Peter Cotterell's Treasure
by Rupert Sargent Holland · English · Gutenberg #43670 · 330,841 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Peter Cotterell's Treasure
Author: Rupert Sargent Holland
Illustrator: Will Thomson
Release date: September 8, 2013 [eBook #43670]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43670
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER COTTERELL'S TREASURE ***
Produced by Roger Frank and Sue Clark
PETER COTTERELL’S TREASURE
[Illustration: John Tuckerman sat down carefully, “Now, Captain Hallett,
give your orders.”]
PETER COTTERELL’S TREASURE
BY
RUPERT SARGENT HOLLAND
Author of “The Boy Scouts of Birch-Bark Island,”
“The Blue Heron’s Feather,” etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WILL THOMSON
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
Table of Contents
I—JOHN TUCKERMAN COMES TO BARMOUTH
II—COTTERELL'S ISLAND
III—BEN AND DAVID MAKE A DISCOVERY
IV—VISITORS
V—THE MAHOGANY MAN
VI—THE CLIPPER SHIP
VII—THE TIGERS PLAY CAMP AMOUSSOCK
VIII—THE CANOE
IX—THE CHEST IN THE ROCKS
X—LIGHTS ON THE ISLAND
XI—THE MAN IN GREEN
XII—THE ADVENTURE AT THE COVE
XIII—ON THE FISHING-SMACK
XIV—BEN AT THE GABLES
XV—VARIOUS CLUES
XVI—THE CAMPERS CALL AT BARMOUTH
XVII—PETER COTTERELL
XVIII—THE PIRATES ASHORE
XIX—THE COTTERELL SILVER PLATE
XX—SIR PETER'S PARTY
XXI—THE BOYS AND JOHN TUCKERMAN
Illustrations
John Tuckerman sat down carefully, “Now, Captain Hallett, give
your orders.”
In the marshy ground in front of them were two distinct footprints.
“Sampson put the chest there,” he concluded.
“My wardrobe is still upstairs. Make what use of it you please.”
I—JOHN TUCKERMAN COMES TO BARMOUTH
Tom Hallett lived in an old town on the Atlantic seaboard, a port of New
Hampshire that was wedged in between the rocky coast of Maine and the
sandy beaches of Massachusetts. If he crossed the broad river to the
north, the beautiful Pesumpscot, by the old toll-bridge that seemed as
ancient as the town itself, he came into the Pine Tree State. If he
sailed to the south, he had not far to go before he reached Cape Ann.
Back of him, to the west, lay the foothills of the White Mountains, and
he had often tramped far enough in that direction to see the noble
outline of Mount Washington rise grandly against the sky. In front—for
people who live along the seacoast always think of the ocean as being at
their front door—was the harbor of Barmouth, a wide semi-circle, its
two horns sticking way out to the east, its broad bosom dotted with many
islands. Once Barmouth town had sent many ships to sea, merchantmen to
the West Indies, around Cape Horn, to the fabled lands of India and
China, fishing fleets to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, whalers to
the Arctic; now, however, ships were not so plentiful, sails had given
place to steam, and the young men stayed ashore to make their living
rather than seek the rigors and gales that were a part of the toll
exacted by Father Neptune.
Tom Hallett’s house had the cupola on top of its roof that told of the
old sailing days, the “widow’s watch,” as it was commonly called, for
from there the wives of sailors used to watch for the first sign of
homebound sails. His grandfather had been a sea-captain, and the house
was full of the treasures he had collected. Many a time Tom and his
older sister Milly had listened to the amazing yarns the weatherbeaten
mariner had spun by the winter fire.
Barmouth was an excellent place for a boy to live. There was plenty of
lawn around most of the houses, the streets were wide and well-shaded,
open country was near enough to be reached by a ten-minute walk. There
was coasting and skating in winter—all that one could wish—and the
ponds that rang with the music of steel runners in January were
swimming-holes in July and tempting places to fish. And there was always
the harbor and the wind from the sea, calling young sailors to launch
their dories and try their skill over the rippling waves.
Tom was sixteen that summer, and wanted something to do—something a
little different from his usual holiday jaunts. He told his father about
it, and his father said he would think the matter over. And then one
evening, as Tom was leaning on the garden gate, wishing that some
adventure would come his way, he found himself addressed by a stranger.
“Do you know of a young fellow out of a job?” said the stranger. “A
likely young fellow, who doesn’t mind roughing it?”
Tom regarded the man. The latter was tall and spare, and wore big,
horn-rimmed spectacles that gave him the look of a wise and thoughtful
owl.
“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t,” Tom answered, copying the cautious
words and tone of voice that he had often heard his uncle Samuel Jordan,
who was a lawyer, use when he was asked questions.
“You’re Yankee through and through, aren’t you?” said the man. “You
don’t want to commit yourself to anything definite until you know all
the facts. I don’t suppose I could interest you in buying a calico horse
until you’d got out a pail of water and soap and a scrubbing brush to
see if the spots would wash off.”
Tom laughed; the stranger looked so extremely solemn in his big glasses,
and yet his tone indicated a joke. “Even if the spots didn’t wash off
I’m not sure you could interest me in that horse,” he retorted. “I don’t
see how I could use him just now.”
“Well, he’s not for sale, my friend. I need him out on the old farm in
Illinois, where I come from.” The man stroked his chin while he regarded
Tom reflectively. “I’m looking for a young and able seaman, for to tell
you the truth, I don’t know much about salt water. I provide the grub
and the boat and whatever else is needed, and the sailorman provides the
lore of the sea.”
Tom’s interest was aroused. If this stranger really wanted a sailor to
help him with a boat it seemed odd that he should be seeking information
from a young fellow lounging on a gate in one of the quiet, elm-shaded
streets of Barmouth. It would have been much more natural to look for
such information along the waterfront, at some of the docks or piers.
“Why don’t you hunt up one of the captains?” Tom suggested. “They might
know just the man for you.”
“I don’t want a man,” was the answer. “I want a likely young fellow,
someone about your age and general cut of jib—that’s the right
seafaring expression, isn’t it? I’ve got an adventure on hand, and I
want company. I wouldn’t mind two, or even three, young fellows, if they
were the right kind.”
An adventure! Tom pricked up his ears. The man was certainly
interesting, he would like to know more about him. “Where are you going
to sail, and how long would you be away?” he questioned.
“My cruise will probably be limited to the islands in Barmouth Harbor,
and we’d be away anywhere from a week to a month.”
“Well,” began Tom, “I don’t know——”
“Neither do I,” said the stranger, with a grin. “There are a number of
things I don’t know about this adventure. But then the main point about
an adventure is that we can’t tell everything about it in advance. Isn’t
that so?”
“I suppose it is,” Tom granted. And after a moment’s thought he added,
“I know my way round the harbor pretty well, and I can sail a dory, and
I’ve got a couple of friends——”
“Fine!” declared the man. “Do you know, it may seem odd to you, but as I
came along the street and my eyes lighted on you, I said to myself,
‘that’s precisely the type of messmate I’m looking for; an upstanding
fellow, with a good head on his shoulders.’”
Naturally Tom felt pleased. He straightened up and stuck his hands in
his pockets. “The only thing I don’t understand,” he said, “is how you
expect to find a real adventure in the harbor. Of course we could cruise
around, and fish and swim. Is that what you had in mind?”
“Did you ever hear of Cotterell’s Island?” The stranger lowered his
voice.
Tom nodded. “Of course I have. We call it Crusty Christopher’s Island
around here.”
“Have you ever been on it?”
“No,” Tom was forced to admit. “The man who lives there won’t let any
one land. He’s put up signs warning people off and he keeps watch-dogs.”
“The island belongs to me,” announced the stranger, “and I’m going to
camp out on it.”
Tom stared at the man in surprise. “But surely you’re not Crusty
Christopher!” he exclaimed. “I always heard he was old and had a white
beard.”
“Mr. Christopher Cotterell,” explained the stranger, “was my uncle;
though as a matter of fact I only saw him once, when I was a small boy.
He died last year and I have inherited his island and the house on it.
The house has a history. I’m very much interested in old houses, and
particularly in this one. My name is John Tuckerman.”
“Well,” said Tom, “that’s interesting, to be sure. I hope you don’t
think I meant to call your uncle names.”
“Oh no, you didn’t offend me,” said the man promptly. “I’ve heard him
called Crusty Christopher before, and I shouldn’t wonder if he deserved
the nickname. There have been a number of queer characters in the
Cotterell family; there was old Sir Peter Cotterell, for instance, who
built that house on the island and lived there during the Revolution.”
“Sir Peter?” queried Tom. “I don’t seem to remember him.”
“He wasn’t really Sir Peter,” Mr. Tuckerman explained. “He was only
plain Mr. Peter, like his neighbors in Barmouth. But he had the bad
taste to side with the King of England when the colonists objected to
paying taxes without being represented in the government—in other
words, he was what they called a Tory—and so the people nicknamed him
Sir Peter in joke. There are lots of stories I could tell you about him.
I’m very much interested in history, you see.”
Tom nodded. The more he listened to this Mr. John Tuckerman the more he
liked him. And yet simply to camp out on an island in the harbor, even
on Cotterell’s Island, where he had never set his foot—though he had
often wanted to—didn’t strike him as a very thrilling adventure.
Perhaps Mr. Tuckerman read his thought, for, lowering his voice again,
he said, “There’s a mystery connected with the place; I’ve found
references to it in some old family letters. And the house is full of
old furniture and bric-a-brac. I can hardly wait to explore it.”
The man’s tone was undoubtedly eager, and though Tom had never felt any
great interest in old furniture and such things he found his curiosity
rapidly rising. An island and a house to explore—Crusty Christopher’s
at that—and possibly a mystery. He might be making a great mistake if
he let this adventure escape.
Mr. Tuckerman was speaking again. “I might as well explain at once that
I’m a dreadful landlubber. I don’t know anything about sailing boats,
and not very much about fishing. I’m afraid my education has been very
much neglected along certain lines. I want to camp on that island, and I
want company. Do you know how to cook—to cook the sort of things
campers eat, I mean?”
“I can cook some things. But my friend David Norton can cook almost
anything. He’s one of the fellows I meant.”
“It would be splendid if we could get David, too. I’d take along plenty
of provisions, but one does get tired of living on canned things.”
“Ben Sully’s a corking fisherman,” said Tom. “Ben and David and I have
camped out a lot together.”
“I’d like to keep the expedition as quiet as I can,” Mr. Tuckerman
stated. “I don’t want a lot of curiosity-seekers poking round the
island.”
“I think you’re right,” agreed Tom. “I’ll swear both of them to secrecy;
except to their families, of course. You wouldn’t mind our telling our
parents?”
To that John Tuckerman agreed. “This is just what I hoped to find,” he
said, “some young fellows with the spirit of adventure. You know the
ropes, and I don’t. Let’s see; what’s your name?”
Tom told him. “Wouldn’t you like to come in and see my father?” he
suggested.
“I must be getting back to the hotel,” said Tuckerman. “You tell him my
name, and say I’m Mr. Cotterell’s nephew. You sign up to go, do you? And
you’ll try to get your two messmates? I’ll see to the boat and grub and
cooking outfit—and I think I can promise you a bit of adventure.”
“If Father says yes, I sign,” agreed Tom, smiling at the man’s air of
business. “And the more adventure there is, the better I’ll like it,
too. Things are sort of quiet here this summer.”
Tuckerman held out his hand. He had a formal manner about him that
amused Tom greatly. “See you at Lowe’s Wharf at two o’clock tomorrow
afternoon.”
“Right,” said Tom, shaking hands. “And I’ll have the other two fellows
there with me. They’ve always wanted to have a look at that island.”
The tall, lank man turned, and shortly disappeared behind the big clump
of lilac bushes at the corner of Wentworth Street. Tom, thoughtfully
jingling a bunch of keys in his trouser pocket, chuckled as he
considered the situation. In fifteen minutes this Mr. John Tuckerman, a
total stranger, had persuaded him to camp out for a fortnight or so on
Crusty Christopher’s island. Tom could well believe that Mr. Tuckerman
needed some companions who were used to the water and campcraft; he
looked as if he might be a Professor and more knowing about history and
such things than about how to reef a sail or hook a flounder.
Still grinning at this unusual happening, Tom went into the house, where
in the sitting-room his father was reading, his mother sewing, and his
sister Milly trimming a new straw hat. “I’m going camping on Cotterell’s
Island,” he declared. “It’s a sort of a secret, so you must all promise
not to tell.”
Milly looked up quickly. “On Cotterell’s Island? If you step ashore
there, somebody’ll pitch you off.”
“Oh no, they won’t. I’m going with the owner.”
Milly wrinkled her nose, as she did when she felt scornful. “I suppose
that pleasant old man has sent you an invitation. ‘Dear Mr. Thomas
Hallett, I should be _so_ delighted if you’d drop in on me.’” And Milly
tilted the straw hat on her hand so as to judge the effect of the ribbon
around the brim.
Tom walked across to the fireplace, where he stood with his back to the
hearth, as his father often did when he had an announcement to make.
“Mr. Christopher Cotterell is dead,” he said. “I received my invitation
from his nephew, Mr. John Tuckerman.”
Milly turned around, surprised. “What are you springing on us? Where did
you meet this man?”
“Down at the gate to-night,” said Tom calmly. “He wanted a likely young
fellow to help him explore the house and the island he’s inherited, and
naturally he came to me.”
“Yes, what Tom says is quite true,” declared Mr. Hallett. “Mr. Tuckerman
is the new owner. So he asked you to help him, did he?”
“He called himself a landlubber. I’ve an idea too that he doesn’t want
to stay on the island alone. I’m to get Ben and David, and we’re to sail
his boat for him and fish and cook and keep him company.”
“Humph!” sniffed Milly. “That doesn’t sound very exciting. You’re to do
the work while he loafs around.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. He hinted that we might find something
very interesting. He called it an adventure. And he let slip something
about a mystery.”
Milly put the hat down. She herself was very fond of camping and sailing
and swimming, and although she pretended to be quite grown up she still
yearned at times for her old tomboy ways. “I suppose he isn’t going to
be like Old Crusty—I mean Mr. Christopher Cotterell? He won’t mind
people coming out to see that queer old house.”
“That’s just what he does mind,” said Tom. “He wants to keep the whole
thing dark, for the present, at least. Why, if he didn’t, all Barmouth
would be going out there. Most of them never got nearer the place than
to read the signs; and they’d all be crazy to go.”
“Well, it seems to me,” argued Milly, “if he’s going to explore the
house he ought to have someone out there who knows something about
furnishings. I daresay there’s lots of old silver and curtains and rugs
and maybe chests of fine linen. Now of course a woman—well, it’s only
natural that a woman—you know what I mean, a woman could help a great
deal in sorting such things out.”
“When you say a woman,” inquired Tom, “do you happen to be thinking of
Miss Milly Hallett?”
Milly, in spite of her tan, flushed a fiery red. “You know perfectly
well, Tom, that you’ve always said I was a great help on a camping
party.”
“So you are, Milly,” Tom admitted loyally. “You cook better even than
Dave does. But Mr. Tuckerman didn’t say anything about bringing a girl
along. I’m afraid he’d think that wouldn’t be business-like.”
“Tom’s right, Milly dear,” said Mrs. Hallett. “This is Mr. Tuckerman’s
affair, and it wouldn’t be right to offer him any suggestions. But
perhaps, while they’re out on the island, he wouldn’t mind if some day
we went over to look at the house. When do you start, Tom?”
“To-morrow at two—that is, if father says it’s all right.”
“Oh, you’re going to ask my consent, are you?” said Mr. Hallett, with a
smile. “Well, if Mr. Tuckerman is such a landlubber as he appears to be,
I think it’s only right you should give him your help. I don’t see how,
with Ben and David and you, he can possibly get into hot water.”
“He can’t,” agreed Milly, picking up the hat again and pretending to
shiver. “The water isn’t even warm around the islands in the harbor.
However, I don’t suppose this Mr. Tuckerman is apt to care much for
swimming.” And as she went on twirling the hat in her hands and puffing
out the big blue bow, she hummed a little tune to indicate that she was
much more interested in her millinery than in Tom’s prospective
adventure.
Tom walked down the street to the small, pitched-roof house—a white
house with green shutters and door, and tall pink and red hollyhocks
standing up against the sides—where Benjamin Sully lived. As luck would
have it, David Norton was sitting with Ben on the doorstep. “Hello!”
cried Tom. “I’m looking for a couple of able-bodied seamen.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Ben. “What port are you bound for—the Barbary
Coast or Barbadoes or round the Cape of Good Hope?”
Ben was a small, dark boy, agile as a monkey. When he was with David
Norton he looked smaller and darker than ever, for David was big of
frame and his sandy hair topped a cheerful, freckled face. These two and
Tom Hallett were about of an age, and had always shared each other’s
secrets.
“Cotterell’s Island, lads. A place where the foot of a white man has
never set heel before.” And standing in front of his two friends, Tom
related John Tuckerman’s proposal.
When he had finished, Ben nodded. “The plan sounds good to me. I’ve
always meant to have a look at that island. As I’ve sized it up, Crusty
Christopher wouldn’t have been so concerned to keep people away if he
hadn’t had something he wanted to keep secret.”
“I don’t know about that,” said David. “Some people are made that way;
they just naturally don’t want other folks around. Maybe the place is
just like any other island.”
“Well, I’m going anyhow,” declared Tom. “I guess I can look after Mr.
Tuckerman all right by myself. But I didn’t want to seem mean and leave
you two out.”
Ben jumped up. “I’m going, all right. I’d hate to think of you and that
ignorant fellow out there all by yourselves. Count me in on this, Tom.”
“I guess your friend wouldn’t get much good cooking,” said David,
“without me to superintend.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” retorted Tom. “He’s going to take plenty
of good stuff.”
“Canned!” snorted David. “I know—hardtack and beans out of a tin. No,
siree. You’d be squabbling inside of two days if you didn’t have me and
some of my famous flapjacks to keep you pleasant.”
“Nice, modest David,” said Ben, stroking his big friend’s arm. “However,
though he doesn’t think very well of himself, I vote that we let him
come along. Maybe he’ll be useful.”
“You bet I’ll come,” announced the tow-headed one. “Do you think I’d let
you two and a queer man go prowling around a mysterious island without
your Uncle David? I’ll be there when the boat sails, with my pet
frying-pan!”
II—COTTERELL’S ISLAND
Early the next afternoon the few occupants of Lowe’s Wharf—a couple of
men fishing for cunners, a sailor painting the bottom of an upturned
dory, two small boys practising tying various kinds of knots with odds
and ends of rope—saw three young fellows in dark blue jerseys and khaki
coats and trousers and a man rigged out in a homespun Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers and greenish-gray golf stockings assemble as if they were
about to start on an expedition.
Tom Hallett, slender but wiry, browned by the wind and the sun, dumped
his duffle-bag of blankets and extra clothing on the wharf and
introduced his companions. “Mr. Tuckerman, this is David Norton, and
this is Ben Sully. They’d both like to go along, if you still want three
of us.”
John Tuckerman shook hands with each. “I’m proud to have such a fine
looking crew,” said he. “Though perhaps I ought to put it the other way
about and say three such fine looking captains, I myself being the crew.
It doesn’t need more than a glance to tell me that you three know all
about the sea and the woods. Great luck, I call it. And if I’m not
mistaken there’s our ship, waiting for us Argonauts to go aboard.”
At one side of the wharf, a man was holding the painter of an
eighteen-foot sailing dory, already loaded with provisions and John
Tuckerman’s bags. The three boys quickly had their own things stowed
away. “All right, Mr. Jackson,” said Tuckerman to the man from whom he
had rented the boat. “You see I’ve shipped a good crew. You needn’t lie
awake nights wondering what’s happened to your _Argo_.”
The owner grinned. “I know ’em. I’ll trust ’em with the boat. But her
name’s the _Mary J. Jackson_. See, it’s painted there in the bow.”
“So it is. _Mary J. Jackson_. That’s a very nice name; but somehow it
doesn’t seem exactly to suit this business. We’re after the Golden
Fleece, like the Argonauts of old; so if you don’t mind I’m going to
christen her for this trip the _Argo_. Just a little fancy of mine.”
“Suit yerself, sir. She’s a good boat, no matter what you call her.”
“Many thanks, Mr. Jackson.” John Tuckerman sat down carefully. “Now,
Captain Hallett, give your orders.”
The dory slid away, the experienced hand of Tom in charge of the tiller.
Out into the harbor she sped, picking up the breeze as she danced along.
The afternoon sun was pleasantly warm, the water was translucent blue,
with here and there wide sweeps of green, on the shore every house and
tree stood out in vivid, fresh-tinted color. Tuckerman folded his arms
and leaned back in great contentment. “This is something like, my lads!”
he exclaimed. “My voyages heretofore have only been made on ocean
grayhounds and fat-bodied ferry-boats.”
Ben looked at him pityingly. “It must be pretty hard,” he said, “to live
inland, in a big city.”
“Yes, in some ways, though it has its compensations. You see, my
ancestors grew restless in New England and moved out across the plains.
That is, the Tuckermans did; the Cotterells stayed here. And now there
aren’t any Cotterells left. That’s how it came about that I own this
island.”
“My father,” spoke up David, “says that the Cotterells were once one of
the best known families in Barmouth; but that old Mr. Christopher was as
queer as all get out. He knows lots of stories about him. He says that
Mr. Christopher lived there with a colored man for his servant, and
never saw anybody.”
“Poor old chap!” said Tuckerman. “I can’t help feeling dreadfully sorry
for him. Think what a good time he could have had in his big house. Why,
in the old days it was one of the show places along the coast and the
Cotterells used to have celebrated parties.” Tuckerman gazed out over
the water and pulled his chin with his fingers, in a habit he had. “Do
you know what I want to do? I want to take that old house and fix it up
properly, make it look as it used to, and give it back its good name.”
He smiled. “Maybe you’ll think it odd, but I feel as if houses were
almost like people. I hate to see either the one or the other go to
seed.”
