“You might travel a long ways,” he said, “before you’d come across such another man as the colonel. If you treat him square and he likes you, he’s ready at any time to give you a friendly h’ist; but if you get him down on you, you’ll wish you’d never been born. Nobody need think that because the colonel is sittin’ in that chair all day and can’t never walk a step out of it that he needn’t be afraid of him. When I was down here afore, he used to have something to do with the revenue service, and if he’d hear of any smugglers tryin’ to get into the country across this river with cigars or anything else, he’d have his chair rolled in no time aboard the boat he used to sail in, and he put after them fellers, and I can tell you what it is, there’s no man that ever put in along this coast with smuggled goods would want to see the colonel comin’ after him, with his rifle in his hands, and that black eye of his a-flashin’ out about a mile ahead. He always was an ugly customer to run afoul of, and he’s jist as bad now as ever, if things go crooked. I ain’t surprised a bit at what he did for you fellers. It’s jist like him.” The next day was Sunday, and the boys looked so bright and fresh, with their well-blackened boots and their clean white shirts and collars, that they felt quite fit to mingle in general society. They would have gone to church, but were prevented from so doing by the fact that the town did not yet contain a church. On Monday morning, after breakfast, the three boys were sitting in a small summer-house, which was built at the end of the pier belonging to the hotel. A little way out in the river, The Rolling Stone was moored, and there were other boats anchored here and there in the river. A party of sportsmen who had been at the hotel had already started on a trip down the river, and the white sails of their little yacht could be seen several miles away over the blue and sparkling water. The river here was very broad, it being six miles across to the wide, low island which separated it from the sea, but for a long way out from the shore it was very shallow, and a party of boys with rolled-up trousers, waded out with their cast-nets to a distance which very much astonished our friends upon the pier. “Well, I tell you what it is!” cried Chap; “we’ve got to do something, or go somewhere. We won’t leave this town till Wednesday, and that gives us two clear days, and we don’t want to waste them. Now, the point is, what is there to do that we can get the most fun out of?” “I suppose Adam might put us up to something,” said Phœnix, “but he’s gone to work to help a man down there who is building a boat. He said he might as well make some money while he is here as not.” “Well, then we’ll go ask some one else,” said Chap. “We’re bound to do something.” At this moment a slow step was heard on the pier, and Mr. Brewer’s brother directly joined the group. “Hello!” cried Chap. “I thought you would have been off for home long ago.”