Hamilton Haley snorted. The subject was like a match to gun-powder.
“’Twas that young rascal, Harvey, that did it!” he cried. “I didn’t beat him up enough. I wish as how I had him lashed up for’ard there now. ’Tother chap wouldn’t have gone and done it. ’Twas the youngster’s work. And p’raps it didn’t cost me a penny!”
Haley pointed, with high indignation, to a new hatch which replaced the one on which Harvey and Tom Edwards had floated to shore.
“Seven dollars for that!” he exclaimed, “to say nothing of the time it took to make it. And ten dollars apiece to Artie Jenkins for the two of ’em that’s gone. And Sam Black worth as much more. I tell you it ain’t right for a poor dredger, as earns his money by hard work and tends to business, to get such luck as that dealt out to him.”
Haley was half whining. From his view-point, the fates had, indeed, been unkind.
“There’s someone coming down,” remarked the mate.
Haley took a long look ahead, at a craft visible nearly a mile away.
“It’s Tom Noyes’s boat,” he said, finally. “I’d know his masts anywhere.”
The other craft, a bug-eye somewhat smaller than the Brandt, came dead on toward them. The distance between them rapidly diminished, and they came presently within hailing distance. The other craft did not merely hail, however. It came up into the wind and lowered a boat. Haley brought the Brandt into the wind, also, and the small boat came alongside. A man stepped aboard and said something to Haley. The latter jumped as though a shot had been fired at him. A grin of satisfaction overspread his dull face.
“You don’t mean it, Tom!” he cried. “Hooray! I’d rather get him than ten bushels of oysters in one heap. Come below. Jim, you take the wheel.”