“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”
Griggs took them out sailing the next day, but was obliged to be back before noon to accommodate a second party; so Mr. Vance concluded to stay over another night, enjoy a sail by moonlight, and start for home early in the morning.
Meanwhile, he took one of the horses and set out to hunt up an old friend settled somewhere in the vicinity. The boys were to spend the time as they pleased, provided they kept out of danger. Half a dozen of them, headed by Jack Mullin, started on a tramp along shore, with their lunch in their hands. Two or three others borrowed a gun of Griggs and struck off inland.
“Let’s we have dinner over on that big rock,” suggested Dick. “The Point makes nearly out to it,—just one or two hops, and there you are.”
“Griggs says those low rocks and that strip of sand are all covered at high tide,” remarked Bill Finnegan.
“High fiddle-sticks!” said Will Carter, who never lost an opportunity of snubbing poor Bill. “Better wait till you’re asked for advice. We’ll dine on the peninsula, and if it changes to an island, so much the better. I shouldn’t suppose such a swimmer would be afraid.”
Will could not forgive Finnegan for being the best swimmer in the party. Why couldn’t he have told he was born and brought up beside the water, and was as much at home in it as a water-rat?
Will had expected to lead off himself, most of the boys being novices, and chose to consider Bill’s accomplishments a personal grievance. Dick, on the contrary, was overjoyed to see how Finnegan “blossomed out,” as he termed it; dull, awkward, uncouth at home, down here among the rocks he was as ready and wide-awake as any of them.
“You know your father said we were to keep out of danger,” he remarked to Dick, as the latter began preparations for his picnic.
“Yes; but man alive! don’t you know the tide can’t come in in a minute? I don’t see any harm, only the trouble, and ‘many hands make quick work.’ Lend us a couple, won’t you?”