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Title: The Phantom Yacht
Author: Norton, Carol
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Phantom Yacht" ***
“_Look! Look!” he cried. “That’s what I was wantin’ to find._”
(_Page 101_) (_The Phantom Yacht_)
THE
PHANTOM YACHT
_By_ CAROL NORTON
Author of
“Bobs, A Girl Detective,” “The Seven Sleuths’ Club,” etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Printed in U. S. A.
MYSTERY _and_ ADVENTURE SERIES _for_ GIRLS
12 TO 16 YEARS OF AGE
The Phantom Yacht, by Carol Norton.
Bobs, A Girl Detective, by Carol Norton.
The Seven Sleuths’ Club, by Carol Norton.
The Phantom Treasure, by Harriet Pyne Grove.
The Secret of Steeple Rocks, by Harriet Pyne Grove.
Copyright, 1928
By A. L. BURT COMPANY
CONTENTS
I. Friends Parted 3
II. Banishing Ghosts 13
III. A Lost Mother 21
IV. Seaward Bound 30
V. A New Experience 42
VI. A Light in the Dark 49
VII. The Phantom Yacht 56
VIII. What Happened 64
IX. A Mysterious Message 73
X. Sounds in the Loft 82
XI. A Querulous Old Aunt 88
XII. A Bleached Skeleton 96
XIII. Belling the Ghost 106
XIV. A Punt Ride 112
XV. A Gloomy Swamp 117
XVI. Out in the Dark 121
XVII. More Mysteries 127
XVIII. An Airplane Sighted 133
XIX. Two Boys Investigate 139
XX. One Mystery Solved 149
XXI. A channel in the Swamp 160
XXII. The Old Ruin at Midnight 170
XXIII. Letters of Importance 183
XXIV. A Surprising Revelation 193
XXV. Puzzled Again 205
XXVI. A Clue to the Old Ruin Mystery 214
XXVII. Ransacking the Old Ruin 224
XXVIII. The Best Surprise of All 239
THE PHANTOM YACHT
CHAPTER I.
FRIENDS PARTED
The face of Dories Moore was as dismal as the day was bright. It was
Indian summer and the maple trees under which she was hurrying were
joyfully arrayed in red and gold, while crimson, yellow and purple
flowers nodded at her from the gardens that she passed with unseeing
eyes. She was almost blinded with tears; her scarlet tam was awry, as
though she had put it on hurriedly, and her sweater coat, of the same
cheerful hue, was unbuttoned and flapping as she fairly ran down the
village street. In her hand was a note which had been the cause of the
tears and the haste. On it were a few penciled words:
“Dori dear, we are leaving sooner than we expected. I’m sending this to
you by little Johnnie-next-door. Do come right over and say good-bye to
someone who loves you best of all.
“Your sister-friend,
“Nann.”
At a large old colonial house at the edge of the town, just where the
meadows began, the girl turned in at a lilac-guarded gate and hurried up
the neatly graveled walk. Her eyes were again brimming with tears as she
glanced up at the curtainless windows that looked as dismal and deserted
as she felt. Hurrying up the steps, she lifted the quaintly carved old
iron knocker and shuddered as she heard the sound echoing uncannily
through the big unfurnished rooms. Her sensitive mouth quivered when she
heard the sound of running feet on bare floors and when the door was
flung open by another girl of about the same age, Dori leaped in and,
throwing her arms about her friend, she burst into tears.
“Why, Dories! Dear, dear Dori, don’t cry so hard.” There were sudden
tears in the warm brown eyes of Nann Sibbett, as for a moment she held
her friend tenderly close.
“One might think that I was going a million miles away.” She tried to
speak cheerfully. “Boston isn’t so very far from Elmwood and some day,
soon, I am sure that you will be coming to visit me.”
An April-like smile flickered tremulously on the lips of the younger girl
as she stepped back and straightened her tam. “Well, that is something to
look forward to,” she confessed. “It will be a little strip of silver
lining to as black a cloud as ever came into my life. Of course,” Dories
amended, “losing father was terrible, but I was too young to know the
loneliness of it, and being poor when we should be rich is awfully hard.
Sometimes I feel so rebellious, O, nobody knows how rebellious I feel.
But losing one’s money is nothing compared to losing one’s only friend.”
The other girl, who was taller by half a head, actually laughed. “Why,
Dories Moore, here you talk as though you would not have a single friend
left when I have moved away. There isn’t a girl at High who hasn’t been
green with envy because I have had the good fortune to be your best
friend ever since we were in kindergarten, and just as soon as I’m out of
town they’ll be swarming around you, each one aspiring to be your pal.”
There was a scornful curl on the sensitive lips of the listener. “As
though I would let anyone have your place, Nann Sibbett. Never, never,
never, not if I live to be a thousand years old.” Then with an appealing
upward glance, “But you’ll probably like some city girl heaps better than
you ever did me. I suppose you’ll forget all about me soon.”
“Silly!” Nann exclaimed brightly, giving her friend an impulsive hug.
“Don’t you remember when you were eleven and I was twelve, we had a
ceremony out in the meadow under the twin elms and we vowed, just as
solemnly as we knew how, that we would be adopted sisters and that real
born sisters could not be closer.”
Dories nodded, smiling again at the pleasant recollection. “Do you know,
Nann,” she put in, “I sort of feel that we were intended to be sisters
some way. It was such a strange coincidence that our birthdays happened
to fall on the same day, the third of September.”
“Maybe if they hadn’t,” Nann chimed in, “you and I wouldn’t have been
best friends at all, for, don’t you remember, way back in kindergarten
days, you were so shy you didn’t make friends with anyone, and when Miss
Sally wanted to find a seat for you that very first morning, she chose me
because it was our birthday. After that, since I was a year older, I felt
that I ought to look out for you just as a big sister really should.”
Dories nodded, then as she glanced into the bare library, in the wide
doorway of which they were standing, she said dismally, “O, Nann, what
good times we’ve had in this room. I can almost see now when we were very
little girls curled up on that window seat near the fireplace studying
our first primer, and on and on until last June when we were cramming for
our sophomore finals.”
“I know.” Nann looked wistfully toward the corner which Dories had
indicated. “I don’t believe we will either of us know how to study
alone.” Then, fearing that tears would come again, she caught her
friend’s hand as she exclaimed, “Dories dear, this room is too full of
ghosts of our past. Let’s go out in the garden. Dad had to go to the bank
to finish up some business, and I had to stay here to see that the last
load of furniture got off safely. It left just before you came. We’re
going to store it for a time and live in a very fine hotel in Boston.
Won’t that be a lark for a change?”
Dories spoke bitterly, “Well, for one thing I _am_ thankful, and that is
that your father didn’t lose his money the way my father did, though how
it happened I never knew and mother never told me.”
“Maybe it will all come back some time in a manner just as mysterious,”
her friend said cheerfully as she led her down the steps around the
house. Neither of the girls spoke of Nann’s dear mother, who had so
recently died, and whose passing had made life in the old house
unendurable to the daughter and her father, but they were both thinking
of her as they wandered into the garden which she had so loved. Nann
slipped an arm about her friend as she paused to look at the blossoms.
“Autumn flowers are always so bright and cheerful, aren’t they, Dori?”
She was determined to change the younger girl’s dismal trend of thought.
“That bed of scarlet salvia over by the evergreen hedge seems to be just
rejoicing about something, and the asters, of almost every color, look as
though they were dressed for a party. They’re happy, if we aren’t.”
“Stupid things!” Dories said petulantly. “They don’t know or care because
you, who have tended and watered and loved them, are going away forever
and ever.”
“Yes, they do know,” Nann said, smiling a bit tremulously, “for last
night when I came out to give them a drink, I told them all about it, but
they’re just trying to make the best of it. They know it’s as hard for me
to go away from my old home as it is for them to have me go, but they’re
trying to make it easier for me, I guess.”
Dories flashed a quick glance up at her companion. Then, impulsively,
“Oh, Nann, how selfish I always am! Of course it’s hard for you to leave
your old home and go among strangers. Here all the time I’ve just been
thinking how _hard_ it is for _me_ to have you go.” Then, making a little
bow toward the bed of radiant asters, the girl of many moods called to
them: “You’re setting a good example, you little plant folk in your
bright blossom tams. From now on I’ll be just as cheerful as ever I can.”
Smiling up at her companion, Dories exclaimed, “And all this time I’ve
had some news that I haven’t told you.” Answering verbally her friend’s
questioning look, she hurried on, “I’m going away myself for the month of
October. At least I suppose I am, and that’s one of the things that has
made me so dismally blue.” Nann stopped in the garden path which they had
been slowly circling and gazed into the pretty face of her friend, hardly
knowing whether to congratulate or condole. Instead of doing either, she
queried, “But why are you so dismal about it, Dori? I’ve often heard you
say that you did wish you could see something of the world beyond
Elmwood?”
“I know it and I still should wish it if you were going with me, but this
journey is anything but pleasant to anticipate.”
“Do tell me about it. I’m consumed with curiosity.” Nann drew her friend
to a garden seat and sat with an arm holding her close. “Now start at the
beginning. _Who_ are you going with, where and why?” The question, simple
as it seemed, brought tears with a rush to the violet-blue eyes of the
younger girl, but remembering her recent resolve, she sat up
ramrod-straight as she replied, making her mouth into as hard a line as
she could. “The one I am going with is an old crab of a great-aunt whom I
have never seen. I’m ever so sure she is a crab, although my angel mother
always smooths over that part of her nature when she’s telling me about
her. She’s rich as Crœsus, if that fabled person really was rich. I’m
never very sure about those things.”
Nann laughed. “He was! You’re safe in your comparison. But he got much of
his money by taking it away from other people with the cruel taxes he
levied.”
“Oh, well, of course my Great Aunt Jane isn’t so terribly rich,” Dories
modified, “but Mother said she had plenty for every comfort and luxury,
and what’s more, Mums _did_ agree with _me_ when I said that she must be
queer. That is, Mother said that even my father, who was Great-Aunt
Jane’s own nephew, couldn’t understand her ways.” Then, with eyes
solemn-wide, the narrator continued: “Nann Sibbett, as I’ve often told
you, I don’t understand in the least what became of our inheritance. If
Mother knows, she won’t tell, but I’m suspicious of that crabby old Aunt
Jane. I think she has it. There now, that’s what I think.”
Nann was interested and said so. “But, Dori dear, you’ve sidetracked. You
began by saying that you were going somewhere. I take it that your
Great-Aunt Jane has invited you to go somewhere with her. Is that right?”
“It is!” the other girl said glumly. “But, believe me, I don’t look
forward to the excursion with any great pleasure.” Then she hurried on.
“Think of it, Nann, that awful old lady has actually requested that I
spend the whole dismal month of October with her down on the beach at
some lonely isolated place called Siquaw Point.”
But if Dories expected sympathy, she was disappointed. “Oh, Dori!” was
the excited exclamation that she heard, “I know about Siquaw Point. An
aunt of mine went there one summer, and she just raved about the rocky
cliffs, the sand dunes and the sea. I’d love it, I know, even in the
middle of winter, and, dear, sometimes October is a beautiful month. You
may have a wonderful time.”
But Dories refused to see any hope of happiness ahead. “The Garden of
Eden would be a dismal place to me if I had to be alone in it with my
Great-Aunt Jane.”
Nann laughed, then hearing a siren calling from the front, she sprang up,
held out both hands to her friend as she exclaimed, “There’s my
chauffeur-dad waiting to bear me stationward, but, dear, I’ve thought of
one thing that will help some. To get to Siquaw Point you will have to go
through Boston. If you’ll let me know the day and the hour I’ll be at the
station to speed you on your way.”
How the younger girl’s face brightened. “Nann, darling,” she exclaimed,
“will you truly? Then that will give me a chance to see you again in just
a few weeks, maybe only two, for its nearly October now.”
“Righto!” was the cheerful reply. “There’s that siren again. I must go.
Will you come and say good-bye to Dad?”
But the other girl shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’d
rather not now. You tell him for me. I’m going home across lots. I don’t
want anyone to see how near I am to crying.” As she spoke two tears
splashed down her cheeks. Nann caught her in a close embrace. “Dear, dear
sister-friend,” she said, “I’m going to be just as lonely as you are.”
Then, stooping, she picked an aster and held it out, saying brightly,
“This golden aster wants to go with you to tell you that we’re going to
be as cheerful as we can, come what may. See you next month, Dori, sure
as sure.”
Nann turned at the corner of the house to wave, and then Dories walked
slowly across lots thinking over the conversation she had had with her
dearly loved friend. She paused a moment under the twin elms where, in
the long ago, they had vowed to be loyal as any two sisters could be.
Then, with a deep sigh, she went on to the cosy brown house under other
spreading elms that she called home.
CHAPTER II.
BANISHING GHOSTS
There was a cheerful bustle in the kitchen when Dories opened the side
door. Her mother was preparing the noon meal with her customary wordless
song, although now and then a merry message to the frail boy, who so
often sat in a low chair near the stove, was sung to the melody. Just
then the newcomer heard the lilted announcement: “Footsteps I hear, and
now will appear my very dear little daughter.”
Dories was repentant. “Oh, Mother, if I haven’t stayed out too late
again, and you’ve had to stop your sewing to get lunch.”
Little Peter paused in his whittling long enough to remark, “Dori, you’ve
been crying. What for?”
But a tactful mother shook her head quickly at the small boy, saying
brightly, “O, I was glad to stop sewing and stretch a bit. That brocade
dress is hard to work on. I don’t know how many machine needles it has
broken. But since it belongs to a rich person she won’t mind paying for
them.”
After putting the golden aster in a vase, Dories snatched her apron from
its hook in the closet and put it on with darkening looks. “Mother
Moore,” she threatened, “if you don’t go and lie down on the lounge until
lunch is ready, I’m not going to let you sew a single bit more today.
It’s just terribly wicked, and all wrong somehow, that you have to make
dresses for other women to keep us alive when my very own father’s very
own Aunt Jane is simply rolling in wealth, and——”
“Tut! Tut! Little firefly!” Her mother laughingly shook a stirring spoon
in her direction. “If you had ever seen your stately old Aunt Jane, you
just couldn’t conceive of her rolling in anything. That would be much too
undignified.”
“But, Mother, you know I meant that figuratively, not literally. She is
rich and we are poor. Now I ask you what right has one member of a family
to have all that his heart desires and another to have to sew for a
living.”
Little Peter tittered: “It’s _her_ heart, if it’s Great-Aunt Jane you’re
talking about.” A sharp retort was on the girl’s lips when her mother
said cheerily, “Now, kiddies, let’s talk about something else. Mrs. Doran
sent us over a whole pint of cream. Shall we have it whipped on those
last blackberries that Peter found this morning out in Briary Meadow, or
shall I make a little biscuit shortcake?”
“Shortcake! Shortcake! I want shortcake!” Peter sang out.
“But, Mother, you’re too tired to make one,” Dories protested.
“Then you make it, Dori,” Peter pleaded.
“You know I couldn’t make a biscuit shortcake, Peter Moore, not if my
life depended on it.” The girl was in a self-accusing mood. “I never
learned how to do anything useful.” Dories was putting the pretty lunch
dishes on a small table in the kitchen corner breakfast-nook as she
talked.
The understanding mother, realizing the conflicting emotions that were
making her young daughter so unhappy, brought out the flour and other
ingredients as she said, “Never too late to learn, dear. Come and take
your first lesson in biscuit-making.”
Half an hour later, as they sat around the lunch table, Dories told as
much of her recent conversation with her best friend as she wished to
share. Then they had the blackberry shortcake and real cream, and even
Peter acknowledged that it was “most as good as Mother’s.”
When the kitchen had been tidied and Peter had gone to his little upper
room for the nap that was so necessary for the regaining of his health,
Dories went into the small sewing room which formerly had been her
father’s den and stood looking discontentedly out of the window. Her
mother had resumed sewing on the rich brocaded dress. When the hum of the
machine was stilled, she glanced at the pensive girl and said: “Dori
dear, this is the first afternoon that I can remember, almost, that you
have been at home with me. You and Nann always went somewhere or did
something. You are going to miss your best friend ever so much, I know,
but—” there was a break in the voice which caused the girl to turn and
look inquiringly at her mother, who was intently pressing a seam, and who
finished her sentence a bit pathetically, “it’s going to mean a good deal
to me, daughter, to have your companionship once in a while.”
With a little cry the girl sprang across the room and knelt at her
mother’s side, her arms about her. “O, Mumsie, was there ever a more
selfish girl? I don’t see how you have kept on loving me all these
years.” Then her pretty face flushed and she hesitated before confessing:
“I hate to say it, for it only shows how truly horrid I am, but I liked
to be over at Nann’s, where the furniture was so beautiful, not
threadbare like ours.” She was looking through the open door into the
living-room, where she could see the old couch with its worn covering. “I
ought to have stayed at home and helped you with your sewing, but I will
from now on.”
The mother, knowing that tears were near, put a finger beneath the girl’s
chin and looked deep into the repentant violet blue eyes. Kissing her
tenderly, she said merrily, “Very well, young lady, if you wish to punish
yourself for past neglects, sit over there in my low rocker and take the
bastings out of this skirt.”
Dories obeyed and was soon busy at the simple task. To change the
subject, her mother spoke of the planned trip. “It will be your very
first journey away from Elmwood, dear. At your age I would have been ever
so excited.”
The girl looked up from her work, a cloud of doubt in her eyes. “Oh,
Mother, do you really think that you would have been, if you were going
to a summer resort where the cottages were all shut up tight as clams,
boarded up, too, probably, and with such a queer, grumphy person as
Great-Aunt Jane for company?” The girl shuddered. “Every time I think of
it I feel the chills run down my back. I just know the place will be full
of ghosts. I won’t sleep a wink all the time I’m there. I’m convinced of
that.”
Her mother’s merry laugh was reassuring. “Ghosts, dearie?” she queried,
glancing up. “Surely you aren’t in earnest. You don’t believe in ghosts,
do you?”
“Well, maybe not, exactly, but there are the queerest stories told about
those lonely out-of-the-way places. You know that there are, Mother. I
don’t mean made-up stories in books. I mean real newspaper accounts.”
“But it doesn’t matter what kind of paper they’re printed on, Dori,” her
mother put in, more seriously, “nothing could make a ghost story true.
The only ghosts that haunt us, really, are the memories of loving words
left unsaid and loving deeds that were not done, and sometimes,” she
concluded sadly, “it is too late to ever banish those ghosts.” Then, not
wishing to depress her already heart-broken daughter, she said in a
lighter tone, “After all, why worry about your visit to Siquaw Point,
when, as yet, you haven’t heard that your Great-Aunt Jane has really
decided to go. I expected a letter every day last week, but none came, so
she may have given up the plan for this year.” Then, after glancing up at
the clock, she added, “Three, and almost time for the postman. I believe
I hear his whistle now.”
At that moment Peter bounded in, his face rosy from his nap. “Postman’s
coming,” he sang out. “Come on, Dori, I’ll beat you to the gate.”
The girl rose, saying gloomily, “This is probably the fatal day. I’m just
sure there’ll be a letter from Great-Aunt Jane. I don’t see why she chose
me when she’s never even seen me.”
When Dories reached the front door, she saw that Peter was already out in
the road, frantically beckoning to her. “Hurry along, Dori. The postman’s
just leaving Mrs. Doran’s,” he called; then as the mail wagon, drawn by a
lean white horse, approached, the small boy ran out in the road and waved
his arms.
Mr. Higgins, who had stopped at their door ever since Peter had been a
baby, beamed at him over his glasses. “Law sakes!” he exclaimed, “Do I
see a bandit? Guess you’ve been reading stories about ‘Dick Dead-shot’
holding up mail coaches in the Rockies. Sorry, but there ain’t nothin’
for you.” Then, smilingly, he addressed the girl. “Likely in a day or two
I’ll be fetchin’ you a letter, Dori, from your old friend Nann Sibbett.
It’ll be powerfully lonesome around here for you, I reckon, now she’s
gone.”
The girl nodded. “Just awfully lonesome, Mr. Higgins, and please do bring
me a letter soon.” Just then Johnnie Doran called for Peter to come over
and play, and the girl went slowly back to the house.
Her mother looked up inquiringly. “No letter at all,” Dories announced in
so disappointed a tone that she laughingly confessed, “Mother, I do
believe that I’m made up of the contrariest emotions. I do hate the
thought of spending that dismal month of October with Great-Aunt Jane at
Siquaw Point, but I hate even worse going back to High without Nann.”
“Dear girl,” the mother’s voice held a tenderly given rebuke, “you aren’t
thinking in the least of the pleasure your companionship might give your
Great-Aunt Jane. She was very fond of your father when he was a boy, and
he spent many a summer with her at Siquaw. That may be her reason for
inviting you. Your father seemed to be the only person for whom she
really cared.” Then, before the rather surprised girl could reply, the
mother continued, “I wish, dear, that you would hunt up your Aunt’s last
letter and answer it more fully. I was so busy when it came that I merely
sent a few lines, thanking her for the invitation.”
Dories sighed as she rose to obey, but turned back to listen when her
mother continued: “I know how hard it is going to be, dear girl, but I
have a reason, which I cannot explain just now, for very much wishing you
to go. Now write the letter and make it as interesting and newsy as you
can.”
Dories, from the door, dropped a curtsy. “Very well, Mrs. Moore,” she
said, “to please you I’ll write to the crabbedy old lady, but——” Her
mother merrily shook her finger at her. “I want you to withhold judgment,
daughter, until you have seen your Great-Aunt Jane.”
CHAPTER III.
A LOST MOTHER
A week passed, and though Dories received several picture postcards from
her best friend, not a line came from her Great-Aunt Jane.
“She has probably changed her mind about going to Siquaw, dear, and so
you would better prepare to start back to school on Monday. I had talked
the matter over with the principal, Mr. Setherly, and he told me that you
could easily make up October’s work, but, if you are not going away, it
will be better for you to begin the term with the others.”
They were at breakfast, and for a long, silent moment the girl sat gazing
out of the window at a garden that was beginning to look dry and sear.
When she turned back toward her mother, there were tears in her eyes.
The woman placed a hand on the one near her as she tenderly inquired,
“Are you disappointed because you’re not going, daughter?”
“No, no, not that, but you can’t know how I dread returning to High
without Nann. We had planned graduating together and after that going to
college together if only we could find a way.”
Her mother glanced up quickly as though there was something that she
wanted to say, then pressed her lips firmly as though to keep some secret
from being uttered. Dories listlessly continued eating. There was a
closer pressure of her mother’s hand. “It is hard, dear, I know,” the
understanding voice was saying. “Life brings many disappointments, but
there is always a compensation. You’ll see!” Then, glancing toward the
stair door, which was slowly opening, the mother called, “Hurry up, you
lazy Peterkins. Come and have your breakfast. I want you and Dories to go
to the village and match some silk for me as soon as you can.”
Then, when she served the little fellow, the loving woman returned to her
daily task and left a half self-pitying, half rebellious and wholly
dispirited girl to wash and put away the dishes. Then listlessly she
donned her scarlet tam and sweater coat and went into the sewing room to
get the samples that she was to match. Her mother smiled up into her
dismal face. “Dori, daughter, don’t gloom around so much,” she pleaded.
“I shall actually believe that you are disappointed because you are _not_
going to Siquaw. Now, here’s the silk to be matched and there’s Peterkins
waiting for you. Come back as soon as you can, won’t you?”
It was midmorning when Dories and the small boy returned from the
shopping expedition. They went at once to the sewing room, but their
mother was not there. They looked in the living room and in the kitchen.
“Mother, where are you?” they both called, but there was no reply.
“Maybe she’s upstairs,” Peter suggested.
“Of course. How stupid for me to forget that we have an upstairs to our
house.” Dories felt strangely excited as she ran up the circling front
stairway calling again and again, but still there was no reply. Down the
long upper corridor they went, opening one door and another, beginning to
feel almost frightened at the stillness.
Then Dories exclaimed, “Oh, maybe she’s gone over to Mrs. Doran’s for a
moment. I guess she couldn’t do any sewing until we came back with the
silk.” They were about to descend the back stairs when they heard a noise
in the garret overhead.
The frail boy caught his sister’s hand and held it tight. “Do you suppose
it’s ghosts,” he whispered.
“No, of course not,” the girl replied. The attic was a low, dark,
cobwebby place hardly high enough to stand in, and they never went there.
“There are no ghosts. Mother said so.”
“Then maybe it’s a rat scratching around,” the boy suggested, “or that
wild barn cat may have got in somehow. Do you dare open the door, Dori,
and call up?”
