Dog-Days began about the 20th of July. Before that the dwellers in Camp
Spurling had experienced occasional spells of fog, but nothing very
dense or long-continued. Now they got a taste of the real thing. They
were dressing fish on the _Barracouta_ one afternoon when a cold wind
struck from the southeast.
Spurling held up his hand.
"We're in for it!" said he. "Feel that? Right off the Banks! In less
than an hour we'll need a compass to get ashore in the dory."
He was so nearly right that there was no fun in it. The wind hauled more
to the east, and in its wake came driving a gray, impenetrable wall. The
ocean vanished. The points on each side of the cove were swallowed up.
Quickly disappeared the cove itself, the beach, the camp and fish-house,
and the bank beyond them. The sloop was blanketed close in heavy mist.
Jim made a pretense of scooping a handful out of the air and shaping it
like a snowball.
"Here you go, Budge!" he exclaimed. "Straight to third! Put it on him!
Fresh from the factory in the Bay of Fundy! If this holds on until
midnight, we won't be able to see outside our eyelids when we start
trawling; there's no moon."
"Will you go, if it's thick as it is now?" inquired Lane.
"Sure! Here's where the compass comes in. If we stayed ashore for every
little fog-mull, we wouldn't catch many hake the next six weeks. This
isn't a circumstance to what it is sometimes. I've known it to hang on
for two weeks at a stretch. Ever hear the story of the Penobscot Bay
captain who started out on a voyage round the world? Just as he got
outside of Matinicus Rock he shaved the edge of a fog-bank, straight up
and down as a wall. He pulled out his jack-knife and pushed it into the
fog, clean to the handle. When he came back, two and a half years later,
there was his knife, sticking in the same spot. He tried to pull it out,
but the blade was so badly rusted that it broke, and he had to leave
half of it stuck in the hole."
"Must have had some fog in those days!" was Lane's comment. "Did you say
this all comes from the Bay of Fundy?"
"Not all of it. Fog both blows and makes up on the spot. Sometimes it
rises out of the water like steam. I've heard my uncle say that Georges
Bank makes it as a mill makes meal. It's worst in August. Then the smoke
from shore fires mingles with it; and the wind from the land blowing
off, and that from the sea blowing in, keep it hazy along the coast all
summer."
Jim's predictions proved correct, as they generally did. While there
were occasional stretches of fine weather during the next few weeks, the
fog either hovered on the horizon or lurked not far below it, ready to
bury the island at the slightest provocation in the way of an east or
southeast wind. Despite its presence, the routine of trawling and
lobstering went on as usual. Every Friday came the regular trip to
Matinicus to dispose of the salted fish and procure groceries, gasolene,
and salt, as well as newspapers and mail.
On each of these visits Percy always weighed himself on the scales at
the general store. Beginning at one hundred and thirty-five, he climbed
steadily, pound by pound, toward one hundred and fifty. An active,
out-of-door life, combined with regular hours and a simple, wholesome
diet, together with the exclusion of cigarettes, resulted inevitably in
increasing weight and strength. At the close of each afternoon he
climbed the bluff with his sweater stuffed with rockweed. The others
joked him considerably about these mysterious trips, but failed to
extract any information from him regarding them. When he chose, Percy
could be as close-mouthed as his father.
At about this time a letter from the millionaire reached his son through
the Matinicus office. It bore the postmark of San Francisco, and ran as
follows:
DEAR PERCY,--Stick to it.
Affectionately,