cabin. He wanted
to shoot the Indians, but his wife wouldn't let him. After they had
eaten they scattered and opened fire on the house from different points.
Hall replied. Finally the Indians were reduced to their last
half-bullet. One of them lay flat in that little hollow, while the
others pretended to launch their canoes. Hall stuck his head up through
the lookout to see what was going on, and the ambushed Indian sent the
half-bullet through his brain. He dropped back inside. They wouldn't
have known he was hit if his wife hadn't cried out for quarter. They
burst open the door and carried her off, with her daughter and one son.
Another boy escaped out of a back window and hid in the swamp, and they
couldn't find him. Afterward he settled on an island close to
Vinalhaven, where Heron's Neck Light is now."

"Hall had better not have burned that grass," said Percy.

"Yes," replied Jim. "If he had minded his own business and let the
Indians alone he wouldn't have stopped that last half-bullet."

The fish-pier was in charge of a superintendent, employed by a large
Gloucester concern. Jim arranged to sell here whatever fish they might
catch during the summer. He also bought several bushels of salt, as well
as two barrels of hake heads to start them in lobstering. The
_Barracouta's_ tank was filled with twenty-five gallons of gasolene, and
six five-gallon cans were purchased besides. The boat would require
about seven gallons a day for ordinary fishing, so this would supply
them for more than a week.

"How often do you get the mail?" asked Jim of the storekeeper, who was
also postmaster.

"Three times a week by steamer from Rockland--Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Fridays."

As Spurling had decided to bring his fish over every Friday, they would
thus be enabled to keep in fairly close touch with the outside world.
Percy, however, was somewhat disgusted. He had gotten into the habit of
thinking he could not live without a daily paper. While the others were
purchasing various supplies, including some mosquito netting, he
replenished his stock of cigarettes.

"Anybody here got a wireless?" inquired Throppy.

"No, but there's one on Criehaven, three miles south."

Throppy had planned to install an outfit on Tarpaulin, and had already
written home to have his plant there dismantled by his brother, and its
parts forwarded by express to Matinicus. For an amateur he was an
expert operator.

The _Barracouta_ was already well