Next moment we slid into the slip of the inlet, and entered the quieter waters beyond.
Once in the bay, it took us all of two hours to creep to the spot selected, for Stroth checked the engine so that she was barely turning over. But, be it remarked, we didn’t rub the mud once, which tells its own story of Stroth’s ability, and knowledge of the channel.
Finally he tucked the schooner into as pretty a bight for concealment as I could have imagined along that low-lying, marshy coast. Indeed, I didn’t believe there was such a spot in the entire region, for my own slight experience in the locality had come from a snipe-shooting trip I had once made with a gunning companion.
Even thus at night I could gather its advantages; but when, after some five hours’ sound sleep, I stepped out on deck to greet the rising sun, the impression was intensified.
It looked exactly as though that island had been chiseled out to fit that very boat; and, better to conceal it, had humped itself up into two lateral hummocks surmounted by the inevitable salt grass. In fact, bereft of spars as she lay now, not a trace could a man a furlong off catch of the craft except dead ahead, and even there the channel crooked to an abrupt turn.
“It’s pretty near ideal, isn’t it?� said Stroth, coming up behind me. Not a trace of the fire of yesterday showed on the features of the owner. He was geniality itself.
“I didn’t know there was such a place within a hundred miles of here,� said I.
“Oh, then you know Great South Bay?�
“Scarcely at all,â€� I replied. “I simply know that the bay is probably about five miles wide at this point. Over thereâ€�—and I swept my gesture toward the low line of beach some half mile beyond the island and to southward—“lies the Atlantic, and over this way——â€�
“The south shore of Long Island; right.