"I'll teach you," said Jim.

He did, and found that he had an apt pupil. Percy worked until the last pound of the fifteen hundred was salted down in the hogshead. He discovered that it was not half so bad as it had looked, and felt ashamed that he had not tried his hand at the trick before.

"You've earned your supper to-night," observed Jim.

"Yes; but I'm glad it's something besides fish."

"You'll get so you won't mind it after a while."

That night Throppy played his violin and the boys sang. They pa.s.sed a pleasant hour before going to bed.

"I'd like to go out with you to the trawls, Jim, to-morrow morning,"

said Percy.

"Glad to have you," responded Spurling, heartily.

Two hours before light they were gliding out of the cove in the _Barracouta_, bound for Medrick Shoal, four miles to the eastward.

"Percy," said Jim as the sloop rolled rhythmically on the long Atlantic swells, "I want to tell you something. I was awake the other night when you left camp. I watched you row north and come back; and I saw the hard fight you had round Brimstone. I'm glad you made a clean breast of the whole thing, even when you thought n.o.body knew anything about it. It showed me you intended to turn over a new leaf and play fair. You'll find that we'll meet you half-way, and more."

Percy was silent for a moment.

"Glad I didn't know you heard me go out," he remarked. "If I had I might not have had the courage to come back. Well, I've learned my lesson.

From now on I'll try not to give you fellows any reason to find fault with me."

Medrick Shoal yielded a good harvest. About eighteen hundred pounds of hake lay in the pens on the _Barracouta_ when they started for home at ten o'clock. As they took the last of their gear aboard, a schooner with auxiliary power, apparently a fisherman, approached from the eastward.

"The _Ca.s.sie J._," read Spurling, deciphering the letters on the bow.

"Somehow she looks natural, but I don't remember ever hearing that name before. Probably from Gloucester. Wonder what she wants of us."

The vessel slowed down and changed her course until she was running straight toward the _Barracouta_. One of her crew stood in the bow, near the starboard anchor; another held the wheel; but n.o.body else was visible.

"Where are you from, boys?" hailed the lookout, when the stranger was only a few yards off.

"Tarpaulin Island," answered Spurling.

The man put his hand behind his ear.

"Say that again louder, will you?" he shouted. "I'm a little deaf."

Jim raised his voice.

"I said we were from Tarpaulin Island."

The lookout pa.s.sed the word back to the helms-man. The latter repeated it, evidently for the benefit of somebody in the cabin. Then the man at the wheel took up the conversation, prompted by the low voice of an unseen speaker below.

"How many fish have you got there?"

"Eighteen hundred of hake."

"What's that?"

Was everybody aboard hard of hearing? Jim raised his voice.

"Eighteen hundred of hake!"

"What'll you take for 'em just as they are? We'll give you fifty cents a hundred."

"Can't trade with you for any such figure as that."

"Good-by, then!"

The tip of the _Ca.s.sie J.'s_ bowsprit was less than two yards from the port bow of the _Barracouta_, altogether too near for comfort.

"Keep off!" roared Spurling. "You'll run us down!"

The steersman whirled his wheel swiftly in the apparent endeavor to avert a collision. Unluckily, he whirled it the wrong way. Round swung the schooner's bow, directly toward the sloop. A few seconds more and she would be forced down beneath the larger vessel's cut.w.a.ter, ridden under.

Only Jim's coolness prevented the catastrophe. The instant he saw the _Ca.s.sie J._ turn toward his boat he flung his helm to port. The sloop, under good headway, responded more quickly than the schooner. For a moment the bowsprit of the latter seesawed threateningly along the jibstay of the smaller craft. Then the two drew apart.

Jim was white with anger. It was only by the greatest good fortune that the _Barracouta_ had escaped.

"What do you mean, you lubber?" he cried. "Can't you steer?"

"Jingo! but that was a close shave!" responded the man at the wheel. "I must have lost my head for a minute."

The mock concern in his face and voice would have been evident to Spurling without the lurking grin that accompanied his reply. An angry answer was on the tip of Jim's tongue. He choked it down. Soon the two craft were some distance apart.

On the _Ca.s.sie J._ a man's head rose stealthily above the slide of the companionway. He fastened a steady gaze on the sloop. The distance was now too great for the boys to distinguish his features, but a sudden idea struck Jim. He slapped his thigh.