“Of course I do, but first I’ll creep up a little way and look.” Very
quietly Dories opened the door and stealthily ascended the dark, short
stairway. All was still in the dusky, musty attic. Then a light flashed
for a moment in a far corner. Truly frightened, Dories turned and hurried
down the stairs. Quick steps were heard above: then a familiar voice
called, “Dories, is that you, dear? Why are you stealing about in that
way? Come up a moment, daughter! I want you to help me drag this old
trunk out of the corner.”
Then, when the girl, with Peter following, appeared on the top step, the
mother explained: “I thought I’d be down before you could get back. I
have news for you, Dori. Just after you left, a night letter was
delivered. In it your Great-Aunt Jane said that she had entirely given up
her plan to spend a month at Siquaw Point until she received your letter.
She had decided that if you were so rude as to ignore her invitation, you
were not the kind of a girl she wished to know, even if you are her
niece, but your letter caused her to change her mind. She wishes you to
meet her this afternoon in Boston and go directly from there to Siquaw
Point.”
“O, Mother, how terrible!” Dories was truly dismayed. “I won’t have time
to let Nann know, and she was to meet me at the station. That was the one
redeeming feature about the whole thing.”
“Well, you can see her when you return, and maybe you can plan to stay a
day or two with her. Now help me with this little trunk, dear. We have
only two hours to prepare your clothes and pack.”
They carried the small steamer trunk down to Dories’ room and by noon it
was packed and locked, and, soon after, the expressman came to take both
the trunk and the girl to the station.
Dories’ face was flushed and tears were in her eyes when she said
good-bye. “I feel so strange and excited, Mother,” she confided, “going
out into the world for the very first time, and O, Mumsie, no one knows
how I dread being all alone in a boarded-up cottage at a deserted summer
resort with such a dreadful old woman.” Dories clung to her mother in
little girl fashion as though she hoped at the very last moment she might
be told that she need not go, but what she heard was: “Mr. Hanson is in a
hurry, dear. He has the trunk on his cart and he’s waiting to help you up
on the seat.”
Dories caught her breath in an effort not to cry, kissed her mother and
Peter hurriedly, picked up her hand-satchel and darted down the path.
From the high seat she waved and smiled. Then she called in an effort at
cheeriness. “Don’t forget, Mrs. Moore, that you promised to take October
for a real vacation and not sew a bit after you finish the silk dress.”
“I promise!” the mother called. “Peter and I will just play. Write to us
often.”
Mr. Hanson, finding that it was late, drove rapidly to the station, and
it was well that he did, for the train was just drawing in when they
arrived. Dories quickly purchased a ticket and checked her trunk with the
expressman’s help, then, climbing aboard, chose a seat near a window.
After all, she found herself quite pleasurably excited. It was such a new
experience to be traveling alone. Few of the passengers noticed her and
no one spoke. She was glad, as her mother had warned her not to enter
into conversation with strangers.
As she watched the flying landscape the girl thought of something her
mother had said on the day that she had asked her to answer her
Great-Aunt Jane’s letter. “I have a reason, Dori, for really wishing you
to go to Siquaw with your aunt,” she had said. What could that reason be?
Not until Boston was neared did her speculation cease; then she became
conscious of but two emotions, curiosity about her Great-Aunt Jane and a
crushing disappointment because she had not been able to let Nann Sibbett
know when to meet her.
When the train finally stopped, Dories, feeling very young and very much
alone, followed the crowd of passengers into the huge station. She was to
meet her aunt in the woman’s waiting room, and she stopped a hurrying
porter to inquire where she would find it. Almost timidly she entered the
large, comfortably furnished room, then, seeing an elderly woman dressed
in black, who was sitting stiffly erect, the girl went toward her as she
said diffidently: “Pardon me, but are _you_ my Great-Aunt Jane?” The
woman threw back a heavy black crepe veil and her sharp gray eyes gazed
up at the girl penetratingly.
“Humph!” was the ungracious reply. “Well, at least you’ve got your
father’s eyes. That’s something to be thankful for, but I’ve no doubt
that you look like your mother otherwise.”
There was something about the tone in which this was said that put the
girl on the defensive.
“I certainly hope I do look like my darling mother,” she exclaimed, her
diffidence vanishing. The elderly woman seemed not to hear.
“Sit down, why don’t you?” she said in a querulous tone. “The train
doesn’t go for an hour yet.”
The girl sank into a comfortable chair which faced the one occupied by
her aunt; the back of which was toward the door.
For a moment neither spoke, then remembering the coaching she had
received, Dories said hesitatingly, “I want to thank you, Aunt Jane, for
having invited me to go with you. I am pleased to——”
A sniff preceded the remark that interrupted: “I know how pleased you are
to go with a fussy old woman to a deserted summer resort. About as
pleased as a cat is out in the rain.” Then, as though her interest in
Dories had ceased, the old woman drew the heavy crêpe veil down over her
face, but the girl was sure that she could see the sharp eyes peering
through it as though she were intently watching some object over Dori’s
shoulder.
The girl had expected her aunt to be queer, but this was far worse than
her most dismal anticipations. At last the girl became so nervous that
she glanced back of her to see what her aunt could be watching. She saw
only the open door that led into the main waiting room of the station.
Women were passing in and out, but that was nothing to stare at. Seeming,
at last, to recall her companion’s presence, the old woman addressed her:
“Dories, you wrote me that you had a girl friend here in Boston who would
come down to the train to see you off. Why doesn’t she come?”
“I didn’t have time to let her know, Aunt Jane,” was the dismal reply.
“I’m just ever so disappointed.”
The old woman nodded her head toward the door. “Is that her?” she asked.
“Is that your friend?”
Dories sprang to her feet and turned. A tall girl, carrying a suitcase,
was approaching them. With a cry of mingled amazement and joy, Dories ran
toward her and held out both hands. “Why, Nann, darling, it _can’t_ be
you.” The newcomer dropped her bag and they flew into each other’s arms.
Then, standing back, Dori asked, much mystified, “Why, are you going
somewhere Nann?”
It was the old woman who replied grimly: “She is! I invited her to go
with us. There now! Don’t try to thank me.” She held up a protesting hand
when Dori, flushed and happy, turned toward her. “I did it for myself, I
can assure you. I knew having you moping around for a month wouldn’t add
any to _my_ pleasure.”
An embarrassing moment was saved by a stentorian voice in the doorway
announcing: “All aboard for Siquaw Center and way stations.” A colored
porter appeared to carry the bags, and the old woman, leaning heavily on
her cane, limped after him, followed by the girls, in whose hearts there
were mingled emotions, but joy predominated, for, however terrible Dori’s
Great-Aunt Jane might be, at least they were to spend a whole long month
together.
CHAPTER IV.
SEAWARD BOUND
There were very few people on the seaward-bound train; indeed Miss Jane
Moore, Nann and Dories were the only occupants of the chair car. After
settling herself comfortably in the chair nearest the front, the old
woman, with a sweep of her arm toward the back, said almost petulantly:
“Sit as far away from me as you can. I may want to sleep, and I know
girls. They chatter, chatter, chatter, titter, titter, titter all about
nothing.”
Her companions were glad to obey, and when they were seated at the rear
end of the car, they kept their heads close together while they visited
that they might not disturb the elderly woman, who, to all appearances,
fell at once into a light doze.
As soon as the train was under way, Dories asked: “Now do tell me how
this perfectly, unbelievably wonderful thing has happened?”
Nann laughed happily. “Maybe your Great-Aunt Jane is a fairy godmother in
disguise,” she whispered. They both glanced at the far corner, but the
black veiled figure was much more suggestive of a witch than a good
fairy.
“The disguise surely is a complete one,” Dories said with a shudder. “My,
it gives me the chilly shivers when I think how I might be going to spend
a whole month alone with her. But now tell me, just what did happen?”
“Can’t you guess? You wrote your aunt a letter, didn’t you, telling all
about me and even giving the name of the hotel where Dad and I were
staying?”
Dories nodded, “Yes, that’s true. Mother wanted me to write to Aunt Jane
and I couldn’t think of a thing to tell her about, and so I wrote about
you.”
“Well,” Nann continued to enlighten her friend, “she must have written me
that very day inviting me to be her guest at Siquaw Point for the month
of October, but she asked me not to let you know. I sent the last picture
postcard, the one of our hotel, just after I had received her letter, and
you can imagine how wild I was to tell you. I hadn’t started going to the
Boston High. Dear old Dad said a month later wouldn’t matter, and so here
I am.” The girls clasped hands and beamed joyfully at each other.
Dories’ next glance toward the sleeping old woman was one of gratitude.
“I’m going to try hard to love her, that is, if she’ll let me.” Then,
after a thoughtful moment, Dories continued: “Great-Aunt Jane must have
been very different when Dad was a boy, for he cared a lot for her,
Mother said.” Then with one of her quick changes she exclaimed in a low
voice, “Nann Sibbett, I have lain awake nights dreading the dismal month
I was to spend at that forsaken summer resort. I just knew there’d be
ghosts in those boarded-up cottages, but now that you’re going to be with
me, I almost hope that something exciting will happen.”
“So do I!” Nann agreed.
It was four o’clock when the train, which consisted of an engine, two
coaches and a chair-car, stopped in what seemed at first to be but wide
stretches of meadows and marsh lands, but, peering ahead, the girls saw a
few wooden buildings and a platform. “Siquaw Center!” the brakeman opened
a door to announce. Miss Jane Moore sat up so suddenly, and when she
threw back her veil she seemed so very wide awake, the girls found
themselves wondering if she had really been asleep at all. The brakeman
assisted the old woman to alight and placed her bags on the platform,
then, hardly pausing, the train again was under way. Meadows and marshes
stretched in all directions, but about a mile to the east the girls could
see a wide expanse of gray-blue ocean.
“I guess the name means the center of the marshes,” Dori whispered,
making a wry face while her aunt was talking to the station-master, a
tall, lank, red-whiskered man in blue overalls who did not remove his cap
nor stop chewing what seemed to be a rather large quid.
“Yeah!” the girls heard his reply to the woman’s question. “Gib’ll fetch
the stage right over. Quare time o’ year for yo’ to be comin’ out, Mis’
Moore, ain’t it? Yeah! I got your letter this here mornin’. The supplies
ar’ all ready to tote over to yer cottage.”
The girls were wondering who Gib might be when they heard a rumbling
beyond the wooden building and saw a very old stage coach drawn by a
rather boney old white horse and driven by a tall, lank, red-headed boy.
A small girl, with curls of the same color, sat on the high seat at his
side. “Hurry up, thar, you Gib Strait!” the man, who was recognizable as
the boy’s father, called to him. “Come tote Mis’ Moore’s luggage.” Then
the man sauntered off, having not even glanced in the direction of the
two girls, but the rather ungainly boy who was hurrying toward them was
looking at them with but slightly concealed curiosity.
Miss Moore greeted him with, “How do you do, Gibralter Strait.” Upon
hearing this astonishing name, the two girls found it hard not to laugh,
but the lad, evidently understanding, smiled broadly and nodded awkwardly
as Miss Moore solemnly proceeded to introduce him.
To cover his embarrassment, the lad hastened to say. “Well, Miss Moore,
sort o’ surprisin’ to see yo’ hereabouts this time o’ year. Be yo’ goin’
to the Pint?”
The old woman looked at him scathingly. “Well, Gibralter, where in
heaven’s name would I be going? I’m not crazy enough yet to stay long in
the Center. Here, you take my bags; the girls can carry their own.”
“Yessum, Miss Moore,” the boy flushed up to the roots of his red hair. He
knew that he wasn’t making a very good impression on the young ladies. He
glanced at them furtively as they all walked toward the stage; then, when
he saw them smiling toward him, not critically but in a most friendly
fashion, there was merry response in his warm red-brown eyes. What he
said was: “If them bags are too hefty, set ’em down an’ I’ll come back
for ’em.”
“O, we can carry them easily,” Nann assured him.
The small girl on the high seat was staring down at them with eyes and
mouth open. She had on a nondescript dress which very evidently had been
made over from a garment meant for someone older. When the girls glanced
up, she smiled down at them, showing an open space where two front teeth
were missing.
“What’s your name, little one?” Nann called up to her. The lad was inside
the coach helping Miss Moore to settle among her bags.
The child’s grin grew wilder, but she did not reply. Nann turned toward
her brother, who was just emerging: “What is your little sister’s name?”
she asked.
The boy flushed. Nann and Dori decided that he was easily embarrassed or
that he was unused to girls of his own age. But they better understood
the flush when they heard the answer: “Her name’s Behring.” Then he
hurried on to explain: “I know our names are queer. It was Pa’s notion to
give us geography names, being as our last is Strait. That’s why mine’s
Gibralter. Yo’ kin laugh if yo’ want to,” he added good-naturedly. “I
would if ’twasn’t my name.” Then in a low voice, with a swift glance
toward the station, he confided, “I mean to change my name when I come of
age. I sure sartin do.”
The girls felt at once that they would like this boy whose sensitive face
expressed his every emotion and who had so evident a sense of humor. They
were about to climb inside of the coach with Miss Moore when a shrill,
querulous voice from a general store across from the station attracted
their attention. A tall, angular woman in a skimp calico dress stood
there. “Howdy, Miss Moore,” she called, then as though not expecting a
reply to her salutation, she continued: “Behring Strait, you come here
right this minute and mind the baby. What yo’ gallavantin’ off fer, and
me with the supper gettin’ to do?” Nann and Dori glanced at each other
merrily, each wondering which strait the baby was named after.
The small girl obeyed quickly. Mrs. Strait impressed the listeners as a
woman who demanded instant obedience. As soon as the three passengers
were settled inside, the coach started with a lurch. The sandy road wound
through the wide, swampy meadows. It was rough and rutty. Miss Moore sat
with closed eyes and, as she was wedged in between two heavy bags, she
was not jounced about as much as were the girls. They took it
good-naturedly, but Dories found it hard to imagine how she could have
endured the journey if she had been alone with her queer Aunt Jane. Nann
decided that the old woman feined sleep on all occasions to avoid the
necessity of talking to them.
At last, even above the rattle of the old coach, could be heard the
crashing surf on rocks, and the girls peered eagerly ahead. What they saw
was a wide strip of sand and a row of weather-beaten cottages, boarded
up, as Dori had prophesied, and beyond them white-crested, huge gray
breakers rushing and roaring up on the sand.
The boney white horse came to a sudden stop at the edge of the beach, nor
would it attempt to go any farther. The boy leaped over a wheel and threw
open the back door. “Guess you’ll have to walk a piece along the beach,
Miss Moore. The coach gets stuck so often in the sand ol’ Methuselah
ain’t takin’ no chances at tryin’ to haul it out,” he informed the
occupants.
The girls were almost surprised to find that the horse hadn’t been named
after a strait. Miss Moore threw back her veil and opened her eyes at
once. Upon hearing what the boy had to say, she leaned forward to gaze at
the largest cottage in the middle of the row. She spoke sharply:
“Gibralter, why didn’t your father carry out my orders? I wrote him
distinctly to open up the cottage and air it out. Why didn’t he do that
when he brought over the supplies, that’s what I’d like to know? I
declare to it, even if he is your father, I must say Simon Strait is a
most shiftless man.”
The boy said at once, as though in an effort to apologize: “Pa’s been
real sick all summer, Miss Moore, and like ’twas he fergot it, but I kin
open up easy, if I kin find suthin’ to pry off the boards with. I think
likely I’ll find an axe, anyhow, out in the back shed whar I used to chop
wood fer you. I’m most sure I will.”
Miss Moore sank back. “Well, hurry up about it, then. I’ll stay in the
coach till you get the windows uncovered.” When the boy was gone, the
woman turned toward her niece. “Open up that small black bag, Dories; the
one near you, and get out the back-door key. There’s a hammer just inside
on the kitchen table, if it’s where I left it.” She continued her
directions: “Give it to Gibralter and tell him, when he gets the boards
off the windows, to carry in some wood and make a fire. A fog is coming
in this minute and it’s as wet as rain.”
The key having been found, the girls ran gleefully around the cabin in
search of the boy. They found him emerging from a shed carrying a
hatchet. He grinned at them as though they were old friends. “Some
cheerful place, this!” he commented as he began ripping off the boards
from one of the kitchen windows. “You girls must o’ needed sea air a lot
to come to this place out o’ season like this with a—a—wall, with a old
lady like Miss Moore is.” Dories felt sure that the boy was thinking
something quite different, but was not saying it because it was a
relative of hers about whom he was talking. What she replied was: “I
can’t understand it myself. I mean why Great-Aunt Jane wanted to come to
this dismal place after everyone else has gone.”
They were up on the back porch and, as she looked out across the swampy
meadows over which a heavy fog was settling, then she continued, more to
Nann than to the boy: “I promised Mother I wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts,
but honestly I never saw a spookier place.”
The boy had been making so much noise ripping off boards that he had only
heard the last two words. “Spooks war yo’ speakin’ of?” he inquired.
“Well, I guess yo’ll think thar’s spooks enough along about the middle of
the night when the fog horn’s a moanin’ an’ the surf’s a crashin’ out on
the pint o’ rocks, an’ what’s more, thar _is_ folks at Siquaw Center as
says thar’s a sure enough spook livin’ over in the ruins that used to be
ol’ Colonel Wadbury’s place.”
The girls shuddered and Dories cast a “Didn’t I tell you so” glance at
her friend, but Nann, less fearful by nature, was interested and curious,
and after looking about in vain for the “ruin”, she inquired its
whereabouts.
Gibralter enlightened them. “O, ’tisn’t in sight,” he said, “that is, not
from here. It’s over beyant the rocky pint. From the highest rock thar
you kin see it plain.”
Then as he went on around the cottage taking off boards, the girls
followed to hear more of the interesting subject. “Fine house it used to
be when my Pa was a kid, but now thar’s nothing but stone walls a
standin’. A human bein’ couldn’t live in that ol’ shell, nohow. But—” the
boy could not resist the temptation to elaborate the theme when he saw
the wide eyes of his listeners, “’long about midnight folks at the Center
do say as how they’ve seen a light movin’ about in the old ruin. Nobody’s
dared to go near ’nuf to find out what ’tis. The swamps all about are
like quicksand. If you step in ’em, wall, golly gee, it’s good-bye fer
yo’. Leastwise that’s what ol’-timers say, an’ so the spook, if thar is
one over thar, is safe ’nuf from introosion.”
While the boy had been talking, he had removed all of the wooden blinds,
his listeners having followed him about the cabin. Dories had been so
interested that she had quite forgotten about the huge key that she had
been carrying. “O my!” she exclaimed, suddenly noticing it. “But then you
didn’t need the hammer after all. Now I’ll skip around and open the back
door, and, Gibralter, will you bring in some wood, Aunt Jane said, to
build us a fire?”
While the boy was gone, Nann confided merrily, “There now, Dories Moore,
you’ve been wishing for an adventure, and here is one all ready made and
waiting. Pray, what could be more thrilling than an old ruin surrounded
by an uncrossable swamp and a mysterious light which appears at
midnight?”
The boy returned with an armful of logs left over from the supply of a
previous summer. “Gib,” Nann addressed him in her friendliest fashion,
“may we call you that? Gibralter is _so_ long. I’d like to visit your
ruin and inspect the ghost in his lair. Really and truly, isn’t there any
way to reach the place?”
The boy looked as though he had a secret which he did not care to reveal.
“Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t,” he said uncommittedly.
Then, with a brightening expression in his red-brown eyes, “Anyway, I’ll
show you the old ruin if yo’ll meet me at sun-up tomorrow mornin’ out at
the pint o’ rocks.”
“I’m game,” Nann said gleefully. “It sounds interesting to me all right.
How about you, Dori?”
“O, I’m quite willing to see the place from a distance,” the other
replied, “but nothing could induce me to go very near it.” Neither of the
girls thought of asking the advice of their elderly hostess, who, at that
very moment, appeared around a corner of the cabin to inquire why it was
taking such an endless time to open up the cottage. Luckily Gib had
started a fire in the kitchen stove, which partly mollified the woman’s
wrath. After bringing in the bags and supplies, the boy took his
departure, and they could hear him whistling as he drove away through the
fog.
CHAPTER V.
A NEW EXPERIENCE
With the closing in of the fog, twilight settled about the cabin. The old
woman, still in her black bonnet with the veil thrown back, drew a wooden
armed chair close to the stove and held her hands out toward the warmth.
“Open up the box of supplies, Dories,” she commanded, “and get out some
candles. Then you can fill a hot-water bottle for me and I’ll go right to
bed. No use making a fire in the front room until tomorrow. You girls are
to sleep upstairs. You’ll find bedding in a bureau up there. It may be
damp, but you’re young. It won’t hurt you any.”
Dories, having opened up the box of supplies, removed each article,
placing it on the table. At the very bottom she found a note scribbled on
a piece of wrapping paper: “Out of candles. Send some tomorrer.”
Miss Moore sat up ramrod-straight, her sharp gray eyes narrowing angrily.
“If that isn’t just like that shiftless, good-for-nothing Simon Strait.
How did he suppose we could get on without light? I wish now I had
ordered kerosene, but I thought, just at first, that candles would do.”
In the dusk Nann had been looking about the kitchen. On a shelf she saw a
lantern and two glass lamps. “O, Miss Moore!” she exclaimed, “Don’t you
think maybe there might be oil in one of those lamps?”
“No, I don’t,” the old woman replied. “I always had my maid empty them
the last thing for fear of fire.” Nann, standing on a chair, had taken
down the lantern. Her face brightened. “I hear a swish,” she said
hopefully, “and so it must be oil.” With a piece of wrapping paper she
wiped off the dust while Dories brought forth a box of matches.
A dim, sputtering light rewarded them. “It won’t last long,” Nann said as
she placed the lantern on the table, “So, Miss Moore, if you’ll tell us
what to do to make you comfortable, we’ll hurry around and do it.”
“Comfortable? Humph! We won’t any of us be very comfortable with such a
wet fog penetrating even into our bones.” The old woman complained so
bitterly that Dories found herself wondering why her Great-Aunt Jane had
come at all if she had known that she would be uncomfortable. But she had
no time to give the matter further thought, for Miss Moore was issuing
orders. “Dories, you work that pump-handle over there in the sink. If it
needs priming, we won’t get any water tonight. Well, thank goodness, it
doesn’t. That’s one thing that went right. Nann, you rinse out the tea
kettle, fill it and set it to boil. Now you girls take the lantern and go
to my bedroom. It’s just off the big front room, so you can’t miss it;
open up the bottom bureau drawer and fetch out my bedding. We’ll hang it
over chairs by the stove till the damp gets out of it.”
Nann took the sputtering lantern and, being the fearless one of the two,
she led the way into the big front room of the cabin. The furniture could
not be seen for the sheetlike coverings. In the dim light the girls could
see a few pictures turned face to the wall. “Oh-oo!” Dories shuddered.
“It’s clammily damp in here. Think of it, Nann, can you conceive _what_
it would have been like for _me_ if I had come all alone with Aunt Jane?
Well, I know just as well as I know anything that I would never have
lived through this first night.”
Nann laughed merrily. “O, Dori,” she exclaimed as she held the lantern
up, “Do look at this wonderful, huge stone fireplace. I’m sure we’re
going to enjoy it here when we get things straightened around and the sun
is shining. You see if we don’t.” Nann was opening a door which she
believed must lead into Miss Moore’s bedroom, and she was right. The dim,
flickering light revealed an old-fashioned hand-turned bed with four high
posts. Near was an antique bureau, and Dori quickly opened the bottom
drawer and took out the needed bedding. With her arms piled high, she
followed the lantern-bearer back to the kitchen. Miss Moore had evidently
not moved from her chair by the stove. “Put on another piece of wood,
Dori,” she commanded. “Now fetch all the chairs up and spread the bedding
on it.”
When this had been done, the teakettle was singing, and Nann said
brightly, “What a little optimist a teakettle is! It sings even when
things are darkest.”
“You mean when things are hottest,” Dori put in, actually laughing.
The old woman was still giving orders. “The dishes are in that cupboard
over the table,” she nodded in that direction. “Fetch out a cup and
saucer, Dories, wash them with some hot water and make me a cup of tea.
Then, while I drink it, you can both spread up my bed.”
Fifteen minutes later all these things had been accomplished. The old
woman acknowledged that she was as comfortable as possible in her warm
bed. When they had said good-night, she called, “Dories, I forgot to tell
you the stairway to your room leads up from the back porch.” Then she
added, as an afterthought, “You girls will want to eat something, but for
mercy sake, do close the living-room door so I won’t hear your clatter.”
Nann, whose enjoyment of the situation was real and not feined, placed
the sputtering lantern on the kitchen table while Dories softly closed
the door as she had been directed. Then they stood and gazed at the
supplies still in boxes and bundles on the oilcloth-covered table. “I
never was hungrier!” Dories announced. “But there isn’t time to really
cook anything before the light will go out. Oh-oo! Think how terrible it
would be to have to climb up that cold, wet outside stairway to a room in
the loft and get into cold, wet bedding, and all in the dark.”