“They are something like people,” Ben agreed. “There’s a church with a
steeple in Barmouth that looks just like the pictures of the Pilgrim
Fathers with their high-crowned hats. And the windows in front look like
eyes, kind of boring eyes that are trying to see right through you.”
“Ben’s always thinking of queer things like that,” David explained, half
in apology.
Mr. Tuckerman nodded at the small, dark-browed boy. “I’m glad that Ben
came along. I think he’s going to be a great help in fixing up my
house.”
In and out between islands, past long jutting ledges, where pine and
juniper ran down to the water’s edge, the dory sailed smoothly.
Sometimes Tom had to tack; again he ran for a stretch on a course due
south. And after about an hour he raised his arm and pointed. “There—on
the port bow—there she lies. See that white, sandy beach. That’s
Cotterell’s Island.”
Ben and David were familiar with the look of the place of course; they
had cruised around it many times, and had always examined it with
particular interest because it was a forbidden shore; but now they gazed
at it as though it were somehow entirely new, as indeed it was to them,
except for the beach and trees.
John Tuckerman nodded. “I’ll take your word for it, Tom. It lies exactly
where it should according to the map of the harbor; though I can’t say
that it looks very much like the small red dot on the chart Mr. Jackson
showed me at his boathouse.”
There was not much to be seen except the whitish-yellow beach, several
headlands of purple rock, and thick-growing pines that stood out
black-green. There was, however, considerable to be heard as the sailing
dory drew near. An immense cawing came from the tree-tops, and finally
as the _Argo_ nosed along close to the shore at least a score of crows
flapped away from their meeting-place and went winging off to a more
secluded grove.
“Uncle Christopher’s neighbors don’t seem to like visitors any better
than he did,” observed Tuckerman with twinkling eyes. “Crows do sound
dreadfully scolding, don’t they? And I never knew such birds for all
wanting to talk at the same time.”
Tom knew where the old pier stood, and brought his boat skilfully up to
the landing-stage. The sail was dropped and furled, baggage and stores
carried ashore, and the four campers looked about them. From the old and
rather decrepit pier a graveled path led up to the front of a wide white
house, partially screened by trees.
“Cotterell Hall,” said Tuckerman, gazing at the ancient mansion. “That’s
what they used to call it in Revolutionary days. Well, Tom, it’s up to
you to tell us what to do. The house won’t run away, and something tells
me it won’t be so very long before we’ll be hungry.”
“Suppose we look for our camping ground then,” said Tom, “since it seems
to be understood that we’re not going to bunk in the house.”
“That’s the idea,” agreed Tuckerman promptly. “Fond as I am of ancestral
halls and that sort of thing, I said to myself when I left the
Middle-West for the New England coast: ‘John, you’re to sleep out of
doors on a bed of pine boughs, even if the bugs do fall from the trees
on your face and the boughs stick you as full of needles as a porcupine.
You’re going back to the wild, that’s what you are!’”
His eyes behind his huge tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles looked so
intensely serious that the three boys didn’t know whether to laugh or
not. For all his dignified appearance he did seem extraordinarily
guileless. David, the most outspoken of the three, shook his head
solemnly. “This isn’t going to be what you’d call so all-fired wild, you
know. If you’re looking for that, you ought to go up in the North
Woods.”
Ben came to the rescue. “It’ll do as a starter though, Mr. Tuckerman,”
he said encouragingly. “We can’t promise you bears or anything like
that, but maybe there’ll be owls and loons and other things that sound
sort of strange at night.”
Tuckerman smiled. “Ben, I can see you’re a friendly soul. And you must
remember that what may not seem very wild to experienced woodsmen like
you three may prove very thrilling to a tenderfoot like me.”
They decided on their camp readily; a smooth stretch of turf in a
semi-circle of pines on high ground just above a small sandy beach. It
was perhaps a quarter of a mile from the pier and from Cotterell Hall.
Pine boughs were cut, trimmed, and spread out for bedding, stores were
unpacked, driftwood collected for a fire, and the menu determined on for
supper.
Tuckerman looked out at the water, a sheet of soft and beautiful
opalescent colors in the setting sun. “Is there any reason why we
shouldn’t take a bath?” he inquired. “I feel extremely sticky.”
“No reason whatever,” answered Tom. “The first rule of camp-life is,
Obey that impulse. There’s plenty of room in that bathtub, but you won’t
find much hot water.”
In five minutes they were all in the ocean, frisky as a school of
porpoises, making enough noise to scare any wildfowl away. The boys
struck out and swam, trying first one stroke and then another.
Tuckerman, however, came lumbering along, jerking his arms and legs like
an old and stiff-jointed frog. But he enjoyed himself. He was chuckling
and gurgling and slapping his thighs with his hands as they all came out
of the water.
“Tom, you must teach me to swim,” he begged. “I can see I’m not in your
class now, but give me a week or so——”
“Righto. I bet you’ll learn quick.”
In fifteen minutes they were ready for supper. Fried eggs and bacon,
grilled sweet potatoes, coffee, bread and butter, and then flapjacks
with jam. “I can see,” said Tuckerman, as he finished his third
flapjack, “that David’s reputation as a cook has not been exaggerated. I
always wondered what it meant when I read that the gods lived on
ambrosia and nectar. Now at last I know.”
“You’ll make his head swell,” cautioned Ben, “and it’s large enough
already. We took him to a phrenologist last winter, and the man said
he’d never felt such big bumps.”
The dishes were washed. The moon rose. Tuckerman lighted his pipe.
“Well,” said Ben, “aren’t we going to have a look at the old house? It
seems to me we ought.”
The house, when they approached it a little later in the moonlight—for
Ben’s suggestion had met with favor from the others—presented a blank
and shuttered white surface, against which the dark outline of the trees
around it showed in jagged forms. It had been a fine old dwelling, built
in a day when carpenters and joiners took a real love in their work and
were as eager to make a graceful, artistic window or doorway as the
medieval masons of Europe were to perfect every detail of their great
cathedrals.
Broad steps led up to the front door, which was wide and adorned with a
big brass knocker and knob. Tuckerman, taking a little electric
flashlight from his pocket, aimed it at the moulding above the door.
“Aha,” he exclaimed, “there’s the green and gold pineapple in all its
glory! They used to put beautifully carved pineapples like that in such
places in colonial days; they were the emblems of hospitality. My
ancestor Sir Peter seems to have been friendly disposed when he built
his dwelling at least.”
“I’ve seen pineapples like that over the doors of some old houses in
Barmouth,” said Ben, “but I never thought much about them. That was a
pretty nice idea. There’s some style to that front.”
“There was style, real dignified style to the houses of those days,”
Tuckerman agreed. “We may think we’re pretty smart nowadays, but let me
tell you those ancestors of ours who settled the country could teach us
a good deal.” He felt in his pocket for a key. “Well, the pineapple bids
us welcome. If there are any ghosts in the house, I think they’ll turn
out friendly.”
The lock was rusty, but finally opened to the new owner’s efforts. They
stepped into a large hallway, from which a wide stairway ascended at one
side. Using his flashlight, Tuckerman discovered a gatelegged table, on
which stood a cluster of small candlesticks, all ready for use.
“Now that’s something like—hospitality again!” he declared in a pleased
voice. “They used candles in the old days; every guest in the house had
one to light him to bed. I suppose these have been waiting for me here
ever since Uncle Christopher died.” Lighting the candles with a match,
he handed one to each of his companions. “I’m beginning to feel at home
already, boys. Welcome to Cotterell Hall.”
Even David, who could see nothing very thrilling in going over an old
house, felt something of the excitement that had so obviously taken
possession of John Tuckerman. As for Tom and Ben, they peered up the
stairway and through the open doors as if they half-expected to see
gentlemen in curled wigs, knee-breeches and small swords advancing to
meet them.
Tuckerman led the way into the room on the left, a spacious apartment,
wainscoted and with a pictured paper, representing scenes in fields and
woods, covering the walls to the ceiling. There was a large fireplace,
with a carved mantel above it. Fine old pieces of furniture filled the
room, and, except for the musty air that is to be found in all houses
that have been closed for some time, the place looked precisely as
though it were lived in, even to a pile of magazines and books that lay
on the centre-table.
“The drawing-room,” said Tuckerman, holding his candle high as he gazed
about him. “And there, if I’m not mistaken, is old Sir Peter himself.”
Ben gave a start and looked quickly around. But it was not a ghost to
which Tuckerman referred; it was a large painting that hung on the wall
across from the fireplace, the portrait of a man in buff-colored coat
and breeches, wearing a white tie-wig, and with his right hand resting
on the head of a greyhound that rubbed against his knees.
“Fine looking old fellow,” said Tom.
“Yes,” agreed Tuckerman. “Sir Peter was really handsome. I’ve seen
pictures of him before. He was a great beau in his time, before the
Revolution. What a shame it was that he couldn’t agree with his
neighbors about the right of the colonies to be free. That made it
mighty hard for his wife and children.”
He went over to look closer at the portrait, and as he held the candle
near to the canvas he saw a folded piece of paper stuck into a corner of
the heavy frame. “What’s this?” he exclaimed, and drew the paper out.
“You don’t suppose the old fellow has left me a message?”
The candle set on the table, Tuckerman opened the sheet. “This is an
authentic portrait of Peter Cotterell, painted in 1770,” he read aloud.
“He shared with me, his descendant, Christopher Cotterell, a dislike for
the society of his kind, though for a different reason. But with me the
line of the Cotterells comes to an end, and I care not whether any now
learn my ancestor’s secret or not.”
Tuckerman dropped the paper. “So there was a secret, boys! You remember,
Tom, what I told you. And Uncle Christopher knew what it was.”
“Hello!” exclaimed Ben. “My candle’s blown out!” He turned. “Why, that
window’s open a little at the bottom. See how the curtains blow.”
“Spooks,” scoffed David. “It looks to me as if Crusty Christopher were
playing a joke on us.”
III—BEN AND DAVID MAKE A DISCOVERY
Although David Norton could get around the bases on the Barmouth High
School baseball diamond as fast as anyone else, when there was need of
it, and could keep on doing a clog-dance in a Minstrel Show until the
audience rose up and begged him to quit, he could also at times be as
lazy as a jelly-fish stranded on the beach, which as everyone knows is
just about the laziest creature in nature. At the present moment he lay
extended on the stern seat of the sailing dory, while little Ben Sully,
as patient and expert a fisherman as was to be found in Barmouth Harbor,
was watching his line for any indication of a flounder nibble.
“Funny old bird,” said David. “Reminds me of someone out of a story
book.”
“Old bird?” queried Ben. “Do you refer to Sir Peter Cotterell or to
Crusty Christopher?”
“To neither of them, Benjie. Our friend Professor Tuckerman is the
particular feathered creature to whom I was alluding. I opened one eye
last night; and what do you think I saw? Professor Tuckerman was sitting
up, in his suit of flannel pajamas, staring out at the water as if he
saw something.”
“Perhaps he did. Or maybe he was only thinking. Some people do think
sometimes, you know, Dave. I did some thinking myself last night.”
“About old Christopher’s secret?”
At the moment Ben was too busy to reply. With practised care he drew up
his line and threw a fine, flapping flounder on the bottom of the boat.
“Yes, about the secret,” Ben said, as he rebaited his hook. “I believe
there is one. And I think that Christopher Cotterell rather hoped his
nephew John Tuckerman would find out what it was.”
“Why didn’t he tell him then, instead of leaving that crazy note?”
Ben shook his head. “Christopher wasn’t like most people. But it seems
to me he was rather proud of that secret,—it had been in the family so
long,—and he didn’t want it to be entirely forgotten. So he meant to
let it be known there was a secret, even if nobody ever found out what
it was. A person might do that, you know.”
“It would take a mighty queer sort of person,” sniffed David.
Ben resumed his fishing, watching his line as a cat watches a
mouse-hole.
But David, in spite of posing as an unbeliever of all things he couldn’t
see for himself, had a well-developed bump of curiosity. When he saw
that Ben didn’t mean to continue the subject he raised himself on one
arm and demanded, “Do you take any stock in there being a mystery on the
island that goes back to the Revolution?”
“Sure,” was the prompt answer. “The house goes back that far, and some
of the furniture in it, I suppose. Why not a mystery?”
“Well, it might, perhaps. But see here, Benjie——”
“Sh-sh-ish, you’ll frighten the fish.” Ben brought up another flounder
and unhooked it.
As he dropped in the line again he continued, “Mr. Tuckerman told me a
few things this morning. You see, this Sir Peter was a man of means. He
had a lot of valuable things in this house, silver and such things he’d
had brought over from England. When the people of Barmouth were trying
to do all they could to help George Washington and his army they thought
their rich neighbor out here ought to do his share. But he was a Tory
and wanted King George to win, and so he wouldn’t do anything when they
asked him. The colonists came to his house, but they found very little;
his famous silver plate was gone; they took some things, but they always
thought he had tricked them. And after that they wouldn’t have anything
to do with Sir Peter.”
“Served him right, the old scamp.”
“Now Mr. Tuckerman thinks the secret may have something to do with the
things the neighbors couldn’t find. At least that’s a possibility.”
“Huh,” chuckled David, “the Revolution was more than a hundred years
ago. If that was the secret, some of the Cotterells since then would
have found out about it. And when they did, there’s an end to the
secret.”
Again Ben was busy. A third flounder appeared and was carefully landed.
“You’re right, my boy,” said Ben, “if they did find out what became of
Sir Peter’s valuables. But suppose they didn’t? Suppose Crusty
Christopher and his father, and his father before that, knew the old
story, but never could find the things? How about that, my lad?”
“Well, in that case,” answered David slowly, “I should say the betting
was a thousand to one the secret would stay a secret.”
“Mr. Tuckerman calls it a sporting chance,” said Ben. “I said to him
just about what you’ve said to me now; but he grinned and told me he
never gave up conundrums.”
David dropped back into his former comfortable position, his hands
clasped under his head and his cap pulled down over his nose, so as to
shield that sensitive feature from burning a more fiery red than it was
already. “So Tom and the Professor are prowling around the old house
this morning?” he said reflectively. “Well, they’re not apt to run into
any ghosts at this time of day.”
Ben, absorbed in his fishing, continued his careful handling of his line
until half-a-dozen flounders were deposited in the boat. Then he stowed
away his tackle, stretched his arms, and looked around. “Now, Dave, you
old duffer, I’m going to take a cruise about our island home. There’s
nothing like knowing all the ins and outs of the place where you’re
living. Do you think you’re strong enough to handle the tiller, or would
you rather dangle your feet over the bow?”
David sat up with a grunt. “Don’t you get sarcastic, young feller. I can
sail this dory with one hand behind my back.” And shortly he had the
_Argo_ headed up into the wind, keeping well out from shore so as to
avoid the occasional spits of rock that ornamented the coast.
They started to make the circuit. Cotterell’s Island, so far as they
could judge from the water, was very much like all the other islands
that lay out from Barmouth, thickly wooded for the most part, with
alternating beaches and headlands, and here and there a cliff, with
little rock-bound basins at the foot. On the eastward side, however,
there was an opening, where the tide ran inland for some distance, a
fair sort of harbor except when the wind should blow from that quarter.
“There,” said Ben, “there’s a snug landlocked channel. If I’d been one
of the Cotterells and wanted to keep a boat hidden that’s the place I’d
have picked out.”
“You’re making the Professor’s ancestors sound like pirates or
smugglers,” objected David. “What do you think they did that they wanted
to keep so dark?”
“That little inlet can’t be so far from the back of the house either,”
Ben went on, paying no attention to his companion’s question. “Yes, that
would be the place to steal away when the neighbors came to call.”
“I’ll take a look up there,” declared David, who was beginning to feel
that Ben was giving himself airs. “I guess I can find my way up that
inlet as well as any of your blessed Cotterells could.” And suiting the
act to the word, he brought the _Argo_ about and kept her bow a little
to the north of west until she had cleared a seaweed-covered reef that
was high up out of the water at ebb-tide.
Ben said not a word, but picked up a boathook, in case it should be
necessary to fend off the dory at some turn of the shore. But David knew
his business. Up the winding channel he made his way until the _Argo’s_
bottom gently ran on to gravel at the head of the stream.
“Yes, I was right,” said Ben. “There’s the roof of the house on the
other side of those trees.” A leap, and he landed on shore, the dory
careening on one side from the force of his jump.
“Hi there, young feller, what are you trying to do?” cried David. “I
didn’t tell you you could go ashore.”
Again Ben paid no attention to the other’s words. He was looking about
him as if he was very much interested in the place where he had landed.
David, making sure the _Argo_ was safely aground, clambered over the
side. “Was it your intention, Mr. Sully, to scuttle our good ship here?”
he inquired with mock politeness.
“Look,” said Ben, in a deep and earnest tone.
David looked. In the marshy ground a little in front of them were two
distinct footprints, uncommonly large footprints, with very wide toes
and very deep heels.
“My word!” whistled David. “Benjie, we’ve come to the lair of the
mastodon!”
“Footprints!” murmured Ben, regarding the marks with the same awed
surprise with which Robinson Crusoe first gazed at the prints in the
sand of his island.
[Illustration: Distinct Footprints]
“A giant’s footprints,” said David.
“They’re never Mr. Tuckerman’s or Tom’s,” said Ben.
“The Professor has rather small feet,” stated David, “and I happen to
remember that Tom wore sneakers this morning.”
“They can’t have been there very long,—not for more than a few days at
the most.”
“I should say not. Benjamin, somebody has been trespassing on our
island.”
“I wonder if there are any more.” Ben began to search.
There were no more footprints, however. The stretch of soggy ground was
very limited, almost immediately the soil grew stony. So, after a brief
hunt, the two came back to the shore. “Now I wonder,” mused Ben, “what
that very large-footed person was doing here.”
“Do you think,” asked David, “he can have been looking for the Cotterell
treasure?”
“It’s much more likely,” said Ben, “he was looking for something easier
to find. However—suppose—there’s an off chance——” And Ben went on
mumbling to himself, while he jingled a bunch of keys in his pocket, as
was his custom when he was lost in thought.
“What in the world are you doing?” demanded the exasperated David.
“Putting two and two together—or at least trying to.”
“Well, they make four. There are times, Benjie,” David continued,
imitating the manner of a teacher at the school they both attended,
“when I find myself almost on the point of losing patience with you. The
crew will now return aboard the _Argo_, leaving the mystery of the
mastodon’s footprints unsolved.”
When they returned to the beach in front of their camp they found Mr.
Tuckerman and Tom already getting dinner. That is to say, Tom was
actually getting it, while John Tuckerman was carrying out his orders.
At the moment the latter was peeling potatoes. His flannel shirt open at
his throat, his golf-stockings stuck full of little burrs and his face
and arms already showing blisters of sunburn, he looked decidedly
different from the very dignified person who had come upon Tom Hallett
in the lane.
“Flounders,” announced Ben, laying his string of fish on a board that
served as a table. “The very best eating, in my humble opinion.”
“Put them in the refrigerator for supper,” said Tom. “You two were gone
so long I decided to knock up an omelette for our midday meal.”
“‘Knock up’ is good,” agreed David. “I suppose, Mr. Tuckerman, Tom
cracked the shells with a baseball bat.”
“I don’t know how he did it,” Tuckerman said; “it seemed like a miracle
to me. But there’s the result; and if anybody ever saw anything more
truly beautiful—anything so calculated to make the mouth water in
anticipation—well, I don’t believe anybody ever did.” He pointed his
paring knife at a golden-brown, crisp object that lay, garnished with
watercress, on a big tin plate.
“And speaking of water,” said Tom, “we found the well back of Cotterell
Hall. Fresh water, guaranteed sweet and pure. There’s a bucket of it.”
They sat down to dinner, and between mouthfuls they talked.
“Wonderful old house,” said Tom. “We explored it from cellar to attic.
Four post bedsteads——”
“With wonderful canopy tops!” added Tuckerman, his spectacled eyes
gleaming.
“And enormous chests of drawers,” continued Tom.
“Full of all kinds of clothes,” Tuckerman added. “Ladies’ laces and
muslins, shawls, mantillas, gentlemen’s pantaloons, neckerchiefs, and
what waistcoats!”
“Funny old kitchen,” said Tom. “With a fireplace as big as a cabin.”
“And a crane and a hob and a whole fleet of earthenware crocks,”
Tuckerman supplemented.
“I say, Mr. Tuckerman,” cried David, “why don’t you turn the place into
a museum? All the people who tour through Barmouth in the summer would
jump out of their skins to see such a place as that.”
“What I want to know,” said Ben, “is whether you got any clue to the
Cotterell treasure.”
Tuckerman shook his head. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, Benjamin; and a
treasure that’s been hidden for over a century doesn’t come to light in
twenty-four hours.”
“Ah, just you wait till our Benjie gets busy,” said David, waving his
finger wisely. “There’s the bright lad for you. While you two pottered
about those gigantic bedsteads and chests of drawers and fireplaces,
what did our Benjie discover?” He paused to heighten his announcement.
“Benjamin Sully discovered a pair of gigantic footprints!”
It took a moment for this to sink in.
“Footprints?” said Tuckerman, puzzled.
“Someone has landed at the little creek near the back of the house,”
explained Ben, “and since the last rain, too.”
“Someone with enormous feet,” added David. “Now what do you suppose such
a person as that could be doing here?”
Tuckerman put his hand into his coat pocket and drew out a very small
and crumpled handkerchief. “We found this on a table in the kitchen. My
Uncle Christopher only had a negro man-servant. And yet this belonged to
a lady,—a very particular lady, I should say, a dainty lady.” He spread
the handkerchief out. “With beautifully embroidered initials—A. S. L.”
He lifted it to his nose. “And it smells of lavender—and quite fresh,
too.”
Solemnly the tiny handkerchief was handed around. Each smelled it and
nodded his head.
“Someone’s been in the house,” said Tuckerman, “although all the doors
were locked.”
“A lady with enormous feet,” declared David. “My eye, how the plot
thickens!”
IV—VISITORS
Two days later the campers were as much at sea as ever regarding the
secret to which Crusty Christopher had referred in the note left in the
picture frame. They had explored the island and they had explored the
house, and neither outdoors nor indoors had provided them with a clue.
