“Not any of us,” said Joe. “You’ll have to get Rob Dakin to trust us for it. Tell him Jack will pay, if we can’t. But we can pay all right, if we have any luck. Let’s see, we want a lot of rope. This water is ten feet deep at low tide off those ledges, and the tide rises eight or nine feet. We’ll need about twenty-five or thirty feet of line for each pot. That will allow for its snagging, too. Come on, fellows, we’ll catch some bait.” There was a cove just below, with mud-flats making out into it, but covered now with water. They rowed around to this, in a small boat borrowed from Captain Sam. Baiting their hooks with clams, they dropped their lines overboard; but the fish bit slowly. “Guess they aren’t hungry,” said Joe. “Hand me up the spear, George, and the oil. I’ll make a ‘slick,’ and we’ll see what we can do.” The spear was a long, light pole of spruce, with a trident at one end—three sharp prongs, the middle blade with a clean point, the outer blades barbed. They rowed into shallow water, but the bottom could not be seen, because of a slight ruffling of the surface by the wind. Taking the bottle of fish-oil that George Baker handed to him, Joe Hinman poured some of it out on to a rag tied to the end of a stick. With this, he scattered the oil for some distance about the boat. The oil spread out over the surface of the water, smoothing its tiny chopping, so that through it the bottom could be plainly seen. Joe Hinman lay flat at the bow of the boat, holding the spear down in the water. Presently he gave a jab with it, into the mud, and brought to the surface a huge sculpin, wriggling, but fast on the prongs. “They aren’t exactly handsome,” he remarked, as he dropped the sculpin into the bottom of the boat, “but lobsters aren’t particular about looks.” The next jab brought up a big flounder that had wriggled its head into the mud, and fancied itself safe. The bottom of the boat was soon covered with them. By the time young Tim was back with the rope, they had enough fish to bait the four pots, and more, and a mess of flounders for supper. They cut the line into proper lengths, tied one end of each length to the end frame of a pot, and fastened a wooden buoy, previously boiled in coal-tar to prevent its becoming water-logged, to the other end. Then they took the pots, one by one, and rowed out with them to the off-lying ledges. They baited each pot, by impaling the fish on the wooden spear-head sticking up from the bottom, closed the door, turned the wooden button that fastened it, and dumped it overboard. The pots, weighted with stones, sank slowly to the bottom. “Great!” exclaimed Joe, as the last of the four went overboard. “Everything complete, except we might have painted a sign, ‘Walk in,’ on each one. What do you think about that, Tim?” “No, they don’t need it,” said Tim, emphatically. “You might want me to go to the store again for the paint.”