the boat a great sprawling "blue-legged" crab. "He's a whopper!"

"He'll do for one."

"There's one on mine! I declare, he's let go!"

"You jerked the clam away from him. Sink it again. He's mad about it.
He'll take right hold again."

"He's pulling now, or it's another one."

"Let him pull. Lift him easy. Long as he thinks he's stealing something,
he'll hold on. There he comes,--see him?"

Ford saw the white flesh of the clam coming slowly up through the water,
and he held his breath; for just behind and below it was a sprawling
shadowy something that was tugging with all its might at that tough
shell-fish.

"It's an awful big one!"

"Shall I scoop him?"

"No, indeed: I want to scoop him myself. I saw how you did it."

Splash went the net, as the prize came nearer the surface; and Ford
began, somewhat excitedly, to shake it all over the bottom of the boat.

"Why, where's that crab? You don't mean to say he was quick enough to
dodge away?"

"Quick? well, no, that isn't just the trouble. I forgot to tell you to
scoop way under him. You hit him, square, and knocked him ever so far.
The water deceives your eyes. Drive the net under him quick, and then
lift. I've got one--now just you see how I scoop."

Ford felt dreadfully disappointed over the loss of his first crab, but
the rapidity with which he caught the "knack of it" after that was a
great credit to him. He did not miss the next one he pulled up.

It was great fun; but it had its slack moments, and in one of these Dab
suddenly exclaimed,--

"The young black rascal! If he hasn't gone and got a sheep's-head!"

"A sheep's-head?"

They were both staring at the old punt, where Dick Lee was apparently
enjoying the most extraordinary good fortune.

"Yes, that's it. That's why he beats us so badly. They're a sight
better'n clams, only you can't always get one. I wonder where he picked
up that one."

"But how he does pull 'em in!"

"We're doing well enough," began Dabney, when suddenly there came a
shrill cry of pain from the black boy's punt.

"He's barefooted," shouted Dab, with, it must be confessed, something
like a grin; "and one of the little pirates has pinned him with his
nippers."

That was the difficulty exactly, and there need not have been any very
serious result of such an expression of a crab's bad temper. But Dick
Lee was more than ordinarily averse to any thing like physical pain, and
the crab which now had him by the toe was a ve