The boys then fell to and ate as though they were starving. Tom wondered for some time if this could be their usual hour for supper; but remembered that he had seen the Surprise several miles off in the bay that evening, and concluded that the evening meal had been long delayed. The Surprise now lay a few rods offshore, with a lantern hanging at her mast.
The boys continued to talk, as they ate, of tricks they had played and of raids they had taken part in, down the island. In fact, the good citizens of Southport would have given a good deal for the secrets Tom learned from his hiding-place that night. Tom waited impatiently, however, for some mention of the missing box. Could he be mistaken in suspecting them of having taken it? No, he was sure not. That they were capable of doing so, their own conversation left no room for doubt. Tom felt certain the box was in their possession.
But he began to feel that his errand of discovery to-night would be fruitless. They must, he argued, have some sort of storehouse, where they hid such plunder as this, but no one had as yet made the slightest mention of it. It was clearly useless for him to grope about in the vicinity of the camp at night, and he began to think it would be better after all to wait until day and select a time for his search, if possible, when all the members of the crew were off on the yacht. But that might come too late, and Tom wondered what to do.
All at once Joe Hinman made a remark that caused Tom to raise himself upon his elbow and listen intently.
“Boys,” said Joe, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
The crew, one and all, stopped eating, rested their elbows on the table, and looked at Joe curiously.
“I’ll bet it’s a salmon from old Slade’s nets,” said George Baker. “Joe’s sworn for a week that he’d have one.”
“He’s all right, is Joe,” remarked Harvey, patronizingly. “There isn’t one of you that can touch Joe for smartness.”
Thus encouraged, Joe told how he had seen the box that had been a part of Tom’s and Bob’s luggage left on the wharf the night it arrived; how he had ascertained that it contained food, by prying up the cover; and how, early on the following morning, he had rowed up under cover of the fog, and had brought back the box to the camp.
“It’s down in the cave now,” said Joe. Tom gave a start. “There’s a meat-pie in it that is good for a dinner to-morrow, and a big frosted cake, if you fellows want it to-night.”