e up close with them.

"Josh! Josh! the school's heading this way," cried Will; "they'll lose
'em."

Josh jumped down into the seat, seized the oars, and began to row
steadily right across the head of the ripple, just as a hail came first
from the big boat and then from the small.

Josh rowed about twenty or thirty yards, and then began to back water,
going over the ground again, while the big and little boats steadily
rowed on.

"They're gone, Josh!" cried Will, as the ripple on the surface suddenly
ceased.

"Maybe they'll come up again, my lad," said Josh. "I'll keep on," and
he went on rowing first towards the large boat, then towards the small,
as they slowly toiled on, trying to get nearer to each other and Uncle
Abram's boat, which was just about intermediate.

If they could once join and form a circle, even if part of it were only
the net ropes, the fish would be inclosed, and instead of making for the
unfinished part of the circle where there was only rope, they would
avoid it and the boats, and make for the other side.

"All right, Josh! they're showing again," cried Will, for the dreaded
catastrophe had not taken place--the fish had not gone down and swum
away beneath the boats.

"Keep wi' us, lad!" came a musical hail to Josh, "and we shall do it
yet."

"Ay, ay!" shouted back Josh; and like a sentry he kept going to and fro,
with the boats closing up, yard by yard, but slowly, for they had the
weight of the widely-spread net to check their progress.

They were forty yards from Uncle Abram's boat on either side, and it
seemed a long time before they were twenty, and all the while this was
the most dangerous time, for the alarmed shoal was beginning to swim to
and fro. Then all at once they disappeared from the surface again, and
Dick thought they were gone.

But the fishermen pulled steadily still, and their companions in the
stern of each boat kept the line tighter, and just as they were now
getting closer the mackerel showed again, making the water flicker as if
a violent storm of rain were falling.

"Back out, lad, and go to port," said the captain of the seine-boat; and
Josh rowed steadily along close to the line, pausing half-way between
the seine-boat and the beginning of the corks, that is, of the net.

The men in the little boat just at the same time passed their rope on
board to their friends, and then went off to the right, to pause
half-way, as Josh had done to the left.

Meanw