No one on the “Hoppergrass” was as much interested in this as the Captain and I. So while we talked with the boy, Ed Mason and Jimmy Toppan walked up town to get some supplies, while Mr. Daddles—­or Billy Hendricks, rather—­and the two Kidds went to see Mr. Kidd at his office.  We had invited all three of them to come with us and finish the week on the “Hoppergrass.”  We felt that they belonged on the boat now, and that the voyage was really just beginning.

In an hour they were all back once more.  The Kidds had been to their house for some clothes.  They were allowed to go with us on condition that we sail over to Big Duck Island as soon as we could, to prove to the others of their family that they were still alive and above water.

“And that’ll be all right,” said the Captain, “for we were bound for Big Duck in the fust place...  Cast off the line, Ed, and Jimmy, I guess you can take her now.  It’s half-past six and I’m going below, and see if I’ve forgotten how to cook flap-jacks.”

Fifteen minutes later we were out of the river and crossing the Bay once more,—­this time toward Big Duck Island.  A pleasing smell of flap-jacks began to come up from below.

“There has been more doing in these three days,” said Ed Mason, “than usually happens in a month,”

“But the voyage has been tame and uneventful,” said Mr. Daddles, “compared with one my uncle made in these very parts, three years ago.”

“What happened to him?”

“Why, he was one of the sixty-seven sole survivors of the famous wreck of the ’Hot Cross Bun’.”

“Where was she wrecked?” asked Jimmy.

“On Pelican Point.”

“How many were drowned?”

“No one was drowned.  That was the trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yes.  They all got to hating each other so, and the food worried ’em so much, that they used to wade out in batches every morning and try to drown themselves.  It was the food mostly.  You see the ‘Hot Cross Bun’ was an excursion steamer,—­like that one we just saw at the wharf.  She wasn’t on an excursion this time, however,—­ she was making a regular trip between one of the islands in this Bay and the mainland.  That’s the charm of Broad Bay,—­there are so many islands and towns that almost anything can happen.

“Well, this steamboat had on board a miscellaneous lot of passengers, including a bird-study club, a fife and drum corps, and two scissors-grinders.  It wasn’t until the boat was wrecked in a thick fog, and they tried to exist on Pelican Point for four days,—­foggy all the time—­that they found out what it was going to be like.  The Point is cut off from the mainland in bad weather, you know.  Well, they examined the food supply of the ’Hot Cross Bun’ and they found that it consisted of thirty-seven dozen sticks of pineapple chewing gum, four quarts of peanuts, (these went the very first day), eight pounds of half-petrified Turkish Delight, six boxes of all-day-suckers, and about thirty thousand chocolate mice.