“All right,” said Ray. “Keep rowing around in a big figure eight. Keep right in the school. Follow the birds. I’ll see if I can’t yank out a couple of big ones just for luck. I wish I had a pair of nippers, though—those are woolen gloves with the fingers cut. They protect your hands. All fishermen use ’em up here on the Maine coast.”
But before Ray had caught more than a couple of fish, the surface of the water became suddenly quiet again and the troop of gulls, after a few farewell squeaks, dispersed and flew off in different directions.
“Hang it, just when I started to get interested the bloomin’ things disappear. That’s my luck. Too bad. They’ll come to the surface again somewhere else, but there’s no use of our trying to follow them. They may come up a mile or so out to sea. Guess we’re through fishing for to-day. I don’t care though, do you?”
“No, only for your sake,” said Jack. “I was selfish to keep the line so long.”
“Oh, pshaw, don’t mind me. I’ve had more fishing than a little. When a fellow has to do it for a living it ceases to be fun,” said Ray with a smile, as he sat down in the stern and surveyed the catch.
“Jiminy,” he added, “we’ve enough fish to feed the camp.”
“I guess we have, but say, I’ll bet that net over there is filled with ’em,” answered Jack.
“Net? What net? Where?” asked Ray.
“Why, that net over there. See those buoys in toward the island? They are fastened to a net, aren’t they?”
Ray looked in the direction in which Jack was pointing and saw a line of half a dozen black and white buoys dancing on the surface.