John Tuckerman—although David persisted in calling him Professor—was
the most exuberant and lively of the four. He delighted in
everything,—in the early swim before breakfast, in the cooking and
eating, especially in the eating, in sleeping out of doors, and even, it
seemed, in washing the dishes. He would sing as he washed, wild,
rollicking songs, the words of which he made up as he went along, all
about pirates and sailors and sea-serpents, with a great many
“Yo-heave-hos” and “Blow the man down, my lads,” by way of chorus; all
which he accompanied with a pretended hitching up of his trousers as
sailors were supposed to do to cheer them at their work.
“There are times when he almost looks like a pirate,” David whispered to
Tom, as they watched Tuckerman sharpening a knife on the sole of his
shoe preparatory to sticking it into a cover of a can of baked beans.
“Like a pirate, that is, with one exception,—those horn-rimmed
spectacles.”
It was true; Tuckerman couldn’t look like a daredevil with those
enormous glasses. But to offset the studious look they gave him his face
was now a beautiful lobster-like red and beginning to peel.
Any one could see, moreover, that Cotterell Hall was the apple of his
eye. It amused Tom and David to see the affection and pride with which
he regarded every stick and stone of the old house. Ben was more
sympathetic, for Ben was by nature interested in old things, and had in
turn collected everything from abandoned bird’s nests to rusty
jackknives.
It was Ben who, searching through a cupboard at one side of the
fireplace in the front room at the Hall, pulled out a package of old
letters and gave a shout of joy. “Hi there, see what I’ve found!” he
cried as he untied the bundle and threw the envelopes loosely on the
table.
“What is it? Old letters,” said Tom, glancing at the yellowing paper.
“Postage stamps!” triumphed Ben. “Some of the earliest issues! I’ll bet
you never saw that St. Louis stamp with the two bears on it before.”
“Humph,” said David. “Postage stamps! No one collects them now.”
But John Tuckerman looked over Ben’s shoulder, and then snatched up one
of the letters. “You’re right, Benjamin. These are rare ones. I
shouldn’t wonder if they were worth a great deal of money.”
It was not, however, the money value of the things in the house that
interested Tuckerman. It was partly his love of old things, especially
of things that were beautifully made, and partly his feeling that they
had belonged to the Cotterells for so long, the Cotterells being his own
people. “Uncle Christopher owned all these things,” he said. “Poor Uncle
Christopher. He was stiff-necked, no doubt; but he had to suffer for it.
I’ve found a book he wrote in, and I can see that he was too proud to
sell his heirlooms, and that he had very little money, and didn’t want
anyone to know how hard up he was. So he turned hermit. He didn’t really
hate other people; he was simply so made up that he couldn’t mix with
them on an equal footing.”
David pretended to regard the Cotterell family secret as a great joke,
although he admitted that he was very much puzzled over what he called
“the mystery of the lady with enormous feet.” On the same afternoon when
Ben found the rare postage stamps, David, being alone with Tom in the
front room, cocked an eye at the painted gentleman on the wall, and thus
addressed him:
“Sir Peter, I don’t want to be disrespectful; but it does seem to me you
were mighty tight with your silver when your good neighbors were doing
their best to get the thirteen United States started. Or didn’t you
really have the things they suspected you of having? You’ve got a long
nose and a twinkle in your eye, and I’d say it mightn’t be beyond you to
have your little game at the expense of Barmouth.”
Tom laughed. “You can’t judge Sir Peter by yourself, Dave.”
“Certainly not,” was the instant reply. “I’ll admit we are very
different. Nothing could induce me to have my picture taken with a dog
like that greyhound cuddling up against my shins. The good people of
Barmouth didn’t have any greyhounds or any pie crust tables or
gate-legged tables, or whatever kind of tables it is that the Professor
finds so delightful, and they were envious, and rowed their boats out
here, and tramped up to the door, probably looking for all the world
like a gang of hayseeds.”
“Remember, Dave, your ancestors and mine were probably among them.”
“I’ll admit that also,” said David, “and for the sake of your feelings,
Tom, I’ll take back that about their looking like hayseeds. Let me put
it this way. A crowd of very nice looking, but temporarily cross and
angry people—men and women, and possibly a few dogs—come up to the
house here and demand to see the elegant Sir Peter. Sir Peter doesn’t
want to see them; he doesn’t approve of them; he thinks that good old
King George is just about the proper cheese to rule over him and his.
But Sir Peter’s a gentleman—you can see that from his portrait—and he
doesn’t want to disappoint the neighbors, who’ve come all the way out
here in boats. So he takes a pinch of snuff and he whistles to his
greyhound and he goes out on the front steps. He looks down along his
nose at the people of Barmouth and his right eye twinkles—you notice,
Tom, that it’s his right eye that’s the humorous one—and he says:
‘Friends and fellow citizens, come in and enjoy yourselves. The green
and gold pineapple is over the door and Cotterell Hall is yours for the
afternoon. But the silver plate you’re so anxious to lay your hands on
isn’t here any more. It’s vanished, vamoosed, flown away; and the family
are using the plain blue and white china kitchen set.’ Did they believe
him?”
“No,” sang out Tom.
“Exactly,” agreed David, with a bow. “They rushed past him into the
house, and they threw things about, and they buzzed around like a nest
of hornets you happen to hit with a stick. But they didn’t find anything
after all; and the reason is simple—there wasn’t anything of the sort
they had in mind to find. It was just Sir Peter’s little joke. And it
worked to perfection. Ever since people have been wondering what he did
with the silverware he mentioned that day. Sir Peter, my opinion of you
is that you were a first-class joker.”
“You may be right,” Tom assented, “but for goodness’ sake don’t rub that
idea in on Mr. Tuckerman and Ben. They’re thrilled to the fingertips
about there being a treasure hidden away somewhere.”
“Babes in the wood!” sniffed David. “I believe you could put almost
anything over on the Professor if you dressed it up in old clothes.”
To the skeptical David and the inclined-to-be-skeptical Tom the other
two now appeared. They had been in the apartment on the second floor
that had been Christopher Cotterell’s bedroom and had been rummaging
through a little secretary that stood between the windows. Tuckerman had
a notebook in his hand. “These are jottings my uncle made from time to
time,” he declared. “Here’s one. ‘As regards the saying that the
hiding-place is just beyond the three pines that stand between two rocks
where the sun goes down, I have scoured and scoured the island, and come
to the opinion that the extreme southwestern point must be the place
intended, although to-day there are only two pines there. I have dug at
this place, but found only sand.’”
“Maybe we can find another place that answers that description,” said
Ben hopefully. “And it stands to reason that the four of us can dig
better than your Uncle Christopher, even if he had his servant to help
him.”
David, under cover of his hand, winked at Tom, who pretended not to see
him.
“Here’s another note,” Tuckerman continued. “‘Find the mahogany-hued man
with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket.’ That’s a
saying my father handed down. What can it mean?”
“Mahogany-hued man with long, skinny legs,” echoed Ben.
“And a hooked nose and a scar across the left cheek,” chortled David.
“Pirate stuff, of course. There’s always someone like that. I suppose
he’s the fellow who hid the treasure on a dark, stormy night.”
Tuckerman gazed at the speaker with his big, owl-like eyes. “You may be
right, although I rather thought of him as a faithful, old-fashioned
serving-man, from whom Sir Peter had no secrets.”
David grinned; but how could anyone joke on a matter that Tuckerman took
so seriously? “Have it your own way,” he said. “Probably you’re right.
But hooked-nose pirate or faithful servant I don’t see how the mahogany
one can be of much help to us here to-day.”
Tuckerman closed the notebook. “Suppose we go down to the southwestern
point. At least we’ll get a good view of the sunset and freshen up for
supper.”
When they came to that end of the island they found the ledges and
neighboring sand covered with a vast array of sandpipers, all with their
heads turned in the same direction, watching, as it were, a score or so
of leaders, who stood out in front, closest to the water. Quietly though
the four crept up, they were still a couple of dozen yards from the rear
ranks when, with one accord and with as smooth a motion as though a sail
were being drawn across the beach, the hundreds of little winged bodies
rose in air and flew out across the waves.
“By Jove, that’s pretty!” said Tom. “They’re like ever so many bits of
silver paper blowing about in the wind.”
So they were. Fascinated, the four watched the sandpipers. When the
birds were tilted one way, on one tack, they could hardly be seen
against the light, they actually disappeared. Then a tiny deflection, a
dip and twist of the wings, and they were a network of silver, drawn
this way, then that. They wheeled, they rose, they dropped; no human
beings ever moved in such perfect precision; it was not as if they
followed a leader, it was as if every single sandpiper of the hundreds
knew instinctively what the bird just ahead of him would do. And at last
they descended, like falling leaves, on a flat rock out in the water.
“I don’t see how they can do it,” sighed Ben. “We could drill and drill
forever, and never get anything like that. Don’t tell me that sandpipers
haven’t brains.”
“You bet your boots they have,” said David. “Fine little fellows! I
don’t see how anybody can possibly want to shoot them.”
The little fellows rose again and went soaring off against the sunset
sky.
Tuckerman drew a long breath. “You boys who live by the seashore have
much to be thankful for. The pioneers who pushed inland must have been
awfully homesick for just such sights as that. Gee whillikins! What a
gorgeous sky! I could look at it for hours.”
His companions, however, had other things to do. They wanted to locate
the two pines that stood between the two rocks. A short search
discovered them. The trees, old and gnarled, twisted of branches on the
eastern side, where the winter winds had lashed them, still stood like
sentinels between the lichen-covered boulders, where Christopher
Cotterell and doubtless others before him back to the days of Peter had
surveyed them.
“They’re here all right,” said Ben. “What was it the notebook said? ‘I
have dug at this place, but found only sand.’ Well, there’s plenty of
sand—oodles of it. But if you ask my opinion, this isn’t the place to
dig.”
“You’re lazy,” scoffed David. “Tell me, Mr. Man, why in your learned
opinion isn’t this the right place to dig?”
“I’ve a hunch it isn’t,” answered Ben.
Tuckerman looked at the serious-faced small fellow, and suddenly gave a
laugh. “I’ve got the same sort of a hunch myself. My uncle Christopher
dug here and didn’t find anything. I don’t want to do his work all over
again.”
They let it go at that, and slowly, with an eye to the sunset, which
every moment grew more like a vast palette on which many colors were
mixed, went back by the path through the woods that skirted the western
shore. They reached the old house, and were passing it on their way to
the camp when Tom abruptly halted. “I say, I saw something moving at
that corner window on the second floor! Something white—yes, sir, it
moved. I’ll take my word to that!”
All stopped and gazed at the house. The windows were closed, no curtain
could have been blowing.
“Nonsense,” said David. “What you saw was the sunset reflected on the
glass.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t,” Tom retorted. And straightway he went up the
graveled walk that led to the front door.
Now usually John Tuckerman had been careful to lock the door when he
left the house, but this time he had forgotten. Tom turned the knob and
pushed the door open.
They all went into the hall and stood there listening. Undoubtedly there
was the sound of footsteps on the floor above.
“That sounds to me like a giggle,” whispered Ben.
“Sh-ssh,” warned David.
Footsteps tapped on the floor, were coming apparently toward the head of
the staircase.
Then unmistakably there was a laugh, a light and merry laugh, in a
feminine key.
In the silence that followed David’s voice rose. “The lady with the
enormous feet!” he muttered.
A patter of feet and there came into view two ladies, two ladies in
hoopskirts, with white stockings and little black slippers laced with
black ribbons, and flowered silk waists and flat, mushroom-shaped hats
with streamers falling behind. They stood at the head of the staircase
and stared down at the four below.
“It’s Milly and Sally Hooper!” exclaimed Tom.
“Did I hear someone whisper ‘The lady with the enormous feet?’” Milly
Hallett wrinkled her nose and stuck out the tip of her tongue. “Sarah,
my dear, the gentlemen aren’t so gallant as they used to be. Whoever saw
neater, sweeter slippers than these we have on!”
Slowly, with a hand to each side of their skirts, which swayed like
great balloons, the two girls came down the stairs.
At the foot John Tuckerman stood, bowing. “Ladies, you greatly honor my
poor house,” he declared.
“Who is the gentleman, Milly?” asked Sarah Hooper, a black-haired,
black-eyed girl with scarlet ribbons to her hat.
“Faith, I think it must be one of the comely Cotterells,” said Milly.
“What a fine sunburn he has!”
“John Tuckerman, at your service,” said that gentleman. “Nephew of Mr.
Christopher.”
Milly Hallett’s blue eyes danced with delightful mischief. “And Mr.
Tuckerman, who are the three extraordinary young persons standing in a
row behind you? They do look so funny! Such remarkable clothes.”
David looked at Ben, and Ben looked at Tom, and Tom looked down at his
khaki trousers, which still bore patches of white and green paint
acquired a month ago when he was freshening up his canoe.
“Ladies, these are three experts,” Tuckerman explained. “The gentleman
with the yellow hair and the zebra stripes on his trousers is an expert
skipper, the one with the midnight hair and the rich mahogany skin is an
expert fisherman, and the third—with the splendid red complexion and
the curling locks—can cook a meal that will make you forget every other
breakfast or dinner or supper you ever sat down to.”
“Really!” exclaimed Sarah. “Milly dear, something reminds me that it’s a
long time since we tasted food.”
“I was just about to touch on that point,” said Tuckerman. “Will you do
us the honor of breaking bread with us? That is, if you won’t injure
your exquisite gowns by eating out of doors.”
“They can’t sit on the grass in those things,” Tom declared. “They’d
ruin them for fair.”
“Oh, can’t we!” cried Milly and Sarah in chorus. “Just you watch us do
it!”
And in spite of hoopskirts and tiny slippers and gingerly-perched hats
the two girls ran to the front door and down the steps to the path. The
other four, catching up with them, piloted them to camp.
On the way Milly explained. She had felt that she just had to find out
what was going on at Cotterell’s Island—she had feared that bears or
ghosts, mosquitoes or robbers might have made an end of her brother and
his friends; so she had gotten Sally Hooper, and they had taken Sally’s
father’s sailboat and sailed out to the island. They hadn’t seen the
boys; but when they went up to the white house they found the front door
unlocked. They went in and looked the place all over. In a room on the
second floor they found oceans of clothes in chests and closets, and
they simply had to try some of them on. Then they thought they’d
surprise the campers. And they certainly had done that, she concluded,
because she had never seen four people look so astonished as those four
had when they saw Sally and her come to the top of the stairs.
In fifteen minutes supper was under way, a truly marvellous supper, for
David was determined to show these skeptical girls what a howling cook
he was. The guests were not allowed to soil their fingers; as a matter
of fact they found they had their hands full with trying to manage their
ridiculous hoopskirts and sit down in them without smashing the hoops.
But they did contrive to seat themselves on a grassy bank, and Milly
took off her slippers—which were horribly tight—and the two watched
their four serving-men get supper, and occasionally put in a word or so
of advice.
When each of the six had declared that they could not possibly eat a
single additional pancake—no matter how much golden syrup was offered
as an extra inducement—supper came to a conclusion, and Milly cast a
reflective eye out on the water.
“Sally and I must be starting back,” she said with a sigh; “and I don’t
suppose they’d let us land in Barmouth, dressed in these funny old
clothes.”
Sarah Hooper looked at David, who sat cross-legged on the ground,
resting after his labors. “You’re a very superior chef,” she admitted;
“but I want to know what you meant when you heard us upstairs and
murmured, ‘The lady with the enormous feet.’ Oh yes, I heard you; and
those were the very words you used.”
David laughed. “I plead guilty. But I didn’t refer to either you or
Milly. I was thinking of a little detective work we have on hand.”
Then he had to explain about the discovery of the very large footprints
on the bank of the creek and the finding of a lady’s lavender-scented
handkerchief, with the initials A. S. L., in the kitchen.
“Oh, I love mysteries!” said Sarah. “I’m always reading detective
stories and working them out before the author tells you exactly what
did happen.”
“There’s the man for you then,” said David, pointing at Ben. “Eats ’em
alive, he does.”
“Huge footprints and a lady’s handkerchief,” murmured Milly. “That is a
funny combination. But we really must go, or Sally’s mother and father
will be sending out searching parties.”
They all walked back to the house, and the two girls went upstairs to
change into their own clothes. When they came down again, much more
comfortably dressed, they found the others in the big front room, where
Tuckerman had lighted the candles.
“How lovely!” exclaimed the romantic Sarah. “I adore old furniture. What
a duck of a divan! And that beautiful secretary.” She looked at a desk
that stood in a corner, at the other end from the fireplace. “It’s
mahogany, of course—and what perfect, long, fluted, shiny legs it has!”
“What’s that?” said Ben. “Say it again, and slower.”
“I tell you we must be going back,” declared Milly positively. “Never
mind these ducky old things, Sally. Think of your waiting parents.”
So Sally had to go, and they all trooped down to the pier, where Mr.
Hooper’s sailboat was bobbing about on the tide.
Tom insisted that he would take the _Argo_, to convoy the girls home;
but Milly also insisted that he should do nothing of the kind; she knew
how to handle a boat quite as well as her brother, the wind was right,
the water smooth, and she had often sailed later in the evening than
that. Nevertheless when Milly’s boat was out from the island, the
campers embarked in the _Argo_ and sailed along after them, until the
lights of Barmouth were visible right ahead. Then, with a good-night
shout, the crew of the _Argo_ brought their craft about and headed back
for the pier.
They walked through the moonlit woods to their camp, cleaned the dishes,
and made things snug for the night. As Ben, seated on a log, pulled off
his shoes, he said to Tom, who sat near him: “Did you hear what Sally
said about that desk in the corner?”
“Duck of a thing—some such nonsense.”
“No. She said, ‘Mahogany, of course. And what long, fluted, shiny
legs.’”
“Perhaps she did. I don’t remember.”
“Doesn’t that convey anything to your mind, Tom?”
“Can’t say it does. Mahogany—legs. Oh, I’m too sleepy to think of
anything.”
“Well, it conveys something to me,” said Ben. “I think maybe I’ve got a
clue, thanks to innocent Sally. I suppose it’s too late to go back to
the house to-night?”
“It’s too late to go anywhere except to sleep,” answered Tom shortly. “I
guess your clue will keep. If it’s got anything to do with Sir Peter’s
treasure, it’s kept for a hundred years.”
Tom gave a gigantic yawn, and rolled over on to his bed.
But Ben lay awake for some time, until he got the sound of the lapping
of waves on the beach mixed with John Tuckerman’s voice singing
“Yo—heave—ho, my lads,” and then he fell asleep.
V—THE MAHOGANY MAN
Mr. Tuckerman was doing the crawl-stroke—slowly and laboriously, with
almost as much splashing as a small paddle-wheel steamboat makes—but
still very much better than he had been able to do it two days before.
He was heading toward a rock, on which Tom, straight as an arrow and
almost as brown as a chocolate drop, stood with his arms pointed
outward, ready to dive.
Ben stood back of Tom, slapping his dripping thighs and hopping about on
his toes. In the water David was floating, as comfortable and serene as
a harbor seal taking an afternoon nap. “Look out, Professor,” he
cautioned; “Tom might land on your head. He’s a terrible practical
joker. Don’t you let him use you as a cushion.”
Tuckerman plowed along, gasping a little, his eyes fixed on the rock.
Tom dove, and came up alongside David. “If I was picking out a cushion,
I’d take you. You’d make a bully springboard. Push right along, Mr.
Tuckerman. You’re doing nobly.”
Ben gave a whoop. “Look out there!” Lithe as an eel, and seemingly made
of rubber, he sprang from the rock, turned a somersault, and shot
smoothly into the water. He reappeared, looking like a porpoise, his
black hair all shiny, and with a few lusty flaps reached the rock again
just as Tuckerman, breathless, put out his hands to clutch at the
slippery side.
“You’re a regular flying-fish,” Ben complimented Tuckerman, as the
latter, careful not to scrape too close against the rough edge of rock,
drew himself slowly up to the level top. “I don’t believe any of your
friends out in the plain country of Illinois would know you if they
happened to see you now.”
“I don’t believe they would,” agreed Tuckerman, sitting down gingerly
and embracing his knees with his hands. “I know I look like a red
Indian, and I feel as if I’d got a thousand more muscles than I ever had
before.”
“If you don’t mind——” said Ben; and putting his hands on Tuckerman’s
shoulders he made a leap-frog jump over the latter’s head and splashed
loudly into the water.
“Well,” said David, changing his position from floating to treading
water, “I think the coffee must be boiling now. It’s time I dropped
those eggs.” And with leisurely strokes he made for the beach, where he
had thoughtfully left a Turkish towel beside his pile of clothes.
The others followed suit, and had soon arrayed themselves in the few
garments they thought needful to wear in their island home. David poured
the coffee and attended to the toast and eggs, which had been procured
the day before from a farmer on the mainland. And as they ate, Ben
propounded the question:
“Fellows, what was it Christopher Cotterell said about a mahogany man?”
“He said,” Tuckerman answered, “‘Find the mahogany-hued man with the
long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket.’”
“Exactly,” said Ben slowly. “Well, I’ve got an idea I know where to find
that man.”
The other three looked at him in utter amazement. “The dickens you have,
Benjie!” retorted Tom. “Why, he couldn’t be alive now.”
“Perhaps Ben thinks he’s a mummy,” suggested David, “or a piece of wood
that’s turned to stone.”
“Maybe I do,” Ben chuckled. “You’re getting warm, old horse. Long,
skinny legs—doesn’t that remind you of something? Haven’t you seen any
that answer that description in this neighborhood?”
“You’re not referring to mine?” asked Tuckerman.
The breakfast-party laughed, the Professor wore such a look of injured
dignity.
“No, sir, not to yours,” Ben said. “Yours are fat as a drum compared to
those I have in mind.”
“I remember Ben mumbled something about this last night,” mused Tom.
“But I was too sleepy to listen. He said something about Sally Hooper,
too; something about her giving him an idea.”
Ben nodded. “So she did.”
“Didn’t I always claim that our Benjie was a real detective?” said
David. “Clean up first; and then for the yarn.”