Nann laughed. “Well, I’ll confess it _is_ rather spooky,” she agreed,
“and if I believed in ghosts I might be scared.” Then, as the lantern
gave a warning flicker, the older girl suggested: “What say to turning
out the light and make more fire in the stove? It really is quite bright
over in that corner.”
“I guess it’s the only thing to do,” Dori acknowledged dolefully. “O
goodie,” she added more cheerfully as she held up a box of crackers.
“These, with butter and some sardines, _ought_ to keep us from starving.”
“Great!” Nann seemed determined to be appreciative. “And for a drink
let’s have cambric tea with canned milk and sugar. Now the next thing,
where is a can opener?”
She opened a drawer in the kitchen table and squealed exultingly, “Dories
Moore, see what I’ve found.” She was holding something up. “It’s a little
candle end, but it will be just the thing if we need a light in the night
when our oil is gone.”
“Goodness!” Dories shuddered. “I hope we’ll sleep so tight we won’t know
it is night until after it’s over.”
Nann had also found a can opener and they were soon hungrily eating the
supper Dories had suggested. “I call this a great lark!” the older girl
said brightly. They were sitting on straight wooden chairs, drawn close
to the bright fire, and their viands were on another chair between them.
“The kitchen is so nice and warm now that I hate plunging out into the
fog to go upstairs,” Dori shudderingly remarked. “I presume that is where
Aunt Jane’s maid used to sleep. Mumsie said she had one named Maggie who
had been with her forever, almost. But she died last June. That must be
why Aunt Jane didn’t come here this summer.”
When the girls had eaten all of the sardines and crackers and had been
refreshed with cambric tea, they rose and looked at each other almost
tragically. Then Nann smiled. “Don’t let’s give ourselves time to think,”
she suggested. “Let’s take a box of matches. You get one while I relight
the lantern. I have the candle end in my pocket. Now, bolster up your
courage and open the door while I shelter our flickering flame from the
cold night air that might blow it out.”
Dories had her hand on the knob of the door which led out upon the back
porch, but before opening it, she whispered, “Nann, you don’t suppose
that ghost over in the ruin ever prowls around anywhere else, do you?”
“Of course not, silly!” Nann’s tone was reassuring. “There isn’t a ghost
in the old ruin, or anywhere else for that matter. Now open the door and
let’s ascend to our chamber.”
The fog on the back porch was so dense that it was difficult for the
girls to find the entrance to their boarded-in stairway. As they started
the ascent, Nann in the lead, they were both wondering what they would
find when they reached their loft bedroom.
CHAPTER VI.
A LIGHT IN THE DARK
The girls cautiously crept up the back stairway which was sheltered from
fog and wind only by rough boards between which were often wide cracks.
Time and again a puff of air threatened to put out the flickering flame
in the lantern. With one hand Nann guarded it, lest it suddenly sputter
out and leave them in darkness. There was a closed door at the top of the
stairs, and of course, it was locked, but the key was in it.
“Doesn’t that seem sort of queer?” Dories asked as her friend unlocked
the door, removed the key and placed it on the inside.
“Well, it does, sort of,” Nann had to acknowledge, “but I’m mighty glad
it was there, or how else could we have entered?”
Dories said nothing, but, deep in her heart, she was wishing that she and
Nann were safely back in Elmwood, where there were electric lights and
other comforts of civilization.
Holding the lantern high, the girls stood in the middle of the loft room
and looked around. It was unfinished after the fashion of attics, and
though it was quite high at the peak, the sloping roof made a tent-like
effect. There were two windows. One opened out toward the rocky point,
above which a continuous inward rush of white breakers could be seen, and
the other, at the opposite side, opened toward swampy meadows, a mile
across which on clear nights could be seen the lights of Siquaw Center.
A big, old-fashioned high posted bed, an equally old-fashioned mahogany
bureau and two chairs were all of the furnishings.
They found bedding in the bureau drawers, as Miss Moore had told them.
Placing the lantern on the bureau, Nann said: “If we wish to have light
on the subject, we’d better make the bed in a hurry. You take that side
and I’ll take this, and we’ll have these quilts spread in a twinkling.”
Dories did as she was told and the bed was soon ready for occupancy. Then
the girls scrambled out of their dresses, and, just as they leaped in
between the quilts, the flame in the lantern sputtered and went out.
Dories clutched her friend fearfully. “Oh, Nann,” she said, “we never
looked under the bed nor behind that curtained-off corner. I don’t dare
go to sleep unless I know what’s there.”
Her companion laughed. “What do you ’spose is there?” she inquired.
“How can I tell?” Dories retorted. “That’s why I wish we had looked and
then I would know.”
Her friend’s voice, merry even in the darkness, was reassuring. “I can
tell you just as well as if I had looked,” she announced with confidence.
“Back of these curtains, you would find nothing but a row of nails or
hooks on which to hang our garments when we unpack our suitcases, and
under the bed there is only dust in little rolled-up heaps—like as not.
Now, dear, let’s see who can go to sleep first, for you know we have an
engagement with our friend, Gibralter Strait, at sunrise tomorrow
morning.”
“You say that as though you were pleased with the prospect,” Dories
complained.
“Pleased fails to express the joy with which I anticipate the——” Nann
said no more, for Dories had clutched her, whispering excitedly, “Hark!
What was that noise? It sounds far off, maybe where the haunted ruin is.”
Nann listened and then calmly replied: “More than likely it’s the fog
horn about which Gib told us, and that other noise is the muffled roar of
the surf crashing over the rocks out on the point. If there are any more
noises that you wish me to explain, please produce them now. If not, I’m
going to sleep.”
After that Dories lay very still for a time, confident that she wouldn’t
sleep a wink. Nann, however, was soon deep in slumber and Dories soon
followed her example. It was midnight when she awakened with a start, sat
up and looked about her. She felt sure that a light had awakened her. At
first she couldn’t recall where she was. She turned toward the window.
The fog had lifted and the night was clear. For a moment she sat watching
the white, rushing line of the surf, then, farther along, she saw a dark
looming object.
Suddenly she clutched her companion. “Nann,” she whispered dramatically,
“there it is! There’s a light moving over by the point. Do you suppose
that’s the ghost from the old ruin?”
“The what?” Nann sat up, dazed from being so suddenly awakened. Then,
when Dories repeated her remark, her companion gazed out of the window
toward the point.
“H’m-m!” she said, “It’s a light all right. A lantern, I should say, and
its moving slowly along as though it were being carried by someone who is
searching for something among the rocks.”
Dori’s hold on her friend’s arm became tighter. “It’s coming this way!
I’m just ever so sure that it is. Oh, Nann, why did we come to this
dreadful place? What if that light came right up to this cottage and saw
that it wasn’t boarded up and knew someone was here and——”
Nann chuckled. “Aren’t you getting rather mixed in your figures of
speech?” she teased. “A lantern can’t see or know, but of course I
understand that you mean the-well-er-person carrying the lantern. I
suppose you will agree that it is a person, for ghosts don’t have to
carry lanterns, you know.”
“How do you know so much about ghosts, since you say there are no such
things?” Dori flared.
“Well, nothing can’t carry a lantern, can it?” was the unruffled reply.
Then the two girls were silent, watching the light which seemed now and
then to be held high as though whoever carried it paused at times to look
about him and then continued to search on the rocks.
Slowly, slowly the light approached the row of boarded-up cabins. The
girls crept from bed and knelt at the window on the seaward side. Nann,
because she was interested, and Dori because she did not want to be left
alone.
“Do you think it’s coming this far?” came the anxious whisper. Nann shook
her head. “No,” she said, “it’s going back toward the point and so I’m
going back to bed. I’m chilled through as it is.”
They were soon under the covers and when they again glanced toward the
window the light had disappeared. “Seems to have been swallowed up,” Nann
remarked.
“Maybe it’s fallen over the cliff. I almost hope that it has, and been
swept out to sea.”
“Meaning the lantern, I suppose, or do you mean the carrier thereof?”
“Nann Sibbett, I don’t see how you can help being just as afraid of
whatever it is, or, rather of whoever it is, as I am.”
“Because I am convinced that since it, or he, doesn’t know of my
existence, I am not the object of the search, so why should I be afraid?
Now, Miss Dories Moore, if you wish to stay awake speculating as to what
became of that light, you may, but I’m going to sleep, and, if this loft
bedroom of ours is just swarming with ghosts and mysterious lights, don’t
you waken me to look at them until morning.”
So saying, Nann curled up and went to sleep. Dories, fearing that she
would again be awakened by a light, drew the quilt up over her head so
that she could not see it.
Although she was nearly smothered, like an ostrich, she felt safer, and
in time she too slept, but she dreamed of headless horsemen and
hollow-eyed skeletons that walked out on the rocky point at midnight
carrying lanterns.
It was nearing dawn when a low whistle outside awakened the girls.
“It’s Gibralter Strait, I do believe,” Nann declared, at once alert.
Then, as she sprang up, she whispered, “Do hurry, Dori. I feel ever so
sure that we are this day starting on a thrilling adventure.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE PHANTOM YACHT
The girls dressed hurriedly and silently, then crept down the boarded-in
stairway and emerged upon the back porch of the cottage. It was not yet
dawn, but a rosy glow in the east assured them that the day was near.
The waiting lad knew that the girls had something to tell, nor was he
wrong.
“Oh, Gibralter, what do you think?” Dories began at once in an excited
whisper that they might not disturb Great-Aunt Jane, who, without doubt,
was still asleep.
“I dunno. What?” the boy was frankly curious.
“We saw it last night. We saw it with our very own eyes! Didn’t we,
Nann?” The other maiden agreed.
“You saw what?” asked the mystified boy, looking from one to the other.
Then, comprehendingly, he added: “Gee, you don’ mean as you saw the spook
from the old ruin, do you?”
Dories nodded, but Nann modified: “Not that, Gibralter. Since there is no
such thing as a ghost, how could we see it? But we did see the light you
were telling about. Someone was walking along the rocks out on the point
carrying a lighted lantern.”
“Wall,” the boy announced triumphantly, “that proves ’twas a spook,
’cause human beings couldn’t get a foothold out there, the rocks are so
jagged and irregular like. But come along, maybe we can find footprints
or suthin’.”
The sun was just rising out of the sea when the three young people stole
back of the boarded-up cottages that stood in a silent row, and emerged
upon the wide stretch of sandy beach that led toward the point.
The tide was low and the waves small and far out. The wet sand glistened
with myriad colors as the sun rose higher. The air was tinglingly cold
and, once out of hearing of the aunt, the girls, no longer fearful, ran
along on the hard sand, laughing and shouting joyfully, while the boy, to
express the exuberance of his feelings, occasionally turned a hand-spring
just ahead of them.
“Oh, what a wonderful morning!” Nann exclaimed, throwing out her arms
toward the sea and taking a deep breath. “It’s good just to be alive.”
Dories agreed. “It’s hard to believe in ghosts on a day like this,” she
declared.
“Then why try?” Nan merrily questioned.
They had reached the high headland of jagged rocks that stretched out
into the sea, and Gibralter, bounding ahead, climbed from one rock to
another, sure-footed as a goat but the girls remained on the sand.
When he turned, they called up to him: “Do you see anything suspicious
looking?”
“Nixy!” was the boy’s reply. Then anxiously: “D’ye think yo’ girls can
climb on the tip-top rock?” Then, noting Dories’ anxious expression as
she viewed the jagged cliff-like mass ahead of her, he concluded with.
“O, course yo’ can’t. Hold on, I’ll give yo’ a hand.”
Very carefully the boy selected crevices that made stairs on which to
climb, and the girls, delighted with the adventure, soon arrived on the
highest rock, which they were glad to find was so huge and flat that they
could all stand there without fear of falling.
“This is a dizzy height,” Dories said, looking down at the waves that
were lazily breaking on the lowest rocks. “But there’s one thing that
puzzles me and makes me think more than ever that what we saw last night
was a ghost.”
“I know,” Nann put in. “I believe I am thinking the same thing. _How_
could a man walk back and forth on these jagged rocks carrying a
lantern?”
“Huh,” their companion remarked, “Spooks kin walk anywhar’s they choose.”
“Why, Gibralter Strait, I do believe that you think there is a ghost in—”
She paused and turned to look in the direction that the boy was pointing.
On the other side of the point, below them, was a swamp, dense with high
rattling tullies and cat-tails. It looked dark and treacherous, for, as
yet, the sunlight had not reached it. About two hundred feet back from
the sea stood the forlorn ruin of what had once been, apparently, a fine
stone mansion.
Two stained white pillars, standing in front, were like ghostly sentinels
telling where the spacious porch had been. Behind them were jagged heaps
of crumbling rock, all that remained of the front and side walls. The
wall in the rear was still standing, and from it the roof, having lost
its support in front, pitched forward with great yawning gaps in it,
where chimneys had been.
Dories unconsciously clung to her friend as they stood gazing down at the
old ruin. “Poor, poor thing,” Nann said, “how sad and lonely it must be,
for, I suppose, once upon a time it was very fine home filled with love
and happiness. Wasn’t it, Gibralter? If you know the story of the old
house, please tell it to us?”
The boy cast a quick glance at the timid Dories. “I dunno as I’d ought
to. She scares so easy,” he told them.
“I’ll promise not to scare this time,” Dories hastened to say. “Honest,
Gib, I am as eager to hear the story as Nann is, so please tell it.”
Thus urged, the boy began. He did not speak, however, in his usual merry,
bantering voice, but in a hollow whisper which he believed better fitted
to the tale he had to tell.
“Wall,” he said, as he seated himself on a rock, motioning the girls to
do likewise, “I might as well start way back at the beginnin’. Pa says
that this here house was built nigh thirty year ago by a fine upstandin’
man as called himself Colonel Wadbury and gave out that he’d come from
Virginia for his gal’s health. Pa said the gal was a sad-lookin’ creature
as ever he’d set eyes on, an’ bye an’ bye ’twas rumored around Siquaw
that she was in love an’ wantin’ to marry some furreigner, an’ that the
old Colonel had fetched her to this out-o’-the-way place so that he could
keep watch on her. He sure sartin built her a fine mansion to live in.
“Pa said ’twas filled with paintin’s of ancestors, and books an’ queer
furreign rugs a hangin’ on the walls, though thar was plenty beside on
the floor. Pa’d been to a museum up to Boston onct, an’ he said as ’twas
purty much like that inside the place.
“Wall, when ’twas all finished, the two tuk to livin’ in it with a man
servant an’ an old woman to keep an eye on the gal, seemed like.
“’Twan’t swamp around here in those days, ’twas sand, and the Colonel had
a plant put in that grew all over—sand verbeny he called it, but folks in
Siquaw Center shook their heads, knowin’ as how the day would come when
the old sea would rise up an’ claim its own, bein’ as that had all been
ocean onct on a time.
“Pa says as how he tol’ the Colonel that he was takin’ big chances,
buildin’ a house as hefty as that thar one, on nothin’ but sand, but that
wan’t all he built either. Furst off ’twas a high sea wall to keep the
ocean back off his place, then ’twas a pier wi’ lights along it, and then
he fetched a yacht from somewhere.
“Pa says he’d never seen a craft like it, an’ he’d been a sea-farin’ man
ever since the North Star tuk to shinin’, or a powerful long time,
anyhow. That yacht, Pa says, was the whitest, mos’ glistenin’ thing he’d
ever sot eyes on. An’ graceful! When the sailors, as wore white clothes,
tuk to sailin’ it up and down, Pa says folks from Siquaw Center tuk a
holiday just to come down to the shore to watch the craft. It slid along
so silent and was so all-over white, Gus Pilsley, him as was school
teacher days and kep’ the poolhall nights, said it looked like a ‘phantom
yacht,’ an’ that’s what folks got to callin’ it.
“Pa says it was well named, for, if ever a ghost rode on it, ’twas the
gal who went out sailin’ every day. Sometimes the Colonel was with her,
but most times ’twas the old woman, but she never was let to go alone.
The Colonel’s orders was that the sailors shouldn’t go beyond the three
miles that was American. He wasn’t goin’ to have his gal sailin’ in
waters that was shared by no furreigners, him bein’ that sot agin them,
like as not because the gal wanted to marry one of ’em. So day arter day,
early and late, Pa says, she sailed on her ‘Phantom Yacht’ up and down
but keepin’ well this side o’ the island over yonder.”
Gibralter had risen and was pointing out to sea. The girls stood at his
side shading their eyes. “That’s it!” he told them. “That’s the island.
It’s on the three-mile line, but Pa says it’s the mos’ treacherous island
on this here coast, bein’ as thar’s hidden shoals fer half a mile all
around it, an’ thar’s many a whitenin’ skeleton out thar of fishin’ boats
that went too close.” The lad reseated himself and the girls did
likewise. Then he resumed the tale. “Wall, so it went on all summer long.
Pa says if you’d look out at sunrise like’s not thar’d be that yacht
slidin’ silent-like up and down. Pa says it got to hauntin’ him. He’d
even come down here on moonlit nights an’, sure nuf, thar’d be that
Phantom Yacht glidin’ around, but one night suthin’ happened as Pa says
he’ll never forget if he lives to be as old as Methusalah’s grandfather.”
“W-what happened?” the girls leaned forward. “Did the yacht run on the
shoals?” Nann asked eagerly.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT HAPPENED
Gibralter was thoroughly enjoying their suspense. “Wall,” he drawled,
making the moment as dramatic as possible, “’long about midnight, once,
Pa heard a gallopin’ horse comin’ along the road from the sea. Pa knew
thar wan’t no one as rode horseback but the old Colonel himself, an’,
bein’ as he’d been gettin’ gouty, he hadn’t been doin’ much ridin’ of
late days, Pa said, but thar was somethin’ about the way the horse was
gallopin’ that made Pa sit right up in bed. He an’ Ma’d jest been married
an’ started keepin’ house in the store right whar we live now. Pa woke up
and they both listened. Then they heard someone hollerin’ an’ Pa knew
’twas the old Colonel’s voice, an’ Ma said, ‘Like’s not someone’s sick
over to the mansion!’ Pa got into his clothes fast as greased lightnin’,
took a lantern and went down to the porch, and thar was the ol’ Colonel
wi’out any hat on. His gray hair was all rumped up and his eyes was
wild-like. Pa said the ol’ Colonel was brown as leather most times, but
that night he was white as sheets.
“As soon as the Colonel saw Pa, he hollered, ‘Whar kin I get a steam
launch? I wanta foller my daughter. She an’ the woman that takes keer o’
her is plumb gone, an’, what’s more, my yacht’s gone too. They’ve made
off wi’ it. That scalawag of a furriner that’s been wantin’ to marry her
has kidnapped ’em all. She’s only seventeen, my daughter is, an’ I’ll
have the law on him.’
“Pa said when he got up clost to the horse the Colonel was ridin’, he
could see the old man was shakin’ like he had the palsy. Pa didn’t know
no place at all whar a steam launch could be had, leastwise not near enuf
to Siquaw to help any, so the old Colonel said he’d take the train an’ go
up the coast to a town whar he could get a launch an’ he’d chase arter
that slow-sailin’ yacht an’ he’d have the law on whoever was kidnappin’
his daughter.
“The ol’ Colonel was in an awful state, Pa said. He went into the store
part o’ our house and paced up an’ down, an’ up an’ down, an’ up an’
down, till Pa thought he must be goin’ crazy, an’ every onct in a while
he’d mutter, like ’twas just for himself to hear, ‘She’ll pay fer this,
Darlina will!’”
The boy looked up and smiled at his listeners. “Queer name, wasn’t it?”
he queried. “Most as funny as my name, but I guess likely ’taint quite.”
“I suppose they wanted to call her something that meant darling,” Dories
began, but Nann put in eagerly with, “Oh, Gib, do go on. What happened
next? Did the old Colonel go somewhere and get a fast boat and overtake
the yacht. I do hope that he didn’t.”
“Wall, than yo’ get what yer hopin’ fer, all right. About a week arter
he’d took the early mornin’ train along back came the ol’ Colonel, Pa
said, an’ he looked ten year older. He didn’t s’plain nothin’, but gave
Pa some money fer takin’ keer o’ his horse while he’d been gone, an’ then
back he came here to his house an’ lived shut in all by himself an’ his
man-servant for nigh ten year, Pa said. Nobody ever set eyes on him; his
man-servant bein’ the only one who came to the store for mail an’
supplies, an’ he never said nuthin’, tho Pa said now an’ then he’d ask if
Darlina’d been heard from. He knew when he’d ask, Pa said, as how he
wouldn’t get any answer, but he couldn’t help askin’; he was that
interested. But arter a time folks around here began to think morne’n
like the Phantom Yacht, as Pa’d called it, had gone to the bottom before
it reached wherever ’twas they’d been headin’ fer, when all of a sudden
somethin’ happened. Gee, but Pa said he’d never been so excited before in
all his days as he was the day that somethin’ happened. It was ten year
ago an’ Pa’d jest had a letter from yer aunt—” the boy leaned over to nod
at Dori, “askin’ him to go to the Point an’ open up her cottage as she’d
built the summer before. Thar was only two cottages on the shore then;
hers an’ the Burtons’, that’s nearest the point. Pa said as how he
thought he’d get down thar before sun up, so’s he could get back in time
to open up the store, bein’ as Ma wan’t well, an’ so he set off to walk
to the beach.
“Pa said he was up on the roof of the front porch takin’ the blind off
thet little front window in the loft whar yo’ girls sleep when the gray
dawn over to the east sort o’ got pink. Pa said ’twas such a purty sight
he turned ’round to watch it a spell when, all of a sudden sailin’ right
around that long, rocky island out thar, _what_ should he see but the
Phantom Yacht, her white sails glistening as the sun rose up out o’ the
water. Pa said he had to hold on, he was so sure it was a spook boat. He
couldn’t no-how believe ’twas real, but thar came up a spry wind wi’ the
sun an’ that yacht sailed as purty as could be right up to the long dock
whar the sailors tied it. Wall, Pa said he was so flabbergasted that he
fergot all about the blind he was to take off an’ slid right down the
roof and made fer a place as near the long dock as he could an’ hid
behind some rocks an’ waited. Pa said nothin’ happened fer two hours, or
seemed that long to him; then out of that yacht stepped the mos’
beautiful young woman as Pa’d ever set eyes on. He knew at onct ’twas the
ol’ Colonel’s daughter growed up. She was dressed all in white jest like
she’d used to be, but what was different was the two kids she had holdin’
on to her hands. One was a boy, Pa said, about nine year old, dressed in
black velvet wi’ a white lace color. Pa said he was a handsome little
fellar, but ’twas the wee girl, Pa said, that looked like a gold and
white angel wi’ long yellow curls. She was younger’n the boy by nigh two
year, Pa reckoned. Their ma’s face was pale and looked like sufferin’, Pa
said, as she an’ her children walked up to the sea wall and went up over
the stone steps thar was then to climb over it. Pa knew they was goin’ on
up to the house, but from whar he hid he couldn’t see no more, an’ so
bein’ as he had to go on back to open up the store, he didn’t see what
the meetin’ between the ol’ Colonel an’ his daughter was like.
How-some-ever it couldn’t o’ been very pleasant, fer along about noon, Pa
said he recollected as how he had fergot to take off the blind on yer
aunt’s cottage, an’ knowin’ how mad she’d be, he locked up the store an’
went back down to the beach, an’ the first thing he saw was that
glistenin’ white yacht a-sailin’ away. The wind had been gettin’ stiffer
all the mornin’ an’ Pa said as he watched the yacht roundin’ the island,
it looked to him like it was bound to go on the shoals an’ be wrecked on
the rocks. Whoever was steerin’ Pa said, didn’t seem to know nothin’
about the reefs. Pa stood starin’ till the yacht was out of sight, an’
then he heard a hollerin’ an’ yellin’ down the beach, an’ thar come the
ol’ man-servant runnin’ an’ stumblin’ an’ shoutin’ to Pa to come quick.
“‘Colonel Wadbury’s took a stroke!’ was what he was hollerin’, an’ so Pa
follered arter him as fast as he could an’ when they got into the big
library-room, whar all the books an’ pictures was, Pa saw the ol’ Colonel
on the floor an’ his face was all drawed up somethin’ awful. Pa helped
the man-servant get him to bed, and fer onct the man-servant was willin’
to talk. He told Pa all that had happened. He said how Darlina’s furrin
husband had died an’ how she wanted to come back to America to live. She
didn’t ask to live wi’ her Pa, but she did want him to give her the deed
to a country place near Boston. It ’pears her ma had left it for her to
have when she got to be eighteen, but the ol’ Colonel wouldn’t give her
the papers, though they was hers by rights, an’ he wouldn’t even look at
the two children; he jest turned ’em all right out, and then as soon as
they was gone, he tuk a stroke. ’Twan’t likely, so Pa said, he’d ever be
able to speak again. The man-servant said as the last words the ol’
Colonel spoke was to call a curse down on his daughter’s head.
