Having said this, Captain Eph, forgetting that, according to the "regerlations," he should remain in the lantern until everything there had been put to rights, descended the outside ladder leading to the rocks below, and made his way to where the lad's boat had been left.
Here he found nothing contrary to the opinion he and his first assistant had already formed—that she had been built as a tender to a large vessel. A gasoline motor of 3 horse-power, with the appearance of having been well cared for, was aft where the helmsman could attend to it while holding the boat on her course, and lashed on either side inboard were oars and spare fittings. Everything about the craft told that she had lately been looked after by sailormen, and, having ascertained this much, Captain Eph set about learning how seriously she had been damaged by the rocks.
Both bows two or three feet abaft the stem were stove in; but the injuries were not so serious that they could not be repaired by ordinary workmen, and Captain Eph said to himself as he pulled the boat around on the ways:
"I reckon Sammy an' I can put her in shape, pervidin' the weather holds good; but if we get much of a gale she's bound to go, for it won't do to take the Government boat out of the house in order to run her in, even if she is worth four or five times as much as ours."
The keeper brought down from the tiny boat-house of cement, a rope, which was attached to a small windlass or winch, and, making one end fast to the bow of the disabled craft, hauled her up the incline until she was in some slight degree sheltered by the little building. Then he carefully covered the motor with a spare sail belonging to his own boat.
All this had required no small amount of time, and when he again entered the kitchen, Mr. Peters, his labors in the lantern having been performed, was moving in an aimless manner around the apartment, evidently under the impression that he was assisting Uncle Zenas in preparing a thin soup to be given the involuntary visitor.
"Well?" the keeper asked as he entered, and Mr. Peters replied:
"Uncle Zenas an' I believe he ought'er have some of this stuff inside of him as soon as we can get it there. He'll sleep better with a full stomach."
"What is it you've made?"
"I've thinned down one of them 'ere cans of soup you was so extravagant as to buy when Sammy went ashore last," Uncle Zenas replied, "an' it smells good enough to eat."