Breakfast things were put away in their box, and then the three turned
to Ben. “Where’s your mahogany man?” they demanded in one voice.
“There’s no hurry,” was the tantalizing answer. “Perhaps I’d better go
fishing first.”
Tom laid his hand on the other boy’s shoulder and twisted him around.
“Lead us to him,” he commanded.
Ben shrugged. “Oh, very well. You’re more interested than you were last
night. Come along, but don’t make any noise.”
He led them to Cotterell Hall. Tuckerman had locked the front door after
the girls had left on the night before, and now he opened it with the
key he kept in his trouser pocket.
Ben led them into the hall, and then into the big front room, which was
now flooded with sunlight.
“Look around,” he announced; “and tell me what you see.”
They looked about the room with puzzled faces. “Rats!” exclaimed David.
“I don’t see any man here.”
Ben glanced at Tuckerman. “Long, skinny, mahogany-colored legs,” he
murmured.
“Not Sir Peter’s portrait?” said Tuckerman.
Ben walked across the room in the direction of the secretary. “When
Sally came in here last night,” he explained, “she said something about
this desk. ‘Mahogany, I suppose—and what long, fluted, shiny legs.’
Well, it has, hasn’t it?” He laid his hand on the secretary. “Mightn’t
this be the man?”
“You’re joking,” Tom protested; while David looked from the desk to his
friend’s serious face as if he thought Ben must be plain crazy.
Tuckerman, however, laid his hand also on the piece of furniture. “They
liked their little joke in the old days,” he observed. “It might be,
Ben. If that’s so——” He turned the small brass key in the lock of the
lid, and pulling out the two supports on either side of the lower
drawers let the lid down on them. “If that’s so; and this is the
mahogany man—where’s his breast pocket?”
There were small drawers inside, and a row of pigeonholes to either side
of a central compartment that was also locked by a key.
“Somewhere up in his chest,” said Ben.
Tuckerman pulled out the drawers and emptied their contents, small
objects, keys, pencils, bits of sealing-wax, a few sheets of blank
paper. He put his hand in the pigeonholes and drew out several bundles
of letters. “I’ve been through all these things before,” he said with a
shake of his head.
“That place in the middle,” Tom suggested.
“Only an ink-stand,” said Tuckerman; and unlocking the little door he
drew forth a big glass inkstand with a brass top. That was all there was
in the little cupboard; all the contents of the upper part of the
secretary were arrayed on the lid.
“No go,” said David. “The man hasn’t anything in his pocket to give us
any clue.”
“I must say,” said Tom, “it does seem ridiculous to me that anyone could
have meant that desk——”
“I’ve heard,” mumbled Ben, who was paying no attention to what the
others were saying, “that old desks have secret compartments. My
grandfather has an old one that looks something like this. Let me
see——” He slipped his hand into the pigeonhole on the right of the
little door Tuckerman had unlocked, and began to feel around. “I say!
Here’s something. It feels like a wooden spring.”
Tuckerman put his hand into the central compartment. “Push on the
spring,” he directed.
Ben pushed and Tuckerman at the same moment pulled out the cupboard that
had harbored the inkstand. It was a box that fitted snugly into the
centre of the secretary.
“Well, that’s a great stunt,” said Tom. “It comes to pieces like a nest
of drawers.”
The four, their heads close together, looked into the space from which
the cupboard had come.
All they saw was an unvarnished piece of pine board, apparently the back
of the desk.
“Looks like my grandfather’s,” said Ben. “Yes, there’s a couple of
holes.” And putting his forefinger and thumb into two indentations in
the wood at the back, he wriggled his hand around and drew out a small
drawer.
“Empty!” he muttered, disappointed, holding the drawer so that the
others could see.
Again he put his hand into the opening and drew out a second drawer that
had been under the first one. This also was empty.
“One more chance.” He pulled out the bottom drawer. In this there was
something. Holding it upside down, a small roll of paper fell out on the
lid of the desk.
“A piece of parchment,” said Tuckerman, picking up the roll. He opened
it out, holding it taut in his two hands.
All eyes focussed on the sheet, on which were scrawled, in a faint
purplish ink, these lines:
I took the box
cliff where was
meaning to es
but they were
and so I hid
pocket in the
are two big
make a mark
Tuckerman read these words aloud, three times over. Then he gave a
grunt. “Well, that’s that. And it’s not so very illuminating, is it?”
Ben took the parchment. “Somebody’s cut it across. See, the right hand
words are close to the edge. How disgusting!”
David and Tom each handled the parchment, which was finally laid on the
desk-lid, with the inkstand to keep it from curling up into its original
tight roll.
David stroked his chin, pretending to be lost in thought. “Somebody took
the box—to the cliff—but they were—and so somebody hid the box—in
his pocket—there are two big—that make a mark. I gather from that line
about the pocket that the box was pretty small.”
“It doesn’t say he hid it in his pocket,” Ben objected. “It might have
been a pocket in the cliff just as well.”
“Who do you suppose he was?” asked Tom.
“Why, Peter Cotterell, of course,” David answered promptly.
“I don’t know about that,” said Tuckerman. “This handwriting doesn’t
look like that of a man who was used to holding the pen. See how he’s
gone over some of the letters several times, as if he wasn’t precisely
sure how he ought to form them. Sir Peter was a well-educated gentleman.
He must have known how to use a quill.”
“Perhaps he wanted to disguise his handwriting,” David suggested.
“Why would he want to do that?” Ben retorted. “Whoever wrote that meant
to leave a record of what he’d done with the box. There wouldn’t be any
sense in faking his handwriting—certainly not if he intended to hide
the parchment away in a secret drawer of the desk.”
“What sense would there be in his cutting it in two then?” Tom inquired.
Tuckerman, who was sitting on the arm of a chair, threw back his head
and laughed. “Here we are arguing about something that happened ever so
long ago, and we haven’t the least idea why it happened this way.” He
turned to the portrait on the wall and shook his finger at it. “You—or
some of your household—knew how to make first-class puzzles, Sir
Peter.” Then, as he swung around to the three boys, he added:
“My guess is that there’s a pocket in a cliff somewhere on this island,
and that there is—or was—a box hidden in it.”
“Find the cliff,” said Tom.
Ben shook his head. “There are dozens of cliffs.”
“Well, you won’t find anything more in your mahogany man’s breast
pocket,” Tom answered. “You can see for yourself it’s empty.”
“My idea is,” said David, “that we get the _Argo_ and sail round the
island till we sight a likely-looking cliff.”
“That appeals to me,” agreed Tuckerman, “and Tom can give me another
lesson in how to handle a boat.”
The parchment was put in its drawer, the three drawers replaced, the
cupboard pushed back and caught by its spring, and the desk-lid lifted
and locked.
“I’d a heap rather hunt for clues out of doors on a day like this,” said
David.
But Ben sat down on a divan. “I want to do a little thinking, fellows.
You go along without me. Maybe I’ll go fishing for dinners off the rocks
after a while.”
They laughed at Ben; but he would not be dissuaded. He wanted to do some
thinking, and he meant to. “Stubborn as a mule,” said Tom. “He gets his
mind set on a thing, and dynamite won’t budge him.”
So the others went down to the sailboat; and presently Ben, getting up
from the divan, went out and cut himself a stick of willow. He brought
it back and began to whittle shavings all over the hardwood floor of
Cotterell Hall. He had seen men down on the Barmouth docks whittle
shavings for hours, and he had copied the habit. He found it a great
help when he wanted to think things out.
VI—THE CLIPPER SHIP
Ben Sully was a boy who would rather work out a puzzle than do almost
anything else. He had a tremendous amount of patience, which possibly
explains why he was such a successful fisherman, since he could wait
longer, dangling a piece of bait in the water, than nine out of ten
fishes could resist the temptation to find out what the bait tasted
like. Any kind of a _puzzle_, from cut out sections of cardboard that
fitted together to make a picture all the way to ingenious contraptions
of metal links that didn’t want to come apart, was a delight to Ben. He
had boxes and boxes of them stored away in a closet at home. He had
invented secret codes and cryptograms by the score, and when he was only
ten years old had constructed a private language of twenty-five words
that he had taught to Tom and David and which the three of them had used
among themselves to the great admiration and envy of all the rest of
their school.
Naturally then Ben felt that this _puzzle_ of Peter Cotterell’s treasure
was right in his line, and the finding of the half-sheet of parchment
whetted his appetite to discover more. He walked about the room,
whittling shavings right and left, he sat down and kept on whittling, he
stood up again, and since by now the willow-stick had been whittled down
to almost nothing, he threw what was left in the fireplace.
That done, he went to a bookcase and took down from the shelf on top the
old notebook that Tuckerman had found in his uncle’s bedroom. He thumbed
the pages until he came to the place where Tuckerman had inserted a slip
of paper. Ben read the words at the top of the page out loud. “Find the
mahogany-hued man with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast
pocket. That’s a saying my father handed down. What can it mean?” Ben
looked at the desk. “Well, we’ve done that, anyhow.” He shook his head
in deep thought. “I don’t understand why that piece of parchment wasn’t
discovered before. They might not have taken the desk to be the mahogany
man; but surely Crusty Christopher or his father would have known of
those three little drawers. However, they might have found that writing
and left it there. That’s possible, of course. Probably it didn’t tell
them any more than it’s told us so far.”
Turning again to the notebook, he ran his eye down the page. Nothing but
Christopher Cotterell’s comments on all sorts of subjects, nothing that
interested Ben. He turned a page, two pages, another, and then his
glance fell on this: “I’ve heard that the old clipper ship got some of
the cargo that the mahogany man carried. But if she did, what use is
that to us now? She sailed out of Barmouth Harbor during the
Revolution.”
On and on down the page Ben’s eyes traveled, but lighted on nothing that
caught his special attention. So he went back and reread that passage.
Then he closed the book, replaced it on the shelf, stuck his hands in
his pockets, and stared through the window.
“I wonder if there was a real mahogany man,” he mused, “and a real ship.
There might have been. There were men from the West Indies in this part
of the country in those days. One of them might have had valuables in
his clothes, and part of the things he was guarding might have been
carried off in the hold of a ship. Was there a real man, or was it that
secretary? And how about the ship?”
Presently Ben walked around the drawing-room, as if he were searching
for something. From there he went to the dining-room and the kitchen,
and then upstairs to Christopher Cotterell’s bedroom. He looked into
closets and behind curtains, he pulled open wardrobe doors and peered in
at the shelves. But each time he shook his head, as much as to say:
“There’s nothing there that I want.”
Under the slanting roof at the top of the house was an attic, already
explored by Tuckerman and the boys. It was filled with every kind of
thing, from an ancient lacquered Indian temple—the green and gold of
the lacquer now sadly tarnished and chipped—to a collection of Red
Men’s arrowheads, neatly fastened to a board by small straps of leather.
Ben looked around at the strange medley of objects, thinking how many
countries and how many different races of men had contributed to the
furnishing of this attic; and then his roving eyes lighted on something
that made them glisten—on a bracket against the wall sat the model of a
ship.
Ben knew the model to be that of a Yankee clipper—three masts, loftily
rigged, with three sky-sail yards, and a long mainyard. She was
beautifully built, every detail complete, the deck and hull shining with
varnish. “Hello,” sang out Ben, “clipper ship ahoy!” And pushing a box
close against the wall he stepped up opposite the bracket.
In the deck of the model was a little lid. He pried this up with his
knife-blade. There was just room for him to squeeze his fingers through,
and when he drew them out again they held a small roll of paper.
“Yes,” said Ben, “it’s parchment,” and very much thrilled he took his
find over to the window and smoothed it out.
The ink on this parchment was faint and purplish, like that on the sheet
already found in the desk, and the left hand words were close to the
edge. Ben read them aloud:
to the north
the boat
cape with it
off the shore
it in the
rocks. There
veins that
like a cross.
James Sampson.
“Good enough!” said Ben, and ran down the stairs to the first floor.
The little drawer in the secretary was again made to disgorge its
half-sheet of parchment and Ben laid the two papers side by side on the
desk-lid. They fitted perfectly; now their message was complete.
I took the box to the north
cliff where was the boat
meaning to escape with it
but they were off the shore
and so I hid it in the
pocket in the rocks. There
are two big veins that
make a mark like a cross.
James Sampson.
“Well, that’s clear enough,” said Ben, “though why anyone should cut
James Sampson’s writing in two is more than I can understand.” He copied
the words on a sheet of paper and put the two pieces of parchment in the
secret drawer. “Now let’s see what we’ve got. Sampson meant to leave the
island with his box at the northern end, but he saw some enemies waiting
there, so he hid the box in a crevice where the rocks are marked like a
cross. All right for Mr. Sampson. That’s easy sailing. But why didn’t
some of the Cotterells find what was in the hold of that little ship’s
model long before this? Funny—that is.” Again his brows bent in
thought. “Was James Sampson the real mahogany man? Was there a real
clipper ship?” At last he shook his head. “I don’t know. But at least
I’ve found something.”
Ben left the house. It was noon, and warm. The others were sailing
around the island; there was no knowing when they would be back. He
debated whether to go fishing, and finally decided against it. Without
any definite purpose in mind he took the path at the back of Cotterell
Hall that led toward the little creek.
It was only a short distance across to the inlet where David and he had
landed. He went through the bushes and trees until he saw the water
before him. There was the creek and there was the marshy ground where
they had found the footprints. He descended the bank to look at the
marks again.
There were no footprints there now: they had utterly vanished!
Ben hunted along the edge of the creek, although he was positive where
the marks had been. There was not a sign of them. There had been no rain
to wash them out. The soggy ground was above the reach of the tide.
There was only one explanation: someone had been there since David and
he had landed and had carefully removed any sign of footsteps.
To discover footprints on a supposedly uninhabited shore is thrilling,
but to discover that those footprints have disappeared is even more
exciting. What did it mean? Well, to Ben it clearly indicated that the
person who had made those marks in the first place had some very good
reason for wanting no one to know that he had been there.
Cotterell’s treasure was an ancient mystery; but this was a new one, no
older in fact than the day before yesterday. This was new matter over
which to cudgel one’s brains, and Ben, sitting on the bank, gave deep
consideration to it until he saw the sail of the _Argo_ creeping up from
the south.
Should he tell the others of his discoveries or not? He decided to keep
them a secret, including the vanished footprints, for a short time at
least. But he jumped up, and ran down to the shore, and sent an
ear-piercing yell across the water. The answer was a wave from Tom, and
presently the _Argo_ drew closer inland and laid her course for a small,
grass-topped headland on Ben’s side of the creek.
“Don’t jump; slide down, Benjie, slide,” directed Tom.
“And slide gently,” added David. “Not as if you were making for third
base with the ball getting there before you. Remember the Professor’s at
the helm and we don’t want to tilt the boat.”
“Don’t you worry,” sang out Ben. “I’ll drop in so you’ll think I’m as
light as a feather.” And as the _Argo_ slipped along under the headland
he let himself down, lightly and easily, but, as it happened, right on
the shoulders of David.
The big fellow gave a growl. Ben’s legs had somehow contrived to twine
themselves around David’s neck, and Ben was sitting there on the broad
shoulders, his hands on the other boy’s head.
“Hi there! Look out!” cried Tuckerman. “You’ll upset the whole shebang!”
But Tom came to the skipper’s rescue. A steadying hand on the tiller and
the _Argo_ moved out from the shore.
Slowly Ben pushed David forward until they both came down in a heap in
the little cockpit. “Behave yourselves,” ordered Tom. “I’ve got a dipper
here and I’ll souse you both with cold water!”
The threat was enough. The two sat up. David grinned. “The little
feller’s all right; he’s got some muscle. I shouldn’t wonder if I could
make a real man out of him some day.”
Under Tom’s teaching John Tuckerman was learning something about
handling a sailing dory, just as Ben had given him lessons in flounder
fishing, David in making flapjacks, and the three in various swimming
strokes. It was true that he still regarded the _Argo’s_ sail, when a
sudden puff of wind filled it, as an inexperienced driver regards his
horse when the animal shows signs of shying—his muscles grew tense, and
he frowned, and stopped talking—but he didn’t ask Tom what to do and he
managed to keep the dory fairly close to the course he intended. And he
was a good sport! He didn’t try to crawl out of his mistakes by arguing
about them; he admitted them with a grin, and that grin was always so
whole-souled and hearty that it made one want to slap him on the back
and tell him that he hadn’t really made a mistake after all.
When Tuckerman had the _Argo_ well in hand again and could think of
other matters, he said to Ben, “We’ve seen plenty of rocks and ledges,
but nary a thing that could properly be called a cliff. A cliff, I take
it, is something fairly high and mighty, not so steep as Gibraltar
perhaps, but as large as a good-sized barn-door.”
“While we’ve been hunting for cliffs,” said David, “I suppose Ben has
worked this all out. What are your conclusions, oh wise one?”
“Never you mind, my boy. The clever magician waits till he has
everything in order before he performs his trick.”
“Ben’s got something up his sleeve,” put in Tom. “I can always tell when
he talks in that grand way. But there’s no use trying to make him tell
us, Dave. The way to make an oyster talk is to pay no attention to it.”
Ben said nothing, though the temptation was great as the _Argo_ reached
the northern end of the island, where high rocks came down to the water.
Tuckerman admitted these were cliffs, but there were a number of them,
and how was he to tell which was the one they wanted? They sailed slowly
along, watching the shore and speculating as to what the message in the
desk referred. And while the other three talked Ben sat silent, trying
to picture what had happened to James Sampson there more than a century
before.
Ben had a good imagination, and it led him to see Sampson as a servant
of Sir Peter Cotterell, a faithful serving-man, who always did what his
master told him. When the men of Barmouth threatened to take Sir Peter’s
treasure the old Tory gave some of his most valuable possessions to
Sampson, and the latter carried them to this end of the island where he
had a small boat that should carry him to the mainland. When he reached
the shore, however, he saw other Barmouth men patrolling the coast in
their own boats and so his escape that way was cut off. With quick wit
he hid the treasures in a cleft of the rock and blocked up the
hiding-place. Ben could see it all, even to Sir Peter, in knee-breeches
and wig, commending James Sampson when the man returned and related what
he had done. “Good and faithful servant,” said Sir Peter; “the rascals
are outwitted again!” And doubtless Sir Peter took Sampson into the
dining-room and poured him out a glass of rum. Ben wasn’t sure about
that; it might not have been rum; but rum sounded well, it smacked of
old-time adventure. Yes, probably it was rum; and Sampson had wiped his
mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and laughed with his master at the
thought of the men of Barmouth sitting out there in their boats, like so
many cats waiting outside a mouse-hole.
“Come out of it, Ben! Wake up!”
Ben looked up with a start. Tom was laughing at him. “Where are you,
Benjie? A million miles away!”
“No,” answered Ben, “I was listening to Sir Peter talking to a man you
don’t any of you know anything about.”
“Your precious mahogany man?” asked Tom. “Don’t tell me you learned
something more about him while you were up at the house.”
“He means the man with the big feet,” said David. “Did you find his
prints in the house?”
“David,” said Ben solemnly, “you’re absolutely certain you saw those
footprints of a man on the bank of the creek, are you?”
“Absolutely,” David stated. “You don’t think it was some animal wearing
a man’s shoes, do you?”
“No. I thought you saw them. But I looked this morning in the same
place, and there aren’t any prints there now.”
There followed a moment’s silence; then Tuckerman exploded a loud
“What?”
“Vanished, vamoosed, flown away,” Ben said with a nod.
“My eye!” exclaimed David. “This is too horrible! Is the island
haunted?”
“It is peculiar,” said Tuckerman, frowning at the shore.
“Look out!” sang out Tom.
The _Argo_, her helmsman unheeding his business, was slowly coming
about, with a ledge of rock dead ahead. Tuckerman wheeled around, put
the tiller over—the dory righted again.
“Ben,” said Tom, “don’t you spring anything like that on us again, with
the Professor sailing this boat. If you’ve got any other fairy tales,
you keep them till we’re on shore.”
“My fault,” said the skipper. “I’m learning. My first business is to
bring us safe up to the dock.”
“And my first business,” added David, “is to get something to eat.
Mysteries may come and go, but three square meals a day are always
needful. How about that, Ben, my son? What did Sir Peter and this other
friend of yours live on?”
“Rum,” said the solemn Ben.
“Rum! You’re a rum one! Are you sure you didn’t drink some of Sir
Peter’s rum before you went to the creek and found that the footprints
were missing?”
But Ben only smiled. He could afford to smile when he knew that he, and
he alone, had a copy of James Sampson’s complete message tucked away in
his pocket.
VII—THE TIGERS PLAY CAMP AMOUSSOCK
Needless to say, Ben would have liked to start out immediately after
dinner to look for the pocket in the rocks that was marked with a cross,
provided he could have found a good excuse to get away from the others;
for he was still of a mind to keep his discovery a secret for the
present. But the larder was in need of fresh supplies, and as soon as
they had finished their cleaning up Tom announced that their immediate
business was to sail across to Farmer Hapgood’s and buy some eggs and
milk. So the _Argo_ put out into the bay again, and soon the four
campers, the sailboat safely moored at the Hapgood landing, were
tramping up the road toward a gray-shingled cottage that had a couple of
beautiful, tall elms at either side of it.
Mrs. Hapgood sold them eggs, milk, and butter, and some large loaves of
freshly-baked bread. These were packed in a basket the boys had brought.
When they came out from the house they stopped a few moments to chat
with Mrs. Hapgood, and while they were talking two large automobiles
swung in from a crossroad and raced past the farmhouse door.
The two cars were filled with boys, boys on the seats and on the
running-boards. “They’re from Camp Amoussock, down along the shore a
way,” Mrs. Hapgood explained. “They’re going to have a baseball game
with the boys around here. My Sandy’s playing. He’s getting into his
things upstairs now, but he’ll be down in a minute.”
The cars disappeared in a cloud of dust, and almost immediately a
red-haired, freckle-faced young fellow, in a baseball suit, dashed out
from the front door.
“Hello,” he cried, nodding to the others. “That crowd made as much noise
with their horns as if they’d won the game already.”
“Pretty good team, are they?” asked David.
