rows very well, and he pulled both the oars while I bailed with an
old tin can that I found under the stern thwart. The boat didn't
leak badly enough to worry about, but I thought it might be just as
well to keep it bailed. We talked in a very nautical way, though
Jerry kept forgetting he was Terry Loganshaw and mixing up "Treasure
Island" and Captain Moss. But I didn't feel so much like being Chris
Hole, anyway, even to please the boys, and I didn't say much.

The Sea Monster was much further away than you might suppose. When
there was ever so much smooth, swelling water between us and
Wecanicut, the Monster's head still seemed almost as far away as
before. Somehow the water looked very deep, although you couldn't
see down into it, and it humped itself under the boat.




CHAPTER VIII


Presently Wecanicut began to drop further away, and then the Sea
Monster loomed up suddenly right over us, and Jerry had to fend the
boat off with an oar. We had never guessed how big the thing really
was,--not big at all for an island, but very large for a bare,
off-shore rock. I should say that it was just about the bigness of
an ordinary house, and very black and beetling, with not a spear of
grass or anything on it. When Jerry said, "My stars, _what_ a weird
place!" his voice went booming and rumbling in among the rocks, and
a lot of gulls flew up suddenly, flapping and shrieking. He held the
boat up against the edge of a rock while Greg and I got out. We took