By the time Sidney was ready for the voyage Captain Eph had launched the light-house boat until she rested on the foot of the ways, with her stern just touching the water, and when the lad came up the keeper tossed him gently into the boat, jumping in after him as he shoved her off into the little cove. "Sit right here in the stern-sheets, for I allow you wouldn't cut any very great figure at handlin' such oars as we use, seein's how they are much too heavy an' too long for your short arms." "Can't I steer, Captain Eph?" "I don't reckon you'd do yourself very proud by tryin' anything of the kind, Sonny. In this 'ere smother it's a case of goin' by ear, an' I'll pull up to the sound of the whistle, so make yourself comfortable in the stern-sheets. The line you see there I laid out for you, an' it wouldn't be a bad idee, if you want to be at work on somethin', to overhaul it. The bait is in this 'ere can amidships." Then Captain Eph settled down to the oars, pulling with a long, steady stroke that sent the light dory ahead at a smart rate of speed, and Sidney, who had never been in such a craft before, was surprised to find how buoyantly she rode the waves. "Yes, a dory knocks a keel-boat all to pieces in a sea-way," Captain Eph replied when the lad spoke of their craft. "Providin' you can keep her head to the wind, she'll live through a gale that would swamp an ordinary schooner." Then the keeper began questioning the lad regarding his past, and before they were come to the fishing grounds, Sidney had told all the story of his short life. "I reckon we'll anchor, for we're in the shoalest part of the water," Captain Eph said, as if it had been possible for him to see distinctly, instead of being enveloped in dense fog as they were, and a moment later, when the dory had come up on the cable, he announced that they were directly over the shoal. "I don't understand how you could find just this spot when it's impossible to see anything," Sidney said wonderingly, and Captain Eph replied in a tone of satisfaction: "I reckon comin' out from the ledge has become what you might call second nature with me, seein's how I've been knockin' about here so long; but there ain't anything very astonishin' in findin' a shoal that stands close by a buoy, for a man's ears ought to be as good as his eyes. Howsomever, we're here, an' now it's our business to catch as many fish as we can. I'll bait your hook, Sonny, an' you're to let it down until you feel that the lead strikes bottom, then pull her up four or five feet an' wait till you get a good, strong jerk. After that it's a case of landin' your fish, or losin' it, cordin' to the amount of common sense you bring into play." In less than five minutes Sidney had caught his first fish, and as he hauled it over the rail after considerable labor, during which Captain Eph watched him keenly, but without giving any advice, he decided that deep-sea fishing went ahead of any sport in which he had ever indulged.