For reply, Mr. Peters motioned him to look toward the east, and after one glance he asked:
"What is it? Looks like a log, an' if grown men in Government employ have taken to spendin' the time when they should be eatin', in huntin' up drift stuff, it's time the inspector was notified that a full, able-bodied crew is needed at Carys' Ledge light."
"I say it's a boat," Mr. Peters replied, "an' if I'm right, it stands to reason that there may be somebody aboard of her. Now——"
"It is a boat!" Captain Eph cried with no slight show of excitement, "an' I'm allowin' that there's at least one man aboard."
"What can he be doin' out there to the east'ard?" Mr. Peters cried as he took the glasses from the keeper's hand, and began adjusting them to his own eyes.
"It's some fisherman, I reckon, what lost himself in the fog," Uncle Zenas said, as if he no longer had any interest in the matter, and Mr. Peters cried excitedly:
"That's no fisherman's boat, and it don't look as if it came from a pleasure craft. There! Yes! I can make out somebody in the stern sheets; but I don't see any oars, and how in the name of goodness has he kept her headin' for this 'ere light? What do you allow it is, Cap'n Eph?"
"Much the same as you've made out, Sammy, an' it puzzles me to say why she's abroad on a morning like this."
Just at that instant the odor of burning fish came up through the door in the floor, and Uncle Zenas made all possible haste to descend, as the keeper cried irritably:
"I'd like to know if you haven't studied the rules and regerlations enough to find out that there mustn't be any smoke here in the lantern? Why don't you stay down where you belong, instead of makin' more work for Sammy an' me?"