“Well, we seem to be objects of considerable curiosity to some people.”
“Ashore, do you mean?” and Jack turned his head, to glance at the frowning bank of the big island, the grim rocks of which were crowned with a dense growth of trees and underbrush, so that it certainly looked rather mysterious as the sun began to set.
“Well, no, I don’t believe any of us have seen a living thing there, except a coon, fishing on the edge; and a kingfisher flying from stump to stump along the rim of the water. But three separate times a boat has come along just out there, and the people in her would just stare at us without saying a single word.”
“Three, you say—the same boat and the same people?” Jack asked.
“Not at all,” George replied. “That would not have seemed so queer, you know; for I could believe that they happened to have an interest in this cove, and disliked seeing us stop here; or else that the Canadian authorities thought Yankees had no right to be fishing over on their side of the broad river. It was the same boat.”
“Three different boats, eh?” Jack mused. “And they looked unhappy at seeing our fleet quartered here?”
“I thought they looked mad,” Josh put in right then, popping his head up like a jack-in-the-box; for he still persisted in wearing that white cap while engaged in his department of the pots and pans.
“Were there any women or children aboard the boats?” Jack continued.
“How about that, fellows?” asked George.
“One boat had two men, another three, and the last one five,” Herb remarked, in his positive way.