“Yes, they’re a good team,” said Sandy; “but mighty stuck on themselves.
They come from a lot of different cities, and most of them play on their
school nines. They’ve beaten us the last two summers. Gee, but we’d like
to get back at ’em to-day!”
“Who’s on your team?” asked Tom.
“Well, we call ourselves the Tidewater Tigers. Most of us live around
here. One, Billy Burns, comes from Barmouth. Native sons of New
Hampshire against the strangers—that’s what my father says.”
“We know Billy Burns,” said Ben. “He’s a good batter.”
“Yes, he’s good,” agreed Sandy. “But they’ve got a pitcher who’s a
corker. Lanky Larry they call him. He’s the goods all right—lots of
speed and a curve. I’ll say he is! Fanned me three times last year.”
Sandy clutched his bat. “Gee, but I’d like to sting him!”
“Let’s feel it,” said David. He took the bat and swung it several times.
“A little light, but not bad,” he pronounced judicially.
“Say, why don’t you all come along? We’ll show you some real excitement.
You can leave that basket here.”
The boys looked at each other, and suddenly Tuckerman burst out
laughing. “Lead us to it, Sandy. I can see these three have got their
tongues hanging out.”
“Well,” said David slowly, “I do hate to pass a good thing by.”
“He wants a sight of this Lanky Larry,” said Tom. “A good pitcher to
Dave is like a red rag to a bull.”
Mrs. Hapgood relieved Tom of the basket. “You boys are native sons,” she
said with a smile. “Go along and root for the Tigers.”
Up the road they went until they came to an open field marked out with a
baseball diamond. The two automobiles were parked on one side, and on
the other was a crowd of boys and girls, interspersed with a few older
people. Already some of the Tigers and some of the Amoussocks were
knocking out flies to their fielders.
“There’s Lanky, warming up,” said Sandy, pointing to a tall,
dark-skinned fellow who was throwing a ball to a catcher in front of the
automobiles. “They’re a swell lot, aren’t they? They’ve all got brand
new suits this summer, with red and white stockings, and a red A on
their chests.”
The Amoussocks did look very trim; more especially in contrast to the
native sons, who were dressed in all sorts of suits, the most of them
old and mud-stained.
“Here’s Billy Burns,” said Sandy; and as Tuckerman and the three boys
went up to join the crowd, Sandy darted away to report himself to his
captain.
Billy came up. “Hi, you fellows. What you doing here?”
“Digging clams for bait,” answered David. “Benjie wants to go fishing.”
“Come down to see us smear the strangers?” Billy continued, ignoring
David’s joke.
“I hear that Lanky Larry’s a terror.” This from Tom.
“Terror’s the word,” Billy admitted. “Say, Dave, you think you’re some
hitter in Barmouth. But you’ve never stacked up against his class.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said David. “I’ve sent some good men to the discard.
Howsomever, it’s not up to me this afternoon to tackle the strangers.
I’m neutral to-day.”
“Go to it, Billy!” said Ben. “We’re going to root for you. Of course we
are. We’re not pikers.”
It was clear that this was a big day in the eyes of the community. A
hay-wagon rattled up, loaded with empty boxes and a pile of boards. The
boxes were stood on end on the ground and the planks placed across them,
and the seats thus made were instantly filled by boys and girls. On the
opposite side waved a large banner, white with a gigantic red A in the
centre. There were shouts and cheers from both sides as the two teams
gathered round the umpire; then the Tigers ran out to take the field and
the first Amoussock batter stepped up to the plate.
The campers from Cotterell’s Island sat on the grass with the New
Hampshire boys. Half the fun of watching any contest is in rooting for
one side to win, and naturally the campers were backing the home nine.
The Amoussocks had a superior air, partly due perhaps to their snappy
suits and partly to the fact that they had beaten the Tigers each of the
two summers before. And they knew how to play baseball; there was a snap
and precision about their work that was the result of constant coaching
in teamwork.
Against them the home team, mostly the sons of neighboring farmers, boys
who had to coach themselves and only played together on Saturdays,
showed at a decided disadvantage. They had plenty of fighting spirit and
kept right up on their toes, playing for all they were worth, taking big
chances in stealing bases and backing each other up on every throw. But
they couldn’t hit Lanky Larry—not to any extent; and the Amoussocks
could, and did, hit Sam Noyes, the Tiger pitcher.
David shook his head as the third inning ended. “That Lanky’s got ’em
where he wants ’em,” he said. “He eases up a bit, and lets us get a hit
or two; but watch him in the pinches. He can tighten up and shoot ’em
over. Yes, siree,—nothing he likes better than a couple of them on the
bases, and then putting over three strikes, simple as you please.”
Tom took a blade of grass from his mouth. “And he keeps grinning.
Nothing riles a batter worse than that sort of a pitcher. ‘See how
simple it is,’ he says with that smile. ‘Like taking candy from a kid to
get a strike on you’—and he goes ahead and shoots one over while you’re
planning how you’ll wipe the grin from his face.”
Billy Burns dropped down beside them. “Two to nothing,” he declared.
“Sam’s doing mighty well, but Lanky’s doing better. It’s that in-shoot
of his. I know just where it’s going, but hang it all! every blessed
time I reach right out for it.”
“He’s got your goat,” said David. “You’re so all-fired mad that you
don’t wait for the ball to get near you.”
“Huh, it’s easy to talk! I suppose you could wait all day.”
“Well, I wouldn’t get tied up tight, stiff as a stick. That’s the
trouble with all our team. They’re so keen to hit they can’t wait.
Larry’s got them going before they walk out there; and he knows it too,
believe me!”
“I suppose you’d be as cool as a cucumber,” Billy jeered.
“As fat as a cucumber, you mean,” suggested Ben. “When Dave leans
against the ball it’s like a ton of bricks.”
“We’re out again,” announced Billy, picking up his fielder’s glove.
“We’re not so worse in the field; but golly, if we could only hit!”
The Tigers couldn’t hit, however. The crowd on the benches rooted as
hard as they could, but the native sons stayed behind. And the visitors
grew more dashing. They kept talking to each other on the bases, little
remarks filled with self-esteem; it was easy to see they were very well
pleased with themselves.
David kept pulling blades of grass, chewing them, spitting them out.
Every time that a Tiger came to bat David felt as if it were he himself
who was facing that smiling pitcher.
The fifth inning came and went; the score was still the same. Billy
Burns, in spite of what David had told him, had struck out again.
Tom stood up and stretched. “No, boys, it isn’t our day—unless
something different happens. I guess that old New Hampshire’s got to
take the short end.”
Something did happen; but not what Tom expected. Billy Burns, in the
outfield, running after a deep fly to centre, made a dive for the ball
at full speed, stumbled, fell headlong, but held up the ball in his
hand.
“Batter’s out!” cried the umpire.
The loyal rooters cheered. Billy, however, lay flat, and when, after a
moment, he tried to get up, he sat down quickly again.
The other fielders ran over to him and stood him up between them. Billy
held up one foot, put it down, gave a groan. “Twisted my ankle, I
guess,” he muttered. He tried to take a step forward. “No go,” he added.
“Hang it all, just my luck!”
Two fielders brought him in between them, Billy hopping on one foot. The
Tigers held a consultation, while the Amoussocks threw the ball around.
Then Sam Noyes, the Tiger captain, stepped over to David. “Billy’s down
and out,” he said. “He can’t play any more. But he says you think you
can hit their pitcher; and you’re from Barmouth, so that’d be all right.
Want to take Billy’s place?”
David glanced up. He knew by the look on Sam’s face that the Tiger
captain didn’t believe he could bat any better than the others. “All
right,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to boast, you know; but I’ll do my
darndest.”
“No one can do more,” murmured Tuckerman behind him.
David peeled off his coat and put on Billy’s glove. He lumbered out to
centrefield while Sam Noyes explained the substitution to the Amoussock
captain.
In the last half of the sixth inning David came to bat. Lanky Larry
patted the ball caressingly, surveyed the new player from head to foot,
and then grinned as if he had suddenly remembered a tremendous joke.
David dug his feet into the earth of the batter’s box, wishing he had on
the cleated shoes he wore when he played on his school team, swung his
bat—one he had carefully selected from the varied assortment offered by
the Tigers—and then grinned as if he also had thought of something very
funny.
“I say, what’s the joke, you two fellows?” sang out a man who was
standing back of the benches.
That made everybody laugh, with the result that Lanky, when he pitched
the ball, threw it wide and missed the plate by a couple of inches.
“Ball one!” proclaimed the umpire.
“Make it be good!” yelled Ben.
David hitched up his trousers and lifted his bat again. Lanky patted the
ball and smiled, but not so broadly. He shot the next one across the
plate with speed and precision, David letting it go by without swinging
at it.
“Strike one!” sang the umpire.
“You’ve got him, Lanky!” came a voice from the ranks of the Amoussocks.
“Oh dear!” sighed a girl on the Tiger’s bench, loud enough to be heard
across the diamond; “I thought this fellow looked like he could knock a
home run!”
There was a titter, a ripple of laughter, and Larry, fondling the ball,
looked over in the direction of the girl and grinned from ear to ear.
The ball shot from his hand. There was a crack—sharp and
stinging;—Larry reached out, missed the ball as it whizzed by—whizzed
on over the bag at second base, sizzled on into the outfield.
Centrefield couldn’t touch it; that ball simply wouldn’t stop, and
didn’t until it struck a stone wall at the end of the field.
By the time the ball got back David was standing on third base, and the
Tiger rooters were splitting the air with yells.
“Dave leaned against it all right, didn’t he?” said Ben to Tuckerman.
“He came around on it just as easy; but when he struck he made every
ounce tell.”
“He’d have had a home run if it hadn’t been for that stone wall,” said
Tuckerman. “The field’s too short; it doesn’t give our Dave a show.”
Lanky Larry looked less amused. He frowned and grew thoughtful; with the
result that the next Tiger up got a neat hit to right field, and David
came trotting home.
But the inning ended on the next play, the Tiger being caught out at
second base. The score was two to one, in the Amoussock’s favor. The
crowd felt somewhat better as the Tigers took the field again. The
Amoussocks, however, managed to get in another run at their turn at bat,
and had a good lead of two.
The seventh and eighth innings repeated the same old story. Lanky was in
form again, and none of the batters could hit him. And with the score at
three to one the Amoussocks prepared to mow down their rivals in the
last half of the ninth.
David was to be the third batter, and he swung two bats over his
shoulder as he waited for his turn. Lanky knew what he was doing, was in
fact watching him out of the corner of his eye, and looking forward to
his next chance at the cocky David. Thinking what he would do to David
he forgot the job in hand, and struck Sam Noyes on the arm. The umpire
sent Sam to first. Larry scowled and bit his lip. The next Tiger got a
hit, and Sam went to second.
The crowd jumped to its feet, both sides were rooting madly. “If only
there was room for a home run!” sighed Ben. “Old Barmouth could do it!
Keep cool, Dave my lad!”
David was perfectly cool, to all appearance at least, as he walked up to
the plate. He smiled and gave the least little nod at the tall,
dark-skinned pitcher.
A duel between these two;—that was what the crowd felt in the air. The
fielders were hopping about, crouching, their hands on their knees; Sam
and the Tiger on first base were flapping their arms, all ready to dash
for the next base. But nobody looked at them; all eyes were on the two
who were regarding each other with pleasant smiles.
“Strike one!”
David stepped back, a bit surprised, while the crowd gave a groan.
“Ball one!” There was a little ripple of satisfaction.
“But he’s got to hit it,” Tom muttered in Tuckerman’s ear. “A base on
balls won’t do. The next fellow’d go out.”
And David knew he’d got to hit it, and kept telling himself not to
tighten up. “Easy does it, easy does it,” kept singing over and over in
his mind. If he tried too hard Lanky would get him just as he had gotten
the others; and he knew perfectly well that was what Lanky intended that
he should do.
“Strike two!”
Larry had outguessed him that time, giving him a slow drop. David eased
his muscles, smiled his confident smile, settled evenly on his feet.
This next would be the in-shoot. Larry would save that for the last.
“Easy does it; take your time.” David looked at the pitcher, not
angrily, not intently, just with a jovial dare.
And the bat, with David’s shoulders behind it, and his waist and his
legs as well, met that ball as it curved in toward him fair and square
on the nose. There was a mighty crack—the sort that sings in the ears
and makes the pulses tingle—and away and away went the ball. Over the
pitcher’s head, over the heads of the fielders; far out in the field it
struck the ground at last and bounded over the stone wall. It brought up
against a cow, that was lying down in a meadow, and it gave her such a
bump that she rose in haste and went galloping away, not knowing what
had struck her. And by the time the first Amoussock outfielder touched
that ball Sam Noyes and the next Tiger and David had circled the bases
and the game was won.
Billy Burns hopped over to David, forgetful of his sprained ankle. “Put
it there, old scout!” he cried, holding out his hand. “I never saw such
a hit! Gee whillikins! Dave, you’re the stuff all right!”
“Easy does it,” said David, who couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Easy!” exclaimed Billy. “You call that easy! I’d like to know what you
do to a ball when you hit it hard!”
VIII—THE CANOE
David would have liked to have taken to his heels and beaten it down the
road to the bay, but he was not allowed to do this. Not only the Tigers,
but all that section of New Hampshire appeared to think that he had
vindicated the honor of the country against the big cities, represented
in this case by the boys of Camp Amoussock. Horny-handed farmers
insisted on coming up and shaking his hand, slapping him on the back,
inviting him to supper. And what tickled Ben more than anything else was
to see the girl who had exclaimed, “I thought this fellow looked like he
could knock a home run!” push her way through the crowd and thrust out
her hand at David.
Ben nudged Tom. “Look at our brave boy now.”
The girl was saying, “I knew you looked like a winner. I’ve got a kid
brother at home; he’s got a sore foot and couldn’t get over here; but
I’m going to tell him how you soaked that ball and hit the old cow, and
maybe he won’t be excited! What’s your name? He’ll want to know.”
No beet was ever redder than David’s face as he gave a sheepish grin.
“David Norton,” he said. And as the girl insisted on shaking hands he
touched her fingers gingerly. “Much obliged,” he stammered. “Hope the
kid’s foot gets well again. Funny about that cow;—hope it didn’t hurt
her.”
“I wouldn’t care,” said the girl, “if it broke one of her ribs. But
don’t you worry, Mr. Norton. I’m right glad to have met you.” And she
pushed her way out of the throng again, delighted to be able to tell her
kid brother that she had shaken hands with the hero of the day.
“You may be a mighty batter,” said Ben, when David was able at last to
rejoin his friends, “but when it comes to the girls you’re a beautiful
imitation of a wooden Indian. You shake hands like a pump.”
“Oh, cut it out,” growled David, who always stood more or less in fear
of girls, and hated to be teased about them. “I suppose you’d have made
her some kind of a pretty speech; asked her to dance, perhaps.”
“I’d have looked as if I liked being told how fine I was. Oh, what a
shame it is that nobody ever says such things to me,” sighed Ben, “when
I’m the one that could really appreciate them!”
Sandy Hapgood now came up, and David, eager to be rid of any more talk
about the game, hurried his friends away. “Looks like a thunderstorm,”
he said, squinting at the sky, where dark clouds were rapidly rising.
They passed the meadow, where the cow was now peacefully chewing her cud
again. She cast a reproachful eye at the boy in the baseball suit.
“That’s the longest hit that was ever made on our field,” remarked
Sandy. “And against Lanky Larry, too! Oh boy! Did you see Lanky after
the game? He looked—well, he didn’t look so all-fired stuck on
himself.”
“He’s a fine pitcher,” said David; “a mighty good one.”
They quickened their steps, for big drops of rain were beginning to
fall. They turned in at the Hapgood farmhouse and stopped long enough
for a word with Sandy’s mother. Tom swung the basket of provisions on
his arm.
“Don’t you think you’d better wait a short spell,” said Mrs. Hapgood.
“Looks to me as if we were in for a right smart shower.”
They looked at the sky—pierced now with frequent sharp jabs of
lightning.
“It’s not raining hard yet,” said Tuckerman. “How about it, boys?”
“Let’s beat it,” said Tom.
Out in the road again they jogged down to the water, where the _Argo_
was fastened. Casting her adrift, Tom took the tiller.
It was a real summer thunderstorm that had come up quickly—spurts of
rain and banks of black clouds—at the end of the warm day.
But the boys were used to a wetting, and Tom had often sailed through a
heavier downpour than this. David stretched himself out on a seat in
luxurious comfort. “A shower-bath feels good,” he murmured. “All I want
now is a good swim.”
The wind, however, wouldn’t stay in any one quarter; it kept jumping
about as if it were trying to box the compass and succeeding pretty
well. Tom had to keep changing course. The _Argo_ zigzagged about like a
darning-needle flying over a pond. And the thunder kept crashing louder,
and the lightning opening bigger and bigger cracks in the violet-black
of the sky.
“Hello, there’s a canoe!” sang out Ben suddenly.
Ahead of them, an eighth of a mile from shore, a cockleshell craft was
dancing over the waves. There were two people in it, one at either end,
and each was paddling fast.
“Ticklish business,” said Tuckerman. “There’s white water off that
point. See how it jerks about. I say, Tom, couldn’t we get up near
them?”
“Righto,” answered the skipper. “Confound those blooming gusts!”
If the _Argo_ was having her hands full in standing up to the constant
squalls that kept chasing over the water, the canoe was finding the
struggle an even more difficult task. She careened, righted, almost
disappeared in a wave. The _Argo’s_ crew were now all at the rail,
except the skipper, watching the little craft battle her way along.
Then Ben sang out: “Why, it’s Lanky Larry and the Amoussock captain!
Gee, but that water’s rough!”
A lightning flash so vivid that it seemed to daze the crews of both the
boats, was followed by a roll of thunder that shook the sea and the sky.
Next instant the waves leaped up as if in a frenzy of fright. A great
roller caught the canoe and twisted her nose about; another slapped her
amidships; a third—All that the crew of the _Argo_ saw was a swirl of
wild waters where the little craft had been.
Tuckerman muttered something. Tom, with a shout of warning, brought the
_Argo_ about. Now there were to be seen in the water two heads, two
tossing paddles, and the upturned bottom of the canoe.
The point of land was not far distant, and for some reason the boys in
the water were striking out in that direction, possibly because they
thought the sailboat, in such a squall, could not keep her course.
While Tom manoeuvred the _Argo_, the other three watched the swimmers.
Both were making fair headway, the Amoussock captain somewhat in the
lead. Then suddenly Larry threw up his hands and disappeared.
Tom swung the sailboat around, and almost instantly Ben and David, coats
and shoes stripped off, dove into the water. For the moment the sea was
calmer, and the two made the most of their chance. Hand over hand, in
great spurts, they drew closer and closer to the place where Larry had
vanished.
Tom said things to the sail, which would not fill as he wanted.
Tuckerman clutched the rail, his eyes never leaving the swimmers. And at
last—an eternity, it seemed to the watcher—the two boys reached the
spot. A moment later, and in some way they had managed to draw Larry up
between them.
By now the Amoussock captain had turned and was swimming back; and by
now Tom had contrived to make the _Argo_ behave. With a rush she arrived
where the boys were struggling in the waves. Ben clutched at the side;
with his other hand he helped David lift Larry up into Tuckerman’s arms.
Larry was hauled aboard. David and Ben climbed in. The other boy was
pulled up from the water.
The _Argo_, restive, cavorting, commenced to dance again. “Can’t stop to
pick up the canoe,” muttered Tom. “Thank Heaven, Lanky’s all right!”
Larry, very white and shivering, was rubbing the muscles of his legs.
“It was a cramp,” he explained. “Doubled me up in a minute.”
Tuckerman put his coat around Larry’s shoulders. “Never mind, never
mind,” he kept murmuring. “We’ll have you up at my house in a couple of
jiffies.”
And, the wind blowing great guns, but keeping in a fairly steady
direction, the _Argo_ soon reached the island. By that time Larry,
assisted by Tuckerman, had managed to rub the kinks out of his leg
muscles, and was able to hobble ashore.
Cold, and drenched, and all of them shivering more or less, the party
went up to the house. “The kitchen’s the place,” said Tuckerman.
“There’s plenty of firewood there.”
Shortly the logs were blazing on the wide kitchen hearth, and Tuckerman,
finding a tin of coffee in a cupboard, was making a steaming drink. Tom
in the meantime had brought an armful of Christopher Cotterell’s clothes
from a room abovestairs, and the boys who had been in the water put on
dry things.
“Well,” said Larry, when he was warm and dry, and had swallowed
half-a-cupful of Tuckerman’s steaming hot coffee, “I knew this David
fellow was a good sport when I tried to strike him out this afternoon;
though I tell you it made me mad when he stung that ball for a homer.”
“Don’t mention it,” said David. “A fellow’s got to do his duty.”
“You do yours, all right,” nodded Larry. “I guess we’ll have to forgive
him now, won’t we, Bill?”
Bill Crawford, the Amoussock captain, gave his knee a great slap. “We’ll
have to elect him to the club of good scouts, Lanky. And the rest of
this bunch, too.”
“Pass the coffee pot,” said David.
Stretched at his ease in a cane-bottomed kitchen chair, Larry’s eyes
roved around the room. “I thought there wasn’t anybody on this island
this summer,” he said. “That’s the story they tell at the camp.”
“Oh yes, it’s deserted,” said Ben, “except for Professor Tuckerman and
his three able assistants.”
“What is the Professor doing here?” asked Bill Crawford.
There was a momentary silence, broken by Ben’s solemn voice. “He’s busy
polishing up the knocker of the big front door. I don’t know whether you
noticed it when you came in, but there is a beautiful knocker, made of
pure brass. He shines it every day.”
An amused snicker from Bill was followed by Larry’s asking another
question.
“This is the Cotterell house, isn’t it? There’s some old yarn about it,
seems to me I’ve heard.”
“Did you ever hear of an old house that didn’t have some yarn attached
to it?” demanded Tuckerman.
“Change the subject, Lanky,” sang out Bill. “’Tisn’t fair to pry into
the family’s secrets.”
