“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know where Ransom’s Ledge is?”
“Yes, sir. That great dry ledge, with a big, round rock right on the highest part of it.”
“Run off south from Smutty Nose till you bring Pettigrew’s chimbly to bear over that rock. Now for an up-and-down mark. Did you ever notice a very high bluff, two mile or more up the bay, bare of trees, all the clear spot for miles around, with a house right in the middle of it?”
“O, yes, sir! That’s one of the marks for Atherton’s Shoal.”
“Right! Bring that house right over the lone spruce on Kidder’s P’int. You’ll drop your anchor in about twenty fathoms of water, and find plenty of haddock, and once in a while pick up a small cod. If you catch a cusk, tell Fred to corn him for me; and shoot me a coon on Smutty Nose, if you can.”
“We will, Uncle Isaac, if there’s any on the island.”
“Let me tell you where to look: round the banks of Horse Shoe Cove, where the great basswood trees are.”
“I know, Uncle Isaac. They have holes under their roots.”
Under the direction of Uncle Isaac and Hannah Murch everything went on like clock-work. Captain Rhines and his wife came early in the afternoon, as was the custom of that day, both on one horse; the girls an hour and a half later, protected by Tige, and accompanied by Fred, who, by pure accident, taking a short cut through the woods, had overtaken them. After supper they went blueberrying.