But the next moment the mystery was explained. There was a continued grating sound along bottom, and presently a bundle of floating laths drifted out, clearing the rudder. Coincident with this, the yacht struck again very slightly at the bows. Then, as they scanned the water all about, the boys saw that they had run into a mass of drifting, half-submerged laths, tied into bundles. It was clear that, in some blow, or storm, the deck-load of a coaster had been carried overboard.
By their water-soaked appearance, the laths had been afloat for many days. The coasters that ran from Benton to the smaller towns down the bay often carried these for a superficial cargo; and evidently some one of them, hit by a squall, had run its deck well under and the stuff had floated off.
Joe Hinman sprang forward, seized the boat-hook, and caught one of the bundles by the rope that bound it at one end. He drew it alongside and hauled it aboard with some difficulty, as it was heavy with water. Then he took out his pocket-knife and proceeded to cut a sliver from one of the laths. Though darkened a little by its exposure, and with trails of slimy, green seaweed clinging to the bundle, the laths were sound, and the wood bright as ever beneath the surface.
“Hooray!” he cried. “They’re worth several dollars a bundle. We’re in luck. We’ll gather them all in.”
They picked up seven or eight of the bundles, stowing them in on either side of the cockpit.
“Makes us look like a cargo-carrier,” said Allan Harding.
“Yes, and a good cargo, too,” replied Joe Hinman. “They are worth several dollars each, to sell. But we won’t sell ’em. I’ve got an idea. We’ll earn as much money as Jack and Henry Burns.”
“How’s that?” asked Mr. Carleton, curiously eying the enthusiastic speaker.
Joe looked at him, beaming, and in reply exclaimed briefly, but triumphantly, “Lobster-pots!”
“That’s so,” laughed Mr. Carleton. “I guess if you can make those queer, bird-cage sort of things, you can catch all the lobsters you want around here.”