“Wall, the curse come all right,” Gibralter nodded in the direction of
the crumbling ruin, “but ’twas himself as it hit.
“You’ll recollect awhile back I was mentionin’ that folks in Siquaw
Center had warned ol’ Colonel Wadbury not to build a hefty house on
shiftin’ sand that was lower’n the sea. Thar was nothin’ keepin’ the
water back but a wall o’ rocks. But the Colonel sort o’ dared Fate to do
its worst, and Fate tuk the dare.
“When November set in, Pa says, folks in town began to take in reefs, so
to speak; shuttin’ the blinds over their windows and boltin’ ’em on to
the inside. Gettin’ ready for the nor’easter that usually came at that
time o’ year, sort o’ headin’ the procession o’ winter storms. Wall, it
came all right; an’ though ’twas allays purty lively, Pa says that one
beat all former records, and was a howlin’ hurricane. Folks didn’t put
their heads out o’ doors, day or night, while it lasted, an’ some of ’em
camped in their cellars. That thar storm had all the accompaniments. Thar
was hail beatin’ down as big and hard as marbles, but the windows, havin’
blinds on ’em, didn’t get smashed. Then it warmed up some, and how it
rained! Pa says Noah’s flood was a dribble beside it, he’s sure sartin.
Then the wind tuk a turn, and how it howled and blustered. All the
outbuildin’s toppled right over; but the houses in Siquaw Center was
built to stand, and they stood. Then on the third night, Pa says, ’long
about midnight, thar was a roarin’ noise, louder’n wind or rain. It was
kinder far off at first, but seemed like ’twas comin’ nearer. ‘That thar
stone wall’s broke down,’ Pa told Ma, ‘an’ the sea’s coverin’ the
lowland.’
“Wall, Pa was right. The tide had never risen so high in the memory of
Ol’ Timer as had been around these parts nigh a hundred years. The waves
had banged agin that wall till it went down; then they swirled around the
house till they dug the sand out an’ the walls fell jest like yo’ see ’em
now.
“The next mornin’ the sky was clear an’ smilin’, as though nothin’ had
happened, or else as though ’twas pleased with its work. Pa and Gus
Pilsley an’ some other Siquaw men made for the coast to see what the
damage had been, but they couldn’t get within half a mile, bein’ as the
road was under water. How-some-ever, ’bout a week later, the road, bein’
higher, dried; but the water never left the lowlands, an’ that’s how the
swamp come all about the old ruin—reeds and things grew up, just like
’tis today.
“Pa and Gus come up to this here point an’ looked down at what was left
of the fine stone house. ‘’Pears like it served him right,’ was what the
two of ’em said. Then they went away, and the ol’ place was left alone.
Folks never tried to get to the ruin, sayin’ as the marsh around it was
oozy, and would draw a body right in.”
“But what became of old Colonel Wadbury and the man-servant?” Dories
inquired.
“Dunno,” the boy replied, laconically. “Some thar be as guess one thing,
and some another. Ol’ Timer said as how he’d seen two men board the train
that passes through Siquaw Center ’long ’bout two in the mornin’, but Pa
says the storm was fiercest then, and no trains went through for three
days; and who’d be out to see, if it had? Pa thinks they tried to get
away an’ was washed out to sea an’ drowned, an’ I guess likely that’s
what happened, all right.”
Dories rose. “We ought to be getting back.” She glanced at the sun as she
spoke. “Aunt Jane may be needing us.” The other two stood up and for a
moment Nann gazed down at the ruin; then she called to it: “Some day I am
coming to visit you, old house, and find out the secret that you hold.”
Dories shuddered and seemed glad to climb down on the side of the rocks
where the sun was shining so brightly and from where one could not see
the dismal swamp and the crumbling old ruin.
CHAPTER IX.
A MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE
As they walked along the hard, glistening beach, Nann glanced over the
shimmering water at the gray, forbidding-looking island in the distance,
almost as though she thought that the Phantom Yacht might again be seen
sailing toward the place where the dock had been. “Poor Darlina,” she
said turning toward the others, “how I do hope that she is happy now.”
“Cain’t no one tell as to that, I reckon,” Gib commented, when Dories
asked: “Gibralter, how long ago did all this happen? How old would that
girl and boy be now?”
“Pa was speakin’ o’ that ’long about last week,” was the reply. “He
reckoned ’twas ten year since the Phantom Yacht sailed off agin with the
mother and the two little uns. That’d make the boy, Pa said, about
nineteen year old he cal’lated, an’ the wee girl about fifteen.”
“Then little Darlina would be about our age,” Dories commented.
“Why do you think that her name would be the same as her mother’s?” Nann
queried.
“O, just because it is odd and pretty,” was Dories’ reason. Then,
stepping more spryly, she said: “I do hope Aunt Jane has not been awake
long, fretting for her breakfast. We’ve been gone over two hours I do
believe.”
“Gee!” Gib exclaimed, looking around for his horse. “I’ll have ter gallop
as fast as the ol’ colonel did that thar night I was tellin’ yo’ about or
Pa’ll be in my wool. I’d ought to’ve had the milkin’ done this hour past.
So long!” he added, bolting suddenly between two of the boarded-up
cottages they were passing. “Thar’s my ol’ steed out by the marsh,” he
called back to them.
The girls entered the kitchen very quietly and tiptoed through the
living-room hoping that their elderly hostess had not yet awakened, but a
querulous voice was calling: “Dories, is that you? Why can’t you be more
quiet? I’ve heard you prowling around this house for the past hour. Going
up and down those outside stairs. I should think you would know that I
want quiet. I came here to rest my nerves. Bring my coffee at once.”
“Yes, Aunt Jane,” the girl meekly replied. Then, darting back to the
kitchen, she whispered, her eyes wide and startled, “Nann, somebody has
been in this house while we’ve been away. I do believe it was that—that
person we saw at midnight carrying a lantern. Aunt Jane has heard
footsteps creaking up and down the stairs to our room.”
Nann’s expression was very strange. Instead of replying she held out a
small piece of crumpled paper. “I just ran up to the loft to get my
apron,” she said, “and I found this lying in the middle of our bed.”
On the paper was written in small red letters: “In thirteen days you
shall know all.”
“I have nine minds to tell Aunt Jane that the cabin must be haunted and
that we ought to leave for Boston this very day,” Dories said, but her
companion detained her.
“Don’t, Dori,” she implored. “I’m sure that there is nothing that will
harm us, for pray, why should anyone want to? And I’m simply wild to
know, well, just ever so many things. Who prowls about at midnight
carrying a lighted lantern, what he is hunting for, who left this
crumpled paper on our bed, and what we are to know in thirteen days; but,
first of all, I want to find a way to enter that old ruin.”
Dories sank down on a kitchen chair. “Nann Sibbett,” she gasped, “I
believe that you are absolutely the only girl in this whole world who is
without fear. Well,” more resignedly, “if you aren’t afraid, I’ll try not
to be.” Then, springing up, she added, for the querulous voice had again
called: “Yes, Aunt Jane, I’ll bring your coffee soon.” Turning to Nann,
she added: “We ought to have a calendar so that we could count the days.”
“I guess we won’t need to.” Nann was making a fire in the stove as she
spoke. “More than likely the spook will count them for us. There, isn’t
that a jolly fire? Polly, put the kettle on, and we’ll soon have coffee.”
Dories, being the “Polly” her friend was addressing, announced that she
was ravenously hungry after their long walk and climb and that she was
going to have bacon and eggs. Nann said merrily, “Double the order.”
Then, while Dories was preparing the menu, she said softly: “Nann,
doesn’t it seem queer to you that Great-Aunt Jane can live on nothing but
toast and tea? Of course,” she amended, “this morning she wishes toast
and coffee, but she surely ought to eat more than that, shouldn’t you
think?”
“She would if she got out in this bracing sea air, but lying abed is
different. One doesn’t get so hungry.” Nann was setting the kitchen table
for two as she talked. After the old woman’s tray had been carried to her
bedside, Dories and Nann ate ravenously of the plain, but tempting, fare
which they had cooked for themselves. Nann laughed merrily. “This
certainly is a lark,” she exclaimed. “I never before had such a good
time. I’ve always been crazy to read mystery stories and here we are
living one.”
Dories shrugged. “I’m inclined to think that I’d rather read about spooks
than meet them,” she remarked as she rose and prepared to wash the
dishes.
When the kitchen had been tidied, the two girls went into the sun-flooded
living-room, and began to make it look more homelike. The dust covers
were removed from the comfortable wicker chairs and the pictures, that
had been turned to face the walls while the cabin was unoccupied, were
dusted and straightened.
“Now, let’s take a run along the beach and gather a nice lot of drift
wood,” Nann suggested. “You know Gibralter told us that this is the time
of year when the first winter storm is likely to arrive.”
Dories shuddered. “I hope it won’t be like the one that wrecked Colonel
Wadbury’s house eight years ago. If it were, it might undermine all of
these cabins, and, how pray, could we escape if the road was under
water?”
“Oh, that isn’t likely to happen,” Nann said comfortingly. “Our beach is
higher than that lowland. It it does, we’d find a way out, but, Dories,
please don’t be imagining things. We have enough mystery to puzzle us
without conjuring up frightful catastrophes that probably never will
happen.”
Dories stopped at her aunt’s door to tell her their plans, but the old
woman was either asleep or feined slumber, and so, tiptoeing that she
might not disturb her, the girl went out on the beach, where Nann awaited
her. They were hatless, and as the sun had mounted higher, even the
bright colored sweater-coats had been discarded.
“It’s such a perfect Indian summer day,” Nann said. “I don’t even see a
tiny, misty cloud.” As she spoke, she shaded her eyes with one hand and
scanned the horizon.
“Isn’t the island clear? Even that fog bank that we saw early this
morning has melted away.” Then, whirling about, Dories inquired, “Nann,
if we should see something white coming around that bleak gray island,
what do you think it would be?”
“Why, the Phantom Yacht, of course.”
“What would you do, if it were?”
“I don’t know, Dori. I hadn’t even thought of the coming of that boat as
a possibility, and yet—” Nann turned a glowing face, “I don’t know why it
might not happen. That little woman, for the sake of her children, might
try a second time to win her father’s forgiveness. If she came, what a
desolate homecoming it would be; the old house in ruin and the fate of
her father unknown.”
For a moment the two girls stood silent. A gentle sea breeze blew their
sport skirts about them. They watched the island with shaded eyes as
though they really expected the yacht to appear. Then Nann laughed, and
leaping along the beach, she confessed: “I know that I’ll keep watching
for the return of the Phantom Yacht just all of the while. The first
thing in the morning and the last thing at night.” Then, as she picked up
a piece of whitening driftwood, she asked, “Dori, would you rather have
the glistening white yacht appear in the sunrise or in the moonlight?”
Dories had darted for another piece of wood higher up the warm beach,
but, on returning, she replied: “Oh, I don’t know; either way would make
a beautiful picture, I should think.” Then, after picking up another
piece, she added: “I’d like to meet that pretty gold and white girl,
wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe we will,” Nann commented, then sang out: “Do look, Dori, over by
the point of rocks, there is ever so much driftwood. I believe that will
be enough to fill our wood shed if we carry it all in. I’ve always heard
that there are such pretty colors in the flames when driftwood burns.”
The girls worked for a while carrying the wood to the shed; then they
climbed up on the rocks to rest, but not high enough to see the old ruin.
When at length the sun was at the zenith, they went indoors to prepare
lunch, and again the old woman asked only for toast and tea.
After a leisurely noon hour, the girls returned to their task; there
really being nothing else that they wanted to do, and, as Nann suggested,
if the rains came they would be well prepared. For a time they rested,
lying full length on the warm sand, and so it was not until late
afternoon that they had carried in all of the driftwood they could find.
“Goodness!” Dories exclaimed, shudderingly, as she looked down at her
last armful. “Doesn’t it make you feel queer to know that this wood is
probably the broken-up skeleton of a ship that has been wrecked at sea?”
“I suppose that is true,” was the thoughtful response. They had started
for the cabin, and a late afternoon fog was drifting in.
Suddenly Nann paused and stared at the one window in the loft that faced
the sea. Her expression was more puzzled than fearful. For one brief
second she had seen a white object pass that window. Dories turned to ask
why her friend had delayed. Nann, not wishing to frighten the more timid
girl, stooped to pick up a piece of driftwood that had slipped from her
arms.
“I’m coming, dear,” she said.
On reaching the cabin, Nann went at once to the room of the elderly
woman, who had told them in the morning that she intended to remain in
bed for one week and be waited on. There she was, her deeply-set dark
eyes watching the door when Nann opened it and instantly she began to
complain: “I do wish you girls wouldn’t go up and down those outside
stairs any oftener than you have to. They creaked so about ten minutes
ago, they woke me right up.” Then she added, “Please tell Dories to bring
me my tea at once.”
Nann returned to the kitchen truly puzzled. It was always when they were
away from the cabin that the aunt heard someone going up and down the
outside stairway. What could it mean? To Dories she said, in so calm a
voice that suspicion was not aroused in the heart of her friend, “While
you prepare the tea for your aunt, I’ll go up to the loft room and make
our bed before dark.”
Dories had said truly, Nann Sibbett seemed to be a girl without fear.
CHAPTER X.
SOUNDS IN THE LOFT
Nann half believed that the white object she had seen at the loft window
was but a flashing ray of the setting sun reflected from the opposite
window which faced the west, and yet, curiosity prompted her to go to the
loft and be sure that it was unoccupied. This resolution was strengthened
when, upon reaching the cabin, she heard Miss Moore’s querulous voice
complaining that the outer stairs leading to the room above had been
creaking constantly, and she requested the girls not to go up and down so
often while she was trying to sleep. Nann, knowing that they had not been
to their bedroom since morning, was a little puzzled by this, and so,
bidding Dories prepare tea for her great-aunt, she went out on the back
porch and started to ascend the stairway. When the top was reached, she
discovered that the door was locked. For a puzzled moment the girl
believed that the key was on the inside, but, stopping, she found that
she could see through the keyhole. Although it was dusk, the window in
the loft room, which opened toward the sea, was opposite and showed a
faint reflection of the setting sun. Nann was relieved but still puzzled,
when a whispered voice at the foot of the stairway called to her.
Turning, Nann saw Dories standing in the dim light below, holding up the
key. “Did you forget that we brought it down?” she inquired.
As Nann hurriedly descended, she noticed that the stairs did not creak,
nor indeed could they, for each step was one solid board firmly wedged in
grooves at the sides.
“I believe that we are all of us allowing our imaginations to run away
with us, Miss Moore included,” Nann said as she returned to the kitchen.
Then added, “Instead of making our bed now, I will clean the glass lamps
and fill them with the oil that Gibralter brought while it is still
twilighty.”
This she did, setting briskly to work and humming a gay little tune.
It never would do for Nann Sibbett, the fearless, to allow her
imagination to run riot.
Before the lamps were ready to be lighted, the fog, which stole in every
night from the sea, had settled about the cabin and the fog horn out
beyond the rocky point had started its constantly recurring, long
drawn-out wail.
“Goodness!” Dories said, shudderingly, “listen to that!”
“I’m listening!” Nann replied briskly. “I rather like it. It’s so sort of
appropriate. You know, at the movies, when the Indians come on, the weird
Indian music always begins. Now, that’s the way with the fog.”
She paused to scratch a match, applied the flame to the oil-saturated
wick of a small glass lamp and stood back admiringly. “There, friend o’
mine,” she exclaimed, “isn’t that cheerful?”
Dories, instead of looking at the circle of light about the lamp, looked
at the wavering shadows in the corners, then at the heavy gray fog which
hung like curtains at the windows. She huddled closer to the stove. “If
this place spells cheerfulness to you,” she remarked, “I’d like to know
what would be dismal.”
Nann whirled about and faced her friend and for a moment she was serious.
“I’m going to preach,” she threatened, “so be prepared. I haven’t the
least bit of use in this world for people who are mercurial. What right
have we to mope about and create a dismal atmosphere in our homes, just
because we can’t see the sunshine. We know positively that it is shining
somewhere, and we also know that the clouds never last long. I call it
superlative selfishness to be variable in disposition. Pray, why should
we impose our doleful moods on our friends?”
Then, noting the downcast expression of her friend, Nann put her arms
about her as she said penitently, “Forgive me, dear, if I hurt your
feelings. Of course it is dismal here and we could be just miserable if
we wanted to be, but isn’t it far better to think of it all as an
adventure, a merry lark? We know perfectly well that there is no such
thing as a ghost, but the setting for one is so perfect we just can’t
resist the temptation to pretend that——”
Nann said no more for something had suddenly banged in the loft room over
their heads.
Dories sat up with a start, but Nann laughed gleefully. “You see, even
the ghost knows his cue,” she declared. “He came into the story just at
the right moment. He can’t scare me, however,” Nann continued, “for I
know exactly what made the bang. When I was upstairs I noticed that the
blind to the front window had come unfastened, and now that the night
wind is rising, the two conspired to make us think a ghost had invaded
our chamber.” Then, having placed a lighted lamp on the kitchen table and
another on a shelf near the stove, the optimistic girl whirled and with
arms akimbo she exclaimed, “Mistress Dori, what will we have for supper?
You forage in the supply cupboard and bring forth your choice. I vote for
hot chocolate!”
“How would asparagus tips do on toast?” This doubtfully from the girl
peering into a closet where stood row after row of bags and cans.
“Great!” was the merry reply. “And we’ll have canned raspberries and
wafers for desert.”
It was seven when the meal was finished and nearly eight when the kitchen
was tidied. Nann noticed that Dories seemed intentionally slow and that
every now and then she seemed to be listening for sounds from above.
Ignoring it, however, Nann put out the light in one lamp and, taking the
other, she exclaimed, “The earlier we go to bed, the earlier we can get
up, and I’m heaps more interested in being awake by day than by night,
aren’t you, Dori? Are you all ready?”
Dories nodded, preparing to follow her friend out into the fog that hung
like a damp, dense mantle on the back porch. But, as soon as the door was
opened, a cold, penetrating wind blew out the flame. “How stupid of me!”
Nann exclaimed, backing into the kitchen and closing the door. “I should
have lighted the lantern. Now stand still where you are, Dori, and I’ll
grope around and find where I left it after I filled it. Didn’t you think
I hung it on the nail in the corner? Well, if I did, it isn’t there. Get
the matches, dear, will you, and strike one so that I can see.”
But that did not prove to be necessary, as a sudden flaming-up of the
dying fire in the stove revealed the lantern standing on the floor near
the oil can. Nann pounced on it, found a match before the glow was gone,
and then, when the lantern sent forth its rather faint illumination, they
again ventured out into the fog.
All the way up the back stairway Dories expected to hear a bang in the
room overhead, but there was no sound. She peered over Nann’s shoulder
when the door was opened and the faint light penetrated the darkness.
“See, I was right!” Nann whispered triumphantly. “The blind blew shut and
the hook caught it. That’s why we didn’t hear it again.”
“Let’s leave it shut,” Dories suggested, “then we won’t be able to see
the lantern out on the point of rocks if it moves about at midnight.”
Nann, realizing that her companion really was excitedly fearful, thought
best to comply with her request, and, as there was plenty of air entering
the loft room through innumerable cracks, she knew they would not
smother.
Too, Dories wanted the lantern left burning, but as soon as Nann was sure
that her companion was asleep, she stealthily rose and blew out the
flickering flame.
CHAPTER XI.
A QUERULOUS OLD AUNT
It was daylight when the girls awakened and the sun was streaming into
their bedroom. Nann leaped to her feet. “It must be late,” she declared
as she felt under her pillow for her wristwatch. She drew it forth, but
with it came a piece of crumpled yellow paper on which in small red
letters was written, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
Dories luckily had not as yet opened her eyes and Nann was sitting on the
edge of the bed with her back toward her companion. For a moment she
looked into space meditatively. Should she keep all knowledge of that bit
of paper to herself? She decided that she would, and slipping it into the
pocket of her sweater-coat, which hung on a chair, she rose and walked
across the room to gaze at the door. She remembered distinctly that she
had locked it. How could anyone have entered? Not for one moment did the
girl believe that their visitor had been a ghostly apparition that could
pass through walls and locked doors.
“Hmm! I see,” she concluded after a second’s scrutiny. “I did lock the
door, but I removed the key and put it on the table. A pass-key evidently
admitted our visitor.” Then, while dressing, Nann continued to
soliloquize. “I wonder if the person who walks the cliff carrying the
lantern was our visitor. Perhaps it’s the old Colonel himself or his
man-servant who hides during the day under the leaning part of the roof,
but who walks forth at night for exercise and air, although surely there
must be air enough in a house that has only one wall.”
Having completed her toilet, she shook her friend. “If you don’t wake up
soon, you won’t be downstairs in time for breakfast,” she exclaimed.
Dories sat up with a startled cry. “Oh, Nann,” she pleaded. “Don’t go
down and leave me up here alone, please don’t! I’ll be dressed before you
can say Jack Robinson, if only you will wait.”
“Well, I’ll be opening this window. I want to see the ocean.” As Nann
spoke, she lifted the hook and swung out the blind, then exclaimed:
“How wonderfully blue the water is! Oho, someone is out in the cove with
a flat-bottomed boat. Why, I do believe it is our friend Gibralter. Come
to think of it, he did say that he had been saving his money for ever so
long to buy what he calls a sailing punt.”
Nann leaned out of the open window and waved her handkerchief. Then she
turned back to smile at her friend. “It is Gib and he’s sailing toward
shore. Do hurry, Dori, let’s run down to the beach and call to him.”
Tiptoeing down the flight of stairs, the two girls, taking hands,
scrambled over the bank to the hard sand that was glistening in the sun.
The boy, having seen them, turned his boat toward shore, and, as there
was very little wind, he let the sail flap and began rowing.
The tide was low and there was almost no surf.
“Want to come out?” he called as soon as he was within hailing distance.
“Oh, how I wish we could,” Nann, the fearless, replied, “but we have
duties to attend to first. Come back in about an hour and maybe we’ll be
ready to go.”
“All right-ho!” the sea breeze brought to them, then the lad turned into
the rising wind, pulled in the sheet and scudded away from the shore.
“That surely looks like jolly sport,” Nann declared as, with arms locked,
the two girls stood on a boulder, watching for a moment. Then, “We ought
to go in, for Great-Aunt Jane may have awakened,” Dories said.
When the girls tiptoed to the chamber on the lower floor, they found Miss
Moore unusually fretful. “What a noisy night it was,” she declared,
peevishly. “I came to this place for a complete rest and I just couldn’t
sleep a wink. I don’t see why you girls have to walk around in the night.
Don’t you know that you are right over my head and every noise you make
sounds as though it were right in this very room?”
“I’m sorry you were disturbed, Aunt Jane,” Dories said, but she was
indeed puzzled. Neither she nor Nann had awakened from the hour that they
retired until sunrise.
When the girls were in the kitchen preparing breakfast, Dories asked,
“Nann, do you think that Great-Aunt Jane may be—I don’t like to say it,
but you know how elderly people do, sometimes, wander mentally.”
“No, dear,” the other replied, “I do not think that is true of your
aunt.” Then chancing to put her hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat,
and feeling there the crumpled paper, Nann drew it out and handed it to
Dories.
“Why, where did you find it?” that astonished maiden inquired when she
had read the finely written words, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
“Under my pillow,” was the reply, “and so you see who ever leaves these
messages has no desire to harm us, hence there is no reason for us to be
afraid. At first I thought that I would not tell you, but I want you to
understand that your Great Aunt Jane may have heard footsteps over her
head last night, even though we did not awaken.”
“Well, if you are not afraid, I’ll try not to be,” Dories assured her
friend, but in her heart she knew that she would be glad indeed when the
twelve days were over.
Later when Dories went into her aunt’s room to remove the breakfast tray,
she bent over the bed to arrange the pillows more comfortably. Then she
tripped about, tidying the room. Chancing to turn, she found the dark,
deeply sunken eyes of the elderly woman watching her with an expression
that was hard to define. Jane Moore smiled faintly at the girl, and there
was a tone of wistfulness in her voice as she said, “I suppose you and
Nann will be away all day again.”
“Why, Aunt Jane,” Dories heard herself saying as she went to the bedside,
“were you lonely? Would you like to have me stay for a while this morning
and read to you?”
