“And you were going out to make your regular morning visit to the crawls—is that right, Bige?”
“That’s just what I calkerlated on doing as soon as sun-up kim erlong.”
“Well, you can’t go this morning, Bige,” continued Hugh. “And I’ll tell you why. We belong on board a Government war vessel, and there’s one of those war games on right now, you see? The Coast Artillery are manning the fort, and they’ve defied the jackies to get close enough to demand their surrender. We expect to hang out here all day, and you’ll have to give us your promise that you’ll act with us. For letting your lobster pots go till to-morrow I’ll promise you a five-dollar bill. Swear to stand by us, and act just as though you belonged on board the scout cruiser Vixen. Understand all that, do you, Bige?”
“Reckon as haow I do, Mister,” replied the man cheerfully, as it began to dawn on his mind that he had stumbled on great luck at the peep of dawn, since he could not make that much money half as easy by attending to his lobster pots.
“Will you give us your solemn promise to stick by us through thick and thin, and not try to get away at any time?” the scout master went on to say.
“Yuh kin count on me bein’ with yuh, Mister. I ain’t got any too much love for the sojers naow in thet fort. Every day they keep abangin’ away with them big guns, till nigh all the chiny we got tuh hum hes been broke. ’Sides thet, hang the luck, if they ain’t sot their old target nigh bout over where I hes my lobster pots. Skeered ’bout all the fish away sense they kim up here, they has. I give yuh my solemn promise, and I sure hopes as haow yuh captures the hull shebang. Mebbe then they’ll clear aout, an’ leave honest fishermen tuh their business.”
“All right, Bige, we’ll call it a bargain,” said Hugh, as he reached for the big fist of the prostrate coast dweller. “Get up, boys. No need of sitting on him any longer. Bige is one of us from now on. I’ll explain some of the things to him while we hide among the rocks.”
After all, the seeming difficulty had turned out to be a blessing in disguise; they had gained a recruit who might be useful to them in many ways.
Hugh managed to let considerable light in on Bige Quick’s mind as they lay hidden awaiting signs of life at the fort. In return the lobster fisherman told him not a few valuable things about the habits of the Coast Artillery, all of which Hugh soaked in, with an eye to making the knowledge useful later on.
They were close enough to the fort to see the sentries walking up and down, and when the breeze proved favorable they could even hear loud voices at times, for close to the sea, the air was a good conductor of sound.