"I think we'll see Mr. Staffer and tell him what we know. It's possible he'll fight, but that's no' what I would expect. I'm most concerned about Dick's attitude. We canno' do much if he's against us."
"Dick has been rather a puzzle lately. I'll be away for a few days, but we'll interview Staffer as soon as I'm back."
Mackellar said that he expected to call at Appleyard shortly, and would make an appointment then; and Andrew and Whitney drove back to the yacht. Getting under way at once, they sailed down-channel with the last of the ebb between wastes of drying sand; and dusk found them slowly forging out to sea against the incoming flood. They met Rankine where he had arranged, and, carrying out his instructions, sailed east again. One evening late they landed from the dinghy at the mouth of the buoyed gutter. It was near low-water and the tide had run far out. Fine rain was falling and it was very dark, but as they waded ashore through the fringe of splashing ripples, an indistinct figure appeared at the edge of the bank.
"Is that you, Jock?" Andrew called; and Marshall came up.
"I startit when yere letter came and Mistress Wilson at the wee shop in the clachan has taen me in," he said.
"Na," said Marshall; "I pit it in the fire."
"Then I suppose you understand what you are to do."
"I'm to try the net-fishing for flounders and keep my een open, though it's no' just the season the flatfish come up on the banks. They telt me, at the clachan, there were verra few to be had; but I allooed they couldna' be scarcer than Loch Ryan herring."
"He's got it right," Whitney laughed. "Come along and take your net. You'll have to carry it up the bank; the dinghy's loaded deep and the tide's still running out."
When they had dragged the net ashore, Marshall lighted a lantern and examined it carefully. Whitney, picking up the light, turned it on the fisherman's wrinkled face and was not surprised to see a twinkle in his eyes.
"It's gran' gear, but maybe, a bit heavy for flounders. I wouldna' say but the heid-rope would haud a shark."
"It's better to be on the safe side," Whitney said with a laugh. "When you set a net you can't tell what you're going to catch. That's why we brought you some iron pipes for the posts. Now you'd better show us where you want the net put up."