"Let me have that knife, Bluff, and I'll be opening some while you're off after another supply. The hatchet will be all you want to loosen any tight ones. Don't look at me that way. I can be trusted not to eat more than one in five. And my appetite for oysters isn't one-third what yours is," laughed Frank.
Bluff seemed to think he could stand that, for he yielded up the opener.
"Don't you let that scoffer, Will, have another one. I'll bring back another bucketful in about ten minutes. There's millions of 'em. They set me wild to think of such riches going to waste. I'll dream about 'em, fellows."
Grumbling thus, he stalked through the water to the reef, and set to work again.
Frank had watched Jerry push in to shore and vanish among the tangled undergrowth. Some little time had passed since, but there was no sign of his returning.
"I guess it's lucky Bluff didn't take his word for it, and wait," he remarked.
"Yes," replied Will, who was watching the fat bivalves drop into the kettle as his chum deftly manipulated the opening knife, "I rather think we'd have missed connections with this savory mess, all right, and all of us would have been sorry."
"I wonder if he found anybody in that old shack?" mused Frank, looking again.
"Hardly likely. What would you say, Joe? Ever been ashore here?"
The boy shook his head in the negative.