"Ned," he said, "I apologize. If you've any fiddlers about your clothes, I believe I'll confine my attention to sheephead; I'm tired of pulling fish in."
"Well, let's go ashore, then," said Ned, laughing, "and have dinner."
"Do fish bite in that way generally down here?" asked Charley.
"Yes, when the tide isn't too full. Fishing really gets to be a bore here, it is so easy to fill a boat; anybody can do that as easily as throw a cast net."
"Now hush that," said Charley. "Jack has owned up and apologized, and agreed that he knows more than he did this morning."
CHAPTER IV.
PLANS AND PREPARATIONS.
After dinner the boys lolled upon the piazza, and Ned answered his companions' questions concerning Bluffton and region round about.
"The water here is called South May River," he said, "but why, I don't know. It certainly isn't a river. This whole coast is a ragged edge of land with all sorts of inlets running up into it, and with islands, big and little, dotted about off the mainland. Yonder is Hilton Head away over near the horizon. Hunting Island lies off to the left, and Bear's Island further away yet. The little marsh islands have no names. They are simply bars of mud on which a kind of rank grass, called salt marsh, grows. Some of them are covered by every tide; others only by spring-tides, while others are covered by all except neap-tides."