Even as she spoke she seemed to see her mother’s smiling face and hear
her say, “The only ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving deeds
left undone and kind words that might have been spoken.” As yet Dories
had not even thought of trying to do anything to add to her aunt’s
pleasure. She was gratified to see the brightening expression. “Well,
that would be nice! If you will read to me until I fall asleep, I shall
indeed be glad.”
Nann, who had come to the door, had heard, and, as the girls left the
room, she slipped an arm about her friend, saying, “That was mighty nice
of you, Dori, for I know how much pleasanter it would be for you to go
for a boat ride with Gibralter. I’ll stay with you if you wish.”
“No, indeed, Nann. You go and see if you can’t find another clue to the
mystery.”
“I feel in my bones that we will,” that maiden replied as she poured hot
water over the few breakfast dishes. “It would be rather a good joke
on—well—on the ghost, if we solved the mystery sooner than twelve days.
Don’t you think so?”
“But there are so many things that puzzle us,” Dories protested. “I wish
we might catch whoever it is leaving those messages. That, at least,
would be one mystery solved.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Nann said brightly. “Let’s put on our thinking caps
and try to find some way to trap the ghost tonight. Well, good-bye for
now! Gib and I will be back soon, I am sure. I’m just wild to go for a
little sail with him in his queer punt boat.”
Dories stood in the open front door watching as her friend ran lightly
across the hard sand, climbed to a boulder and beckoned to the boy who
was not far away.
With a half sigh Dories went into her aunt’s room. Catching a glimpse of
her own reflection in a mirror she was surprised to behold a fretful
expression which plainly told that she was doing something that she did
not want to do in the least. She smiled, and then turning toward the bed,
she asked, “What shall I read, Aunt Jane?”
“Are there any books in the living room?” the elderly woman inquired. The
girl shook her head. “There are shelves, but the books have been
removed.”
There was a sudden brightening of the deeply sunken eyes. “I recall now,”
the older woman said, “the books were packed in a box and taken up to the
loft. Suppose you go up there and select any book that you would like to
read.”
For one panicky moment Dories felt that she must refuse to go alone to
that loft room which she believed was haunted. She had never been up
there without Nann.
“Well, are you going?” The inquiry was not impatient, but it was puzzled.
“Yes, Aunt Jane, I’ll go at once.” There was nothing for the girl to do
but go. Taking the key from its place in the kitchen, she began to ascend
the outdoor stairway. How she did wish that she were as fearless as Nann.
The door opened when the key turned, and Dories stood looking about her
as though she half believed that someone would appear, either from under
the bed or from behind the curtains that sheltered one corner.
There was no sound, and, moreover, the loft room was flooded with
sunlight. The box, holding the books, was readily found. Dories
approached it, lifted the cover and was about to search for an
interesting title when a mouse leaped out, scattering gnawed bits of
paper. Seizing the book on top, Dories fled.
“What is the matter?” her aunt inquired when, almost breathless, the girl
entered her room.
“Oh—I—I thought it was—but it wasn’t—it was only a mouse.”
“Of course it was only a mouse,” Miss Moore said. “I sincerely hope that
a niece of mine is not a coward.”
“I hope not, Aunt Jane.” Then the girl for the first time glanced at the
book she held. The title was “Famous Ghost Stories of England and
Ireland.”
“Very entertaining, indeed,” the elderly woman remarked, as she settled
back among the pillows, and there was nothing for Dories to do but read
one hair-raising tale after another. Often she glanced at her
wrist-watch. It was almost noon. Why didn’t Nann come?
CHAPTER XII.
A BLEACHED SKELETON
When Gibralter saw Nann crossing the wide beach that was shimmering in
the light of the early morning sun, he turned the punt boat and sailed as
close to the point of rocks as he dared go. Then, letting the sail flap,
he took the oars and was soon alongside a large flat boulder which, at
low tide, was uncovered, although an occasional wave did wash over it.
“Quick! Watch whar ye step,” he cautioned. “Thar now. Here’s yer chance.
Heave ho.” Then he added admiringly as the girl stepped into the middle
of the punt without losing her balance, “Bully fer you. That’s as steady
as a boy could have done it. Whar’s the other gal? Was she skeered to
come?”
Nann seated herself on the wide stern seat of the flat-bottomed boat
before she replied. “Dori wanted to come just ever so much, but she
thought that she ought to stay at home this morning and read to her
Great-Aunt Jane.”
“Wall, I don’t envy her none,” the lad said as he stood up to push the
boat away from the rocks. “That ol’ Miss Moore is sure sartin the
crabbiest sort o’ a person seems like to me.” Then as he sat on the
gunnel and pulled on the sheet, he added, beaming at the girl, “Say, Miss
Nann, are ye game to sail over clost to the island yonder? Like’s not
we’d find the skeleton o’ The Phantom Yacht if it got wrecked thar, as Pa
thinks mabbe it did.”
“Oh, Gib,” the girl’s voice expressed real concern, “I do hope that
beautiful snow-white yacht was not wrecked. I don’t believe that it was.
I feel sure that those sailors took it safely back across the sea with
that poor heart-broken mother and the boy who was such a handsome little
chap, and the wee gold and white girl whom your daddy said looked like a
lily. Honestly, Gib, I’d almost rather not sail over to that cruel island
where so many boats have gone down. If the Phantom Yacht is there, I’d
rather not know it. I’d heaps rather believe that it is still sailing,
perhaps on the blue, blue waters of the Mediterranean.”
The boy looked his disappointment. “I say, Miss Nann,” he pleaded, “come
on, say you’ll go, just this onct. I’m powerful curious to see what the
shoals look like. I’ve been savin’ and savin’ for ever so long to buy
this here punt boat jest so’s I could cruise around over thar. Miss Nann,
won’t you go?”
The girl laughed. “Gibralter, you look the picture of distress. I just
can’t be hard-hearted enough to disappoint you. If you’ll promise not to
wreck me, I’ll consent to go at least near enough to see just what the
island looks like.”
With that promise the boy had to be content. A brisk breeze was blowing
from the land and so, before very long, the two and a half miles that lay
between the shore and the outer shoals were covered and the long gaunt
island of jagged gray rocks loomed large before them.
“The shoals’ll come up, sudden-like, clost to the top of the water, most
any time now,” Gib said, “so keep watchin’ ahead. If you see a place whar
the color’s different, sort o’ shallow lookin’, jest sing out an’ I’ll
pull away.”
Nann, thrilling with the excitement of a new adventure, looked over the
side of the punt and into water so deep and dark green that it seemed
bottomless, but all at once they sailed right over a sharp-pointed rock.
Then another appeared, and another.
“Gib!” the girl’s cry was startled, “you’d better stop sailing now and
take the oars, slowly, for if we hit a rock, way out here, and capsize,
pray, who would there be to save us?”
Nann shuddered as she gazed ahead at the gray, grim island. A flock of
long-legged, long-beaked and altogether ungainly looking seabirds arose
from the rocks with shrill, unearthly screams, and, after circling
overhead for a moment they landed a safe distance away. There was no
other sign of life.
Gibralter let the sail flap at the girl’s suggestion and began to row
slowly along on the sheltered side of the island.
“Hark!” Nann said, lifting one hand. “Just hear how the surf is pounding
on the outer coast. Don’t go too far, Gib; see how the water swirls
around the rocks where they jut out into the sea.”
As he rowed slowly along, the boy kept a keen-eyed watch along the shore.
“Thar’d ought to be a place whar a body could land safely,” he said at
last. Then added excitedly as he pointed: “Look’et; thar’s a big flat
shoal that goes way up to the island, an’ I’m sure as anything this here
punt could slide right up over it an’ never touch bottom. Are ye game to
try it, Miss Nann? Say, are ye?”
The girl looked at the wide, flat shoal that was about two feet under
water and which was evidently connected with the island. Then she looked
at the eager face of the boy. “I dare, if you dare,” she said with a
bright smile.
Gibralter managed to row the punt boat within a length of the island over
the submerged shoal, and then it stuck.
“Well,” Nann remarked, “I suppose we will have to stay here until the
rising tide lifts us off.”
“Nary a bit of it,” the boy replied as he stripped off his shoes and
stockings. This done he stepped over the side of the boat, which,
lightened of his weight, again floated.
Taking the rope at the bow, the lad pulled and tugged until the punt was
high and dry, then Nann leaped out. Standing on a rock, she shaded her
eyes and gazed back across the three miles of sparkling blue waters. She
could see the eight cottages in a row on the sandy shore. How strange it
seemed to be looking at them from the island.
“We mustn’t stay long, Gib,” she said to the lad who was examining the
rocks with interest. “When the tide rises the waves will be higher and
that punt boat of yours may not be very seaworthy.”
“Thar’s nothin’ onusual on this here side,” the boy soon reported.
“’Twon’t take long to climb up top and see what’s on the other side.” As
he spoke, he began to climb over the rocks, holding out his hand to
assist the sure-footed girl in the ascent.
“There doesn’t seem to be a green thing growing anywhere,” Nann remarked
as she looked about curiously, “even in the crevices there is nothing but
a silvery gray moss.” Then she inquired, “Are there any serpents on this
island, Gib?”
The boy shook his head. “Never heard tell of anything hereabouts, ’cept
just an octopus. Pa says onct a fisherman’s boat was pulled under by one
of them critters with a lot of arms sort o’ like snakes.”
Nann stood still and stared at the boy. “Gibralter Strait,” she cried,
“if I thought there was one of those terrible sea-serpents about here,
I’d go right home this very instant. Why, I’d rather meet a dozen ghosts
than one octopus.”
“I guess ’twant nothin’ but a story,” the boy said, sorry that he had
happened to mention it. “Guess likely that was all.” Then, as they had
reached the top of the rocks that were piled high, they stood for a
moment side by side gazing down to the rugged shore far below.
The boy suddenly caught the girl’s arm. “Look! Look!” he cried. “That’s
what I was wantin’ to find.” He pointed toward a whitening skeleton of a
boat that was high on the rocks well out of reach of the surf and about
two hundred feet to the left of where they were standing. “Like as not
that wreck’s been thar nigh unto ten year, shouldn’t you say? An’ if so,
why mightn’t it be ‘The Phantom Yacht’ as well as any other? I should
think it might, shouldn’t you, Miss Nann?”
“I suppose so,” the girl faltered. “But oh, how I do hope that it isn’t.
I want to believe that the mother with her boy and girl are safe,
somewhere.” Then pleadingly, “Don’t you think we’d better start for home
now, Gib? I do want to get away before the tide turns, and even if that
old skeleton should be ‘The Phantom Yacht,’ there would be no way for us
to prove it. You never did know the real name of the boat, did you?”
“No.” the boy confessed, “I never did. Sort o’ got to thinkin’ ‘Phantom
Yacht’ was its name, but like’s not ’twasn’t.”
The bleached skeleton of the boat was soon reached and the lad, leaving
Nann standing on a broad flat rock, scrambled down nearer and began
searching for something that might identify it as the craft which, many
years before, had sailed, white and graceful, to and fro in the sheltered
waters of the bay, and which had been called “The Phantom Yacht.”
Half an hour passed, but search as he might, the disappointed boy found
nothing that could identify the boat. The storms of many winters had
stripped it, leaving but a whitened skeleton and, before long, even that
would be broken up and washed on the shore where the cottages were, to be
gathered and burned as driftwood.
It was with real regret that Gibralter at last left the wrecked boat and
returned to the side of the girl. He found her gazing into the swirling
green waters beyond the rocks as though she were fascinated.
“What ye lookin’ at, Miss Nann?” he inquired.
She turned toward him, wide-eyed. “Gib,” she said, “I thought I saw that
octopus you were telling about. Look, there it is again! See it
stretching out a long brown arm.”
The boy laughed heartily. “That thar’s sea weeds, Miss Nann,” he
chuckled, “one o’ the long streamer kind.” Then he added, more seriously,
“We’d better scud ’long. ’Pears like the tide is turnin’.” Then his
optimistic self once again, “All the better if it has turned. It’ll take
us to Siquaw Point a scootin’.”
When they reached the ridge of the island, the boy looked regretfully
back at the grim skeleton. “D’ye know, Miss Nann,” he remarked, “I’m sure
sartin that we’re leavin’ without findin’ a clue that’s hidin’ thar
waitin’ to be found. I’m sure sartin we are.”
It was a habit with the boy to repeat, perhaps for the sake of emphasis.
“Wall,” Nann declared, “to be real honest, Gib, I’d heaps rather be
standing on that sandy stretch of beach over there where the cottages are
than I would to find any clue that the old skeleton may be concealing.”
Then she laughed, as she accepted his proffered assistance to descend the
rocks. “I don’t know why, but I feel as though something skeery is about
to happen. Maybe I’m more imaginative on water than I am on land.”
They slid and scrambled down the rocks and were nearing the bottom when
an ejaculation of mingled astonishment and dismay escaped from the boy.
“What is it, Gib?” the girl asked anxiously. “Has the skeery something
happened already?”
“The punt. ’Taint thar. The tide rose sooner’n I was countin’ on and
like’s not that boat o’ mine is sailin’ out to sea.”
For one panicky moment the girl stood very still, her hand pressed on her
heart. Then she recalled something that her father once had said: “When
danger threatens, keep a clear head. That will do more than anything else
to avert trouble.”
The boy, shading his eyes, was searching for the escaped punt far out on
the shining waters, but Nann, looking about her, made a discovery. Then
she laughed gleefully. The boy turned toward her in astonishment. Then,
being very quick witted, he too understood. “You don’ need to tell me,”
he said, “I’m on! We changed our location, so to speak, when we went to
look at the wreck, and that fetched us down at a different place on this
here side.”
Nann nodded. “I do believe that we’ll find the punt beyond the rocks
yonder,” she hazarded. And they did. Ten minutes later the boy had pushed
the boat safely over the submerged shoal. The rising tide carried them
swiftly out of danger of the hidden rocks. Although Nann said nothing,
she kept intently gazing into the dark green water. She would far rather
meet any number of ghosts on land, she assured herself, than even catch a
glimpse of one of those dreadful sea monsters.
It was nearly one o’clock when Dories, who was standing on the porch of
the cabin, saw the flat-bottomed boat returning, and she ran down to the
shore to meet her friend.
“Did you find a clue?” she called as Nan leaped ashore.
“I don’t believe so,” was the merry response. “We found an old whitening
skeleton of some ill-fated boat, but I’m not going to believe it is the
Phantom Yacht. Not yet, anyway.” Then Nann turned to call to the boy who
was pushing his punt away from the rocks, “See you tomorrow, Gib, if you
come this way. Thank you for taking me sailing.”
As soon as the girls had turned back toward the cottage, Dories
exclaimed, “Nann, I believe that I have thought of a splendid way to trap
the ghost tonight, but I’m not going to tell you until just before we go
to bed.”
CHAPTER XIII.
BELLING THE GHOST
There was a sharp, cold wind that afternoon and so Nann suggested that
they make a big fire on the hearth in the living room and write letters.
Miss Moore had told them that she wished to be left alone.
“We have used up nearly all of the wood in the shed,” Nann said as she
brought in an armful.
“There’s lots of driftwood on the shore. Let’s gather some tomorrow,”
Dories suggested as she made herself comfortable in a deep, easy willow
chair near the jolly blaze which Nann had started. “Now I’m going to
write the newsiest kind of a letter to mother and brother. I suppose
you’ll write to your father.”
Nann nodded as she seated herself on the other side of the fireplace,
pencil and pad in readiness. For a few moments they scribbled, then
Dories glanced up to remark with a half shudder, “Do hear that mournful
wind whistling down the chimney, and here comes the fog drifting in so
early. If it weren’t for the fire, this would be a gloomy afternoon.”
Again they wrote for a time, then Dories glanced up to find Nann gazing
thoughtfully into the fire. “A penny for your thoughts,” she called.
Nann smiled brightly. “They were rather a jumble. I was wondering if, by
any chance, you and I would ever meet the wee girl and the handsome
little boy who sailed away on the Phantom Yacht; then, too, I was
wondering who was playing a practical joke on us.”
“Meaning what?”
“Why the notes, of course.” Nann folded her finished letter, addressed
the envelope and after stamping it, she glanced up to ask, “Why not tell
me now, how you intend to trap the joker.”
“You mean the spook. Well this is it. I found a little bell today. One
that Aunt Jane used, I suppose, to call her maid in former years.”
Nann’s merry laughter rang out. “I’ve heard of belling a cat,” she said,
“but never before did I hear of belling a ghost.”
Dories smiled. “Oh, I didn’t mean that we were to catch the—well, whoever
it is that leaves the messages, first, and then hang a bell on him. That,
of course, would be impossible.”
“Well, then, what is your plan?”
But before Dories could explain, a querulous voice from the adjoining
room called, “Girls, its five o’clock! I do wish you would bring me my
toast and tea. The air is so chilly, I need it to warm me up.”
Contritely Dories sprang to the door. She had entirely forgotten her
aunt’s existence all of the afternoon. “Wouldn’t you like to have part of
the supper that Nann and I will prepare for ourselves?” she asked. “We’ll
have anything that you would like.”
“Toast and tea are all I wish, and I want them at once,” was the rather
ungracious reply. And so the girls went to the kitchen, made a fire in
the stove and set the kettle on to boil.
“Goodness, I’d hate to have nothing to eat but tea and toast day in and
day out,” was Dories’ comment. Then to her companion, “It’s your turn to
choose from the cupboard tonight and plan the supper.”
“All right, and I’ll get it, too, while you wait on Miss Moore.”
An hour later the girls had finished the really excellent meal which Nann
had prepared, and, for a while, they sat close to the kitchen stove to
keep warm. The wind, which had been moaning all of the afternoon about
the cabin, had risen in velocity and Dories remarked with a shudder that
it might be the start of one of those dismal three-day storms about which
Gib had told them.
“It may be as terrible as that hurricane that swept the sea up over the
wall and undermined old Colonel Wadbury’s house,” she continued, bent, it
would seem, on having the picture as dark as she could.
“Won’t it be great?” Nann smiled provokingly. “You ought to be glad, for
surely the spook that carries the lantern down on the point will be blown
away.” Then, chancing to recall something, she asked, “But you haven’t
told me your plan yet. How are you going to bell the ghost?”
“My plan is to hang a little bell on the knob after we have locked our
door. Then, of course, if we have a midnight visitor, he won’t be able to
enter without ringing the bell,” Dories explained.
“Poor Aunt Jane, if it does ring,” Nann remarked. “How frightened she
will be.”
Dories drew her knees up and folded her arms about them. “Well, I do
believe that we would be most scared of all,” she said.
“Then why do it?” This merrily from Nann. “And, what’s more, if it is a
ghost, it will be able to slip into our room without awakening us.
Whoever heard of a ghost having to stop to unlock a door?”
“Maybe not,” Dories agreed, “but if we are going to have any real
enjoyment during our stay in this cabin, we must frighten away the ghost
that seems to haunt it. I think my plan is an excellent one and, at
least, I’d like to try it.”
“Very well, maiden fair.” Nann rose as she spoke. “On your head be the
result. Now, shall we ascend to our chamber?”
Taking the lantern, she led the way, and Dories followed, carrying a
small bell. When the loft room was reached the lantern was placed on a
table. Nann carefully locked the door and, removing the key, she placed
it by the lamp.
Then she held the small bell while Dories tied it to the knob. This done,
they hastily undressed and hopped into bed.
“Let’s leave the light burning all night so that we may watch the bell,”
the more timid maiden suggested.
How her companion laughed. “Why watch it?” she inquired. “We surely will
be able to hear it in the dark if it rings. There is very little oil left
in the lantern, so we’d better put the light out now, and then, if along
about midnight we hear the bell ringing, we can relight it and see who
our visitor may be.”
“Nann Sibbett, I’m almost inclined to think that you write those messages
yourself, just to tease me, for you don’t seem to be the least bit
afraid.” This accusingly.
“Honest, Injun, I don’t write them!” Nann said with sudden seriousness.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where the messages come from, but I do know
that whoever leaves them does not mean harm to us, so why be afraid? Now
cuddle down, for I’m going to blow out the light.”
Dories ducked under the quilt and, a moment later, when she ventured to
peer out, she found the room in complete darkness, for, as usual, a heavy
fog shut out the light of the stars.
“How long do you suppose it will be before the bell rings?” she
whispered.
“Well, I’m not going to stay awake to listen,” Nann replied, but she had
not slept long when she was suddenly awakened by her companion, who was
clutching her arm. “Did you hear that noise? What was it? Didn’t it sound
like a faint tinkle?”
The two girls sat up in bed and stared at the door.
CHAPTER XIV.
A PUNT RIDE
The faint tinkle sounded again. Nann sprang up and lighted the lantern.
To her amazement the bell was gone. Surprised as she was, she had
sufficient presence of mind not to tell her timid companion what had
happened. Very softly she turned the knob. The door was still locked. She
glanced at the window; the blind was still hooked. Then, blowing out the
light, she said in a tone meant to express unconcern, “All is serene on
the Potomac as far as I can see.” After returning to bed, however, Nann
remained awake, long after her companion’s even breathing told that she
was asleep, wondering what it could all mean. Toward morning Nann fell
into a light slumber, from which she was awakened by the sun streaming
into the room. Sitting up, she saw that Dories was dressed and had opened
the blinds. For a moment she sat in a dazed puzzling. What was it that
she had been pondering about in the night? Remembering suddenly, she
glanced quickly at the door. There hung the little bell as quietly as
though it had never disappeared. Dories, hearing a movement, turned from
the window where she had been gazing out at the sparkling sea.
“Good morning to you, Nancy dear,” she said gaily. “O, such a lovely day
this is! How I hope that I may go sailing with you and Gib.” Then, as she
saw her friend continuing to stare at the bell as though fascinated,
Dories remarked, “Well, I guess the ghost took warning all right and
stayed away. We won’t find a little paper in our room this morning, I’ll
wager.” As she talked, she was crossing the room to the door. Lifting the
little bell, she dropped it again with a clang.
Nann sprang out of bed, all excited interest. “Dories, what happened? Why
did you drop the bell?”
Dories pointed to the floor where it lay. Nann bent to pick it up. Tied
to the clapper was a bit of paper and on it was written in the familiar
penmanship and with the same red ink, “In eleven days you will know all.”
Instead of acting frightened, Dories’ look was one of triumph. “There
now, Mistress Nann,” she exclaimed, “you are always saying that it is not
a being supernatural that is leaving these notes. What have you to say
about it this morning?”
“That I am truly puzzled,” was the confession Nann was forced to make;
“that the joker is much too clever for us, but we’ll catch him yet, if
I’m a prophet.” She was dressing as she talked.
Dories, standing near the window, was examining the paper. “It seems to
be the sort that packages are wrapped in,” she speculated. Then, after a
silent moment and a closer scrutiny, “Nann, do you suppose that it is
written with blood?”
“Good gracious, no!” the denial was emphatic. “Why do you ask such an
absurd question?”
“Well, that was what the red ink was made of in one of the ghost stories
that I read to Aunt Jane yesterday morning.”
Nann, having completed her toilet, went to the window to look out.
“Good!” she exclaimed. “There is Gibralter Strait in his little punt
boat. He seems to have plenty of time to go sailing. Oh, I remember now.
He did tell me that their country school does not open until after
Christmas. So many boys are needed to help their fathers on the farms and
with the cranberries until snow falls.”
“I suppose I ought to stay at home again this morning and read to Aunt
Jane.” Dories’ voice sounded so doleful that her friend whirled about,
and, putting loving arms about her, she exclaimed: “Not a bit of it! You
may sail with Gibralter this morning and I will stay here and read to
your Great-Aunt Jane.”
But when the two girls visited the room of the elderly woman, she told
them that she wished to be left quite alone.
Dories went to the bedside and, almost timidly, she touched the wrinkled
head. “Don’t you feel well today, Aunt Jane!” she asked, feeling in her
heart a sudden pity for the old woman. “Isn’t there something I could do
for you?”
For one fleeting moment there was that strange expression in the dark,
deeply-sunken eyes. It might have been a hungry yearning for love and
affection. Impulsively the girl kissed the sallow cheek, but the elderly
woman had closed her eyes and she did not open them again, and so Nann
and Dories tiptoed out to the kitchen.
“Poor Aunt Jane!” the latter began. “She hasn’t had much love in her
life. I don’t remember just how it was. She was engaged to marry somebody
once. Then something happened and she didn’t. After that, Mother says she
just shut herself up in that fine home of hers outside of Boston and
grieved.”
“Poor Aunt Jane, indeed!” Nann commented as she began to prepare the
breakfast. “She must be haunted by many of the ghosts that your mother
told about, memories of loving deeds that she might have done. With her
money and her home, she could have made many people happy, but instead
she has spent her life just being sorry for herself.” Then more brightly,
“I’m glad we can both go sailing with Gib.”
