Captain Sam did not see fit, however, though a constable, sworn to do his duty, as the others had suggested, to explain that he had seen the _Spray_ for the last hour or more, and that he had been conscious all along of the precious time they were losing. But a sharp observer might have detected him chuckling down deep in his throat as the colonel and the squire stormed and raged. “Well, what are we going to do?” cried Squire Brackett. “We’re losing valuable time here. That little boat eats fast into the wind, they say, and we have got to get started pretty quick if we expect to overhaul her between now and dark. “Come! What do you say, Cap’n Sam? You know the boats in the harbour better than I do. Whose is the best one to go after them with?” “Wa-al,” drawled Cap’n Sam, “if I do say it, I suppose the _Nancy Jane_ is about as good as any in a long thrash to windward,—if she does belong to me. She’s big and she’s roomy, and there’s a comfortable cabin in her for you and the colonel—for I suppose you’ll want to go along.” “Go along!” exclaimed Colonel Witham. “I should say we did—eh, squire? When these ’ere warrants are served I want to be there to see it done, and so does the squire, I reckon.” “That’s what I do,” responded Squire Brackett. “We’ll go along with you, sure enough.” “Then you want to be getting some grub aboard right away,” said Captain Sam, with a fine show of energy and haste, “while I break the news to my wife. She’ll put me up a bite to last a day or two. You can’t tell, you know, when you start off on one of these ’ere cruises, where you’ll end up nor how long you’ll be out,—so you want to come prepared to stay.” And then, as the colonel and the squire hurried off down the road, he turned back for a moment to Mrs. Warren, who stood weeping, and said, with rough good-heartedness: “Now, don’t you go to taking on, Mrs. Warren. There’s some mistake here. Depend upon it. I’ve known them youngsters ever since they was no bigger’n short lobsters, and I know they ain’t got nothing bad enough in ’em to go to setting a hotel afire. “P’r’aps there might have been some little accident,” he added, more conservatively. “Accidents always is happening, you know, and we’re all of us liable to ’em. I’ve got to do my duty, Mrs. Warren, bein’ as I am a constable of this town, sworn to obey my orders as I get ’em, signed and sealed from the court; but I’m goin’ to stand by them boys, all the same. “So you just go and get your husband down here, quick as ever you can,—and we’ll settle this ’ere difficulty pretty soon, I reckon.