Captain Rumford fell into a brown study. He was so deep in thought that he almost forgot what he was doing, which was something very unusual.
Presently Hawley spoke out of the darkness forward, where he was on watch. "Hadn't we better go about, Cap'n?" he said in a deep, quiet voice.
Captain Rumford woke up with a start, strained his eyes into the darkness, then twirled his wheel like mad. "Look out for the boom!" he said, then added, with a laugh, "Wouldn't they have given me the laugh if I had laid the Shark up on the bank. And she'd have been there in about sixty seconds more."
The Shark wore away on the other tack, but Captain Rumford did not forget himself again. "Jim," he called presently.
"Aye, aye, sir," came the big sailor's response from the forepeak hatch where he was sitting.
"Come here a moment."
As the big sailor made his way aft, the shipper said, "Hawley, it kind of runs in my mind that you once had some sort of a claim to Hardy's oyster-beds. Am I right?"
"I owned them once," said Hawley.
"You owned them! Why, I never knew that. How'd Hardy come to get them?"
"You see, sir, I staked out them beds years ago when everybody else was plantin' in shallow water. You know them beds is out deep. Everybody laughed at me. Of course I never had no outfit to work 'em, but I figured that some day I might get a boat somehow. And then, too, I noticed that every year planters were putting seed farther out. I figured they'd reach my beds after a bit, and if I couldn't do anything more, I could at least get a few loads of shells down and maybe get a set of spat from the other beds. And I would, too, if I had kept hold of them beds. Why, Lord bless you! Look where they are now—right in the middle of the oyster-beds."