“No; that tub, that wash-basin, that horse-trough, anything but a schooner. Well, do you know what that is?” “The Antelope?” suggested Tom. “Yes; that’s what she is called by her commander--that old woman, Mrs. Corbet, Mrs. Captain Corbet--old woman! Why, I can find fifty old women down our way that would take better care of a vessel than him--_her_, I mean. Well, boys, I was at Magdalen Islands when Mrs. Corbet came there in her wash-tub. I felt uneasy about you; knew something had happened; asked him--_her_, I mean--all about it; but Mrs. Corbet wouldn’t answer. Well, I followed her. I was bound to see what had become of you. And where do you think that old woman went? Where? Why, to Miramichi! Well, I followed her there and back, and come up to her, to find her in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at her wit’s end; for she had come there thinking that you would be anchored there, and waiting for her. Now, what do you think of that for an Old Woman?” The boys were very much surprised at this, and questioned him more closely. At first they thought that he was too hard on the venerable captain; but when they learned how the venerable captain had actually gone all the way to Miramichi, leaving them in their perilous position, they thought that the V. C., aforesaid, had gone too far, and that he merited all the contumely which Ferguson heaped so lavishly upon him. “Anybody else,” he continued,--“anybody else but me, Tobias Ferguson, would simply have gone mad at trying to keep that old woman and her tub in sight. It’s taken two days to do what might have been done in one. I’ve sailed back a dozen times to keep her in sight; and look at her now! There she is, losing as much as she gains at every tack; standing still, as I’m a living sinner. I sailed off, that very day I was telling you about, for Anticosti, and got to East Point. There I waited for Mrs. Corbet, inspecting the coast at odd times, and it was nearly the end of the next day before she came up; and even then I had to sail back ever so far to find her. Then we began to beat up along the coast, against the wind, watching all the time, not only the shore, but Mrs. Corbet. And there she is! At any rate, I won’t bother about her any longer. I’ll hurry up to the cove to get the rest of the boys, and let Mrs. Corbet come along as well as her venerable limbs’ll carry her.” “But how did you know so well that we had drifted to Anticosti?” “Well, for various reasons. Partly because I found out from Mrs. Corbet all about her crazy experiment at anchoring the ship; partly because I understood the general set of the tide; partly because I knew how the wind had been; but chiefly, I may say, because I had a presentiment all along that you were bound to get ashore on the worst place in all the gulf; which was Anticosti, and no other place. I knowed it. I was sure of it.”