Here
were rusty chains and wooden figure-heads of broken-
nosed, blind maidens and tailless dolphins. Here
were twisted iron rods, fish-baskets, broken lobster-
pots, rotting seines and tangled, useless nets--some
used as coverings for coops of restless chickens--old
worn-out rope, tangled rigging--everything that a
fisherman who had spent his life on Barnegat beach
could pull from the surf or find stranded on the
sand.
Besides all these priceless treasures, there was an
old boat lying afloat in a small lagoon back of the
house, one of those seepage pools common to the
coast--a boat which Fogarty had patched with a bit
of sail-cloth, and for which he had made two pairs
of oars, one for each of the "crew," as he called the
lads, and which Archie learned to handle with such
dexterity that the old fisherman declared he would
make a first-class boatman when he grew up, and
would "shame the whole bunch of 'em."
But these two valiant buccaneers were not to remain
in undisturbed possession of the Bandit's Home
with its bewildering fittings and enchanting possibilities
--not for long. The secret of the uses to
which the stranded craft bad been put, and the
attendant fun which Commodore Tod and his dauntless
henchman, Archibald Cobden, Esquire, were
daily getting out of its battered timbers, had already
become public property.
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