"Yes, I would."
"Say, Mr. Kramer, just lie off there, and wait; perhaps the water won't come up here."
"That's just what I'm doing. You don't catch me risk my boat in there unless you are ready to go under."
"When is it high tide?" shouted Walter.
"Five minutes before twelve."
Walter looked at his watch eagerly. "I believe it won't reach us, Ned. It is ten minutes off high now, and unless the last few waves are extra high we will have a standing-place in this cleft in the rock."
Ten minutes dragged slowly away, and the angry waves had not reached them. They waited a little longer, to be sure, and then cried joyfully, "It is twelve o'clock and after, and we are all right."
"Good! Then all you've got to do is to wait, and learn wisdom against another time. The tide will be down low enough to let you out of that trap in about two hours and a half, or three, at most."
The boys groaned, and then Ned said dolefully, "We'll starve to death. I didn't know I was hungry until the danger was over."
"You'll be hungrier before you get off," shouted the hard-hearted Kramer, laughing provokingly.--"A good lesson for the young scamps. It seems they made a fuss about having a teacher go along with 'em to look after them, so the head man, Mr. Bernard, let 'em off alone to-day. That little chap, Joe, he owned they'd got enough of it."