So, acting upon Fred’s suggestion, the Captain helped the sailors lower the mola into the water again and remove the yacht’s tackle. The procession started: first, Captain Ed, Billy and Dudley in the power boat, towing the rowboat with Fred and Paul in it. They in turn towed the sunfish, the latter at the end of the rope churning up the water as it careened after the boat.
While the four boys excitedly retailed the capture of their prize, the launch was making good speed across West Penobscot Bay to a group of three small islands lying near the fourteen-mile-long shore of Islesboro, which divides the bay into east and west. The boys’ summer camp was on the most northerly isle which contained about eight acres of land, high, rocky, and closely wooded with fir and spruce.
The middle island, called Isola Bella, was some twenty-four acres in extent and was also high and well wooded. It belonged to Mrs. Remington’s brother, William Farwell, always known as “Uncle Bill.”
The southerly one of the island trio was very appropriately named Flat Island because of its nature: Not a tree upon it and shaped like a skate with a sand-spit for a tail.
The three islands were about a quarter of a mile from each other and about two miles from the mainland where the boys had just caught the mola.
Great was the excitement at Sunset Island when the convoy was discerned through the spyglass. As soon as voices could be heard, and in fact before that time, the eager watchers sitting upon the rocks of Treasure Cove were eagerly shouting and waving hands to the approaching craft.
“What did you catch?”
“Is it a porpoise?”
“Where did you get it?”
Mr. Remington was the first to reach the boats and help the boys. “Well, I declare—a sunfish! Haven’t seen one in a long time. What are you going to do with it, now that you’ve got it?”