ise than well sailed with me on board."

Dabney, however, even while he had been talking, had been hauling in
from its "float and grapnel," about ten yards out at low water, the very
stanch-looking little yawl-boat that called him owner. She was just such
a boat as Mrs. Kinzer would naturally have provided for her boy,--stout,
well made and sensible,--without any bad habits of upsetting, or the
like. Not too large for Dabney to manage all alone, the "Jenny," as he
called her, and as the name was painted on the stern, was all the better
off for having two on board.

"The inlet's pretty narrow for a long reach through the marsh," said
Dabney, "and as crooked as a ram's-horn. I'll steer and you pull till
we're out o' that, and then I'll take the oars."

"I might as well row out to the crab-grounds," said Ford, as he pitched
his coat forward and took his seat at the oars. "All ready?"

"Ready," said Dab, and the "Jenny" glided gracefully away from the
landing with the starting push he gave her.

Ford Foster had had oars in his hands before, but his experience must
have been limited to a class of vessels different from the one he was in
now.

He was short of something, at all events. It may have been skill, and it
may have been legs, or discretion; but, whatever was lacking, at the
third or fourth stroke the oar-blades went a little too deeply below the
smooth surface of the water; there was a vain tug, a little out of
"time," and then there was a boy on the bottom of the boat, and a pair
of well-polished shoes lifted high in the air.

"You've got it!" shouted Dabney.

"Got what?" exclaimed an all but angry voice from between the seats.

"Caught the first 'crab,'" replied Dabney,--"that's what we call it. Can
you steer? Guess I'd better row."

"No you wont," was the very resolute reply, as Ford regained his seat
and his oars; "I sha'n't catch any more crabs of that sort. I'm a little
out of practice, that's all."

"I should say you were, a little. Well, it wont hurt you. 'Tisn't much
of a pull."

Ford would have pulled it, now, if he had blistered all the skin off his
hands in doing so, and he did very creditable work, for some minutes,
among the turns and windings of the narrow inlet.

"Here we are," shouted Dabney, at last. "We are in the inlet yet, but it
widens out into the bay."

"That's the bay, out yonder?"

"Yes; and the island between that and the ocean's no better'n a mere bar
of sand."

"How d