Another task that he set before himself was the establishment of cordial relations with the other members of the party. He realized that his own fault had made this necessary. It had been an easy matter to get on good terms with Jim, Budge, and Throppy. With Filippo it was a little harder; but soon he, too, thawed out when he found that Percy treated him courteously and was willing to do his share of the camp work. Even Nemo wagged his tail when Percy appeared, and the crow grew tame enough to eat fish out of his hand. One afternoon, when the fog had lifted sufficiently to make it possible to see a few hundred feet from the island, a motor-boat unexpectedly appeared from the north and swung round Brimstone Point into the cove. She ran up alongside the _Barracouta_, where the boys were baiting their trawl. "I'm the warden," said one of the two newcomers, a gray-mustached, keen-eyed man. "I've come to look over your car." Jim took his dip-net and stepped into the motor-boat, and they ran up to the lobster-car. A few minutes' investigation of its contents satisfied the official that it contained no "shorts." "Glad to be able to give you a clean bill of health," said he as he set Jim back on board the sloop. "I wish some other people I know of did business as clean and aboveboard as you young fellows." A quarter-hour later the sound of his exhaust had died away in the fog to the northward. "What would he have done if he'd found any 'shorts'?" asked Percy. "Fined us a dollar for every one," answered Jim. "Taken the cream off the summer, wouldn't it? Sometimes it pays, even in dollars and cents, to be honest." The next morning was hot and muggy. The sea about the island was clear of fog for one or two miles. Jim and Budge had started long before light to set the trawl, and Throppy wished to make some changes on his wireless; so Filippo was glad enough of the chance to go out with Percy to haul the lobster-traps. The little Italian had lost much of his melancholy. He enjoyed his work and the good-fellowship of the camp. The weeks of association with his new friends had made of him an entirely different fellow from the lonely, homesick lad they had picked up on the steamboat wharf at Stonington. The two boys started in the pea-pod at six o'clock. A glassy calm overspread the sea. Even the perpetual ocean swell seemed to have lost much of its force. "I'll row!" volunteered Percy. He stripped off his oil-coat and sweater and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. "It'll be hot up in the granite quarries to-day, hey, Filippo? S'pose you're sorry not to be there?" "_Io sono contento_" ("I am satisfied"), replied the Italian.