"Were you ever down here before?"
"No; but I've heard Uncle Tom Sprowl tell about the place dozens of times. Once, in particular, he was here in a schooner, hand-lining. It was almost calm, just a light east wind blowing, when they anchored an eighth of a mile to weather of the shoal. Pretty soon the decks were alive with fish. It kept breezing on all the time, and the ledge broke higher and higher; but they were having such good luck they hated to leave. So they hung to it till it got too rough for a small boat, and the breaker was twenty or thirty feet high. There was a big cod or haddock on every line, when all of a sudden the cable parted and they began to blow down on the ledge. It took some lively work to save the schooner and themselves. They got sail on her just in time to skin by the end of the breaker. Uncle Tom's been out in some pretty bad storms, but he's always said the time he parted his cable on Cashe's was the closest shave he ever had. See that shark!"
Ten yards off, just under the surface, appeared the glittering outlines of a great fish. It moved leisurely, its projecting fin making a silver ripple.
"Twelve feet, if he's an inch! I'd hate to fall overboard while he's around."
"Think he's a man-eater?"
"Don't know! But I'd rather let somebody else find out. There's another! I've heard fishermen say the sea round here's alive with 'em. I haven't a doubt but those two fellows that chased us to-day are somewhere about. Once they get after a boat, they'll follow it till the cows come home. Guess I'll let Ole Bull give us a few notes!"
He pulled his handkerchief out of the intake tube. Presently the voice of the whistle was echoing across the sea. After a half-dozen screeches Spurling stopped up the tube again.
"That'll do for now! We'll give him another chance in ten minutes."
Up and down went the buoy, pitching and reeling dizzily. An occasional wave-crest buried the boys to the waist.
"No place for a man with a weak stomach, hey, Perce," said Spurling. "You couldn't have stood this two months ago."