"I declare for it, if one or another of you hasn't been luggin' me around ever since I turned out," he said half laughingly, half fretfully, when he clambered into the dory which Mr. Rowe had launched. "A body would think you feared the Port might be moved away if I didn't get there before dinner time an' yet I can't see as there's any sich dreadful hurry, seein's the 'Sally' won't be sold till yesterday week."
"It's time you got things fixed, 'cause we can't afford to let sich a chance slip us," Mr. Rowe said as he pushed the dory's bow off even before the old man had taken up the oars.
"I don't allow there'll be much chance of things slippin' us, even if I ain't there till afternoon. Look sharp to the island, an' if so be Eliakim takes it inter his head to come before I get back, see to it you don't say a word to rile him. He has sure brought all his trouble on his own head; but I can't help feelin' bad for him, when I think he's got to sell the 'Sally' 'cause he hasn't the money to put her in shape."
"I believe he would lend that old pirate all the cash he's got, if anybody asked him!" Tommy whispered irritably. "This is the first time I ever believed a man could be too good."
"Better look after the traps before you tackle another job," Uncle Ben cried as he pulled the boat slowly away from the shore. "I don't believe, Reuben, that you'd better do anythin' 'bout gettin' trees for the 'Sally's' ways, as you talked of last night, for them as count their chickens too soon are apt to come to grief."
"I'm only hopin' he don't come across Eliakim Doak," Mr. Rowe said as he and the lads stood watching the old man while he rowed with vigorous strokes toward Southport.
"Why?" Tommy asked curiously.
"For fear of his gettin' so tender-hearted that he'd tell him of the plan we've got for gettin' hold of the 'Sally.'"
Then Mr. Rowe, as if believing it was his duty to act as master of the island in the absence of Uncle Ben, insisted that the boys should lose no more time before beginning the work of the day.
As can well be imagined, the purchase of the "Sally D." was all they could talk about, and even the fact that an unusually large number of marketable lobsters were found in the traps did not provoke any comment on their good fortune, because of the fulness of their minds with other matters. All three were on the lookout when, half an hour after sunset, the old lobster catcher hove in sight, and they were waiting on the beach while he was yet nearly a mile away.