Half an hour later, the girls in their bright colored sweater-coats and
tams raced across the beach. The red-headed boy was on the watch for them
and he soon had the punt alongside the broad rock which served as a dock.
“Do you want passengers this morning?” Nann called gaily.
“Sure sartin!” was the prompt reply. Then, when the two girls were seated
on the broad seat in the stem the lad hauled in the sheet and away they
went scudding. “Where are you going, Gib?” Nann inquired curiously.
“We’ll cruise ’long the water side o’ the ol’ ruin,” he told them. “Pa
says he’s sure sartin he saw a light burnin’ thar agin late las’ night,
an’ like’s not, we’ll see suthin’.”
CHAPTER XV.
A GLOOMY SWAMP
The girls were as eager as the boy to view the old ruin from the water,
and the breeze being brisk, they were quickly blown down the coast and
into the quiet sheltered water beyond the point. “O, Gib,” Dories cried
fearfully, “do be careful! There are logs under the water along here that
come nearly to the top. Is it a wreck?”
“No, ’taint. It’s all that’s left of the long dock I was tellin’ yo’
about whar the Phantom Yacht used to tie up. Pa said ol’ Colonel Wadbury
had lights clear to the end of it and that, when ’twas lit up, ’twas a
purty sight.”
“It must have been,” Nann agreed. Then Dories inquired: “Doesn’t it make
you feel strange to realize that you are on the very spot where the
Phantom Yacht once sailed?”
“And where some day it may sail again,” Nann completed.
The high rocky point cut off the wind and so Gib let the sail flap as
they slowly drifted toward the swamp.
“Thar’s all that’s left of that sea wall I was tellin’ about,” the boy
nodded at huge rocks half sunken in mire.
“The reeds are higher than our heads,” Dories commented; then she asked,
“Is there a path through the marsh, do you think, Gib?”
“No, I’m _sure_ thar ain’t one,” the boy declared. “Me’n Dick Burton
would have found it if thar had been. We’ve looked times enough from the
land side. We never could get here by water, bein’ as we didn’t have a
boat. That’s why I’ve been savin’ to get a punt. Dick, he put in some
toward it, an’ so its half his’n.”
“Who is Dick Burton?” Nann inquired.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Gib seemed surprised. “Sort o’ thought o’ course you
knew ’bout the Burtons. Dick’s folks own the cabin that’s nearest the
rocks. He’s a city feller ’bout my age, or a leetle older, I reckon. He’s
been comin’ to these parts ever since we was shavers. You’d ought to know
him,” this to Nann, “he lives in Boston, whar you come from.”
The girl addressed laughed good-naturedly. “Gib,” she queried, “have you
ever been up to Boston?”
The boy reluctantly confessed that he had not. Then the girl explained
that since it was much larger than Siquaw Center, two people might live
there forever and not become acquainted.
“Yeah.” Gib had evidently not been listening to the last part of Nann’s
remark. “I do wish Dick was here now that we’ve got the punt,” he said.
“I sure sartin wish he was.”
“Why?” Dories inquired as she let one hand drift in the cool water.
“Wall, me’n he allays thought maybe thar was a channel through the swamp
up toward the old ruin. If he was here we’d set out to find it.”
“But why can’t Dori and I help you as much as he could?” Nann queried. “I
believe you are right, Gib,” she continued before the boy had time to
reply. “I’ve seen swamps before, and there was always a narrow channel
through them where the tide washed when it was high. See ahead there,
where the swamp comes down to the water’s edge, I wish you’d take the
sail down, Gib, and row as close to it as you can.”
The boy looked his amazement.
“But, I say, Miss Nann, like’s not we’d hit a snag, like’s not we would.”
“Who’s skeered now?” the girl taunted. The boy flushed. “Not me!” he
protested, and taking down the sail he rowed along the water side of the
dense reedy growths. “Yo’ see thar’s nothin’,” he began when Nann,
leaning forward, pointed as she cried excitedly, “There it is! There’s an
opening in the swamp leading right up to that haunted house.”
Nann was right. A narrow channel of clear water appeared among the reeds
that were higher than their heads. It led toward the middle of the marsh
and was wide enough for a larger boat than theirs to pass through.
“Now, the next question is, do we dare go in?” Nann was gleeful over her
find and how she wished that Gib’s friend, Dick Burton, were there to
share with them that exciting moment.
“Well, that question is easy to answer,” Dories hastened to say. “We most
certainly do not dare.”
The boy, having removed his nondescript cap, was scratching his ear in a
way that he always did when puzzled. Then there was a sudden eager light
in his red-brown eyes. Replacing his hat, he seized the oars and began to
row rapidly back up the shore and toward the row of eight cottages.
Nann was puzzled and voiced her curiosity. “Got to get back to Siquaw in
time for the ten-ten train,” was all the information she received.
Since he had said nothing of this when they started out, and had seemed
to be in no hurry whatever, Nann naturally wondered about it.
Some light might have been thrown on his action had she seen him, one
hour later, as he sat on the high stool at his father’s desk in the
general store. He was painstakingly writing, and, when the ten-ten train
arrived, Gibralter Strait was on the platform waiting to send to the
nearby city of Boston the very first letter that he had ever written.
CHAPTER XVI.
OUT IN THE DARK
All the next day the girls waited and watched, but Gibralter Strait
appeared neither on land nor on sea to explain his queer actions. Their
hostess asked Dories to read to her and so the morning was passed in that
way. Nann, busy at a piece of fancy work she was making for a Christmas
present, sat listening. In the afternoon the girls were told to amuse
themselves. This they did by climbing to the “tip-top rock,” sitting
there in the balmy sun and speculating about the old ruin; about the
reason for Gib’s sudden departure for his home the day before, and about
the boy and girl who had sailed away on the Phantom Yacht. It was not
until a fog, filmy at first, but rapidly increasing in density, began to
hide the sun that they thought of returning homewards. As they passed the
cabin nearest the rocks, Dories said, “This is the Burton cottage, I
suppose. I wonder if Dick is our kind of boy?”
“Meaning what?” Nann wondered.
“O, you know as well as I do. I like Gib, of course. He’s a splendid boy,
but he hasn’t had a chance. I merely meant a boy from families like our
own.”
“I rather think so,” Nann replied, as she gazed at the boarded-up cabin.
Then suddenly she stopped and stared at one of the upper windows. The
blind had opened ever so slightly and then had closed again, but of this
Nann said nothing. She was afraid that she was becoming almost as
imaginative as Dories. Then suddenly she recalled something. Gib had said
that his father had seen a light in the old ruin the night before. And
what was more, she and Dories _knew_ there had been someone carrying a
lantern on the beach near the rocks at least twice since they had been
there. What if the lantern-carrier hid in the Burton cottage during the
day? He couldn’t live in the old ruin, since it had only one wall
standing.
Luckily, Dories had been interested in watching the waves breaking at her
feet. Turning, she called, “O, but it’s getting cold and damp. Let’s run
the rest of the way.”
When they reached their home cabin, Nann went at once to inquire if Miss
Moore wished her supper. The girl was sure that she heard a scurrying
noise in the old woman’s room. The door was closed and there was silence
for a brief moment before she was told to enter. Puzzled, Nann glanced
quickly at the bed and noted that the old woman’s cap was awry. She also
saw something else that puzzled her, but she merely said, “What would you
like tonight with your tea, Miss Moore?”
“Nothing at all but toast, and tell Dories to be sure it doesn’t burn. I
don’t relish it when it has been scraped.” The tone in which this was
said was impatient and fretful. It was evident that the old woman was not
in as pleasant a mood as she had seemed to be in the morning.
Returning to the kitchen, where the kettle was already boiling, Nann made
the tea and toasted the bread as well as she could over the blaze; then
Dories arranged her aunt’s tray attractively and took it in to her. While
she was gone, Nann stood staring out of the window at the gathering dusk.
She believed she had a clue to one of the mysteries surrounding them, but
decided not to tell her friend until she was a little more certain about
it herself.
When Dories returned to the kitchen she said, “Day-dreaming, Nann?”
“No, dusk-dreaming,” was the smiling reply; then, “Now let’s get our
evening repast. What shall it be?”
Together they looked in the closet, each selecting a canned vegetable and
something for desert. “This is a lazy way to live,” Nann began, when
Dories exclaimed: “Do you realize that we haven’t had one of those notes
today? I believe my bell scared away the ghost after all.”
Nann laughed merrily. “Nary a bit of it, my friend. Didn’t his spooky
highness tie his last note to the bell clapper? I suppose that is why we
didn’t hear it tinkle again.”
“But we haven’t found a note today—O dear!” Dories broke off to exclaim:
“The fire must be going out, Nann,” she called; “you’re the magician when
it comes to stirring up a blaze. What do you suppose is the matter?”
A quick glance within brought the amused answer: “Wood needed, my dear,
that’s all! Which reminds me of Dad’s wondering why the car won’t go when
it’s out of gas.” As she spoke she turned toward the wood box and found
it empty. “Hmm!” she ejaculated, “that means one of us will have to hie
out to the shed after more wood if we want a hot supper.”
Dories, after a swift glance at the black fog-hung window, suggested,
“Let’s change our menu and have a cold spread.”
“Nixy, my dear,” Nann said brightly. “I’ll be wood-carrier. I’ll sally
forth with a lighted lantern, like that mysterious midnight prowler. I
won’t be able to bring in much wood, but I believe a piece or two will
provide all the heat we’ll need to warm up canned things.” She was
lighting the lantern as she talked. The lamp was burning on the kitchen
table, and, while her friend was gone, Dories laid out the dishes and
silver.
Nann, having reached the shed, groped about for the leather thong. To her
surprise the door was not fastened, and, as she stood peering into the
dense blackness, she was sure that she heard a scrambling noise inside.
Then all was still. Nann scratched one of the matches that she had
brought with her. In the far corner stood an empty barrel and in front of
it was piled the wood that she and Dories had gathered on the beach. Not
another thing was to be seen, and although she stood listening intently
for several seconds, not another sound was heard.
“A rat probably,” the girl thought as she placed her lantern on the floor
and picked up several pieces of wood.
Returning to the kitchen, Nann threw her armful of wood into the box near
the stove, when Dories suddenly leaped forward, exclaiming excitedly,
“There it is. There’s the note we have been wondering about.”
“Why—why, so it is!” Nann stared as though she could hardly believe her
eyes. Then, springing up, she cried joyfully: “Dories Moore, we’ve caught
the ghost. He was leaving this paper when I went out. He must still be in
the woodshed somewhere, for I bolted the door on the outside. He must
have been hiding in that old empty barrel when I looked in. Light the
lantern again and let’s go out this minute and see who is there.”
Although Dories was not enthusiastic over the prospect of capturing a
ghost in a woodshed on so dark a fog-damp night, yet, since her companion
was ready to start, she couldn’t refuse to accompany her, and so, after
closing the kitchen door, they stole along the path leading from the
porch to the shed that was nearer the swamp. Suddenly Dories clutched her
friend’s arm, whispering, “Hark. What’s that?”
“It’s the ghost. He’s still in there.” This triumphantly from Nann, the
fearless. “That’s the same scrambling noise that I heard before. Come on.
Don’t be afraid. I’ll throw open the door and at least we’ll see who it
is.”
Leaping forward, Nann unbolted the door and held up the lantern. The shed
was as empty as it had been before, and there was nothing at all in the
barrel.
Dories’ sigh was one of relief, and she fairly darted back to the warm
kitchen, nor did she breathe naturally until the outer door was bolted.
Then Nann inquired, “What did the note say. We forgot to read it?”
Stooping, she took it from under a splinter of wood and, opening it,
read: “In ten days you will know all.”
CHAPTER XVII.
MORE MYSTERIES
Long after Dories slept that night Nann lay awake thinking of the several
mysteries surrounding them. Who was leaving the notes in places where the
girls could not help finding them; who was carrying a lantern on the
rocky point at night; was it the same light that was seen in the old ruin
by people living in Siquaw Center, and why had the blind in the Burton
cottage opened ever so little and then closed again as though someone had
peered out at them for a brief moment? It was indeed puzzling. Could it
possibly have anything to do with the Phantom Yacht? Nann decided that
was impossible. At last she fell asleep. When she awakened it was nearly
dawn. The fog had drifted away, the stars shone out and the full moon
made it as light as day.
Nann, the fearless, decided to dress and go out on the sand and look at
the Burton cottage. She was nearly dressed before she realized that if
Dories woke and found her gone, she might scream out in her fright and
waken the old woman, and so she shook her gently, whispering her plan.
Dories’ eyes showed her terror at being left alone. She got up at once.
“I simply will not stay in this haunted loft,” she declared vehemently.
“I’m going with you.” As it was still dark they took the lighted lantern
with them, but when they reached the back porch, Nann whispered that they
would have to put out the light as they would be seen if, indeed, there
was anyone to see them. “We’ll take it, though. I have matches in my
pocket. We’ll light it if we need it.”
Dories clung to her friend’s hand as Nann led the way back of the row of
boarded-up cottages. When they reached the seventh, Dories suddenly drew
back and whispered, “Nann, why are we doing this? What are you expecting
to see? I’m simply scared to death.” Her companion realized that this was
true, since Dories’ teeth were chattering. Self-rebukingly, she said, “O,
I ought not have brought you. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have come
myself, but I am so eager to solve at least one of the mysteries that
surround us.” Then she told how she had been sure that she had seen a
blind open ever so slightly and close late the afternoon before as though
someone had been watching them. “I thought if someone goes every night to
the old ruin and returns to the Burton cottage to hide during the day, he
probably comes just about this hour, and that if we were watching, we
might at least see what the—the—well—whoever it is—looks like.” They had
crouched down in the shadow of the seventh cottage as Nann made this
explanation.
Slowly the darkness lightened, the stars and moon dimmed and the east
became gray; then rosy, but still there had been no sign of anyone
entering the Burton cabin. Nann had been sure that an entrance could not
be made in the front of the cottage as the lower windows and door on that
side were securely boarded up. The back door was not boarded, and so that
was where she was watching.
An hour dragged slowly by. The sun rose and was well on its apparent
upward way, and still no one appeared.
“Don’t you think that maybe you imagined it all?” Dories inquired at
length as she tried to change her position, having become stiffened from
crouching so long.
“Why, no, I am sure that I didn’t.” Then, fearless as usual, Nann
announced, “I’m going up to the back porch and try the door.”
This she did, and to her surprise it opened, creaking noisily as it swung
on rusty hinges.
Dories leaped to her side. “Gracious, Nann, are you going in?” she
whispered tragically. “If anyone is in there, he might lock us in or
something.”
Nann turned to reply, but instead she exclaimed: “Why, Dories Moore,
you’re whiter than any sheet I ever saw. If you’re that scared, we’d
better go right home.”
“I am!” Dories nodded miserably. “I wouldn’t any more dare go into this
cottage than—than——”
“Then we won’t.” Nann took her friend by the hand and together they went
down the back steps, and Dories said: “I’d rather go home by the front
beach if you don’t mind. It’s more open. There’s something so uncanny
about the swamps at the back.”
“Anything to please,” was the laughing reply. As they rounded the
cottage, Nann looked curiously at the upper windows, and was sure that
she saw the same blind open ever so little, then close again. She said
nothing of this, and tried to change the trend of her companion’s
thoughts by talking about Gibralter Strait and wondering if they would
see him during that day which had just dawned. Nann was deciding that she
would take Gib into her confidence. A boy as fearless as he was would not
mind entering the Burton cottage and finding out why that upper blind had
opened and closed as it seemed to do.
As they neared their home cabin, Dories became more like her natural self
and even skipped along the hard beach, laughing back at Nann as she
called, “Another glorious, sparkling day! I hope something interesting is
going to happen.”
“I believe something will,” Nann replied. They were nearing the front
steps when Dories stood still, pointing, “Look at that stone lying in the
middle of the top step. How do you suppose it ever got there?”
Nann shook her head and, leaping up the steps, she lifted the small rock,
then turned back, exclaiming: “Just what I thought! Here is today’s note
from your ghost. It’s much too clever for us.” Then she read: “In nine
days you shall know all.”
Not wishing to awaken Miss Moore at so early an hour, the girls tiptoed
down the steps and went around to the back of the cabin.
“Let’s look in the woodshed by daylight,” Nann suggested as she unbolted
the door. “Nothing within, just as I supposed,” she remarked. “Humm-ho.
We’re not very good detectives, I guess.”
They started walking toward the kitchen. “But why try to find out what
the mysteries are about if every day brings us one nearer to the time
when we are to know all?” Dories inquired.
Nann laughed. “O, I’d heaps rather ferret the thing out for myself than
be told.” Then she said more seriously: “Honestly, Dori, I don’t think
the notes refer to the mystery of the old ruin at all. I think, if that
is ever solved, we’ll have to find it out for ourselves.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’d rather not tell quite yet.” They entered the kitchen. “Now,” Nann
said, “I’m going to make a fire and get breakfast. We’ve been up so long
that I’m ravenously hungry. I’m going to make flapjacks no less.”
“Good!” Dories replied. “I won’t refuse to eat them.” Although consumed
with curiosity concerning what her friend had said, Dories decided to
bide her time before asking Nann to explain.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AN AIRPLANE SIGHTED
Miss Moore did not awaken, apparently, until midmorning and the girls did
not want to go away until they had served her breakfast. They had been to
her door several times and to all appearances the elderly woman had been
asleep. When, at length, Miss Moore did awaken, she complained of having
been disturbed by noises in the night. “Why did you girls tiptoe around
the living-room just before daybreak?”
“Why, we didn’t, Aunt Jane! Truly we didn’t,” Dories replied. She did not
like to tell that it would have been a physical impossibility for them to
have done so, as they were crouched behind “cabin seven” at that hour
watching “cabin eight.”
The old woman looked at the speaker sharply, then continued: “I called
your name and for a time the tiptoeing stopped. Then, when I pretended to
be asleep, it began again. I was sure that under the crack of the door I
could see a fire burning as though you had lighted wood on the grate.”
“Oh, no, Miss Moore, we didn’t, I assure you,” Nann exclaimed. “There
wasn’t any wood on it. We swept it clean yesterday afternoon.” A cry from
Dories caused the speaker to pause and turn toward her. She was pointing
at the fireplace. There was a small charred pile in the center of the
grate. The old woman’s thoughts had evidently changed their direction for
she asked, querulously, if they were going to keep her waiting all the
morning for her breakfast.
While out in the kitchen preparing it, Dories whispered, her eyes wide,
“Nann, _what_ do you make of it all? You are smiling to yourself as if
you had solved the mystery.”
“I believe I have, one of them; but, Dori, please don’t ask me to explain
until I catch the ghost red-handed, so to speak.”
“White-handed, shouldn’t it be?” Dories inquired, her fears lessened by
Nann’s evident delight in something she believed she had discovered.
When Miss Moore’s breakfast had been served, the girls, wishing to tidy
up the cabin, set to work with a will. Nann was sweeping the porch and
Dories was dusting and straightening the living-room when a queer humming
noise was heard in the distance. “Dori,” Nann called, “come out here a
moment. Can’t you hear a strange buzzing noise? It sounds as though it
were high up in the air. What can it be?”
The other girl appeared in the open doorway and they both listened
intently.
“Maybe it’s a flock of geese going south for the winter,” Dories
ventured, but her friend shook her head. “That noise is coming nearer.
Not going farther away,” she said. The buzzing and whizzing sounds
increased with great rapidity. Springing down the steps, Nann exclaimed,
“Whatever is making that commotion, is now right over our heads.”
Dories bounded to her friend’s side and they both gazed into the gleaming
blue sky with shaded eyes.
“There it is!” Nann cried excitedly. “Why, of course, it’s an airplane!
We should have guessed that right away. I wonder where it is going to
land. There’s nothing but marsh and water around here besides this narrow
strip of beach.”
“Oh, look! look!” This from Dories. “It’s dropping right down into the
ocean and so it must be one of those combination air and sea planes.”
“Unless it has broken a wing and is falling,” Nann suggested. The
airplane, nose downward, had seemed verily to plunge into the sea.
“Let’s run to the Point o’ Rocks.” Dories started as she spoke and Nann,
throwing down the broom, raced after her. It was hard to go very rapidly
where the sand was deep and dry, and so by the time they had climbed up
on the highest boulder out on the rocky point, there was no sign whatever
of the airplane either sailing safely on the water nor lying on the shore
disabled.
“Hmm! That certainly is puzzling,” Nann said as she half closed her eyes
in meditative thought. “Now, where can that huge thing have gone that it
has disappeared so entirely?”
“I can’t imagine,” Dories replied. “If only Gibralter were here with his
punt, we might be able to find out.” Then she exclaimed merrily, “Nann,
there is another mystery added to the twenty and nine that we already
have.”
“Not quite that many,” the other maid replied, giving one last long look
in the direction they believed the plane had descended or fallen. “I’m
inclined to think,” she ventured, “that there is a bay or something
beyond the swamp. O, well, let’s go back to our task. It’s lunch time, if
nothing else.”
They decided, as the day was unusually warm for that time of the year, to
eat a cold lunch, and, as their aunt did not wish anything then, the
girls decided to walk along the beach in the opposite direction and see
if they could find the cove where Gib kept his punt in hiding. But, just
as they reached the spot where the road from town ended at the beach,
they heard a merry hallooing, and, turning, they beheld Gibralter Strait
riding the white horse that was usually hitched to the coach.
“Oh, good, good!” was Dories’ delighted exclamation. “Now perhaps we will
find out about the plane. Of course the people in town saw it and Gib may
know——” She stopped talking to stare at the approaching steed and rider
in wide-eyed amazement. “How queer!” she ejaculated. “Nann, am I seeing
double? I’m sure that I see four legs and Gib certainly has only two.”
There were undeniably four long, slim legs, two on either side of the big
white horse, but the mystery was quickly explained by the appearance,
over Gib’s shoulder, of a head belonging to another boy.
“Nann Sibbett!” Dories whirled, the light of inspiration in her eyes, “I
do believe that other boy is Dick Burton, of whom Gib has so often
spoken.”
And Dories was right. Gib waved his cap, then leaped to the sand, closely
followed by the newcomer. One glance at the young stranger assured the
girls that he was a city lad. His merry brown eyes twinkled when
Gibralter introduced him merely as the “kid that was crazy to find a way
into the old ruin.”
The city boy took off his cap in a manner most polite, adding, “By name,
Richard Ralston Burton, but I’m usually called Dick.”
Nann, realizing that Gib hadn’t the remotest idea how to introduce his
friend to them, then told the lad their names, adding, “Oh, Gib, you just
can’t guess how glad we are that you have come at last. The mysteries are
heaping up so high and fast that we simply must solve a few of them.”
But it was quite evident that the boys were equally excited about the
airplane, which they, too, had seen as they were riding on the white
horse along the road in the swamps. “I say,” Gib began at once, “did
yo’uns see where that airplane fellow dove to? D’you ’spose he’s smashed
all to smithereens on the rocks over yonder?”
The girls shook their heads. “No,” Dories replied, “we just came from
there and there wasn’t a sign of that airplane. We thought that at least
we would see the wreck of it.”
“It must o’ landed round the curve whar the swamp comes down to the
shore,” Gib said.
“Come on, old man, let’s investigate.” Then Dick smiled directly at Nann
as he added, “We won’t be gone long.”
CHAPTER XIX.
TWO BOYS INVESTIGATE
Turning, the two girls, with arms locked, walked slowly back toward their
home cabin, but their gaze was following the rapidly disappearing boys.
“My, how they did scramble over the rocks. I wonder why they went over
the top. I’m sure one can see better from up there,” Dories turned to her
friend to exclaim with enthusiasm. “Isn’t Dick Burton the nicest boy? I’m
ever so glad he came. He’ll add a lot to our good times.”
Nann nodded. “One can tell in a moment that Dick has been well brought
up,” she commented. “Isn’t it too bad that Gib isn’t going to have a
chance to make something of himself? I believe he would be a writer if he
had an education. You know how imaginative he is and how he enjoyed
telling us the story of the Phantom Yacht.”
The girls sauntered along to the point of rocks and stood watching the
waves break over the boulders that projected into the water.
“Isn’t it queer how calm it is sometimes and how rough at others, and yet
there isn’t a bit of wind blowing, and it’s as warm and balmy one time as
another,” Dories said, then leaped back with a merry laugh as an
unusually large breaker pursued her up the beach.
“I think it may be the stage of the tides,” Nann speculated, “or else
there may have been a storm at sea. O good! Here come the boys.”
Dick’s expressive face told the girls of his disappointment before he
spoke. “Didn’t see a thing unusual,” he said. “Of course we couldn’t go
far because of the marsh.”
