"I broke the news to your mother some time ago, and my visit to Washington was in the hope of recovering something from the wreck, but it looks dark. Also while there, beside seeing Senator Kenyon, I tried my best to get you into West Point. But that, too, was a failure."
"Dad, don't worry about me," said the boy, rising and going to stand by his father's side; "I'll get along all right, and between us we will fasten on something I can turn my hand to. I have had a mighty easy time of it for seventeen years, nearly, and I'm only too glad to pitch in and help out."
"The situation is not so bad as all that, Richard," answered Mr. Comstock, gazing at his manly boy with a proud look. "You do not have to strike out for yourself for a good while yet. I even thought another year at Bankley, taking the post-graduate course, would be the best plan for the present. In the meantime you have a whole summer's vacation ahead of you, which your good work at school richly deserves."
"No, I've finished with Bankley," said Dick with finality in his tone.
"Well! Well! We must talk about the matter some other time, my son, and if you intend to go to Black Ledge to-morrow morning with Gordon, you had best be getting under the covers."
Whereupon Dick said "Good-night" and slowly climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
Before Dick succeeded in getting to sleep he firmly resolved to relieve his father's shoulders of some of the burden by shifting for himself, but just how he proposed to go about it was even to his own active mind an enigma.
CHAPTER II
"THE OLDEST BRANCH OF THE SERVICE"
When Dick ran down the wharf the next morning he found Gordon and several other boys there already. He was later than he had intended; unless an early start was made their sport would be spoiled. Black-fish bite well only on the flood tide, and the row to Black Ledge, situated at the mouth of the broad river, near the entrance to the spacious harbor, was a distance of at least four miles.