“You’ve got it,” shouted Dabney.

“Got what?” exclaimed an all-but angry voice from down there 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 won’t,” 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 won’t 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’you get past it?”

“Right across there, almost in a straight line.  We’ll run it next week in Ham’s yacht.  Splendid weak-fishing right in the mouth of that inlet, on the ocean side.”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Ford, “I’m in for that.  Is the bay deep?”

“Not very,” replied Dabney; “but it gets pretty rough sometimes.”

Ford was getting pretty red in the face just then, with his unaccustomed exercise; and his friend added,—­

“You needn’t pull so hard:  we’re almost there.  Hullo! if there isn’t Dick Lee, in his dry-goods box.  That boat’ll drown him some day, and his dad too.  But just see him pull in crabs!”

Ford came near “catching” one more as he tried to turn around for the look proposed, exclaiming,—­

“Dab, let’s get to work as quick as we can.  They might go away.”

“Might fly?”

“No; but don’t they go and come?”

“Well, you go and drop the grapnel over the bows, and we’ll see ’em come in pretty quick.”

The grapnel, or little anchor, was thrown over quickly enough; and the two boys were in such an eager haste that they had hardly a word to say to Dick, though he was now but a few rods away.

Now, it happened that when Ford and Dab came down to the water that morning, each of them had brought a load.  The former had only a neat little japanned tin box, about as big as his head; and the latter, besides his oars, carried a seemingly pretty heavy basket.

“Lots of lunch, I should say,” had been Ford’s mental comment; but he had not thought it wise to ask questions.

“Plenty of lunch in that box,” thought Dab at the same moment, but only as a matter of course.

And they were both wrong.  Lunch was the one thing they had both forgotten.

But the box and the basket.

Ford Foster came out, of his own accord, with the secret of the box; for he now took a little key out of his pocket, and unlocked it with an air of—­