“It sure is too bad the surf’s crashin’ in the way ’tis today,” Gibralter
told them. “Here’s Dick, come all the way from Boston to stay till Sunday
night, jest so’s we could go up that little creek in the marsh. He’s wild
to get into the ol’ ruin, aren’t you, Dick?”
“Yep,” the other boy agreed, “but if we can’t make it this week end, I’ll
come down next.” Then with sudden interest, “How long are you girls going
to be here on Siquaw Point?”
Although Dick asked the question of Nann, it was Dories who replied.
“Aunt Jane said this morning that she thinks we will be leaving in about
ten days now. You see,” by way of explanation, “my elderly aunt came down
here for absolute rest, and now that she is rested, we may go back to
town sooner than we expected.”
The four young people had seated themselves on the rocks.
Nann put in with: “I, for one, don’t want to leave this place until we
have cleared up a few of the mysteries.” Then, chancing to thrust her
hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat, she drew out a half dozen slips
of crumpled yellow paper. “Oh, Gib,” she exclaimed, “where in the world
do you suppose these came from? We find them in the queerest places. We
can’t understand in the least who is leaving them.”
Gibralter’s face was a blank. “What’s that writin’ on ’em?” He picked one
up as he spoke and scrutinized it closely.
“In nine days you shall know all,” Dick read as he looked over his
friend’s shoulder.
“Know all o’ what?” Gib queried.
The boys looked from Dories to Nann. The girls shook their heads. “We
thought maybe you could help clear up some of the mysteries,” the latter
said. “Have you ever heard of any queer person hanging around this beach?
A hermit or a—a——”
Gib leaned forward, his red-brown eyes gleaming. “D’y mean, mabbe, the
lantern person that yo’ uns saw one night on the rocks?”
Nann nodded. “We thought it might be someone who visited the ruin by
night and—” the speaker glanced at the visiting boy, then interrupted
herself to inquire, “Dick, do you remember whether your people left your
cabin locked or not?”
The lad addressed turned and looked at the cottage nearest for a moment
as though trying to recall something. Then a lightening in his eyes
proved that he had succeeded. Springing to his feet, he exclaimed, “I
declare if I hadn’t forgotten it. I’m glad you spoke, Miss Nann. Mother
said that in the hurry of getting away she wasn’t sure whether or not she
had locked the back door. She always hides the key under the back porch,
so that if any one of us comes down out of season, he can get in.” Then,
when the others had also risen, Dick suggested, “Let’s walk around that
way and see what we will see.”
Dories glanced quickly at Nann and saw that her friend was gazing
steadily at an upper window. She surmised that Nann was trying to decide
whether or not to tell the boys that she had seen the blind moving, for,
after all, how could she be sure but that it had been her imagination.
The watcher saw Nann’s expression change to one of suppressed excitement,
then she whirled with her back to the cottage and said in a low voice,
“Everybody turn and look at the ocean. I want to tell you something.”
Puzzled indeed, the boys and Dories faced about as Nann had done, and, to
help her friend, the other maid pointed out toward the island. “What’s
this all about?” Dick inquired. “Miss Nann, you look as though you had
seen something startling. What is it?”
Very quietly Nann explained how for the third time she had seen an upper
blind open ever so little as though someone was peering out at them, and
then close again.
“You think someone is hiding in our cottage?” Dick asked in amazement.
Nann nodded. “Well then, we’ll soon find out.” The city boy’s tone did
not suggest hesitancy or fear. “You girls would better go over to your
own cabin and wait until we join you.”
It was quite evident that Nann did not like this suggestion, but Dories
did, and said so frankly. “I’ll run home anyway,” she said when she saw
how disappointed Nann was. “Probably Aunt Jane would like me to read to
her.”
And so it was that Nann accompanied the two boys around to the back of
the Burton cottage. As before, the door creaked open, and very stealthily
they entered the dark kitchen. This being the largest cottage in the row,
the stairway was boarded off from a narrow hall; there being a door at
the foot and another at the top. The one at the bottom was unlocked, and
so the three investigators began the ascent, groping their way in the
dark. “Wish’t we had along some matches,” Gib began, when Nann whispered,
“I do believe that I have some. I took a dozen with us this morning. Yes,
here they are in my watch pocket.” Dick, in the lead, took the matches,
and as he opened the upper door, he scratched one. It very faintly
illumined a long hall with a boarded-up window at the end.
There were four closed doors along the hall. The one at the right front
would lead into the room where a window blind had moved. Nann almost held
her breath as Dick, after scratching another match, tried the door. It
did not open. “Mabbe it’s jest stuck,” Gib suggested. “Let’s all push.”
This they did and the door burst open so suddenly that they plunged
headlong into the room and the flicker of the match went out. How musty
and dark it was! Quickly another match was lighted; but there seemed to
be no occupant other than themselves. The closet door, standing open,
revealed merely row after row of hooks and shelves. There was no
furniture in the room of a concealing nature. Nann went at once to the
blind and found that it was swinging slightly. “Well,” she had to
acknowledge, “I believe after all I was wrong in my surmise. Let’s get
back. Dories will be worried about me.”
Dick, before leaving the room, hooked the blind carefully on the inside,
and, after closing the window, he remarked, “It’s queer Mother should
have left a window open as well as the back door. But I remember now. She
said that they were afraid of losing the train. Something had delayed
them. I had gone on ahead to start school.”
When they were again safely out in the sunshine, Nann inquired, “I wonder
where your mother left the key. It isn’t in the door.”
Before replying Dick went to one corner beneath the porch, removed a
lattice door which could not have been discovered by anyone not knowing
about it, reached his hand around to one of the uprights where, on a
nail, he found the key hanging. He held it up triumphantly. Then, after
locking the kitchen door, he replaced the key and the lattice, exclaiming
as he did so, “I believe I understand now what happened. In the hurry,
Mother put the key in the right place without having locked the door, so
that’s that.” But Nann was not entirely convinced.
The late afternoon fog was drifting in when the three started to walk
along the beach. They saw Dories running to meet them. “Well, thanks be
you’re all alive,” was her relieved exclamation.
Nann laughed. “Did you think a cannibal was hiding in the Burton
cottage?” Then she added, pretending to be disappointed, “I had at least
hoped to find a ghost or a——”
“Look! Look!” Gib cried excitedly, pointing beyond the rocks.
“What? Where?” the girls scrambled to the top step of cabin three, which
they happened to be passing, that they might have a better view of
whatever had aroused Gib’s interest.
“Is it the Phantom Yacht?” Nann asked, almost hoping that it was.
“No, ’tisn’t that, I’m sure, because it isn’t white.” Gib continued to
stare into the gathering dusk. “It’s some queer kind of craft, as best I
can make out, and it’s scooting away from the shore at a pretty speedy
rate and heading right for the island.” For a moment the young people
fairly held their breath as they watched.
Dick was the first to break in with, “Gee-whiliker! I know what it is!
Stupid that I didn’t get on to it from the very first.”
“Why, Dick, what do you think it is?” Dories inquired.
“I don’t think; I know! It’s that seaplane! Look! There she soars. See
her take the air! Now the pilot’s turning her nose, and heading straight
for Boston.”
“Whoever ’tis in that airplane is takin’ a purty big chance,” Gibralter
commented, “startin’ up with night a comin’ on and fog a sailin’ in.”
Dick was optimistic. “He’ll keep ahead of the fog all right, and those
high-powered machines travel so fast he’ll be at the landing place,
outside of Boston, before it’s really dark. He’s safe enough, but the big
question is, who is he, and what was he doing over there close to the old
ruin?”
“Maybe he knows about that opening in the swamp,” Nann ventured.
“I bet ye he does! Like’s not he has a little boat and goes up to the ol’
ruin in it.”
“But where do you suppose his airship was anchored?” Dories inquired.
“Probably in the cove beyond the marsh,” Dick replied, when Gib broke in
with, “Gee, I sure sartin wish we’d taken a chance and gone out in the
punt. I sure do. I’d o’ gone, but Dick, he was afraid!”
The city lad flushed, but he said at once, “You are wrong, Gib, but I
promised my mother that I would only go out in your punt when the tide
was low, and when I give my word, she knows that she can depend upon it.”
“You are right, Dick. It is worth more to have your mother able to trust
you, when you are out of her sight, than it is to solve all the mysteries
that ever were or will be.” Nann’s voice expressed her approval of the
city lad. Gib’s only comment was, “Wall, how kin we go at low tide? It
comes ’long ’bout midnight!”
“What if it does? We can—” Dick had started to say, but interrupted
himself to add, “’Twouldn’t be fair to go without the girls since they
found the opening in the swamp. It will be low tide again tomorrow noon,
and I vote we wait until then.”
“O, Dick, that’s ever so nice of you! We girls are wild to go.” Nann
fairly beamed at him.
“Wall, so long. We’ll see you ’bout noon tomorrow.” This from Gib. Dick
waved his cap and smiled back over his shoulder.
“I can hardly wait,” Nann said, as the two girls went into the cabin. “I
feel in my bones that we’re going to find clues that will solve all of
the mysteries soon.”
CHAPTER XX.
ONE MYSTERY SOLVED
A glorious autumn morning dawned and Dories sat up suddenly. Shaking
Nann, she whispered excitedly: “I hear it again.”
“What? The ghost? Was he ringing the bell?” This sleepily from the girl
who seemed to have no desire to waken, but, at her companion’s urgent:
“No, not the bell! Do sit up, Nann, and listen. Isn’t that the airplane
coming back? Hark!”
Fully awake, the other girl did sit up and listen. Then leaping from the
bed, she ran to the window that overlooked the wide expanse of marsh.
“Yes, yes,” she cried. “There it is! It’s flying low, as though it were
going to land, and it’s heading straight for the old ruin. Get dressed as
quickly as you can.”
“But why?” queried the astonished Dories. “We can’t get any nearer than
we did yesterday; that is, not by land, and the tide is high again, and
so we can’t go out in the punt.”
Nann did not reply, but continued to dress hurriedly, and so her friend
did likewise.
“I don’t know why it is,” the former confided a moment later, “but I feel
in my bones that this is the day of the great revelation.”
“Not according to the yellow messages. They would tell us that in seven
days we would know all.” Dories was brushing her brown hair preparing to
weave it into two long braids.
“But, as I told you before,” Nann remarked, “I don’t believe the papers
refer to the old ruin mystery at all. In fact, I think the ghost that
writes the message on the papers does not even know there is an old ruin
mystery.”
“Well, you’re a better detective than I am,” Dories confessed as she tied
a ribbon bow on the end of each braid. “I haven’t any idea about anything
that is happening.”
The girls stole downstairs and ran out on the beach, hoping to see the
airplane, but the long, shining white beach was deserted and the only
sound was the crashing of the waves over the rocks and along the shore,
for the tide was high.
“I wonder if Dick and Gib heard the plane passing over their town?”
Dories had just said, when Nann, glancing in the direction of the road,
exclaimed gleefully, “They sure did, for here they come at headlong speed
this very minute.” The big, boney, white horse stopped so suddenly when
it reached the sand that both of the boys were unseated. Laughingly they
sprang to the beach and waved their caps to the girls, who hurried to
meet them.
“Good morning, boys!” Nann called as soon as they were near enough for
her voice to be heard above the crashing of the waves. “I judge you also
saw the plane.”
“Yeah! We’uns heerd it comin’ ’long ’fore we saw it, an’ we got ol’
Spindly out’n her stall in a twinklin’, I kin tell you.”
The city lad laughed as though at an amusing memory. “The old mare was
sound asleep when we started, but when she heard that buzzing and
whirring over her head, she thought she was being pursued by a regiment
of demons, seemed like. She lit out of that barn and galloped as she
never had before. Of course the airplane passed us long ago, but that
gallant steed of ours was going so fast that I wasn’t sure that we would
be able to stop her before we got over to the island.”
Gib, it was plain, was impatient to be away, and so promising to report
if they found anything of interest, the lads raced toward the point of
rocks, while the girls went indoors to prepare breakfast. Dories found
her Great-Aunt Jane in a happier frame of mind than usual. She was
sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, when her niece carried in the
tray. And when a few moments later the girl was leaving the room, she
chanced to glance back and was sure that the old woman was chuckling as
though she had thought of something very amusing. Dories confided this
astonishing news item to Nann while they ate their breakfast in the
kitchen. “What do you suppose Aunt Jane was thinking about? It was surely
something which amused her?” Dories was plainly puzzled.
Nann smiled. “Doesn’t it seem to you that your aunt must be thoroughly
rested by this time? I should think that she would like to get out in the
sunshine these wonderful bracing mornings. It would do her a lot more
good than being cooped up indoors.”
Dories agreed, commenting that old people were certainly queer. It was
midmorning when the girls, having completed their few household tasks,
again went to the beach to look for the boys. The tide was going out and
the waves were quieter. Arm in arm they walked along on the hard sand.
Dories was saying, “Aunt Jane told me that she would like to read to
herself this morning. I was so afraid that she would ask me to read to
her. Not but that I do want to be useful sometimes, but this morning I am
so eager to know what the boys are doing. I wish they would come. I
wonder where they went.”
“I think I know,” Nann replied. “I believe they are lying flat on the big
smooth rock on which we sat that day Gibralter told us the story of the
Phantom Yacht. You recall that we had a fine view of the old ruin from
there.”
“But why would they be lying flat?” Dories, who had little imagination,
looked up to inquire.
“So that they could observe whoever might enter the old ruin without
being observed, my child.”
“But, Nann, why would anyone want to get into that dreadful place unless
it was just out of curiosity, which, of course, is our only motive.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the older girl had to confess, adding: “That is
a mystery that we have yet to solve.”
Suddenly Nann laughed aloud. “What’s the joke?” This from her astonished
companion. Since Nann continued to laugh, and was pointing merrily at
her, Dories began to bristle. “Well, what’s funny about me? Have I
buttoned my dress wrong?”
The other maid shook her head. “It’s something about your braids,” she
replied.
“Oh, I suppose I put on different colored ribbons. I remember noticing a
yellow one near the red.” She swung both of the braids around as she
spoke, but the ribbon bows were of the same hue. Tossing them back over
her shoulder, she said complacently: “This isn’t the first of April, my
dear. There’s nothing the matter with my braids and so—” But Nann
interrupted, “Isn’t there? Unbeliever, behold!” Leaping forward, she
lifted a braid, held it in front of her friend, and pointed at a bit of
crumpled yellow paper. Dories laughed, too.
“Well,” Nann exclaimed, “that proves to my entire satisfaction that a
supernatural being does _not_ write the notes and hide them just where we
will be sure to find them.”
“But who do you suppose does write them?” Dories asked. “This morning
I’ve been close enough to four people to have them slip that folded paper
in my hair ribbon. Their names are Nann Sibbett, Great-Aunt Jane,
Gibralter Strait and Dick Moore. Dick, of course, is eliminated because
he was nowhere about when the messages first began to appear. It isn’t
_your_ hand-writing,” the speaker was closely scrutinizing the note,
“and, as for Gib, I’m not sure that he can write at all.” Then a light of
conviction appeared in her eyes. “Do you know what I believe?” she turned
toward her friend as one who had made an astonishing discovery. “I
believe Great-Aunt Jane writes these notes and that she gets up out of
bed when we are away from home and hides them.”
Nann laughed. “I agree with you perfectly. I suspected her the other day,
but I didn’t want to tell you until I was more sure. But why do you
suppose she does it—if she does?”
Dories shook her head, then she exclaimed: “Now I know why Aunt Jane was
chuckling to herself when I looked back. She had just slipped the folded
paper into my hair ribbon, I do believe.”
“The next thing for us to find out is when and why she does it?” The
girls had stopped at the foot of the rocks and Nann changed the subject
to say: “I wonder why the boys don’t come. It’s almost noon. We’ll have
to go back and prepare your Aunt Jane’s lunch.” She turned toward the
home cottage as she spoke. Dories gave a last lingering look up toward
the tip-top rock. “Maybe they have been carried off in the airplane,” she
suggested.
“Impossible!” Nann said. “It couldn’t depart without our hearing.”
When they reached the cabin, Dories whispered, “I’ve nine minds to show
Aunt Jane the notes and watch her expression. I am sure I could tell if
she is guilty.”
“Don’t!” Nann warned. “Let her have her innocent fun if she wishes.”
Then, when they were in the kitchen making a fire in the wood stove, Nann
added, “I believe, my dear girl, that there is more to the meaning of
those messages than just innocent fun. I believe your Aunt Jane is going
to disclose to you something far more important than the solving of the
ruin mystery. She may tell you where the fortune is that your father
should have had, or something like that.”
Dories, who had been filling the tea-kettle at the kitchen pump, whirled
about, her face shining. “Nann Sibbett,” she exclaimed in a low voice,
“do you really, truly think that may be what we are to know in seven
days? O, wouldn’t I be glad I came to this terrible place if it were?
Then Mother darling wouldn’t have to sew any more and you and I could go
away to school. Why just all of our dreams would come true.”
“Clip fancy’s wings, dearie,” Nann cautioned as she cut the bread
preparing to make toast. “Usually I am the one imagining things, but now
it is you.”
Dories looked at her aunt with new interest when she went into her room
fifteen minutes later with the tray, but the old woman, who was again
lying down, motioned her to put the tray on a small table near and not
disturb her. As Dories was leaving the room, her aunt called, “I won’t
need you girls this afternoon.”
“Just as though she divined our wish to go somewhere,” Nann commented, a
few moments later, when Dories had told her.
“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” the younger girl suggested, “let’s pack a
lunch of sandwiches and olives and cookies. Then when the boys come we
can have a picnic. It’s noon and they didn’t have a lunch with them, I am
sure.”
“Good, that will be fun,” Nann agreed. “I’ll look now and see if they are
coming. We don’t want them to escape us.”
A moment later she returned from the front porch shaking her head. “Not a
trace of them,” she reported. Hurriedly they prepared a lunch and packed
it in a box. Then, after donning their bright-colored tams and sweater
coats, they went out the back door and were just rounding the front of
the cabin when Nann exclaimed, “Here they come, or rather there they go,
for they do not seem to have the least idea of stopping here.”
Nann was right. The two lads had appeared, scrambling over the point of
rocks, and away they ran along the hard sand of the beach, acknowledging
the existence of the girls merely by a hilarious waving of the arms.
Nann turned toward her friend, her large eyes glowing. “They’ve found a
clue, I’m sure certain! You can tell by the way they are racing that they
are just ever so excited about something.” As she spoke the boys
disappeared over a hummock of sand, going in the direction of the inlet
where Gibralter kept his punt hidden.
Dories clapped her hands. “I know!” she cried elatedly. “They’re going
out in the punt. The tide has turned! Oh, Nann, what do you suppose they
saw?”
“I believe they saw the pilot of the airplane enter the old ruin, so now
they are going to get the punt, and they’re in a great hurry to get back
to the creek before the airplane leaves.”
“Oh! How exciting! Do you suppose they will make it?”
Nann intently watched the blue water beyond the hummock of sand as she
replied, “I believe they will.” Then she added, “Oh, dear, I do hope
they’ll take time to stop and get us. It wouldn’t be fair for them to
have all the thrills, since we girls found the channel in the marsh.”
“Of course they’ll take us,” Dories replied, although in her heart of
hearts she rather hoped they would not, as she was not as eager as Nann
for adventure. “You know Dick said it wouldn’t be fair to go without us.”
Nann nodded. Then, with sudden brightening, “Hurry! Here they come! Let’s
race down to the point o’ rocks and see if they want to hail us.”
Then, as they started, “Do you know, Dori, I feel as though something
most unexpected is about to happen. I mean something very different from
what we think.”
The girls had reached the point of rocks and were standing with shaded
eyes, gazing out at the glistening water.
The flat-bottomed boat slowly neared them. Dick held one oar and Gib the
other. They both had their backs toward the point and evidently they had
not seen the girls.
“Why, I do declare! They aren’t going to stop. They’re going right by
without us.” Nann felt very much neglected, when suddenly Gib turned and
grinned toward them with so much mischief in his expression that Dories
concluded: “They did that just to tease. See, they’re heading in this way
now.”
This was true, and Dick, making a trumpet of his hands, called: “Want to
come, girls? If so, scramble over to the flat rock, quick’s you can!
We’re in a terrifical hurry!”
Dories and Nann needed no second invitation, but climbed over the jagged
rocks and stood on the broad one which was uncovered at low tide and
which served as a landing dock.
Dick, the gallant, leaped out to assist them into the punt, then, seizing
his oar, he commanded his mate, “Make it snappy, old man. We want to
catch the modern air pirate before he gets away with his treasure.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A CHANNEL IN THE SWAMP
The wind was from the shore and Gib suggested that the small sail be run
up. This was soon done and away the little craft went bounding over the
evenly rolling waves and, before very many minutes, the point was rounded
and the swamp reached.
“Where is the airplane anchored?” Nann inquired, peering curiously into
the cove which was unoccupied by craft of any kind.
“Well, we aren’t sure as to that,” Dick told her, speaking softly as
though fearing to be overheard. “We climbed to the top of the rocks and
lay there for hours, or so it seemed to me. We were waiting for the tide
to turn so we could go out in the punt. But all the time we were there we
didn’t see or hear anything of the airplane or the pilot. Of course,
since it’s a seaplane, too, it’s probably anchored over beyond the marsh.
“Now my theory is that the pilot has a little tender and that in it he
rowed up the creek and probably, right this very minute, he is in the old
ruin, and like as not if we go up there we will meet him face to face.”
“Br-r-r!” Dories shuddered and her eyes were big and round. “Don’t you
think we’d better wait here? We could hide the punt in the reeds and
watch who comes out. You wouldn’t want to meet—a—a—”
Dories was at a loss to conjecture who they might meet, but Gib chimed in
with, “Don’t care who ’tis!” Then, looking anxiously at the girl who had
spoken, he said, “’Pears we’d ought to’ve left you at home. ’Pears like
we’d ought.”
The boy looked so truly troubled that Dories assumed a courage she did
not feel. “No, indeed, Gib! If you three aren’t afraid to meet whoever it
is, neither am I. Row ahead.”
Thus advised, the lad lowered the small sail, and the two boys rowed the
punt to the opening in the marsh.
It was just wide enough for the punt to enter. “Wall, we uns can’t use
the oars no further, that’s sure sartin.” Gib took off his cap to scratch
his ear as he always did when perplexed.
“I have it!” Dick seized an oar, stepped to the stern, asked Nann to take
the seat in the middle of the boat and then he stood and pushed the punt
into the narrow creek.
They had not progressed more than two boat-lengths when a whizzing,
whirring noise was heard and the seaplane scudded from behind a reedy
point which had obscured it, and crossed their cove before taking to the
air. Then it turned its nose toward the island. All that the watchers
could see of the pilot was his leather-hooded, dark-goggled head, and, as
he had not turned in their direction, it was quite evident that he didn’t
know of their existence.
“Gone!” Dick cried dramatically. “’Foiled again,’ as they say on the
stage.”
“Wall, anyhow, we’re here, so let’s go on up the creek and see what’s in
the ol’ ruin.”
Dick obeyed by again pushing the boat along with the one oar. Dories said
not a word as the punt moved slowly among the reeds that stood four feet
above the water and were tangled and dense.
“There’s one lucky thing for us,” Nann began, after having watched the
dark water at the side of the craft. “That sea serpent you were telling
about, Gib, couldn’t hide in this marsh.”
“Maybe not,” Dick agreed, “but it’s a favorite feeding ground for slimy
water snakes.” Nann glanced anxiously at her friend, then, noting how
pale she was, she changed the subject. “How still it is in here,” she
commented.
A breeze rustled through the drying reed-tops, but there was indeed no
other sound.
In and out, the narrow creek wound, making so many turns that often they
could not see three feet ahead of them.
For a moment the four young people in the punt were silent, listening to
the faint rustle of the dry reeds all about them in the swamp. There was
no other sound save that made by the flat-bottomed boat, as Dick,
standing in the stern, pushed it with one oar.
“There’s another curve ahead,” Nann whispered. Somehow in that silent
place they could not bring themselves to speak aloud.
“Seems to me the water is getting very shallow,” Dories observed. She was
staring over one side of the boat watching for the slimy snakes Dick had
told her made the marsh their feeding ground.
“H-m-m! I wonder!” Nann, with half closed eyes looked meditatively ahead.
“Wonder what?” her friend glanced up to inquire.
“I was thinking that perhaps we won’t be able to go much farther up this
channel, since the tide is going out. The water in the marsh keeps
getting lower and lower.”
“Gee-whiliker, Nann!” Dick looked alarmed. “I believe you’re right. I’ve
been thinking for some seconds that the pushing was harder than it has
been.”
