"Help you in what, Captain Ben?" asked the other captain, while the six little Bunkers looked and listened.
"Will you help me catch those tramps? We can take after them in our motor boats. I saw which way they went. I believe they're heading for Oyster Cove. We can round them up there. Will you come?"
"I most assuredly will!" exclaimed Captain Blake.
"And we'll come, too!" shouted the sailor boys.
"Then can't I come?" asked Russ. "I could steer a boat or throw stones or—something!"
"I'm afraid this will be no place for little boys," answered Captain Ben. "We might as well hurry," he added. "I'm sorry to end our island picnic," he remarked to Mrs. Bunker, "but we must get those tramps."
"Do you want me and the children to stay here on the island while you men go down to Oyster Cove and capture the tramps?" asked the mother of the six little Bunkers. "If you do——"
"Oh, no! I wouldn't think of that," answered Captain Ben. "As I said, I hate to spoil the picnic, but I think it will be best for you to take the children back to my bungalow. Then Captain Blake and I will go with the sailors, catch the tramps, and take away the things the ragged men stole."
"Perhaps that will be best," said Mrs. Bunker. "We have had a good time here, and it is almost time to go back home."
There was so much excitement going on, and such a prospect of more that might happen, that the six little Bunkers did not at all mind leaving the island. They were always ready for something new, were the six little Bunkers, and this chase after the ragged tramps was decidedly something new.