“Ain’t complainin’, sir, ain’t complainin’. Sorry to see the old Jupiter gone, Mr. Folsom.”
“Gone? Not a bit of it! There isn’t hole or a crack in her, Bill. She’s good for another ten years. We’ll have her on the railway by sunset. A couple of dollars worth of pitch and oakum’s all she needs.”
“Glad to hear it, sir, glad to hear it. How about the crew, Mr. Folsom? All safe be they?”
“Every mother’s son of them. Jasper White has a broken arm and a Portugese named Paletto or something like that got a couple of ribs busted. That’s all. I’ve got them in the hospital. Where’s this camp of yours, Harry?”
Hal led the way up and Mr. Folsom viewed it with interest.
“Good thing you pitched it on this side the island,” he observed. “You’d have blown away otherwise. What time do you serve dinner?”
“It’s time now,” answered Hal. “Will you stay, dad?”
“If I get an invitation,” replied Mr. Folsom dryly.
“We’ll have to have canned things, I guess,” said Jack. “We are all out of fresh meat.”
“Anything is good when you’re hungry, Herrick. By the way, I want to tell you youngsters right now that the next time a storm like that comes up you’re to put out for home. Understand? Your mother had conniption fits all night, Harry. And I guess your folks must have been worried about you, Herrick. You ought to have known enough about weather to have seen what was coming, eh?”