The man looked stealthily in at him from under his eyebrows. “Camping there!” he muttered to himself, and began backing water slowly with his oars.
“I’ll take you across for—for a dollar,” he said.
“Good!” cried Harvey. “Come on, lively, then. It’s a good five miles, and I’m in a hurry to get across.”
The man, however, was in no hurry. He came in slowly, as though perhaps he might still be considering the matter, whether he should take this passenger aboard or not. He worked the boat inshore, finally, and Harvey sprang aboard.
“You are going to help row,” said the man.
“Yes,” answered Harvey. “Didn’t I say I would?” He took his seat toward the stern of the boat, where there were rowlocks for an extra pair of oars.
The man at the bow oars was a thick, heavy-set, middle-aged man, burned dark by sun and wind. He was roughly dressed in ill-fitting clothes, that looked as though they might have come from the dunnage-bag of a fisherman who had been long at sea. They were patched in one or two places with cloth that did not match the original garments. He wore a red, cheap-looking handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, and a rough beard of several weeks’ growth heightened the effect of his swarthy complexion.
They rowed for some time in silence, making good headway, for the wind had gone down with the sun, and the man in the bow pulled a powerful stroke, making even the sturdy efforts of Jack Harvey seem like child’s play.
The sun sank behind the hills and the shadows deepened across the water, fading out at length into the darkness that settled over all the bay. A few lights glimmered out from the shore of the island, some three miles distant, and the stars appeared in the sky.
“Lucky I fell in with you, just as I did,” said Harvey, as he slowed up his stroke. “Lucky for both of us, I take it. I should have been stuck there all night if I hadn’t met you; and I don’t suppose you mind picking up a dollar, as long as you were going this way.”