The united forces of the boys, including the Warrens, made things comfortable for the new arrivals in short order. Harvey’s old tent, which had been stored away in Captain Sam’s loft for the winter, was brought out and loaded aboard the Viking; and the entire party sailed down alongshore, and unloaded at Harvey’s former camping-ground, where there was a grove of trees and a good spring close by. The tent was quickly set up, the bunks fashioned, a share of the Viking’s store of provisions carried ashore, and everything made shipshape.
“Now,” said Harvey, addressing his crew, after he had confided the news of his embarrassed circumstances, “I’ll help you out all I can, and you’ll get along all right, with fishing and clamming. But, see here, no more shines like we had before. I know I was in for it, too. But no more hooking salmon out of the nets. And let other people’s lobster-pots alone, or I won’t look out for you.”
“Oh, we’ll be all right, Jack,” cried the ragged campers, gleefully; while little Tim Reardon, standing on his head and hands in an ecstasy of delight, seemed to wave an acquiescence with his bare feet.
“That’s your doing,” said Harvey, thoughtfully, turning to Tom and Bob. “Since you saved my life the crew really have behaved themselves.”
Two days later, the bare feet of Tim Reardon bore him, breathless, to the door of the other tent, where Harvey and Henry Burns sat chatting with Tom and Bob.
“Say, Jack,” he gasped out, “you just want to hurry up quick and get down into the Thoroughfare. They’re going to raise the Surprise. I got a ride on behind a wagon coming up the island this morning, and two men were talking about it. One of them said he heard Squire Brackett say that that yacht down in the Thoroughfare was anybody’s property now, as it had been abandoned, and he calculated it could be floated again, and he’d bring it up some day and surprise you fellows. But he hasn’t started to do it yet, and so it’s still yours, isn’t it? If he can raise it, we can, can’t we?”
Harvey sprang to his feet.
“Raise it!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve thought all along of trying it some day. Captain Sam said last fall he thought it might be done. But I had this other boat to attend to, and then I was called home. We’ll go after it this very afternoon. What do you say, Henry?”
“Yes, and I think I have a scheme to help float her,” replied Henry Burns.
Acting on Henry Burns’s suggestion then, the boys proceeded to the store, where, in a spare room, Rob Dakin kept a stock of small empty casks which he sold to the fishermen now and then for use as buoys. They hired the whole supply, some twoscore, agreeing to pay for the use of them and bring them back uninjured. These they loaded hastily aboard the Viking, having sent word in the meantime to the Warren boys. They, joining in heartily, soon had sail on their own boat, the Spray, and went on ahead, down the coast of the island.