Before Budd could answer there was a sound of steps coming down the path toward the wharf. It was evidently one of the robbers, but he came only a short distance.
"Jed! Jed!" he called in low but distinct tones. "We have found just the jolliest supper! Come on up and help us eat it."
Jed, who was down by his boat, immediately joined the speaker, and the two went hurriedly back to the house.
"I wish we had something to eat, too," commented Judd, as the two men disappeared. "I confess, after working as we did this afternoon, I'm hungry."
"We'll have something in a few minutes, and those fellows will leave the house a good deal quicker than they got into it--see if they don't," answered Budd. "You just stay right here a few minutes;" and then he ran down the wharf, jumped into the yawl, and sculled quietly over to the sloop.
It was not over five minutes before he returned with an old gun, that had belonged to Judd's father, and which the boys kept on the sloop, having an occasional use for it, as they went about the bay, to shoot sea-fowl with, or the more voracious denizens of the sea.
"Come on!" he said to Judd; and again the boys approached the house.
Taking their station once more behind the wood-pile, Budd called out, in stern tones:
"Hello, Judd! There is some one in the house! Hurry up with the gun!"
A great commotion in the house instantly followed his words. The robbers evidently were at the kitchen-table eating when he cried out, and each grabbing up his gripsack, sprung for the window. As they tumbled, one over the other, out onto the ground, Budd raised the gun and fired one barrel into the air.