Steve waved back and the two cruisers settled down to their forty-mile run along the shore, the Follow Me gliding smoothly along abaft the Adventurer’s starboard beam.  They sighted few other craft this morning, and, as there was a deal of sameness in the coast, the fellows settled down to various occupations.  Steve conducted a second class in navigation, with Perry and Han as pupils, and Perry was allowed to take the wheel all the way from Smith’s Point to a position off the Moriches Life-Saving Station.  Phil went on with his letters, Ossie performed mysterious rites in the galley, with Han looking on interestedly from atop the dish-board, and Neil, exhausted by his labours as crew, reclined on the seat in the cockpit and stared sleepily at a blue and unclouded sky.  Joe hunched himself on a seat on the bridge deck and studied his book on motor boating, becoming, if truth were told, more and more mystified as to the working of that remarkable affair that was click-clicking away under his feet.

The Adventurer reached the inlet to Shinnecock Bay a few minutes past ten and, closely followed by her companion boat, put through and turned her nose past Ponquogue Point.  As Comorant Point drew near the shores of the bay closed in and the cruiser turned to port and, signalling her way past various craft, finally came to a pause outside the canal entrance.  When the Follow Me floated alongside Wink Wheeler called across.

“What do you say to going ashore, fellows?” he asked.  “It looks like a jolly sort of place.  We’ve got plenty of time, haven’t we?”

“All the time in the world and nothing to do,” replied Steve cheerfully.  “We’ll make that landing over there and you can come alongside us, Harry.”

Ten minutes later they were stretching their legs ashore.  Canoe Place held plenty to interest them.  The view was magnificent, for on one side of them lay Shinnecock Bay, across whose still, pond-like waters they had just sailed, and on the other stretched the blue expanse of Great Peconic Bay, sun-bathed, aglint with rippling waves and dotted with white sails.  A small boy with one suspender performing the duty of two and a straw hat minus about everything except the brim offered to guide them and his proposition was quickly accepted and a bright new quarter changed hands.  The quaint old Inn was visited and their informant gravely pointed to two sentinel willow trees and told them that “them trees was planted by Napoleon a couple o’ hunerd years ago.  He got ’em some place called Saint Helen.  They had him in prison there for somethin’.”  The boys viewed the willows doubtfully, but, as Phil said, it was more fun to believe the extraordinary tale and they tried hard to do so.  Steve attempted to secure more historical information from the small boy, but the latter appeared to have exhausted his fund.  After that they viewed several Summer estates from respectful distances and, finding that their guide had nothing further of real interest for them, went back to the landing and re-embarked.