"How's that?" "Well," in a significant tone, "a man came along three or four nights ago. I don't know where he came from, and I don't know where he went--he just walked in with the lamp lit when I was getting supper. He wanted to know if I was open to hire him a team for a night or two." "What kind of a man?" "A stranger. He looked like a sailor and seemed liberal. Said he wanted the team particularly, and if I'd have them handy when he turned up we needn't quarrel about the figure. That must have meant I could charge most what I liked." "What did you say?" Mr. Webster smiled. "I just told him the horses were promised and I couldn't make the deal. Anyway"--and he added this in a different voice--"I'd no notion of going back on you." "Thanks," said Mr. Oliver quietly, and they talked about other matters until Webster, making a few more excuses to Miss Oliver, drove away. When he had gone she looked at her brother and laughed softly. "I was startled but not very much astonished when the gun went off," she said. "The little incident was so characteristic of the man." The next day the boys commenced practicing at flung-up meat cans with the cartridges he had given them and in a week they could hit one every now and then at thirty yards. Soon afterward Mr. Oliver went away. He only told the boys that he was going to Tacoma, but Harry thought it possible that he wanted to see Mr. Barclay, since Mr. Webster's story made it clear that the dope runners were about again. He announced ingenuously that they had better try the flight-shooting while his father was away, because if they came back all right with several ducks he would probably not object to their going another time. Miss Oliver seemed doubtful when they casually mentioned the project to her, but as she did not actually forbid it they set out with the sloop late one afternoon, taking the dog with them. It was falling dusk and the tide had been running ebb two or three hours when they beat in under the lee side of one of the islands they had passed on a previous occasion on their way to the settlement. After anchoring the sloop where she would lie afloat at low water some distance off the beach they got into the canoe and paddling ashore crossed the island, which was small and narrow. It was covered with thin underbrush and dwarf firs, and on its opposite side a broad stretch of wet sand and shingle with pools and creeks in it stretched back toward the channel, which cut it off from the mainland.