“Did they have any Indians about here, any real ones?” asked Charlie.

“There is only one kind, sonny, when you talk about full-blooded Injuns, and I guess our fathers found it out.  Injuns!  Thick as pizen any day.  Why, down in that place just beyond here a woman was goin’ along one day, and she was carryin’ an earthen pot.  The Injuns just whooped out on her, and it was the last time the poor thing was seen alive.  The pot was found afterward, and is kept by one of our families in town to-day.  Injuns!  I guess so.  Of course, when they were about here the alarm was given, and the people came flockin’ to the garrison-house, and they were safe enough here.”

How the eyes of the club projected!  The governor informed Pip that his orbs stuck out far enough to hang a mug on.

The party slowly made its way back to the boat.

“How foggy it is!” said Aunt Stanshy.

“It has all come up while we were gone.”

“Don’t worry,” said Will.  “I’ll row you across.”

“I hope you wont row us anywhere else, I’m sure.”

“Don’t worry,” again remarked the young apothecary, and in a very confident tone.

“Let me pint you first right for Peleg Wherren’s fish-house, for there’s a good landin’ place at his wharf,” said Aunt Stanshy.

Standing on the pebbly shore, she bowed to the level of the boat’s rail, and then aimed her as if an enemy directing a columbiad at Peleg’s fish-flakes, eel-pots, and other articles, promising to let a cold shot drop in their midst.

“There, I’ve pinted her; now go right across.”

“All right,” sang out Will, cheerfully.

Like a great, gray, woolly blanket, the fog rested on the river, and Seamont was as effectually hid as if fifty miles away.

“Look—­out!” screamed Aunt Stanshy.  Something big was now looming up directly before the bow of the boys’ boat.

“Don’t run that ship down,” said the president.

“I wont,” replied the apothecary, “if they’ll get out of the way.”

“Ship ahoy!” he shouted.

“Aye, aye!” came from the vessel.

“What ship is that, and how many days out?”

“The Dolphin, and one day out from—­”

The remaining words were lost.

“This is the ‘Magnificent,’ ten minutes out from t’other side of the river!” shouted Will.

The coaster disappeared as if smothered under the gray woolly blanket that had settled down on every thing.

“Why don’t we come to the wharf?” inquired Pip.

“Because we haven’t got there.”

Will’s reason was received with laughter, but Pip persisted in his questioning.  “What if we thouldn’t get there at all?”

“O we will.”

Gov.  Grimes and Wort had been very anxious to pull an oar, and Will gratified them.  But the governor could not row.  Will had urged him to stop.  The governor’s resoluteness sometimes ran into obstinacy, and it did now.