"Don't go, Ben," replied Sally; "we love to have you here."
"Don't go," said the Lion; "I'll hire you to hoe corn, and then you can earn something, and watch for the vessel, too."
Two mornings after this conversation Ben was in the tree just as the day was breaking, in order that he might make his observations before it was time to go to hoeing. There were plenty of schooners, but none of them the schooner. At length he espied one that seemed to be steering in a different direction from the rest.
Long and patiently he watched her progress.
"She is heading directly up the bay; a pink-stern I guess, and about the right size. It ain't her, after all," he exclaimed; "this vessel is rigged different; and yet how much she looks like her!"
At this he caught sight of Lion Ben, who was turning the cows into the pasture.
"Mr. Rhines," he cried, "I wish you would come up here. A pink is coming up the bay, steering straight for Uncle Isaac's Cove. She hasn't varied a pint this hour and a half. I could swear it was the schooner, only she's rigged differently."
"How is this one rigged?"
"She's got two jibs and two gaff-topsails."
"So has the Perseverance."