“But that would have to be a law. No one owns the shoals.”
“Guess if you lived on this rocky island winter and summer, heat, cold, supplies, no supplies, if you took it all as it came, you’d feel that you owned the shoals. That’s the way the folks here feel. They want time to fish for cod and take summer parties about, so they haul up their traps and call June to November a closed season.
“Listen!” The other boy’s tone was kindly now. “You seem a decent sort. I don’t know what got you out here. But you go back. Take your traps with you. When people live in a place like this they’ve got a right to make a few laws. Know those Italian fishermen over at the Bay?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, one of them. Tomingo.”
“Tomingo. That’s his name. He’s their leader. They tried trapping on the Monhegan shoals. Know what happened? Someone cut their floats. Never found their traps, nor the lobsters in ’em. Goodnight. Wish you luck.” The boy disappeared into the fog.
So that was it! And that was why Tomingo was so willing to direct him to rich lobster fields! Don sat limply down upon a rock. The two girls stood staring at him in silence.
“He wanted to keep us off any ground he might wish to trap on, and wanted to repay a debt to these Monheganites,” he said to his companions.
For five minutes he sat there enshrouded in fog, buried in thought.
“Closed season!” he exploded at last. “What nonsense! Who ever heard of such a thing? Of course, we won’t pay any attention to it. And if they cut my floats I’ll have them in jail for it. There are laws enough against that.”
With this resolve firmly fixed in his mind, but with an uneasy feeling lurking there as well, he thought once more of supper and a bed for the night.