Again the boat shot in that direction, and for a long distance, until Judd shouted:
"Hurrah!"
"What is it?" asked Budd, excitedly.
"That ends the bed; and did you ever see such a one before? It must be all of two hundred feet in width and four or five hundred in length, and that means bushels of scallops and many a dollar for us when the law is off in September."
Budd needed no further explanation from his partner. He had heard him say again and again that they must keep a sharp lookout for the beds of these valuable bivalves, and here was a tremendous one right almost at their island. He, too, joined in his companion's hurrah.
"I guess the glass has paid for its construction already," he commented, joining his chum at the stern.
Almost unconsciously he took the glass and looked through it. The yawl had drifted a little to the right of the place where Judd had given his hurrah, and was almost directly in line of the island's wharf. Budd looked but an instant, then he sprung to his feet and swung his hat.
"Judd," was his astonishing declaration, "those cart-wheels are just below us, and at the very north-east corner of the scallop-bed. The sea-bottom goes off suddenly, and the wheels are down the bank, and the tongue is almost upright in the water!"
"You don't say so!" cried Judd, no less elated than his comrade. Then suddenly he added: "That explains, too, chum, how the cart-bed was thrown off, and it must have been somewhere near here you were tossed within it."
"Yes," assented Budd; "but how are we going to get the gear on shore?"