"It would be mighty tough on me if Cap'en Doak should come back 'twixt now an' sunset!"
"I'm not so certain of that," Tom said stoutly. "He ain't more'n any other man, an' it strikes me we'd be mighty poor kind of boys if we couldn't hold our own on this island. I wouldn't be afraid if your Cap'en Doak an' his Rube Rowe both come ashore at the same time, for with that buoy I had when he was here before I could make a pretty good play at keepin' 'em at a distance for quite a spell."
"But you couldn't stand up swingin' a buoy 'round your head all night," Sam suggested mournfully, and then as he thought of Tom's attempting to perform such a feat during all the hours of darkness he broke into a hearty laugh, so comical was the picture in his mind.
"When you get through havin' sich a good time I reckon we'd better have a whack at cleanin' up the shanty 'cordin' to your Uncle Ben's orders," Tom said curtly, and without further delay the task was begun, although a careful housewife would have said they were making no improvement in the apartment.
When the shanty was, in their eyes, as cleanly and orderly as it could be made, Sam overhauled Uncle Ben's stock of fishing-lines, and during the half hour that followed they caught cunners and skinned them, until they had ready for the frying-pan as many as half a dozen hungry boys could have eaten.
"I'll cook the supper if you'll bring up from the beach wood enough to keep the fire going," Sam said, and from that time until a few minutes before sunset they enjoyed themselves as thoroughly as if they had but lately left the most pleasant homes in the land to spend a few days in pleasure on Apple Island.
They ate their supper and the shanty was once more set to rights. Near the door was a store of driftwood sufficient to keep a fire going many days, and the two had seated themselves on the cliff which jutted out above the roof of Uncle Ben's home to discuss the future, for Tom insisted on knowing why the old lobster catcher was willing to burden himself with two boys who had no legal claim on him.
Sam had begun to answer the questions by telling what he knew concerning the old man, when far away in the distance, directly in the golden pathway formed by the rays of the setting sun, appeared the outlines of a vessel.
"That's the 'Sally D.'!" Sam cried in alarm.
"Cap'en Doak is comin' here after me, just as I was afraid he would!"