mb?" asked Jim.

"Up there! I didn't agree to bring it down."

"Come on, boys!"

Jim, Percy, and Stevens went up to the pasture; Lane remained in the
cabin. A careful search failed to reveal the victim. Jim walked to the
edge of the bank.

"Oh, Budge!" he called.

Lane came out of the camp.

"Where's that lamb?"

"Don't know! Running around up there, I s'pose!"

"Didn't you shoot him?"

"No! I couldn't. And I know none of the rest of you could, either. So I
fired in the air."

Jim's laugh spoke his relief.

"Well, I guess that's the easiest way out of it for everybody. Next trip
to Matinicus I'll order a hind quarter from Rockland. It'll mean a
little more wear and tear on the company's pocketbook, but a good deal
less on our feelings."

One of the accompaniments of the heat and fog of those August days was a
kind of salt-water mirage. Ships and steamers miles away below the
horizon were lifted into plain view. Low, distant islands rose to
perpendicular bluffs, distorted by the wavering air-currents; other
islands appeared directly above the first, and came down to join them.
Percy watched these novel moving pictures with great interest.

Every few mornings either the trawl or the lobster-traps would yield
something unusual. Now it might be a dozen bream, called by the
fishermen "brim," "redfish," or "all-eyes"; again up would come a
catfish, savage and sharp-toothed, able to dent an ash oar; and rarely a
small halibut would appear, drowned on the trawl. Sometimes the
lobstermen would capture a monkfish, whose undiscriminating appetite had
led him to try to swallow a glass float; or a trap would come to the
surface freighted with huge five-fingers or containing a short,
ribbon-shaped eel, blood-red from nose to tail-tip.

Spurling & Company were dressing a big catch of hake on the _Barracouta_
early one afternoon when a rockety report resounded close to the island.
Percy, who was wielding his splitting-knife with good effect, as his
oilskins showed, glanced up quickly.

"That's a yacht's gun!"

Sixty seconds revealed that he was right. Into the mouth of the cove
shot a keen-pro wed steam-yacht, resplendent with brass fittings and
fresh, white paint. Five or six flanneled figures lounged aft, while a
few members of her crew, natty in white duck, dropped anchor under the
direction of an officer. Side-steps were lowered and an immaculate toy
boat swung out; a sailor occupied the rowing-thwart, while o