“Right you are.” Larry stretched his arms. “Well, the question before us
is how are we going to get back to camp before they find that canoe, and
us missing?”
Tom went to the kitchen door and looked out. “The storm isn’t over yet,”
he announced. “Couldn’t you lads stay to supper? If you will, I’ll sail
you back afterwards. Likely as not the water’ll be smooth as a mill-pond
in an hour or so.”
“They won’t be looking for you at your camp yet,” said Tuckerman.
“They’ll think you landed somewhere, and are waiting for the squall to
blow over.”
“We’ll stay to supper,” said Bill. “It would be a shame to have you
fellows get wet again on account of us.”
David jumped up. “We’ve got provisions stowed away right here in the
kitchen.” Rolling up his sleeves, he gave directions to his assistant
cooks.
The kitchen of Cotterell Hall had never seen as much activity as it did
in the next half hour, with the result that a sumptuous feast was soon
set out on the table.
They ate as if they hadn’t tasted food for a week, cleaned up, and
trooped out to the front door. The squall was over, a light wind was
blowing—not enough to ruffle the water—and stars were beginning to
shine in a cloudless sky.
The _Argo’s_ sail was raised, and the skipper sent her across the bay to
the place where the canoe had upset. Search soon found the canoe rocking
in the surf on a sandy beach of the mainland. She was righted and her
painter fastened to a cleat at the stern of the sailboat, and the _Argo_
took a course alongshore. Presently, rounding a point, the crew saw a
bonfire at Camp Amoussock lighting a stretch of woods.
They all went ashore, and found the Camp just about to start out on a
search for the missing boys. The visitors had to stay a while and be
entertained by their hosts, and it was not until the moon was high in
the sky that the _Argo_ again pushed her nose across the water, a
southernly breeze filling her sail.
As they came abreast of the western end of their island another
sailboat, looking like a great white moth in the moonlight, went
scudding away over the silver sea.
“Hello,” said Ben, “what is she doing here? Poaching on our preserves,
it seems to me.”
“The harbor’s free to everyone,” said David. “I don’t suppose even
Crusty Christopher objected to people sailing boats on the water, if
they didn’t try to land on his shore.”
“Lanky knew there was some old yarn about the Cotterell house,” Ben
continued, paying no attention to David’s remark. “And if he knew, why
shouldn’t others?”
“Well,” said Tom, “what’s the answer?”
“The answer is that we’re likely to have callers. Not the kind that
leave their visiting-cards, but the sort that snoop around when nobody’s
home.”
“Thieves?” questioned David.
“No,” said Ben, “I didn’t mean thieves exactly. Detectives come nearer
to what I meant.”
Tuckerman chuckled. “Benjamin, you’re a wonder! You never let go of an
idea once you get your teeth in it, do you? I’d forgotten all about the
treasure. I was studying the stars, and Dave was thinking about
baseball, and Tom about the course he’s steering; but you—why, you were
puzzling your wits about Sir Peter and the mahogany man, and goodness
knows what else. Keep it up, Ben my boy. That’s the road to success.”
And Ben, thinking of what he had found that morning, grinned but said
nothing. If he could only work out the scheme he had in his mind, he
felt that he would be prouder than if he knocked home runs against the
very best baseball pitchers in the major leagues.
IX—THE CHEST IN THE ROCKS
John Tuckerman was leaning on his arm and looking out at the sparkling,
gleaming blue-green water when Ben Sully woke next day. Ben kept still
and watched him, as he had watched him on several other mornings.
Tuckerman looked so absorbed, so intent. He seemed to be sniffing the
air. And Ben, to whom a summer morning on the New England coast
presented no novelty, appreciated that to this man everything about him
seemed like a part of wonderland.
The only sounds were the lapping of waves and the calling of birds in
the woods back of the camp. A great gray-white gull was soaring far out
over the water, slanting first this way, then that, as though he were
trying his wings before he made a real flight. Nearer shore two white
terns circled round and round, and then dropped straight in the bay,
their sharp beaks darting at fish. The shore of the mainland rose in a
green swell, on which pearl-colored fleecy clouds seemed to be floating,
and the shore of the island itself, above the beach, was a tangle of bay
and juniper and wild roses, all shades of greens and pinks in the early
sun.
Ben saw this through Tuckerman’s eyes, and felt the spell of
enchantment. Then David rolled over, stretched his arms, grunted; and
the spell was broken. A pine-cone, tossed by Ben, landed on David’s
nose. “Hi there, you mosquito!” exclaimed the nose’s owner. He threw the
pine-cone at Tom. “Time to be up, lazybones. Breakfast in half-an-hour,
and those who aren’t down when the bell rings won’t get any!”
“The tub’s mine first!” shouted John Tuckerman, and pulling off his
pajamas he took a few leaps across the grass and raced over the sand to
the water, where he ducked under a wave and bobbed up again, splashing
and yelling.
Ben, then David, then Tom, followed, making more noise between them than
all the wildfowl on the island put together. The water was cold, but
fine for a morning swim, and when, after fifteen minutes, the four came
out on the beach again, they seized the Turkish towels that hung
conveniently on a juniper, and rubbed themselves to a brilliant
lobster-like glow.
“That particular swimming-pool,” said John Tuckerman,—“I refer to the
one commonly called the damp spot, or the ocean,—beats all the
porcelain-lined tubs it has ever been my privilege to bathe in. It’s
true there’s only cold water; but come out into this sun for a few
minutes and you’ll be hot enough. Now it seems to me”—but at that
particular moment he began to pull his flannel shirt over his head, and
when his words again became audible he was saying “shake well, and take
a teaspoonful in a glass of water every morning before breakfast.”
Breakfast! Magic word after a swim in the ocean! The boys jumped into
their clothes and set to work. For the next half-hour the thoughts of
all the campers were centred on food.
But as soon as his plate was cleared Ben began to consider another
matter. He quoted lines to himself, “I took the box to the north
cliff.... I hid it in the pocket in the rocks. There are two veins that
make a mark like a cross.” Very good; that was plain. And as soon as the
after-breakfast chores were done he said, rather self-consciously, “I
know where there’s a pool full of cunners,” and picking up his
fishing-rod and tackle, he hurried into the woods.
He looked back over his shoulder once or twice, but no one was following
him. Through the thickets, dappled with sunshine, he went at a brisk
trot. This brought him out on the north shore, where the high rocks
towered above the beach like a line of battlements. He swung himself
over a cliff and dropped lightly on to the sand. Leaving his fishing-rod
in a convenient place where he could pick it up quickly if anyone came
by, he began his search.
There were crevices in the rocks, and each of these had to be explored.
Bushes and trailing vines, growing from little footholds, covered the
seaward surface of many of the cliffs. But Ben, thrilled with the sense
of exploration, and persevering by nature, stuck to his task, and was
rewarded at last by finding what he sought, two veins of a light yellow
color that made the distinct mark of a cross.
“That’s it!” he muttered, excited. “And, by Jove, there’s the pocket!”
Down on his knees he went, and thrust his head into an opening. He
pushed himself forward by digging his toes in the sand. And soon his
outstretched hand touched a large chest, he felt metal bands about it,
he pushed it, but it was wedged in tight.
Presently he pulled himself out, stood up, and considered the situation.
He had found the box that James Sampson had hid in the rocks. His first
thought was what a tremendously strong man Sampson must have been to
carry such a chest all the way from Cotterell Hall to this north shore.
However, Sampson might not have carried it; he might have brought it in
a cart or by some other means. And his next thought was, how could
Benjamin Sully get that chest out of the pocket.
That took a good deal of thinking, and he sat down and considered it
from various angles.
Into his brown study two voices from somewhere back of him made
interruption abruptly.
“He’s fishing for cunners on the dry sand! First time I ever saw that
done. He just coaxes ’em out of the water.”
“Keep quiet! He’s counting the grains of sand. He’s got up into the
millions.”
“He’s thinking up a way to hypnotize the fish. Stare at them hard
enough, and they’ll swim right up on the beach.”
“He’s copying King Canute. Telling the waves to go back.”
“He’s working out a time-table for the tides.”
Ben turned his head. “As a matter of fact, the thing I’m thinking about
is a thousand times more interesting than anything you’ve guessed.”
The two voices were those of David and Tom.
“I’ve always said,” observed David, “that you can’t catch our Benjie
napping. He seems to be sitting there like a bump on a log, but he’s
really thinking of the most remarkable things.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” nodded Tom, “if it was something utterly
prodigious—like why the water’s wet or fish have scales.”
“No,” said Ben pleasantly, “I was wondering how I could get Peter
Cotterell’s treasure chest out of the place where his servant James
Sampson hid it. It’s rather too heavy for me to handle by myself.”
The other two stared. “Benjie oughtn’t to have come out here without a
cork helmet,” said David. “I suppose he’s got a sunstroke.”
[Illustration: “Sampson put the chest there,” he concluded.]
“What are you driving at?” asked Tom. “Have you really found the
treasure, Ben?”
Ben pointed negligently toward the cleft in the rock. “There,” he
answered. “See that yellow cross? That marks where he hid the chest.”
“You’re dreaming!” David snorted.
“How do you know?” questioned Tom.
Ben took from his pocket the piece of paper that bore James Sampson’s
message. He read it aloud, slowly, giving each word full weight.
“Sampson put the chest there,” he concluded. “And there it is now. I
crawled in and found it.”
Even David was impressed by that. He got down on his knees and poked
into the cavern, and when he stood up he nodded solemnly.
“There is something in there,” he said. “I shouldn’t wonder if Ben might
be right.”
“Well,” said Tom, “there’s a rope in the sailboat. We left her around
the point.” He hurried away.
In a few minutes he was back, with a coil of good-sized rope.
Taking an end of this, Ben again crawled into the opening and made the
rope tight about the chest. Then the three boys took hold of the other
end of the rope and began to pull. The sand was not very secure footing
and the chest was heavy, but gradually they pulled it out. They
discovered it was a box made of hard wood, with iron fastenings.
“Well,” declared Tom, “if James Sampson carried that all the way here by
himself, all I’ve got to say is that he deserves his name.”
“These mahogany men,” added David, “supposing that the fellow who
carried this chest was a mahogany man—must belong to a race of giants.
I wonder if it was a mahogany man who made those footprints on the edge
of the creek?”
Ben had picked up a flat stone, shaped something like a large Indian
arrowhead, and another round stone; and inserting the first stone under
the lid of the chest, he struck it several blows with the other.
Tom watched him a moment. “You can’t pry it open that way,” he asserted.
Looking along the beach, he selected a big, egg-shaped stone and brought
it back to the chest. Lifting it in both hands, he dropped it on the
iron band just above the lock. The iron snapped apart. The stone bounced
off on the sand.
David and Ben seized the lid. With a creaking of hinges it was lifted.
There before them was a light blue coat, gold-braided, a three-cornered
hat of felt, a sword in a tarnished scabbard.
“My eye!” exclaimed Tom. “Just clothes! Why in the world did he want to
hide such things?”
Ben was flinging them aside. Underneath were other garments, several
suits of the style worn by gentlemen in Revolutionary days, and then the
oddest collection of bric-a-brac, candlesticks, pewter pitchers, a
silver snuff-box, a couple of lacquered platters, and even some china
plates.
David started to laugh. “Well, if that’s the Cotterell treasure, I can’t
give it much! I don’t see why the Barmouth people wanted to lay hands on
it, or why Sir Peter and his precious James Sampson were so eager to get
away with it. Why, it’s regular junk-shop stuff. I don’t suppose the
whole collection, if they’d sold it at auction, would have fetched
enough to feed a soldier a week.”
Ben looked very much crestfallen. He fingered the suits, the snuff-box,
the platters. “No,” he said, “it does seem mighty queer. And to think
that Sampson brought these things over here, intending to take them away
in a boat! I don’t understand it at all.”
“Never mind, Benjie.” Tom slapped his friend on the shoulder. “You found
the chest anyway.”
“That’s right. You did,” said David. “You worked out the puzzle. It
isn’t your fault if the treasure was just old junk.”
Ben was scratching his head. “But surely Sir Peter did have some
valuable plate,” he argued. “The people of Barmouth knew that. Then what
did he do with it?”
“Maybe he melted it down himself,” said David. “Anyhow it isn’t in that
chest.”
“That’s so.” Ben picked up the snuff-box and stuck it in his pocket.
“Where’s the Professor?”
“He went up to the house. Said he was going to write a letter,” Tom
answered. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, old sport. I’ll take you out in
the _Argo_ and let you have some fishing.”
The chest was shut again and pushed back into the pocket. Ben regained
his fishing-rod and tackle, and the three embarked in the sailboat. And
presently the satisfaction of pulling flounders on board made Ben forget
everything else.
When they returned to camp, with a fine catch of fish, they found John
Tuckerman busy preparing dinner. Ben told his story, while Tuckerman
listened with the greatest interest. “It does seem odd,” he said, when
Ben had finished. “Most peculiar, in fact.” He mused a moment, his eyes
regarding the water. “But then my good old ancestor Sir Peter was an odd
kind of fish. I wonder now—do you suppose he could possibly have been
planning to have a joke at the expense of his Barmouth neighbors?”
“You mean,” said Tom, “that he might have hid those things expecting the
neighbors to find them?”
Tuckerman nodded. “It might have been so. Perhaps he, or James Sampson,
even expected the men in the boat that was waiting off shore to find
where Sampson hid the chest.”
“But why all this puzzle then about the pieces of parchment Ben found in
the house?” asked David.
“Well, I’ll admit,” said Tuckerman with a smile, “that it’s not as clear
as a pikestaff. Only Sir Peter does seem to have liked his joke.
However, the bacon’s sizzling.” Brandishing a fork in his hand, he bent
over the frying pan.
That afternoon Tuckerman said that he had an important letter to mail,
and the campers sailed to Barmouth. Tuckerman went to the post-office,
and each of the boys dropped in on his family. Ben had a chat with his
mother, then told her he must do an errand. This took him into a side
street, where there were a number of small, unpretentious shops.
He stopped before a window that was filled with old furniture, andirons,
odds and ends of china. He opened the door, and a little bell tinkled
somewhere back in the house, and after a moment a small, wizened-faced
man, wearing a big blue checked apron, came into the room.
“Afternoon, Mr. Haskins,” said Ben.
“It’s Ben Sully, ain’t it?” said the proprietor. “Well, are you goin’ to
get married, an’ want a nice set of furniture to go to housekeepin’
with?”
“Not to-day, Mr. Haskins.” Ben acknowledged the joke with a grin. “No,
sir, I’m more interested just as present in what you call antiques.”
“Antiques, eh? Well, what was you thinkin’ of wantin’? I’ve some nice
three-legged kettles, a soup tureen that came over in the _Mayflower_,
an ivory back-scratcher that hails from India. Just look about, an’ tell
me what you want.”
“I want you to tell me something about this.” Ben put his hand in his
pocket and drew out the snuffbox he had taken from the Cotterell chest.
“This?” Mr. Haskins took the snuff-box, pulled his spectacles down from
his forehead on to his nose, walked nearer the window, and peered at the
small silver box.
“What do you want me to tell you?” he asked after a moment.
“Is it a real old one?”
“Certainly it is. See that monogram? That’s the finest embossed work.”
Mr. Haskins gave a chuckle. “I ought to know about that box, I ought.”
“Why ought you?” asked Ben.
“Well, you see, this here particular snuff-box has been in my shop some
time. I sold it to a customer just about a week ago.”
“I thought perhaps you had,” said Ben, trying hard not to show his
excitement.
X—LIGHTS ON THE ISLAND
The information that Ben obtained that afternoon from Mr. Haskins
concerning his sale of the snuff-box gave a new direction to his
thoughts. He could not follow up this new clue just yet, however,
without telling the others, and this he didn’t want to do. They would be
waiting for him aboard the _Argo_, and so, after a fifteen-minute talk
with the shopkeeper, he hurried away to join them at the wharf.
One other thing he did, however, before the sailboat left Barmouth, and
that was to get a canoe he owned out from a shed on the waterfront and
fasten it behind the _Argo_. If he had the _Red Rover_ with him—he had
laboriously painted that name in orange letters on a scarlet background
on the canoe—he would be able to come and go about the harbor as he
wished and to leave the island without explaining his plans, as he would
have to do if he wanted to take the sailboat.
“What’s the idea?” asked David, who never overlooked a chance to ask a
question. “Are you going to teach the Professor how to paddle a canoe?”
Ben nodded. “I thought that ought to be part of his education. The _Red
Rover’s_ steady enough for any beginner to paddle.”
Tuckerman looked askance at the little craft bobbing up and down in the
wake of the _Argo_. “Any canoe’s unsteady enough for me to upset in, I
guess. However, I like Ben’s idea. It was thoughtful of you, my lad.”
At that they all laughed, for whatever Ben’s reason had been for wanting
the canoe at the island it was fairly obvious that he was not taking it
there to further John Tuckerman’s seafaring education.
That evening, however, Tuckerman reminded Ben of his suggestion. The
water was calm, the breeze was light. “How about a paddle?” he asked.
“Just along the shore? I promise not to rock the boat.”
“Righto,” said Ben. “Come on.”
They went to the landing-stage at the pier and put the canoe in the
water. Ben got in at the stern and balanced the boat while Tuckerman
gingerly stepped in and squatted down at the bow.
“Not much room for long legs,” said Tuckerman. “I’ll have to tie mine up
in a bow.”
“You’ll get used to it soon,” encouraged Ben. “I’ll do the steering. All
you have to do is to put your paddle in, give a long, slow push, and
take it out again.”
“Sounds easy enough.” Tuckerman tried to shift the position of his
knees, with the result that the canoe rolled over almost far enough to
ship a gallon of water. He threw his weight the other way, and the canoe
nearly capsized.
“Plague take it!” he muttered. “It’s worse than walking a tight-rope!”
“Easy there, easy,” laughed Ben. “First rule in a canoe is never to move
quickly. When you shift your weight, do it slowly. Pretty soon it’ll
come as natural as riding a bicycle.”
“Riding a balky horse, you mean,” said Tuckerman. “All right; I’ll
remember.” He dipped the tip of his paddle into the water and gave a
tiny shove.
Ben gave a long sweep with his paddle, a dexterous twist at the end of
the stroke, and the _Red Rover_ floated smoothly away from the
landing-stage.
With Ben’s coaching, Tuckerman soon was able to paddle fairly well. He
found it somewhat difficult to keep the bow evenly balanced, but as Ben
anticipated his movements and shifted automatically from side to side,
Tuckerman gained confidence and soon was sitting steady.
They paddled along shore, past the camp and on to the upper end of the
island. Tuckerman, feeling more and more at ease, was delighted with the
motion, with the gentle swish of the water, with the still, starlit
night, with the panorama of beach and cliffs and woods as they floated
by.
“Let’s go on around the island,” he suggested. “This isn’t real work at
all.”
Ben smiled to himself. He knew that Tuckerman would discover next
morning several muscles in his back and shoulders that he wasn’t
accustomed to feeling. But the night was perfect for a paddle. “All
right,” he agreed. “No, don’t you try to do any steering. The man in the
stern does that.” With a couple of twists he turned the bow to the
north. “There,” he said, “there’s the cliff where Sampson hid the chest
in the pocket.”
Tuckerman turned to look. The _Red Rover_ wobbled, slanted.
Ben shifted and righted her quickly. “Hi there!” he warned.
“My mistake,” said the penitent Tuckerman. “I see that it won’t do for
me to think of two things at once when I’m out on this lily-pad.”
“Paddle—quickly now,” Ben ordered. “But not too quickly. There’s a rip
off that ledge.”
They passed the rip and came into smoother water. Presently they were on
the ocean side of the island. “There’s the creek where we saw the
footprints,” said Ben.
“Don’t point out anything else to me,” said Tuckerman. “If I move my
left leg I can’t get it back in place.”
By the time they reached the southern end of the island the bow-paddler
felt as if the muscles of his knees were tied in hard knots. “Do you
mind,” he said in a tone of apology, “if I stop paddling for a couple of
minutes and unwind myself? I’ll move very slowly.”
“Go ahead,” said Ben. “I’ll balance the canoe.”
Tuckerman pushed himself back, then very carefully unwound his long
legs, stretched them out with an exclamation of relief, rubbed the
muscles, and then readjusted himself in a new and more comfortable
position. “I suppose to be a really proficient canoeist,” he observed,
“one ought to be made of rubber. There—how’s that? Didn’t I do it
cleverly?”
“Wonderful!” said Ben.
Tuckerman picked up his paddle again, and, proud of his ability to move
without rocking the boat, stuck the paddle in the water and gave a
mighty sweep. The bow swung around, rocked, tilted; Tuckerman pressed
his arm hard on the left-hand gunwale.
“Hold on, Professor!” cried Ben. “We don’t want to head out into the
ocean. Keep your paddle out of the water. Steady there!” With alternate
strokes to right and left Ben soon had the canoe back on its course
parallel to the shore.
“I _am_ a duffer,” muttered Tuckerman contritely.
“Oh no, you’re not,” said Ben. “You’re doing very well. Only you must
remember to let the stern man do the steering. A little more practice
and you’ll find the _Red Rover_ as easy to manage as falling off a log.”
“Falling off a log is good,” was Tuckerman’s comment. “Falling into the
water would be more like it.”
They rounded the lower end of the island and came back on the bay side.
They had almost reached the landing-stage when Ben said, “See, there’s a
light at Cotterell Hall. It’s in the front door. It looks like a pocket
flashlight. I suppose Tom and David went up there to get something.”
Cautiously Tuckerman looked in the direction of the house. There was a
small circle of light. It moved away from the door; after a minute it
shone through a window.
“I thought I locked the doors,” he said. “However, they may have climbed
in through a window.”
The light disappeared. The canoe floated smoothly up to the stage, and
Ben held it level while Tuckerman climbed out. Ben jumped up lightly.
Then they both pulled the _Red Rover_ out and turned it bottom side up.
They went up the walk to the house. The front door was shut, and when
Tuckerman turned the knob he found that the door was locked. He opened
it with his own key, and the two went in. The hall and the rooms were
dark, there was no sound of voices or footsteps anywhere.
