"Pretty fair, sir," returned the master. "We went to Marblehead, and then to Portsmouth. Mr. Drake, he spent the time in seeing his friends. Then we run to Portland, and then to Boothbay. We run in here yesterday. Nothin' much to tell of on the cruise."
"You've made schedule time," Jack commented. "You are here just when you were due."
"Yes, we got here," Camper assented, "though 't one time, when I see the stores that had to come aboard, I doubted if we should get started for a week."
"More stores than usual?" queried Jack, with a little spark of interest in his eye.
"Well, Mr. Drake, he 'lowed that last year when we got becalmed down the coast some of the provisions fell short, and he vowed he'd never get caught in that shape again; so this time he's stocked up fit to do the Nor'west Passage. He's got every kind of a thing to eat that man ever put into tins, you may bet your life."
"Trust him to have an eye to the galley," laughed Jack, reflecting how satisfactory a complement to the plain provisions waiting at the Island would be this extensive assortment of choice eatables. "Well, I'm for sleeping aboard. Can you give me a lift with my luggage?"
Everything he had said since he came on board had been preliminary to this. His one chance of getting the sailing-master to a safe distance lay in inducing Camper to go ashore on an errand. To this question the skipper replied, Yankee fashion, with another.
"Where is it, sir?"
"Go to Mullin's and tell 'em you're from me;—you'd better do it yourself, Camper;—and get them to give you a steamer-trunk and two bags. Do you know the place? It's the only boarding-house there is in the village. Anybody can tell you."