to
talk without interruption.

"In the spring a lobster that is growing begins to find his shell too
tight, so he has to get out of it. Some time after the first of July he
crawls in under the rocks or kelp, where the fish can't trouble him. His
shell splits down the back and he pulls himself out. He stays there for
a week or ten days while a new and larger shell is forming. When he
begins to crawl again, he's raving hungry. One queer thing I almost
forgot. Fishermen say that, while he is lying under cover, all soft and
unprotected, a hard-shell lobster, active and ugly, generally stands
guard outside the hole, ready to fight off any enemy that may come
along."

By the time the last trap was pulled the lobster question had been
pretty thoroughly canvassed.

"Guess I've told you all I know, and more, too," said Jim.

They were back in Sprowl's Cove at half past ten, and put their lobsters
into the car with the others. Hardly had they finished when a
motor-sloop came round the eastern point.

"Here's a smack!" exclaimed Jim. "On time to the minute! Shouldn't
wonder if it was Captain Higgins in the _Calista!_"

The boat swept into the cove in a broad circle, and ranged alongside the
car. At the helm stood a tall, grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with gray
beard and twinkling blue eyes. A lanky, freckled boy stuck his head up
out of the cabin.

"Any lobsters to sell, boys?" inquired the man.

"Isn't this Captain Higgins?" asked Jim.

[Illustration]

"That's my name--Benjamin B. Higgins, of the smack _Calista_, buying
lobsters from Cranberry Island to Portland, and this is my son Brad, my
first mate and crew. I own this boat from garboard to main truck,
bowsprit-tip to boom-end, and I don't wear any man's dog-collar. I'll
give you a square deal on weight and pay you as much as any smackman,
neither more nor less. Do we trade?"

"We do," answered Jim. "Let's have your dip-net!"

Stepping upon the car, he was soon bailing out the lobsters. Captain
Higgins placed them in a tub on his deck scale.

"Going to be here long, boys?"

"We've taken the island for the season from my Uncle Tom Sprowl."

"So you're Cap'n Tom's nephew? Must be Ezra Spurling's boy."

Jim nodded.

"Glad to meet you! Made a trip once to the Grand Banks with Ezra; must
be all of thirty years ago. Well, time flies! If you'll save your
lobsters for me, I'll look in here every Thursday. How does that hit
you?"

"Right between the eyes."