“That’s funny,” said Tuckerman. “We didn’t see Tom and David come down
the path. Maybe they went out the back way.”
But the kitchen door was locked, and when the two opened it and looked
out there was no sign of the others leaving in that direction.
“I wonder what they’ve been up to?” said Ben. “Playing some joke
perhaps.”
They returned to the camp, and there were Tom and David, toasting
marshmallows on long sticks over a bed of hot coals.
“We were betting ten to one,” said David, “that you’d come back nice and
wet. Want to dry your clothes at the fire?”
“No, thanks,” answered Tuckerman. “We’ve been all round the island, and
we didn’t ship a thimbleful of water.”
Tom glanced at Ben. “The Professor hasn’t been fooling us, has he? He
didn’t know all about handling a canoe, did he?”
“No,” said Ben with a smile. “He didn’t know all about handling a canoe
when we started. But he knows almost everything about it now.” Then, as
he sat down cross-legged on the grass, Ben said carelessly, “We saw your
light in the house. I suppose you climbed in through a window.”
“Saw our light in the house?” Tom echoed. “What are you giving us?”
His tone was perfectly sincere. Ben saw that he wasn’t joking.
“Well, we certainly saw some light,” Tuckerman stated. “It looked like a
pocket flashlight, at the front door and at one of the windows.”
“Not guilty,” said David. “Are you sure it wasn’t a firefly?”
“You two have been right here ever since we left?” asked Ben.
“Yes,” answered the two in chorus.
“And you haven’t seen anyone land, or heard anyone?” Ben continued.
“No,” came the chorus.
Ben looked at Tuckerman. “Well, someone was in the house. How about
that, Professor?”
“Somebody was. But I can’t imagine what they could have been doing. I
don’t suppose they were thieves.”
“It’s my opinion,” said David sagely, “that they were hunting for the
famous Cotterell treasure. And now that you’ve found it, Benjie, I’d
suggest that you put up a big placard, stating ‘The treasure has been
found. No seekers need apply.’”
“Very good,” said Ben. “Only the real treasure hasn’t been found, you
see.”
“What!” exclaimed David.
“No,” said Ben, “that’s my humble opinion.” And then, as if he wanted to
change the subject, he added, “I’m going to toast one large, juicy
marshmallow, and then I’m going to turn in.”
Half-an-hour later the moon, riding up in the sky, looked down through
the branches and saw that the four campers were sound asleep. There was
the lap-lap of waves, the gentle purring noise as the water washed over
pebbles, and in the tops of the pines a soft lullaby of the breeze.
Tom stirred, turned, opened his eyes. It seemed to him that something
had waked him. He looked about; there was only the familiar scene. He
gave a satisfied grunt and curled his head in the hollow of his arm.
Then he looked around again to make sure that they had put out all the
embers of the fire. And at some distance through the woods, in the
direction of the pier, he saw a light that moved.
Immediately he remembered what Ben and Tuckerman had said about seeing a
light in the house. Noiselessly he got up, pulled on his shoes and stuck
his arms in his jacket. Through the woods he stole, stealthy as an
Indian. The light had disappeared, but he thought he heard the sound of
feet on the planks of the pier.
He came to the trees nearest to the clearing about Cotterell Hall. The
house was dark; there was no sound or light in the neighborhood. But he
was convinced that there had been someone there, and presently he darted
forward and crossed the open space to the shelter of the porch.
After a few minutes he stole to the corner of the house, and now his
search was rewarded. Someone was leaving by the kitchen door. In the
moonlight he counted three figures. They were heading away from the
shore, toward the grove at the back; he guessed that they intended to
take the path that led down to the creek.
Tom followed them at a distance. They went through the woods, and now he
saw the moonlight on the water. They had reached the head of the creek,
but they didn’t stop there. They went on along the bank to the higher
shore where the creek flowed into the ocean. Then for the first time Tom
noticed the silver tip of a sail. Lying flat behind a bush, he watched
the three men go to the rim of the shore, and, one after another, slide
over the edge where the boat waited.
He wanted to see that boat, to get a closer view of the men; but there
were no bushes between him and the shore. Now the tip of the sail was
bobbing, now it was filling out; presently it was moving to the
southward, a white wing, still as a floating gull.
He crept forward and watched. The boat was stealing away, soon she was
only a dancing speck of white in the glittering moonpath. He had no way
of identifying her or of making out her crew. He noted that she did not
turn or tack when she came to the lower end of the island, but held on
to a course that would bring her south along the main shore.
Tom stood up and eased his feelings by a long whistle. “What were they
doing here? It must be something mighty important,” he said aloud.
No answer occurred to him, and after watching the sail until it
disappeared in the distance he turned and walked back to the house.
He tried both the doors; they were locked. He looked at the lower
windows; they were all closed. He went down to the pier; the _Argo_ was
there and the _Red Rover_; there was nothing to tell him what these
night-time prowlers had been doing.
He went back by the beach to the camp. As he stepped up on to the bank
Ben opened his eyes and sat up. “Hello,” he said sleepily. “Why, Tom,
what are you doing?”
“Sh-ssh,” murmured Tom.
Ben rubbed his eyes, crawled out of his bed, caught Tom’s arm, and
pulled him down to the beach. “What were you doing?” he demanded in an
insistent whisper.
“Well, I saw a light, and I went to find out what it was.”
“Yes? And you saw them, did you?”
“Saw whom, Benjie?”
“Saw the pirates, did you?”
“The pirates! You’re half-asleep. What are you talking about?”
Ben nodded his head. “Oh, I know something about them.”
“Well, I saw three men. They went away in a sailboat.”
“Who were they? What did they look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get very close.”
“I wish you’d taken me along with you. I’ll bet I’d have found out
something.”
That nettled Tom, and he answered more loudly, “Oh, you would, would
you? I thought you knew all about them.”
“Sh-ssh,” muttered Ben. But David had wakened now, and his voice boomed
out, “What are you two lobsters quarreling over?”
“Nothing,” said Tom. “Keep quiet, or you’ll wake the Professor.”
Tuckerman sat up. “You don’t mean to say it’s morning!” he exclaimed.
“No, it’s not,” Tom answered. “Can’t a fellow take a stroll in the
moonlight without rousing the whole town?”
“Stroll in the moonlight!” chuckled David.
“Go on with your beauty sleep, Professor. That’s what I’m going to do.
Let the two lobsters fight it out.”
“All right,” said the sleepy Tuckerman, nestling down again.
Tom turned to Ben. “So you know something about these pirates, do you?”
he asked. “What were they doing here?”
“That,” said Ben, “is going to take some thinking. You see what you can
find out, and I’ll see what I can. They won’t be back here to-night. And
I’m too doggone sleepy to argue anyhow.”
XI—THE MAN IN GREEN
Ben, having explained to the other three campers that he had important
business to attend to in Barmouth, set out in the _Red Rover_ directly
after breakfast the next morning. He paddled the canoe across the bay,
landed at the town wharf, and went up the main street to Barmouth’s one
good hotel. He knew the clerk, Mr. Pollock, and after saying “Good
morning” very politely, he helped himself to a small folded automobile
map from a pile that lay on the counter for anyone to take.
“Going motoring, Ben?” asked the clerk. “Seems to me I heard you were
camping on Cotterell’s Island. How are things over there?”
“Fine,” said Ben; and in return he promptly asked a question. “Had many
automobile parties for dinner the past few days?”
“Quite a lot. Yes, business is pretty good. They like our special
broiled lobster dinners.”
Ben leaned on the counter, copying the familiar manner he had noted in
hotel guests. “You had a party on Tuesday, didn’t you? A big red car,
with a Massachusetts license, driven by a man in green-checked
knickerbockers?”
“Expect me to remember that?” Nevertheless, Mr. Pollock scratched his
chin and considered the question. “Yes, seems to me I do recall such a
party. Somebody said those knickerbockers were loud enough to be heard
all the way to Boston.” The clerk thumbed the pages of the hotel
register and presently pointed out a name. “That’s the fellow, Joseph
Hastings. He comes from Cleveland, Ohio. There were four in his party.”
“And he came in a big red car, with a silver eagle on the radiator cap?”
Ben persisted.
“Well, now, I can’t say as to that.” But Mr. Pollock, being a
good-natured man and having nothing else to do at the moment, scratched
his chin again, and again considered. “I do think of something. He told
me he’d punctured a tire and asked me the best place to go to buy a new
one.”
Ben nodded. “I suppose you told him Hammond’s?”
“You’re right. I did. Frank Hammond is a good friend of mine.”
Then Ben changed the conversation to the subject of the big league
pennant race, in which the clerk was very much interested, and after
some further chat, departed from the hotel.
Frank Hammond knew Ben also, and was not too busy that morning to
exchange a few words with him. After a number of questions about the
state of the roads in the neighborhood of Barmouth, Ben said, “Mr.
Pollock tells me you sold a tire to Joseph Hastings, of Cleveland, Ohio,
Tuesday of this week.”
“That’s so,” said Mr. Hammond, “I did. I sold him a couple of those big
Vulcan tires for his rear wheels. Is he a friend of yours?”
“I don’t know him very well,” Ben evaded. “But I hear he’s a fine
fellow. Is he touring along the coast?”
“No. He said he was staying at a place called the Gables, down on the
Cape Ann Road. Wonderful car he’s got. He told me he’d had it built
according to his own ideas.”
“Big red car, with a silver eagle on the radiator cap?”
“That’s the bird. Yes, sir, he must be a millionaire.”
When he left the dealer in automobile supplies Ben went to his uncle’s
house and secured the loan of a small, ramshackle car he had often
driven before. He made sure that the car had plenty of gasoline and oil,
that the radiator was full of water, and he took a look at the tires.
Then he drove south from Barmouth over the State Road.
It was a fine day, and many cars were out. Ben kept a watchful eye for
such a car as that of Joseph Hastings, but none answering the
description passed him. So he jogged along until he came to the fork of
the Cape Ann Road and turned into it. There were fewer automobiles here,
the road was not made for speeding, the little car bounced about a good
deal going over ruts, and rattled like a load of tinware.
He met a boy on a bicycle and asked him if he knew a place called the
Gables.
“Down the road a couple of miles,” the boy told him. “Big house with a
ship for a weather-vane.”
Ben thanked him and drove on. Pretty soon he saw the weather-vane on a
roof to the left of the road.
The Gables had a wide lawn, stretching down to a stone wall. The
entrance to the drive was at the southern end, and the gateposts were
flanked with larches. Ben drove to the gate, and stopped. So far his
plan had been simple; now he was undecided what course to follow next.
He was musing over this when a voice hailed him.
“Give you greetings, sir. May I ask what you’re pondering over?”
The words were so peculiar that Ben looked around in surprise. A young
man had stepped out from among the trees and was nodding at him.
“Why—good-morning,” said Ben.
“Has your car run out of juice?”
The man came up, a broad smile on his face. He himself looked very much
like any sunburned fellow; but his costume was most peculiar. He wore a
tight-fitting jacket of green, open at the throat, without any necktie.
His knee-breeches were green, too, and so were his stockings, and on his
low brown shoes were large brass buckles.
“No,” said Ben, with an answering smile, for there was a twinkle in the
stranger’s eye as if he knew some joke, “I’ve gasoline enough to run
this car all day. I’ll admit it isn’t the very latest model—not what
you’d call a show car—but we do get wonderful mileage per gallon of
gas.”
“Don’t make any apologies for your equipage,” said the gentleman in
green. “Many a valiant knight has ridden on a steed that wouldn’t have
taken the blue ribbon at the horse show. Don Quixote, for example. You
remember him, of course? The Spanish cavalier who rode forth to tilt at
windmills?”
“Yes,” said Ben with a laugh. And then, seeing that the man was
friendly, he added, “That’s a wonderful suit of clothes you’re wearing.”
“You like it?” The owner looked down at his costume. “I designed it
myself. It seems to me an improvement on the usual thing. And now, kind
sir, since you tell me that your steed has plenty of fodder, may I ask
how you happen to be sitting here on such a fine day?”
“This place is called the Gables, isn’t it?” asked Ben. “Mr. Joseph
Hastings lives here?”
“Right you are,” answered the man. “But Mr. Hastings isn’t at home this
morning. Did you have business with him?”
“In a way. I wanted to find out if he’d lost a silver snuff-box.”
“A snuff-box? That’s interesting. But I don’t think Joseph Hastings
takes snuff.”
Ben drew the box from his pocket. The man in green looked at it. “Now
where did you find this?” he asked.
“On an island in Barmouth Harbor,” said Ben. “Cotterell’s Island, it’s
called.”
“Well!” exclaimed the man. “Well, well—you don’t say so!” He looked at
the boy in the car with a new interest. “So that’s where you come from,
is it?” He returned the snuff-box. “May I be so inquisitive as to ask
your name?”
“Benjamin Sully.”
“Thank you. My own appellation is Roderick Fitzhugh. If you have no
objection, Mr. Sully, I should greatly enjoy the pleasure of riding with
you.”
Ben didn’t know what to say; and Mr. Fitzhugh evidently took his silence
for consent, for he immediately hopped into the seat beside the driver.
“That’s all right,” said Ben; “but you see I wasn’t thinking of riding
anywhere. I came to find out whether Mr. Hastings had lost a snuff-box
on Cotterell’s Island.”
“Just so. But you can’t find that out, as he’s not at home at present.
And meantime I suggest that we go on a little adventure. A fine day, a
steed with plenty of gasoline, and two gentlemen looking for amusement.”
Ben was mystified. “What sort of adventure?” he asked.
“Well, what would you say to hunting for hooked-rugs?”
“Hooked-rugs?” Ben laughed; he was now so much amused at Roderick
Fitzhugh’s company that he wanted to see more of him. “Do they grow on
bushes?”
“No. They grow in these thrifty Yankee cottages. I’ll tell you where to
go.”
Ben started the engine and drove on. At his companion’s direction he
soon turned into a by-road that led westward.
Roderick Fitzhugh nodded toward a cottage, in the yard of which a woman
was scattering grain to a flock of chickens. “There is a likely-looking
hunting-ground,” he said. “Please stop when you come to the gate. I will
exchange a few words with this respectable lady.”
The car stopped, making its customary noise of clattering tinware as Ben
put on the brake. The woman looked round, and in the usual neighborly
fashion of farmers walked over to the gate.
“Morning,” she said.
“Good morning to you, Madam,” responded Roderick Fitzhugh. “You have a
fine flock of hens.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at the man in the green clothes as if she
didn’t know exactly what to make of him.
“My friend and I,” continued Fitzhugh, “were just discussing the subject
of hooked-rugs. As soon as I saw you I said, ‘There’s a woman who knows
all about them.’” His tone was so deferential that anyone would have
been pleased to be addressed in such a manner.
The woman smiled. “Well, now, I don’t know as how I know all about them;
but I do have a few old rugs. Been in the family some time.”
“You see!” exclaimed Fitzhugh, turning to Ben. And to the woman he
added, “Would it be possible for my friend and me to have a look at
them?”
“Surely it would. But they’re not the new shiny kind you can buy at the
stores in the city.”
Fitzhugh and Ben descended and followed the woman indoors. Presently
they were viewing half-a-dozen antique rugs, all of the hooked variety,
that the woman collected from the upstairs rooms.
Ben looked on with interest and amusement while his new friend discussed
the rugs with their owner. And after listening to Fitzhugh’s admiration
for these things that she evidently regarded as rather faded and only
fit for service in bedrooms and attic, the woman said, “I’d be pleased
to have you take one, if you care to.”
“Oh, madam, you are too generous,” Fitzhugh answered. “And yet I should
like to have one. That medium-sized one, with the purple border. I’d be
glad to pay five dollars for it.”
“Why, it’s not worth that much.”
“It is to me,” said Fitzhugh, and he brought out a five-dollar bill from
his trouser pocket and laid it on the table.
With the rug they returned to the car. As they drove on again Fitzhugh
said, “They used to tell me, when I was a small boy, that you could take
one egg from a nest, and if there were several others left the mother
bird wouldn’t know the difference. I don’t know whether that’s so. But
I’m certain this good woman won’t miss that rug very much. So my
conscience is easy, though I got that prize at a bargain. Now, Mr.
Benjamin Sully, what do you say? Isn’t hunting for hooked-rugs
exciting?”
It was fun to hunt them with this amusing companion. Fitzhugh collected
three more at three other houses, paying five dollars for each. At the
third house the farmer and his wife and children were just sitting down
to dinner and the strangers were invited to join them. They had an
excellent meal, during which the man in green did almost all the
talking, and when they returned to the car and started on again he
rubbed his hands gleefully and said, “Mr. Benjamin Sully, it isn’t so
hard to find adventures if you look for them, is it?”
“Well,” Ben answered, “this is all very well; but I set out this morning
to see Mr. Hastings and learn if he’d lost a snuff-box.”
“That’s so, you did. Joseph Hastings—a silver snuff-box—found on
Cotterell’s Island. What makes you think that the snuff-box you found
there belonged to Joseph Hastings?”
Ben considered how much to tell this Roderick Fitzhugh, and finally
decided to supply him with more facts. “The snuff-box was bought by Mr.
Hastings at a shop in Barmouth, and I found it yesterday in a chest
hidden in a crevice in the rocks on the island. Why did he put it
there?”
The man in green beamed with delight. “In a treasure chest? Why, that’s
splendid!” He looked at Ben with new approval in his eyes. “So you’re
mixed up in a real adventure, are you? Treasure hidden in the rocks—on
an island! Why, that’s magnificent! No wonder you didn’t get excited
over my tame hooked-rugs. Turn the car about, and drive back to the
Gables. We must investigate this.”
Half-an-hour later the little car turned in between the gate-posts at
the Gables. It clattered up the drive to the front of the house. On the
wide porch were at least a dozen people, men and women; and when they
saw the occupants of the car they gave a shout of welcome.
“Hello, here’s the lad in green!”
“We thought you’d been kidnapped!”
“Where’d you find the jitney?”
“Hope you’ve had some lunch!”
“We thought you’d been arrested as a suspicious character in those
clothes!”
These were some of the exclamations.
The man got out of the car and threw his bundle of rugs on the steps of
the porch. “My good friends,” he said, “Roderick Fitzhugh has been
adventuring, and there’s his booty. Four beautiful hooked-rugs to add to
the collection. And this is Mr. Benjamin Sully. Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Sully has found a silver snuff-box belonging to Joseph Hastings in a
treasure chest on Cotterel’s Island. What do you think of that?”
There was another chorus of exclamations, expressive of great surprise.
“Mr. Sully,” the man in green continued, “if you’ll get down from your
steed we will partake of a long glass of lemonade—two glasses to be
exact.”
Ben climbed down and went up the steps. And then he noticed that all the
people on the porch were dressed in quaint costumes, as milkmaids or
archers or foresters. He looked at Fitzhugh, and the latter nodded.
“Queer crowd, aren’t they?” said Fitzhugh. “However, they won’t bite.”
XII—THE ADVENTURE AT THE COVE
That same morning, while Ben had been hunting for the owner of the red
automobile with the silver eagle on the radiator cap, Tom and David and
John Tuckerman had sailed down to Camp Amoussock in the _Argo_. They
found the boys at the camp in their bathing-suits, practicing for some
water-sports that were to be held that week. A raft, with a
spring-board, was moored off shore, and from this boys were diving and
turning somersaults, backward and forward, like acrobats in a circus.
Other boys were swimming, practising for races, and still others were
paddling round in tubs, trying to steer with their feet while they
propelled the tubs forward by splashing the water with their hands.
“There,” said John Tuckerman, as he saw a fat youngster revolving round
and round in a tub, “that’s the game for me. I believe, with my long
arms and legs, that I’d make a hit at it.”
The fat boy splashed too hard, and the tub went over neatly. There was a
shout of laughter as the boy bobbed up in the water and tried to turn
the slippery tub rightside up again. This was hard work; the tub went
round and round, continually evading his fingers; and finally he swam to
shore, pushing the tub before him.
“No,” said Tuckerman, “that isn’t the game for me. I used to be pretty
good at picking up a pea in a tablespoon, but that was on dry land. When
it comes to wrestling with a tub in the water—” He gave an expressive
shrug—“I’d rather let the fishes do it.”
The _Argo_ landed, and the three guests were provided with bathing-suits
from the camp’s supply. For half-an-hour they swam and dived and perched
on the raft, watching the boys in tubs. Then a bugle sounded on shore,
telling them it was time to get ready for dinner.
The guests did full justice to dinner, sitting between Mr. Perkins, the
Chief Counsellor, and Lanky Larry. Afterwards Mr. Perkins and John
Tuckerman had a chat, while Lanky invited Tom and David to take a walk
along the shore.
“There’s a queer sort of place a couple of miles to the south,” said
Lanky. “It’s a cove with a lot of shanties. Fishermen used to go there;
there are boats and nets lying around; but I think it must be deserted.
I saw some men there one day last week, but they didn’t look like
fishermen.”
“Lead us to it,” said David. “Deserted villages are right in our line.”
The path along the shore brought them to the cove. A little tidal river
ran inland, wandering up into marshes. On each side of the river was a
stony beach, and a rickety bridge, with a single handrail, connected the
banks of the stream. Small weatherbeaten shacks, doors and shutters
sagging outward, fishing-dories, rusty anchors, lobster-pots, a few nets
with round black buoys, these cluttered up either shore.
“Nice place, if it wasn’t for the shanties,” said David, regarding the
cove.
“I found a chap painting here one day,” said Lanky. “He told me it made
a great picture; he liked the shanties first-rate.”
“Funny what things painters like,” chuckled David. “The more ramshackle
a house is, the more they want to paint it.”
They went down a rocky path to the nearer beach, and sat on the bottom
of an upturned scow. As they were chatting they heard the creak of a
door, opening on rusty hinges. A man came out from one of the nearer
shacks. His clothes were fairly new, he wore a brown slouch hat and tan
shoes—evidently he was not a fisherman; neither was he a farmer nor a
common loafer; he looked as if he came from a town. He was smoking a
small briar pipe.
“What are you doing here?” The man’s tone was a little peremptory,
though not exactly surly.
David enjoyed such a question. With a pleasant, friendly smile he
answered, “Just sitting here and thinking.”
