Here was further evidence of what we so long had suspected. But as I reflected on it, with forgiveness in my heart for every snub the faithful, crafty old darky had given me and with amusement at the simple way he had tricked the steward and Falk and Kipping, I recalled his parting remarks to our worthy mate. "What was that you said to Mr. Kipping just as we gave way this afternoon?" I asked. "Hey, what dat?" Frank growled. "When had you seen Kipping before?" There was a long silence, then Frank spoke quietly and yet with obvious feeling. "Ah got a bone to pick with Kipping," he said, "but dat yeh's a matter 'twix' him and me." All this time Roger had watched and listened with a kindly smile. "Well, men," he now said, "we've had a chance to rest and get our wind. It's time we set to work. What do you say, hadn't we better haul the boat out?" Although we tacitly had accepted Roger as commander of our expedition, he spoke always with a certain deference to the greater age and experience of Blodgett and Davie Paine, which won them so completely that they would have followed him anywhere. They both looked at the sky and at the darkly rolling sea on which there now rested a low incoming mist; but Davie left the burden of reply to old Blodgett, who spoke nervously in his thin, windy voice. "Ay, sir, that we had. There's not much wind, nor is there, I think, likely to be much; but if we was to haul up into some bushes like those yonder, there won't be a thousand savages scouring the coast, come daylight, a-hunting for the men that came in the boat." That was sound common sense. We got out and, standing three on a side, hauled the boat by great effort clean out of water. Then we bent ropes to each end of three thwarts, and thrust an oar through the bights of each pair of ropes. Thus, with one of us at each end of an oar, holding it in the crooks of his elbows, we made out to lift the boat and drag it along till we got it safely hidden in the bushes with the oars tucked away under it. We then smoothed out our tracks and restored the branches as well as we could, and held a counsel in which every man had an equal voice. That it would be folly to remain on the beach until daylight, we were all agreed. Immediately beyond the muddy shore there was, so far as we could tell, only a salt marsh overgrown with rank grass and scattered clumps of vegetation, which might conceal us after a fashion if we were willing to lie all day long in mud that probably swarmed with reptile life, but which would afford us no real security and would give us no opportunity to forage for fresh water and food.