About an hour after the Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond, had let go her anchor in Gardiner's Bay, a coasting sloop approached her, coming from the westward. There are two passages by which vessels enter or quit Long Island Sound, at its eastern termination. The main channel is between Plum and Fisher's Islands, and, from the rapidity of its currents, is known by the name of the Race. The other passage is much less frequented, being out of the direct line of sailing for craft that keep mid-sound. It lies to the southward of the Race, between Plum Island and Oyster Pond Point, and is called by the Anglo-Saxon appellation of Plum Gut. The coaster just mentioned had come through this latter passage; and it was the impression of those who saw her from the schooner, that she was bound up into Peconic, or the waters of Sag Harbour. Instead of luffing up into either of the channels that would have carried her into these places, however, she kept off, crossing Gardiner's Bay, until she got within hail of the schooner. The wind being quite light, there was time for the following short dialogue to take place between the skipper of this coaster and Roswell Gardiner, before the sloop had passed beyond the reach of the voice. "Is that the Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond?" demanded the skipper, boldly. "Ay, ay," answered Roswell Gardiner, in the sententious manner of a seaman. "Is there one Watson, of Martha's Vineyard, shipped in that craft?" "He was aboard here for a week, but left us suddenly. As he did not sign articles, I cannot say that he run." "He changed his mind, then," returned the other, as one expresses a slight degree of surprise at hearing that which was new to him. "Watson is apt to whiffle about, though a prime fellow, if you can once fasten to him, and get him into blue water. Does your schooner go out to-morrow, Captain Gar'ner?" "Not till next day, I think," said Roswell Gardiner, with the frankness of his nature, utterly free from the slightest suspicion that he was communicating with one in the interests of rivals. "My mates have not yet joined me, and I am short of my complement by two good hands. Had that fellow Watson stuck by me, I would have given him a look at water that no lead ever sounded." "Ay, ay; he's a whiffler, but a good man on a sea-elephant. Then you think you'll sail day a'ter to-morrow?" "If my mates come over from the main. They wrote me yesterday that they had got the hands, and were then on the look-out for something to get across in. I've come out here to be ready for them, and to pick 'em up, that they needn't go all the way up to the Harbour." "That's a good traverse, and will save a long pull. Perhaps they are in _that_ boat."