“No, that’s safe and snug,” replied Tom. “It’s locked up in your shed, and your mother has the key. That’s one thing we shall find all right when we get back.” The wind was blowing lightly from the northwest, and, as they were starting out to make the circuit of the island by way of the northern end first, they had to beat their way up along the coast against a head wind. “This little boat isn’t such a bad sailer,” said George Warren, admiringly, gazing aloft at a snug setting topsail. “For a boat of its size, I guess she goes to windward as well as any. There’s only one thing the matter with her. She’s small, and when she’s reefed down under three reefs, with the choppy seas we have in this bay, she don’t work well to windward, and that’s a fault that might be dangerous, if there were not so many harbours around this coast to run to in a storm.” “I suppose some day we’ll have a bigger one, don’t you?” queried Joe. “Yes, when we can earn it, father says,” replied George. “That don’t look so easy, though. A fellow can’t earn much when he’s studying.” “What’s that up there on the ledges?” interrupted young Joe, pointing ahead to some long reefs that barely projected above the surface of the water. “They are seals—can’t you see?” replied Arthur. “The wind is right, and we’ll sail close up on to them before they know it. We can’t shoot, because we haven’t any gun aboard, but we’ll just take them by surprise.” The little _Spray_, running its nose quietly past the point of the first ledge and sailing through a channel sown with the rocks on either hand, came as a surprise to a colony of the sleek creatures, sunning themselves on the dry part of the ledges. They floundered clumsily off the rocks and splashed into the water, like a lot of schoolboys caught playing hookey, and only when the whole pack had slipped off into the sea did they utter a sound, a series of short, sharp barks, as here and there a curious head bobbed up for a moment, and then dived quickly below again. “They have as much curiosity as a human being,” said George Warren. “Just watch them steal those quick glances at us, and then bob under water again. The fishermen around here shoot them whenever they get a chance, because they eat the salmon out of the nets, but I never could bear to take a shot at one. They seem so intelligent, like a lot of tame dogs. I don’t believe in shooting creatures much, anyway, unless you want them for food, or unless they are wild, savage animals.” “That don’t apply to ducks, I hope,” said Tom. “We want to take you up into the woods with us some fall, and have you do some shooting of that kind,—ducks and partridges and perhaps a deer or two.”