, an'
meanin' to come ashore to jine ye, 'fore we goes home. Got a dock a
leetle ways up-creek. So hold yer guns, boys; no harm done, I reckons!"

The sloop was run up on the sandy shore and both men jumped off. They
proved to be honest chaps, and soon the boys were quite relieved of
their first suspicious sensation at sight of such rough customers.

These fellows had seldom looked on such dainty tricks as the three
little motor boats. Accustomed to heavy craft, they shook their heads
when they heard how Jack and his chums expected to make far distant
Florida in such frail boats.

"Never kin do it, boys, an' I knows it," declared the taller fellow.

"But ye got the grit, all right, I reckons," added the other.

"We expect to meet up with lots of trouble on the way," said Jack; "but
then we've been through some experience, and know a little about
managing these things. Often a boat like mine will live in a sea that
would swamp a more clumsy craft. A canoe rides the waves like a duck,
where a rowboat would fill and sink, being logy."

"They may be somethin' in that same," remarked one of the oystermen;
"but the chanct is, ye'll never make the riffle, boys. I hate to say
that same; but right down in this Delaware Bay they's bad spots where
ye kin git caught out in a blow, an' can't land. Many a fine boat's
gone down as I know of."

"An' if so be ye do make shore they's hard characters all along that
section. Look out if ye happens to land near Murderkill Creek, that's
all I kin say," his mate spoke up, quite seriously, for they seemed to
have taken something of an interest in the boys, and their ambitious
plans.

"Goodness gracious! did you ever hear such a terrible name as that?"
gasped Nick, looking pale, as his imagination worked overtime in
picturing the dreadful things apt to be met with in a country where
even the creeks bore such suggestive names.

"Oh, sometimes things turn out less terrible than they seem!" laughed
Jack, who had read something about this same creek, and felt no
particular fear about making a camp along its border, should necessity
compel such a thing.

"Now, we got to be goin' home, 'case we got famblies waitin' for us;
but we'll toss a lot o' oysters ashore here, if so be ye'd like to have
'em," the taller man remarked.

"All right," spoke up Nick, so promptly that Jack was unable to get in
a reply; "give us fifty cents' worth, if that'll buy a bushel. I feel
like I could