“Us goes down the cliffs on a line,” replied Paul. “It’s too early season now or we’d show you.”
“No ’tain’t,” contradicted Getty. “Plenty gulls has eggs to To’gallant Rock. Let’s go.”
“Want to?” asked Paul.
“We’d love to,” replied Tom. “Come on.”
Hurrying down the mountain side, Paul ran home and met the others with a long rope and a basket in his hands while Getty led the way around a corner of the hill and along a faintly marked pathway.
Presently, they reached the edge of a precipitous cliff and commenced climbing down over the sharp, irregular rocks with the sea roaring against the base of the precipice several hundred feet below.
“Gosh, I guess Cap’n Edwards was right when he said we needed to be goats,” panted Tom.
“I’d rather have wings,” replied Jim.
Disturbed by the boys’ appearance, thousands of the sea birds rose from their resting places, and with loud cries and screams, whirled and circled about in a perfect cloud until the air seemed filled with them. Soon the boys came to a spot where the rock extended out in an overhanging ledge and, lying on his stomach, Paul peered over the edge.
“I see a-plenty,” he announced, as he drew back. “Want to look?”