The last boat to come in was rowed by Dale Tompkins. Sanson and Bennie Rhead were with him, besides one or two others; but the interest and attention of those gathered on and about the _Aquita_ was swiftly centered on Harry Vedder, perched precariously on the stern seat. His fat legs were drawn up clumsily under him, his pudgy hands tightly gripped the sides of the craft, while his plump face was set in lines expressive of anything but joy. "What's the matter, Puffy?" called Ranny Phelps, as they approached. "You look like Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall!" Vedder merely sniffed poutingly. The faces of Tompkins and Sanson expanded in wide grins. "It's the crabs," chuckled the latter. "They're so fond of him they won't let him alone. You see," he added, his eyes dancing, "some of 'em happened to get out of the box, and the minute they saw Humpty they got terribly attached to him." "Yes!" snorted the plump youth indignantly--"to one of my legs, the beastly things! Hurry up, Dale, for goodness' sake; I'm all cramped up!" A snicker went up from the other boats. "You ought to have spoken to 'em sharply, Ved," grinned Ranny, "and discouraged such liberties." "Yes," laughed Court; "be firm with 'em!" Vedder snorted again and, reaching for the rail of the _Aquita_, climbed aboard with remarkable agility. "Maybe you think that's funny," he growled, taking possession of the most comfortable seat in sight; "but I'd rather tackle a snake any day than a boat-load of crabs." He was so taken up with his own affairs that he quite missed the meaning glance that passed between Court Parker and Bob Gibson as they fastened their painter to the stern of the power-boat. He thought nothing, either, of the fact that they were first ashore, where, hastening to remove from under one of the seats a medium-sized bait-box covered with seaweed, they disappeared behind the cook-shack. But later on, an uncomfortable suspicion came to him that there was something in the wind. Approaching the cook-shack, where a crowd was occupied in breaking up shells and extracting crab-meat for supper, he noticed Parker, Sanson, and Tompkins giggling and whispering with heads close together. As he came up they stopped abruptly, but after supper he saw them again, clustered in a group with Gibson and Bennie Rhead, and caught a grinning glance from the latter that deepened his suspicion. "I'll bet they're up to some trick," he said to himself. Uneasily, he kept a sharp lookout, determined that they should not catch him napping. But oddly enough, the joke, whatever it was, seemed to subside, and for all his watchfulness Vedder failed to detect any more suspicious confabs during the evening.