The boys did not see many muskrats that evening. After a good deal of waiting and watching they shot two.
Chap proposed that they should go about half a mile farther down the river, where there were some low meadow-lands, protected by embankments, and where there were generally a good many muskrats to be found.
These animals delight to burrow, and they sometimes made such extensive excavations into the embankments that these gave way, and the meadows were flooded when the tide came in.
“You know it’s doing a real service to Mr. Hamlin to shoot the muskrats down there,” said Chap.
Phil would have been very willing to do his neighbor a service, but he refused to go off his uncle’s place.
“Well, I will tell you what let’s do,” said Chap. “Let’s go down and look at the wreck. That is on your place, and I’ve never seen it by moonlight.”
“Very well,” said Phil, “we’ll go and look at it.”
The wreck, of which Chap Webster had made frequent mention, was the remains of a good-sized vessel, which was deeply embedded in the mud of the river, at one corner of the Hyson Hall estate.
At high tide it could not be seen at all, but when the tide was low a number of its forward ribs stuck up out of the mud.
It was generally believed, especially by the boys of the neighborhood, that this was the wreck of a British sloop-of-war, which, in the time of the Revolution, had got into trouble down the river and had run up here for safety, but had afterwards been abandoned and sunk.