“Then you want to look out,” said Dave, and took himself off into his house, leaving the boys to themselves.
Bob got another oar, and, with young Joe in the stern, rowed out a few rods toward some ledges, where Dave had indicated that the lobster-pots were set.
“Did you ever pull a lobster-pot, Joe?” asked Bob, as they came in sight of half a dozen small wooden buoys, about as big as ten-pins, floating at a short distance from one another, with ropes attached.
“No, I never did,” replied Joe; “but I’ve seen it done and it looks easy. You just lift the pot aboard the boat and open a trap-door and take out the lobsters. Only you want to look out how you take hold of one of them, that’s all. It’s all right if you take him by the back.”
On shore, seated on a huge stick of timber, washed ashore long ago and half-imbedded in the sand, the other boys watched the proceedings with interest.
“Bob will do it all right, of course,” said George, winking slyly at Arthur. “It’s a simple enough trick, only it is harder in a dory than in a boat with a keel to it, for a dory slides off so.”
“Just like a canoe,” said Tom.
“By the way,” he added, “is a lobster-pot heavy?”
“That’s the deceptive part of it,” replied George. “It’s a great big cage made of laths with a bottom of boards, and it comes to the surface easy because the water buoys it up. It’s the lifting it out that fools one. It’s got three or four big stones in it to weigh it down, and you have got to bring it out of water with a sudden lift or it will stick half-way.”
In the meantime, Bob, having grasped one of the floating buoys, proceeded to haul in the slack of the rope, which was quite long, to allow for the tide, which was now low.