fore?" he said as we met.

"No, father."

"Why, I've been shouting at intervals for this last hour, and I should
have been uncomfortable if I had not thought you had common sense enough
to take care of yourselves."

"Oh! We minded that, sir," said Bob importantly. "We are older now
than we used to be."

"Yes," said my father dryly, "so I supposed. Well, let's be off; we've
a long row, and then a walk, and it's time to feed the animals, eh, Bob
Chowne?"

"Yes, sir," said Bob; "but I've got ever so much farther to go before I
can get anything to eat."

"No, you have not," said my father in his driest way. "I should think
there will be enough for us all at the Bay."

"I--I didn't mean," said Bob in a stammering way; but he had turned very
red in the face, and then he quite broke down and could get no further,
being evidently thoroughly ashamed of the way in which he had spoken.

My father noticed it, and changed the conversation directly. "Found
anything very interesting?" he said; "anything good among the rocks?"

"No, father," I said; "nothing much."

"Why, you blind puppy!" cried my father; "nothing? Don't you know that
every pool and rock hole teems with wonders that you go by without
noticing. Ah! I shall have to go with you, boys, some day, and show
you a few of the grand sights you pass over because they are so small,
and which you call nothing. Why, how high the tide has risen!"

"Didn't we leave the boat just beyond those rocks, sir?" said Bigley.

"Yes," said my father. "One of you will be obliged to strip and wade
out to it. No, it couldn't have been those rocks."

"No, sir," said Bob Chowne; "it was round on the other side of this
heap."

He pointed to a mass of rock lying right in the centre of the embayment,
a heap which cut off our view on one side.

"I suppose you must be right, Chowne," said my father; "come along."

"I feel sure it was here, father," I said; "just out here."

"No it wasn't," cried Bob pettishly. "I remember coming round here
after we left the boat."

Bigley and I looked at each other, but we said nothing, only followed my
father and Bob Chowne as they went round to the other side of the pile
of rock, and there lay the sea before us with the tide racing in, and
sweeping over the rocks, but no boat.

"It's very strange," said my father; "we must have left it in one of
these places."

"Perhaps it was behind the other heap, sir," said Bob eagerly.

"What