“That’s all you’re doing, eh?”
“It is at present,” David answered. “What are you doing yourself?”
The man frowned; looked up the creek, looked across at the opposite
shore. “Nobody lives here now,” he stated after a minute. “Sometimes I
come and fish from that bridge.”
“What’s happened to the place?” asked Lanky.
“I don’t know. Only nobody comes here now.”
“Well, we came this afternoon,” said David. “You see, we’re explorers.”
“You won’t find anything to explore.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
The man shot a glance at David, not a very amiable glance. And with that
he walked to the bridge, crossed it, and went into the huddle of shacks
on the other bank.
“Pleasant sort of customer,” said Lanky.
“He’d make a cow laugh,” said Tom.
“He didn’t like our being here,” observed David, “Now I wonder why.”
“He wants it all to himself,” said Lanky. “He must be some sort of
hermit.”
“And just for that,” said David, “I feel like sitting right here on
this scow till he gets more hospitable.”
As a matter of fact, however, sitting on the upturned boat and watching
the waves surge gently up over the stony beach and then withdraw in a
network of little rivulets that made the stones and pebbles glisten was
not entertaining enough to keep the three boys there more than five
minutes. Tom got up. “I’m going over the bridge,” he said. “If our
friend the hermit doesn’t like it—well, he’ll just have to lump it.”
The bridge shook as the three of them stepped upon it. “For goodness
sake, don’t lean against that railing,” Lanky warned. “Stop bouncing up
and down as you walk, Dave, or you’ll have us all in the water.”
David went on bouncing; but in spite of that they reached the other
shore safely. No one was to be seen here; somewhere in the clutter of
shanties the man had disappeared.
“I’d like to know what that precious hermit is up to,” said David, and
he walked toward the shacks that were furthest from the bridge.
Lanky and Tom investigated in the other direction, where a clump of oaks
came close down to the stream. At the edge of the trees was a shack a
little larger and better built than the others. The door was open, and
the two boys looked in. “Hello!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s that on the
bench? It looks like jewelry.”
A brown cloak, a brown hat with a red feather stuck at one side, and a
chain of gold links with a large green stone as a pendant, were piled on
the bench.
Tom picked up the ornament. “It’s imitation,” he said. He looked around
the room. “Why, there’s a whole wardrobe of queer hats and cloaks and
things here!”
“So there is,” said Lanky. “What do you suppose they are? Actors’
things?”
“Actors’ things?” Tom glanced at the outfit of costumes that hung on
pegs on one wall. “They’re certainly not fishermen’s things. But what
would actors be doing in this cove?”
“I don’t know,” Lanky admitted. “It is funny, isn’t it?”
They looked at the costumes more closely, and then went out of the
shack. “I wonder if that man knows something about them,” Lanky
suggested. “He might have been keeping guard.”
“Let’s see what Dave’s doing,” said Tom, and started along the bank.
He had only taken a few steps, however, when he stopped. “Here comes a
boat around the point. Let’s beat it, and see what they do.”
The two slipped back of a cabin, then to a shelter of bushes. Crouching
there, they watched the boat nose its bow into the cove.
The boat was a dory. One man was rowing, two others sat in the stern.
They looked no more like the usual type of fishermen than had the man
whom the boys had first encountered.
With considerable splashing the boat was rowed up to the bridge. The
tide was low, and there was hardly enough water at that point to float
the dory. The rower shipped his oars and tied the boat to the railing of
the bridge. Meantime the other two men stepped over the side and came up
on to the beach.
All three headed toward the shack that the boys had just left and went
in at the door.
“They seem to know their way about,” whispered Lanky. “I wonder why
Dave’s friend didn’t come down to meet them.”
In a few minutes the three men came out again, and now they had some of
the cloaks and hats in their hands. Each put on a cloak and a hat and
strutted about; they laughed and joked at each other.
“What in the world——” muttered Lanky. “Actors. I told you,” Tom
whispered. “They look like highwaymen.”
The men now seemed satisfied with their costumes. Hats pulled well down
on their heads and cloaks thrown over their shoulders, they took the
path toward the clump of oaks.
“I say,” muttered Lanky, “what do you suppose they’re going to do? Hold
up some farmer’s wagon? Come on, I want to find out what’s their game.”
“I’d better get Dave,” said Tom. “You follow them. I’ll catch up with
you in a minute.”
“All right.”
Lanky went one way, and Tom the other.
Tom ran over the stones between the shanties, and looked in at the open
doors; but he did not see David nor the man they had met first. He gave
the whistle he used to call David in Barmouth. There was no answer. The
shacks on this side of the stream all appeared deserted.
David was not to be found, and Tom supposed he must have gone further
along the shore. Meantime he would be losing the chance of finding
Lanky, so after whistling several times more Tom turned and ran toward
the oaks.
The path along the cove was well marked, it traversed the high ground at
the edge of the marshes and turned into fairly thick woods. At a
dog-trot Tom soon came up with Lanky. “I couldn’t find Dave,” he
grunted. “I guess he found the hermit so fascinating he went for a
stroll with him.”
“I’ve kept my eye on the three highwaymen,” said Lanky. “This seems to
be the only path around here, marshes on one side and the forest
primeval on the other.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “I ought to be
getting back to camp; but I can’t leave an adventure like this. It
wouldn’t be decent, would it?”
“It would not,” Tom assented. “If they try to blame you, you refer them
to me. I’ll say that we thought those fellows were up to some kind of
mischief, and that it seemed to be our duty to investigate them. And
that’s telling the truth; they’re what Benjie would call ‘suspicious
characters.’”
Every once in a while the boys would catch a glimpse of one or other of
the cloaked men through the vista of the trees. Then the boys would stop
and let the others get well ahead of them. And presently they reached a
dusty road and saw the men tramping along to the south.
Tom and Lanky had to come out in the open then, but, as Lanky pointed
out, there was no reason why the men, if they saw them, should think the
two boys were at all interested in what they were doing. They walked a
half-mile without encountering anyone, and then the boys saw an
automobile coming toward the three in front.
“Now,” said Tom, “we’ll see if they’re highwaymen. This is a nice quiet
place to hold up a car.”
But the men disappeared by jumping over a fence that ran along the woods
on the left. The automobile, a man and a woman in it, dashed by the
boys, leaving a cloud of dust.
“So ho!” exclaimed Lanky, “our friends don’t want to be seen! Suppose we
make ourselves scarce till they come back to the road.”
The boys hid in the woods, and presently the three men reappeared on the
road. Tom and Lanky followed suit, and the march was resumed.
A mile more, and the men came to a crossroad. They turned toward the
west. When the boys reached the crossroad Lanky stopped. “This is a
private lane,” he said. “See, it leads up to that barn and stable. And
there’s a big house. Our friends are going in the back way.”
There was a screen of trees at the corner. The boys went along the lane
until the screen gave way to a close-cropped hedge. Here they had a view
of a wide, velvety lawn and the large house, red-striped awnings at the
windows, on a gently-rising slope.
“Hello!” exclaimed Tom. “Look there!”
There was no heed of his telling Lanky to look. Lanky was staring at
that part of the lawn that was shielded by the trees at the corner.
There was a small, one-story house that looked as if it were made of
cardboard, a very picturesque building, brightly painted to resemble
cross-timbers, with two little lattice windows. And grouped about the
grass in front of the house were a dozen or so men and women, all of
them dressed in fancy costumes, looking as if they had just stepped out
of a picture book or down from the stage of a theatre.
“My eye!” said Tom. “What is it? A fancy dress party?”
“Looks like a Robin Hood scene,” said Lanky. “Some of them have bows and
arrows. See that girl in pink working that churn.” He watched for a
moment; then added, “So that’s why our friends the highwaymen came along
this way.”
“They don’t seem to have joined the crowd,” said Tom. “Why didn’t they
jump over the hedge?”
The people on the lawn were too busy to notice the boys in the lane.
Lanky nodded. “That’s so. And it seems to me, Tom, that that crowd are a
different type from our three friends. These people belong here; but I
don’t think the others do.”
The boys looked up the lane. The three men had entered at a gate that
led to the rear of the big house.
“Let’s see what they’re doing,” said Tom.
Along the lane went the two boys, and turned in at the gate.
The men had disappeared. Lanky shook his head. “It’s queer, mighty
queer. Of course those fellows may belong here. But why should they come
all the way from that cove? And bring those hats and cloaks with them?”
He scratched his ear, as he did when he was puzzled.
“Come along,” said Tom. “Nobody’ll throw us out.”
They crossed the lawn to the steps of the porch. A man came out from the
front door, a man in livery, apparently the butler. He held himself very
straight, he was an angular person, with a fishy eye.
“Yes?” he said; and though the word was a short one he managed to
express in it a cold sense of disapproval.
“Er—” began Tom, “we would like to know if three men, wearing brown
cloaks and big slouch hats, just came into this house.”
The butler shrugged his shoulders. “There are gentlemen and ladies
wearing every kind of costume coming in and going out all the time,” he
answered stiffly.
That seemed to put an end to further questions; but Lanky, after
considering the matter for a moment, inquired, “Whose place is this?”
“It belongs to Mr. Hastings,” said the butler, eyeing the boys most
disapprovingly. “He is not at home at present. But I can answer any
questions for him.”
Neither Lanky nor Tom, however, could think of any questions to ask. It
seemed absurd to tell this fishy-eyed servant that they had followed the
three men from the cove. And after all the men might have a perfect
right to have entered the house.
“Very well,” said Tom, and turned on his heel, followed by Lanky.
But when they were out in the lane again, Lanky said, “I’m going to wait
around here a little longer. That servant’s a fool. Anybody could put
anything over on him.”
So they climbed up on the stone wall on the other side of the lane and
sat there like two sentries.
XIII—ON THE FISHING-SMACK
When Tom and Lanky had turned to the right and investigated the
fishermen’s shanties that were nearest to the marshes, David had turned
to the left, in the direction of the ocean. He had no particular object
in view, except to see what the man they had met on the other bank of
the cove was doing and exchange a few more words with him, if the
opportunity offered.
He looked through the clutter of small, weatherbeaten sheds without
seeing the man, and came to the beach on the ocean side. A short
distance to the south was a spit of sand, and there, seated on a log,
was the fellow with the straw hat.
David enjoyed an argument. He was not by nature so curious about other
people as Ben was, but he liked to tease. So, with his hands stuck in
his pockets and a little swagger in his walk, he went toward the man.
“Looking for a boat to come along and take you for a sail?” he said.
“It’s a long walk to town.”
“You’d better be on your way then,” the man retorted. His tone was not
very civil, and it made David flush.
“I can look out for myself.”
“Oh, you can, can you?” The man turned round and glared at the young
fellow. “Well, my advice to you is to make yourself scarce pretty
quick.”
David squared his shoulders. “You don’t want me and my friends round
here, do you? A person might think you owned the beach.”
“No,” said the man, “I don’t want you round here.” He looked at the boy
fixedly for a minute. “That’s plain enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s plain enough,” David admitted. “But I don’t see that it’s any
reason why we should go.”
“I’ve business here, and you haven’t.”
“Business? You don’t seem very busy.”
The man got up from the log and walked away, down the beach toward a
ledge of rock that shut off the southern end.
What was the man’s business? David, rather amused at the other’s
surliness, followed after, walking jauntily.
He climbed the ledge of rock. There was another scallop of beach, with
bushes close down to the sand. The man was not in sight. But there was a
small fishing-smack at anchor not far from the shore, and a dory was
just pulling away from her.
David stepped down on the beach, and the first thing he knew something
had knocked him flat. He lay sprawling on the sand, a heavy weight on
his back. Someone had caught his two hands and held them like a vise.
“Holler if you want to,” said the man with the straw hat.
David had no wish to shout. The breath was knocked out of him.
The man pinned him down, and after kicking a little, David decided the
wisest course was to lie still.
After a few minutes there was a grating sound on the sand. David twisted
his head enough to see that the dory had landed and that two men were
coming ashore.
“Hello, Sam, what you got there?” exclaimed one of the strangers.
“A fresh guy, who wouldn’t mind his own business,” was the answer. “Now
I’m going to teach him not to meddle:”
“Good for you, old sport! Give him a good licking.”
“Pity we left the cat-o’-nine-tails out on the boat,” said the second
man.
“Three of them came to the cove,” said the man on David’s back. “The
other two went away; but this fellow had to go nosing around into other
people’s business. I told him to make himself scarce. But not he! Oh no,
he had to find out what I was doing. And now I’m going to take him out
on the boat and watch me do some fishing.”
There was a laugh at this. “You’ll let him bait your hook, won’t you,
Sam?” asked one.
“I’ll let him take the fish off,” Sam retorted. “You fellows row us out,
will you?”
The others agreed. The man on David’s back eased his position. “Now,”
said he, “you can come along without any fuss or trouble, or you can
come with a black eye. Suit yourself; it doesn’t make any difference to
me.”
Three to one was greater odds than David cared to tackle. “I’ll go
along,” he grunted.
The man got up. David followed. Assuming a care-free manner he walked to
the boat and climbed over the high side. A man sat at the oars, and Sam
and the two others took seats on the thwarts. The oars dipped in the
water, and the dory was rowed out to the smack.
David and Sam went aboard, and the dory with her crew of three rowed
away again in the direction of the cove.
“Now,” said Sam, “make yourself comfortable. You’ve found out my
business. I’m going to fish for flounders.” And he walked aft and down
into the cabin.
David was puzzled. He could understand that this man might have had a
grudge against him, even that he might have lost his temper and attacked
him as he had; but why should he carry a grudge so far as to make him a
prisoner on his fishing-boat?
He stared at the shore some time, then walked up toward the bow. Sam had
reappeared from the cabin with fishing-tackle and was angling over the
side. There was a line for David, and so, there being nothing better to
do, David also set to fishing.
Fish were not biting on that particular afternoon, however. Presently
Sam hauled in his line. “The pesky things never come when you want
them,” he said morosely. “I suppose there are lots of them swimming
around everywhere except where _I_ cast my hook.”
“You’re not a real fisherman,” said David. “There’s a knack to catching
fish.”
“No, I’m not; and I don’t want to be,” was the man’s answer. “Of all the
stupid jobs, I think fishing takes the cake.”
David was about to argue this point when another man came out from the
cabin and joined them. At once David, wise in the look of sailormen from
his acquaintance with them on the docks of Barmouth, decided that this
was the skipper. The new arrival stretched his arms and yawned
prodigiously. “Golly, I’m only half-awake yet,” he declared. “Sam,
where’d you pick up this fellow?”
“He wanted to have a look at the boat,” said Sam. “In fact he was so set
on having a look at her that I just had to invite him aboard.”
He said this with a sly glance at David, but if he had expected to get
an angry denial he was disappointed, for David, leaning his arms on the
rail, appeared to be in such a deep study of the shore as to allow for
no interruption.
“The others gone ashore?” asked the skipper, evidently regarding the
reason for David’s presence on the boat as a matter of small importance.
“Yes,” said Sam. He pulled a large watch from the upper pocket of his
coat and looked at it. “And it’s about time they were coming back.”
There was no sign of them, however; and the sun began to slant toward
the west, and then to dip behind the trees, and still there was no boat
to be seen coming out from the cove. David, strolling up and down the
deck, noticed that Sam was becoming impatient. After a while there was a
fragrant odor of cooking, and David, putting his head in at the cabin
door, saw that the skipper was getting supper in the galley.
The sun had set when the skipper’s voice announced that food was ready.
“Come along,” Sam said to David, and though the invitation was not very
cordial David went down to the cabin and ate his fair share of the meal.
Afterwards the three, on deck, watched the shore for a boat. And when
the beach was quite dark and Sam had looked at his watch a dozen times,
he said, almost angrily, “Well, Captain, I think it’s about time to beat
it. They must have changed their plans. We don’t want to stay here all
night.”
The skipper glanced at David. “How about him?” he asked, with a jerk of
the head.
“He can help you sail the boat down to Gosport. That’ll pay for his
supper.”
David was tired of inaction. To sail to Gosport attracted him much more
than staying here at anchor any longer. He spoke up quickly:
“Yes, Captain. I know something about handling sails.”
“Good enough. That’s more than Sam does,” remarked the skipper. “He’s
about as useful in handling this boat as a belaying-pin.”
Shortly the anchor was up and the fishing-smack under way. David carried
out the skipper’s orders with proper efficiency. With a gentle breeze
the boat stole southward along the shore, and in half-an-hour the lights
of the little settlement of Gosport were glimmering over the water.
The smack came up to a wharf. “Now,” said Sam to David, “you can go
ashore if you like. The captain and I may do a little cruising, but we
don’t need you any longer.”
“Thanks,” said David. He had a retort on the tip of his tongue, but
wisely forbore to utter it. He jumped ashore. “If you come to Barmouth,
look me up,” he called back. “I’ll be glad to show you the town.”
There was a laugh from the skipper, but none from Sam. Immediately the
fishing-smack pushed out again.
Gosport was a small place, and David knew no one there. He felt in his
pocket, and found he had no money to pay his fare to Barmouth. He walked
along the waterfront, considering what he should do, and presently came
upon a young man, who was starting the engine of a small motor-boat.
“You’re not going anywhere in the neighborhood of Camp Amoussock, are
you?” David asked the man in the boat.
The other looked around and surveyed the fellow who had asked the
question. “Are you one of the boys from the camp?”
“I was there at dinner.” And in a few words David told the story of what
had happened to him during the afternoon.
“Well,” said the man, “that’s a queer yarn. I was just going out for a
moonlight spin, and I might as well go up to the camp as anywhere. Jump
aboard.”
David accepted with alacrity. The motor-boat chugged out from the
landing-stage, and leaving a smooth silver ripple, darted north.
The owner of the motor-boat—he had told David that his name was Henry
Payson—said that, although he had only been a month at Gosport, he knew
that part of the coast quite well, and had never happened to see any
fishermen in the cove that David described. “That fellow Sam was a
vindictive chap,” he added musingly. “But you know, it almost seems as
if he had some other object than merely showing his spitefulness when he
took you off in his boat.”
“That’s what I thought,” agreed David. “But Tom and Lanky were still at
the cove. He didn’t lay hands on them.”
“Well,” said Payson, “the cove’s around that next point of land. No use
stopping there now, I suppose. Your friends will surely have gone back
to camp.”
When the motor-boat rounded the point, however, Payson changed his mind.
On shore there were a score of lanterns; both banks of the cove fairly
bristled with them. “Hello,” exclaimed Payson, “there’s something doing
there all right!” And he altered his course so as to bring his craft
into the mouth of the river.
As the boat ran up to the bridge boys came down from both sides,
apparently all the boys of Camp Amoussock.
“Why, it’s Dave!” cried John Tuckerman. And immediately the two in the
boat were the target of a volley of questions.
“Hold on!” cried David. “Wait a minute.” He swung himself out of the
boat and up to the bridge.
“Where are Lanky and Tom?” someone asked.
“Aren’t they here?” said David. And as Tuckerman and Mr. Perkins and the
boys from the camp crowded around he told them briefly his adventures
since dinner.
“We’ve been hunting for you ever since supper,” said Mr. Perkins. “I
can’t imagine where Larry and Tom can have gone.”
“Those three men rowed in here in the dory,” said David. “Perhaps they
carried Larry and Tom off somewhere.”
“We’ve hunted through every shack,” said Bill Crawford. “And we’ve been
down the coast a couple of miles.”
The chorus of voices explaining where they had hunted started in again,
interrupted by Mr. Perkins giving the order to his troop to take the
road back to camp.
David thanked Henry Payson, and the motor-boat chugged away. By the path
along the shore the searchers regained Camp Amoussock. And there Mr.
Perkins and John Tuckerman and David held a council as to what to do
next.
The upshot was that Mr. Perkins got out a small car, and with Tuckerman
and David set out to see if they could learn any news of the missing
boys.
XIV—BEN AT THE GABLES
Ben that afternoon had a long, cool glass of lemonade on the porch of
the Gables while his friend Roderick Fitzhugh introduced him to the men
and women who were sitting in wicker easy chairs. It seemed to Ben that
their names were somewhat fantastic, but then so were their clothes, and
the names did appear to suit the costumes.
“This lady,” said Fitzhugh, nodding to a rosy-cheeked girl, who wore her
brown hair in two long plaits down her back and whose dress was of
primrose yellow, “is the fair Maid Rosalind. She can sing like a
nightingale and dance like a wave of the sea, and when she churns butter
it comes out pure gold.”
The girl stood up and made a curtsy. “Thanks, kind Master Roderick,” she
said. “But perhaps your friend Master Ben doesn’t care for gold on his
bread.”
“The more fool he,” answered Fitzhugh.
“However, he can eat plumcake.” And Ben’s host pushed a plate of
delicious-looking cake toward his guest.
“Yonder man in the high boots, with the fierce mustaches,” Fitzhugh
continued, “bears the high-sounding name of Sir Marmaduke Midchester. He
looks like a sword swallower, but he is really as gentle as a lamb. He
has been known to eat crumbs out of Maid Rosalind’s hand.”
“Glad to meet Master Sully,” said Sir Marmaduke. “I wrote a song this
morning—words and music both—perhaps he would like to hear me sing
it.”
Fitzhugh held up his hand. “Not just now, Marmaduke, please. Let my
guest digest his plumcake in quiet.”
So the introductions went on, with all sorts of jokes and banter. It was
a jolly crowd, and Ben was enjoying it hugely. He began to find his
tongue and make retorts of his own. But when he had finished the
lemonade and the cake he turned to his host. “I’d like to stay, but I
think I had better be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to go out to
Cotterell’s Island.”
“No, no, Master Ben. If you’d like to stay, you shall stay. Cotterell’s
Island can wait. We need you here at present.”
“Well, but——” began Ben.
“There are no ‘buts’ about it,” answered Fitzhugh. “List to me, my lad.
This place is a green oasis in a desert of modern things. Here we do as
we please. And it pleases us now to be ladies and gentlemen of good
Sherwood Forest and Nottingham.” Fitzhugh stood up. “Come with me. I’ll
find you more fitting clothes than those simple togs you have on.”
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