With each of the men using a pair of oars, and Sidney in the stern-sheets steering, it was not a long journey to an outlying spur of Carys' Ledge on which the Nautilus foundered. The stern of the vessel had been carried away, and the timbers completely shattered forward of the main-mast; but from that point toward the bow she remained comparatively intact.
"There won't be much to take away, Sammy," Captain Eph said grimly as Sidney steered the dory around the hulk that they might get a good view. "The cargo has been washed out clean as a whistle, an' the decks swept till there's not so much as a belayin' pin to be seen. I don't reckon you count on strippin' off the forward riggin' single-handed, eh?"
"I had an idee we might pick up somethin' in the way of small timbers," Mr. Peters replied ruefully. "We'll be needin' considerable of that kind of stuff for our motor boat, when we get at her."
"I thought you had decided to put the motor in a dory?" Sidney said in surprise.
"That was what I had in mind till I talked with the machinist ashore, an' now I think we may as well build a craft with a cabin, seem's we'll have plenty of time," and Mr. Peters searched the wreck with his eyes for such lumber as he believed might be needed in order to carry out his newly formed plan.
"All the light stuff would have been in the cabin, an' I'm allowin' that a good bit of it will be washed up on the ledge," Captain Eph said as he looked with a weatherly eye at the sky. "We're goin' to have the wind from the east'ard mighty soon, if signs count for anything, an' then's when you'll get all the lumber needed for half a dozen boats, though where it can be stored for the winter beats me."
"There's plenty of room in the boat-house on either side of the dory. It won't do any harm to fill up that space, an' she'll lay more quiet when it's flooded," Mr. Peters suggested.
"We'll allow you're right, so far as that goes, Sammy, an' now if there's anythin' on the wreck that you believe is worth savin', shin aboard, for it's gettin' time we was back to the ledge."
Then Captain Eph pulled the dory in toward the wreck until it was possible for Mr. Peters to clamber on board at the expense of a thorough wetting, and while the keeper and Sidney waited in the dory, after she had been backed off at a safe distance, the lad said with more of decision in his tones than he ordinarily used when speaking to the old sailor:
"I was thinking while you were ashore this forenoon, sir, that if I am to stay at the light until father gets back, it's time I made a change of sleeping quarters."