“You never’ll find him again.”

“Do you s’pose old Peter’d befriend a man that did what he did, right on the shore of the bay?  No, indeed, there isn’t a fisherman from here to Montauk that wouldn’t join to hunt him out.  He’s safe whenever Ham wants him, if we don’t scare him now.”

“Don’t scare him, then,” whispered Annie.

The wind was fair and the home sail of the “Swallow” was really a swift and short one, but it did seem dreadfully long to her passengers.  Mrs. Kinzer was anxious to see that poor baby safely in bed.  Ham Morris wanted to send a whole load of refreshments back to the shipwrecked people.  Dab Kinzer could not keep his thoughts from that “tramp.”  And then, if the truth must come out, every soul on board the beautiful little yacht was getting more and more aware, with every minute that passed, that they had had a good deal of sea air and excitement, and a splendid sail across the bay and back, but no dinner.  Not so much as a herring or a cracker.

CHAPTER XXI.

As for the Kinzers, that was by no means their first experience in such matters, but their friends had never before been so near to a genuine, out and out shipwreck.  Perhaps, too, they had rarely if ever felt so very nearly starved.  At least Joe and Fuz Hart remarked as much a score of times before the “Swallow” slipped through the inlet and made her way toward the landing.

“Ham,” said Dab Kinzer, “are you going right back again?”

“Course I am, soon as I can get a load of eatables from the house and the village.  You ’ll have to stay here.”

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“Plenty for you to do at the house and around while I’m gone.  No, you can’t go.”

Dab seemed to have expected as much, for he turned to Ford with,

“Then I’ll tell you what we must do.”

“What’s that?”

“See about the famine.  Can you cook?”

“No.”

“I can, then.  Ham’ll have one half of our house at work getting his cargo ready, and that baby’ll fill up the other half.”

“Mother wont be expecting us so soon, and our cook’s gone out for the day.  Annie knows something.”

“She can help me, then.  Those Hart boys’ll die if they’re not fed.  Look at Fuz.  Why, he can’t keep his mouth shut.”

Joe and his brother seemed to know, as if by instinct, that the dinner question was under discussion; and they were soon taking their share of talk.  Oh, how they wished it had been a share of something to eat!  The “Swallow” was moored, now, after discharging her passengers, but Dab did not start for the house with his mother and the rest.  He even managed to detain some of the empty lunch-baskets, large ones, too.

“Come on, Mr. Kinzer,” shouted Joe Hart, “let’s put for the village.  We’ll starve here.”

“A fellow that’d starve here just deserves to, that’s all,” said Dab.  “Ford, there’s Bill Lee’s boat and three others coming in.  We’re all right.  One of ’em’s a dredger.”