They had reached a turn in the narrow channel as he spoke, but, when he
tried to steer the punt into it, the flat-bottomed boat stopped with such
suddenness that, had he not been leaning hard on the oar, he would surely
have been thrown into the muddy water. As it was, he lost his balance and
fell on the broad stern seat. Dories, too, had been thrown forward, while
Gib leaped to the bow to look ahead and see what had obstructed their
progress.
“Great fish-hooks! If we haven’t run aground,” was the result of his
observation.
“Nann’s right. This here channel dries up with the tide goin’ out.”
“Then the only way to get to the old ruin is to come when the turning
tide fills this channel in the marsh,” Dick put in.
“Wall, it’s powerful disappointin’,” Gib looked his distress, “bein’ as
the tide won’t turn till ’long about midnight, an’ you’ve got to go back
to Boston on the evening train.”
“I’d ought to go, to be there in time for school on Monday,” the lad
agreed.
“Couldn’t you make it if you took the early morning train?” Nann
inquired.
“May be so,” Dick replied, “but we can decide that later. The big thing
just now is, how’re we going to get out of this creek?”
“Why—” The girls looked helplessly from one boy to the other. “Is there
any problem about it? Can’t you just push out the way you pushed in?”
Dick’s expression betrayed his perplexity. “Hmm! I’m not at all sure,
with the tide going out as fast as it is now.”
“Gracious!” Dories looked up in alarm. “We won’t have to stay in this
dreadful marsh until the tide turns, will we?” Then appealingly, “Oh,
Dick, please do hurry and try to get us out of here. Aunt Jane will be
terribly worried if we don’t get home before dark.”
The boy addressed had already leaped to the stern of the boat and was
pushing on the one oar with all his strength. Gib snatched the other oar
and tried to help, but still they did not move. Then Nann had an
inspiration. “Dori,” she said, “you catch hold of the reeds on that side
and I will on this and let’s pull, too. Now, one, two, three! All
together!”
Their combined efforts proved successful. The punt floated, but it was
quite evident that they would have to travel fast to keep from again
being grounded, so they all four continued to push and pull, and it was
with a sigh of relief that they at last reached deeper water as the
channel widened into the sea.
“Well, that certainly was a narrow escape,” Nann exclaimed as the punt
slipped out of the narrow channel of the marsh into the quiet waters of
the cove.
“Now we know why the pilot of the airplane left. He probably visits the
old ruin only at high tide, when he is sure that there is water enough in
the creek,” Dick announced.
Dories seemed greatly relieved that the expedition had returned to the
open, and, as it was sheltered in the cove, the boys soon rowed across to
the point of rocks. “If Gib could leave the punt here where the water is
so sheltered and quiet, your mother, Dick, would not object even if you
went out when the tide is high, would she?” Nann inquired.
“No, indeed,” the boy replied. “Mother merely had reference to the open
sea. A punt would have little chance out there if it were caught between
the surf and the rocks, but here it is always calm.”
While they had been talking, Gib had been busy letting his home-made
anchor overboard. It was a heavy piece of iron tied to a rope, which in
turn was fastened to the bow.
“Hold on there, Cap’n!” Dick merrily called. “Let the passengers ashore
before you anchor.” Gib grinned as he drew the heavy piece of iron back
into the punt. Then Dick rowed close to the rocks and assisted the girls
out.
“What shall we do now?” he turned to ask when he saw that Gib had pushed
off again. He dropped the anchor a little more than a boat length from
the point, pulled off his shoes and stockings and waded to the rocks.
After putting them on again he joined the others, who had started to
climb.
When they reached the wide, flat “tiptop” rock Dories sank down,
exclaiming, “Honestly, I never was so hungry before in all my life.”
Then, laughingly, she added, “Nann Sibbett, here we have been carrying
that box of lunch all this time and forgot to eat it. The boys must be
starved.”
“Whoopla!” Dick shouted. “Starved doesn’t half express my famished
condition. Does it yours, Gib?”
The red-headed boy beamed. “I’m powerful hungry all right,” he
acknowledged, “but I’m sort o’ used to that.” However, he sat down when
he was invited to do so and ate the good sandwiches given him with as
much relish as the others.
Half an hour later they were again on the sand walking toward the row of
cottages. Nann glanced at the upper window of the Burton cabin, and Dick,
noticing, glanced in the same direction. Then, smiling at the girl, he
said, “I guess, after all, there has been no one in the cottage. The
blind is still closed just as I left it yesterday.”
“We’ll look again tonight,” Nann said, adding, “We’ll each have to carry
a lantern.”
“What are you two planning?” Dories asked suspiciously.
“Can’t you guess the meaning that underlies our present conversation?”
Nann smilingly inquired.
“Goodness, I’m almost afraid that I can,” was her friend’s queer
confession. “I do believe you are plotting a visit to the old ruin at the
turn of the tide, and that will not be until midnight, Gib said.”
“It’s something like that,” Dick agreed.
“Well, you can count me out.” Dories shuddered as she spoke.
Nann laughed. “I know just exactly what will happen (this teasingly) when
you hear me tiptoeing down the back stairs. You’ll dart after me; for you
know you’re afraid to stay alone in our loft at night.”
“You are wrong there,” Dories contended. “Now that I know about the
ghost, I won’t be afraid to stay alone, and I would be terribly afraid to
go to the ruin at midnight, even with three companions.”
“Speaking of lanterns,” Dick put in, “if it’s foggy we won’t be able to
go at all. That would be running unnecessary risks, but if it is clear,
there ought to be a full moon shining along about midnight, and that will
make all the light we will need.” Then he hastened to add, “But we’ll
take lanterns, for we might need them inside the old ruin, and what is
more, I’ll take my flashlight.”
The boys had left the white horse tied to the cottage nearest the road.
When they had mounted, Spindly started off as suddenly as hours before it
had stopped.
“Good-bye,” Dick waved his cap to the girls, “we’ll whistle when we get
to the beach.”
“Just look at Spindly gallop,” Dories said. “The poor thing is eager to
get to its dinner, I suppose.” Arm in arm they turned toward their
home-cabin.
“My, such exciting things are happening!” Nann exclaimed joyfully. “I
wouldn’t have missed this month by the sea for anything.”
Dories shuddered. “I’ll have to confess that I’m not very keen about
visiting the old ruin at——” She interrupted herself to cry out excitedly,
“Nann, do look over toward the island. We forgot all about that sea
plane. There it is just taking to the air. What do you suppose it has
been doing out on that desolate island all this time?”
Nann shook her head, then shaded her eyes to watch the airplane as it
soared high, again headed for Boston.
“Little do you guess, Mr. Pilot,” she called to him, “that tonight we are
to discover the secret of your visits to the old ruin.”
“Maybe!” Dories put in laconically.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE OLD RUIN AT MIDNIGHT
Never had two girls been more interested and excited than were Dories and
Nann as midnight neared. Of course they neither of them slept a wink nor
had they undressed. Nann had truly prophesied. Dories declared that when
she came to think of it, nothing could induce her to stay alone in that
loft room at midnight, and that if she were to meet a ghost or any other
mysterious person, she would rather meet him in company of Nann, Dick and
Gib.
Every hour after they retired, they crept from bed to gaze out of the
small window which overlooked the ocean. At first the fog was so dense
that they could see but dimly the white line of rushing surf out by the
point of rocks.
“Well, we might as well give up the plan,” Dories announced as it neared
eleven and the sky was still obscured.
But Nann replied that when the moon was full it often succeeded in
dispelling the fog by some magic it seemed to possess, and that she
didn’t intend to go to sleep until she was sure that the boys weren’t
coming. She declared that she wouldn’t miss the adventure for anything.
Dories fell asleep, however, and, for that matter, so, too, did Nann, and
since they were both very weary from the unusual excitement and late
hours, they would not have awakened until morning had it not been for a
low whistle at the back of the cabin.
Instantly Nann sprang up. “That must be Gib,” she whispered. Then added,
jubilantly: “It’s as bright as day. The moon is shining now in all its
splendor.”
In five seconds the two girls had crept down the outer stairway, and as
they tiptoed across the back porch, two dark forms emerged from the
shadows and approached them.
“Hist!” Gib whispered melodramatically, bent on making the adventure as
mysterious as possible. “You gals track along arter us fellows, and don’t
make any noise.”
Then without further parley, Gib darted into the shadow of the woodshed,
and from there crept stealthily along back of the seven boarded-up
cabins.
“What’s the idea of stealing along like this?” Nann inquired when the
wide sandy spaces were reached.
“We thought we’d keep hidden as much as possible,” Dick told her. “For if
that airplane pilot is anywhere around, we don’t want him to get wise to
us.”
“But, of course, he isn’t around,” Dories said. “How could he be? An
airplane can’t fly over our beach without being heard. It would waken us
from the deepest sleep, I am sure.”
They were walking four abreast toward the point which loomed darkly ahead
of them. “I suppose you’re right,” Dick agreed, “but it sort of adds to
the zip of it to pretend we’re going to steal upon that airplane pilot
and catch him at whatever it is that he comes here to do.”
The girls did not need much assistance in climbing the rocks nor in
descending on the side of the cove. Gibralter, as before, removed his
shoes and stockings, waded out to the punt, drew up the anchor and then
returned for the others. The moon had risen high enough in the clear
starlit sky to shine down into the narrow channel in the marsh and, as
the water deepened continually and was flowing inward, it was merely a
matter of steering the flat-bottomed boat, which the boys did easily,
Dick in the stern with an oar while Gib in the bow caught the reeds first
on one side and then on the other, thus keeping the blunt nose of the
punt always in the middle of the creek.
“Sh! Don’t say a loud word,” Gib cautioned, as they reached the curve
where the afternoon before they had run aground.
“Goodness, you make me feel shivery all over,” Dories whispered. “Who do
you suppose would hear if we did speak out loud?”
“Dunno,” Dick replied, “but we won’t take any chances.”
The creek was perceptibly widening and the rising tide carried them along
more swiftly, but still the reeds were high over their heads and so, even
though Dick was standing as he pushed with an oar, he could not see the
old ruin, but abruptly the marsh ended and there, high and dry on a
mound, stood the object of their search, looking more forlorn and haunted
than it had from a distance.
The boys had been about to run the boat up on the mound, when suddenly,
and without a sound of warning, Dick shoved the punt as fast he could
back into the shelter of the reeds from which they had just emerged.
“Why d’y do that?” Gib inquired in a low voice. “D’y see anything that
scared you, kid?”
“I saw it, too!” Dories eyes were wide and startled. “That is, I thought
I saw a light, but it went out so quickly I decided maybe it was the
moonlight flashing on something.”
“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.” Dick moved the punt close to the edge
of the reeds that they might observe the ruin from a safe distance.
“But who could be in there?” Nann wondered. “We have never seen anyone
around except the pilot of the airplane and we have all agreed that he
can’t be here tonight.”
“No, he isn’t!” Dick was fast recovering his courage. “I believe Dories
may have been right Probably it was only reflected moonlight. Perhaps you
girls had better remain in the punt while we fellows investigate.”
“No, indeed, we’ll all go together.” Nann settled the matter. “Now shove
back up to the mound, Dick, and let’s get out.” This was done and the
four young people climbed from the punt and stood for a long silent
moment staring at the ruin that loomed so dark and desolate just ahead of
them.
“Thar ’tis! Thar’s that light agin!” Gib seized his friend’s arm and
pointed, adding with conviction: “Dori was right. It’s suthin’ swingin’
in the wind an’ flashin’ in the moonlight.”
“Gib,” Nann said, “that is probably what the people in Siquaw Center have
seen on moonlight nights.”
“Like’s not!” the red-headed lad agreed. Then stealthily they tiptoed
toward the two tall pillars that stood like ghostly sentinels in front of
the roofless part of the house which had once been the salon.
The side walls were crumbled, but the rear wall stood erect, supporting
one side of the roof which tipped forward till it reached the ground,
although one corner was upheld by a heap of fallen stone.
“I suppose we’ll have to creep beneath that corner if we want to see
what’s under the roof,” Dick said. He looked anxiously at the girls as he
spoke, but Nann replied briskly, “Of course we will. Who’ll lead the
way?”
“Since I have a flashlight, I will,” the city boy offered. “Here, Nann,
give me your lantern and I’ll light it. Then if you girls get separated
from us boys, you won’t be in the dark.”
“Goodness, Dick!” Dories shivered. “What in the world is going to
separate us? Can’t we keep all close together?”
“Course we can,” Gib cheerfully assured her. “Dick kin go in furst, you
girls follow, an’ I’ll be rear guard.”
“You mean I can go in when I find an opening,” the city boy turned back
to whisper. Somehow they just couldn’t bring themselves to talk out loud.
Nann held her lantern high and looked at the corner nearest where a
crumbling wall upheld the roof. “There ought to be room to creep in over
there,” she pointed, “if it weren’t for all that debris on the ground.”
“We’ll soon dispose of that,” Dick said, going to the spot and placing
his flashlight on a rock that it might illumine their labors. The two
boys fell to work with a will tossing away bricks and stones and broken
pieces of plaster.
At last an opening large enough to be entered on hands and knees
appeared. Dick cautioned the girls ta stay where they were until he had
investigated. Dories gave a little startled cry when the boy disappeared,
fearing that the wall or the roof might fall on him. After what seemed
like a very long time, they heard a low whistle on the inside of the
opening. Gib peered under and received whispered instructions from Dick.
“It’s safe enough as far as I can see. Bring the girls in.” And so Dories
crept through the opening, followed by Nann and Gib. Rising to their feet
they found themselves in what had one time been a large and handsomely
furnished drawing-room. A huge chandelier with dangling crystals still
hung from the cross-beams, and in the night wind that entered from above
they kept up a constant low jangling noise. Heavy pieces of mahogany
furniture were tilted at strange angles where the rotting floor had given
way.
“Watch your step, girls,” Dick, in the lead, turned to caution. “See,
there’s a big hole ahead. I’ll go around it first to be sure that the
boards will hold. Aha, yonder is a partition that is still standing. I
wonder what room is beyond that.”
“Look out, Dick!” came in a low terrorized cry from Dories. The boy
turned to see the girl, eyes wide and frightened, pointing toward a dark
corner ahead. “There’s a man crouching over there. I’m sure of it! I saw
his face.”
Instantly Dick swung the flashlight until it illumined the corner toward
which Dories was still pointing. There was unmistakably a face looking at
them with piercing dark eyes that were heavily overhung with shaggy grey
brows.
For one terrorized moment the four held their breath. Even Dick and Gib
were puzzled. Then, with an assumption of bravery, the former called:
“Say, who are you? Come on out of there. We’re not here to harm
anything.”
But the upper part of the face (that was all they could see) did not
change expression, and so Dick advanced nearer. Then his relieved
laughter pealed forth.
“Some man—that,” he said, as he flashed the light beyond the pile of
debris which partly concealed the face.
“Why, if it isn’t an old painting!” Nann ejaculated.
And that, indeed, was what it proved to be. Battered by its fall, the
broken frame stood leaning against a partition.
“I believe its a portrait of that cruel old Colonel Woodbury himself,”
Dories remarked. Then eagerly added, “I do wish we could find a picture
of that sweet girl, his daughter. Ever since Gib told us her story I have
thought of her as being as lovely as a princess. Though I don’t suppose a
real princess is always beautiful.”
“I should say not! I’ve seen pictures of them that couldn’t hold a candle
to Nann, here.” This was Dick’s blunt, boyish way of saying that he
admired the fearless girl.
Gib, having found a heavy cane, was poking around in the piles of debris
that bordered the partition and his exclamation of delight took the
others to his side as rapidly as they could go.
“What have you found, old man?” Dick asked, eagerly peering at a heap of
rubbish.
“Nuther picture, seems like, or leastwise I reckon it’s one.”
Gib busied himself tossing stones and fragments of plaster to one side,
and when he could free it, he lifted a canvas which faced the wall and
turned it so that light fell full upon it.
“Gee-whiliker, it’s yer princess all right, all right!” he averred. “Say,
wasn’t she some beaut, though?”
There were sudden tears in Nann’s eyes as she spoke. “Oh, you poor, poor
girl,” she said as she bent above the pictured face, “how you have
suffered since that long-ago day when some artist painted your portrait.”
“Even then she wasn’t happy,” Dories put in softly. “See that little
half-wistful smile? It’s as though she felt much more like crying.”
“And now she is a woman and over in Europe somewhere with a little girl
and boy,” Nann took up the tale; but Gib amended: “Not so very little.
Didn’t we cal’late that if they’re livin’ the gal’d be about sixteen, an’
the boy eighteen or nineteen?”
“Why, that’s so.” Nann looked up brightly. “When I spoke I was
remembering the story as you told it, and how sad the young mother looked
when she landed from the snow-white yacht and led a little boy and girl
up to this very house to beg her father to forgive her. But I recall now,
you said that was at least ten years ago.”
“What shall we do with this beautiful picture?” Dories inquired. “It
doesn’t seem a bit right to leave it here in all this rubbish, now that
we’ve found it.”
“Let’s take it into the next room,” Dick said; “maybe we’ll find a better
place to leave it.”
They had reached an opening in the rear partition, but the heavy carved
door still hung on one hinge, obstructing their passage.
“We _must_ get through somehow,” Nann, the adventurous, said. “I feel in
my bones that the next room holds something that will help solve the
mystery of the air pilot’s visits.”
Dories held the painting while Nann flashed the light where it would best
aid the boys in removing the debris that held the old door in such a way
that it obstructed their passage into the room back of the salon.
A long half-hour passed and the boys labored, lifting stones and heavy
pieces of ceiling, but, when at last the floor space in front of the
heavy door was cleared, they found that something was holding it tight
shut on the other side.
“Gee-whiliker!” Dick ejaculated, removing his cap and wiping his brow.
“Talk about buried treasure. If it’s as hard to get at as it is to get
through this door, I——”
He was interrupted by the younger girl, who said: “Let’s pretend there is
a treasure behind this door, and after all, maybe there is. Perhaps the
air pilot is a smuggler of some kind and brings things here to hide.”
Dories had made a suggestion which had not occurred to the boys.
“That’s so!” Dick agreed. “But if he gets into the next room, he must
have an entrance around at the back of the ruin. No one has been through
this door since the flood undermined the old house.”
Gib was still trying to open the stubborn door. He put his shoulder
against it. “Come on, Dick, help a fellow, will you?” he sang out.
The boys pushed as hard as they could and the door moved just the least
bit, then seemed to wedge in a way that no further assaults upon it could
effect.
“Whizzle! What if that pilot feller is on the other side holdin’ it. What
if he is?”
“But he couldn’t be,” Nann protested. “We all agreed long ago that he
couldn’t be here because how could he arrive in the airplane without
being heard?”
“I know what I’m a-goin’ to do,” Gib’s expression was determined. “I’m
a-goin’ to smash a hole in that ol’ door and crawl through.”
Dick sprang to get a heavy stone from one of the crumbling side walls and
Gib, having procured another, the two boys began a battering which soon
resulted in a loud splintering sound and one of the heavy panels was
crashed in.
Gib wiggled his way through and Dick handed him the searchlight. “Huh,
we’re bright uns, we are!” came in a muffled voice from the other room.
“Thar’s as much rubbish a holdin’ the door on this side as thar was on
the other, but I, fer one, jest won’t move a stick o’ it.”
“No need to!” Nann said blithely. “Make that hole a little bigger and we
can all go through the way you did.”
This was quickly done and the boys assisted the two girls through the
opening. Then they stood close together looking about them as Dick
flashed the light. The room was not quite as much of a wreck as the salon
had been. In it a mahogany table stood and the chairs with heavily carved
legs and backs had been little harmed. With a little cry of delight, Nann
dragged Dories toward an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard. “Don’t you
love it?” she said enthusiastically, turning a glowing face toward her
companion. “Wouldn’t you adore having it?” But before Dories could voice
her admiration, Dick, having looked at his watch, exclaimed:
“Gee-whiliker, I’ll have to beat it if I am to catch that early train
back to Boston. I hate to break up the party.” He hesitated, glancing
from one to the other.
“Of course you must go!” Nann, the sensible, declared. “There’s another
week-end coming.” Then turning to her friend, who was still holding the
picture, she said: “Dori, let’s leave the painting of our princess
standing on the old mahogany sideboard.” When this had been done, she
addressed the picture: “Good-bye, Lady of the Phantom Yacht. Keep those
sweet blue eyes of yours wide open that you may tell us what mysterious
things go on in this old ruin while we are away.”
The pictured eyes were to gaze upon more than the pictured lips would be
able to tell.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LETTERS OF IMPORTANCE
The young people found the grey of dawn in the sky when they emerged
through the hole under one corner of the roof and a new terror presented
itself. “What if the receding tide had left their boat high and dry.” But
luckily there was still enough water in the narrow creek to take them out
to the cove. Since they were in haste, the sail was put in place and a
brisk wind from the land took them out and around the point. There was
still too high a surf to make possible a landing on the platform rock and
so the girls were obliged to go with the boys as far as the inlet in
which Gib kept his punt. The white horse had been tied to a scrubby tree
near, but, before he mounted, Dick took off his hat and held out a hand
to each of the girls in turn, assuring them that he had been ever so glad
to meet them and that if all went well, he would return the following
week-end.
“And we will promise not to visit the old ruin again until you come,”
Nann told him. The boy’s face brightened. “O, I say!” he exclaimed,
“that’s too much to ask.” But Gib assured him that half the fun was
having him along.
Just before they rode away, Dick turned to call: “Keep a watch-out on our
cabin, will you, Nann? I really don’t believe anyone has been there,
however. Mother remembered that she had left the back door open.”
“All right. We will. Good-bye.”
Slowly the girls walked toward their home-cabin. “Do you suppose we ought
to tell Aunt Jane that we visited the old ruin at midnight?” Dories
asked.
“Why, no, dear, I don’t,” was the thoughtful reply. “Your Aunt Jane told
us to do anything we could find to amuse us, don’t you recall, that very
first day after we had opened up the cottage and were wondering what to
do?”
Dories nodded. “I remember. She must have heard us talking while we were
dusting and straightening the living-room. That was the day that I said I
believed the place was haunted, and you said you hoped there was a ghost
or something mysterious.”
Nann stopped and faced her companion. Her eyes were merry. “Dori Moore,”
she exclaimed, “I believe your aunt _did_ hear my wish and that she has
been trying to grant it by writing those mysterious messages and leaving
them where we would find them.”
“Maybe you are right,” her friend agreed. “I wish we could catch her in
the act.” Then Dories added: “Nann, if Aunt Jane is really doing that
just for fun, then she can’t be such an old grouch as I thought her. You
know I told you how I was sure that I heard her chuckling.”
The older girl nodded, then as the back porch of the cabin had been
reached, they went quietly up the steps and into the kitchen.
“It’s going to be a long week waiting for Dick to return,” Dories said as
she began to make a fire in the stove. “What shall we do to pass away the
time?”
Nann smiled brightly. “O, we’ll find plenty to do!” she said. “There is
that box of books in the loft. Surely there will be a few that we would
like to read and that your Aunt Jane would like to hear. We have left her
alone so much,” Nann continued, “don’t you think this last week that we
ought to spend more time adding to her happiness if we can?”
Dories flushed. “I wish I’d been the one to say that,” she confessed,
“since Great-Aunt Jane loved my father so much when he was a boy.”
Although the girls had their breakfast early, it was not until the usual
hour that Dories took the tray in to her aunt. Nann followed with
something that had been forgotten. They were surprised to see the old
woman propped up in bed reading the book of ghost stories which Dories
had left in the room. She fairly beamed at them when they entered. Then
she asked, “Do you girls believe in ghosts?”
“Oh, no. Aunt Jane,” Dories began rather hesitatingly. “That is, I don’t
believe that I do.”
The sharp grey eyes, in which a twinkle seemed to be lurking, turned
toward Nann. “Do you?” she asked briefly.
“No, indeed, Miss Moore, I do not,” was the emphatic reply, then, just
for mischief, the girl asked, “Do you?”
“Indeed I do,” was the unexpected response. “A ghost visited me last
night and told me that you girls had gone with Gibralter Strait and the
Burton boy over to visit the old ruin.”
“Aunt Jane! Miss Moore!” came in two amazed exclamations.
“We did go. I sincerely hope you do not object,” the older girl hastened
to say.
“No, I don’t object. There’s nothing over there that can hurt you. Now
I’d like my breakfast, if you please.”
When the girls returned to the kitchen, Dories whispered, “Nann, how in
the world did she know?”
The older girl shook her head. “Mysteries seem to be piling up instead of
being solved,” she said.
“Do you suppose Aunt Jane knows who the air pilot is and why he goes to
the old ruin?” Dories wondered as they went about their morning tasks.
“I’ll tell you what, let’s stay around home pretty closely for a few days
and see if anyone does visit Aunt Jane, shall we?”
The old woman seemed to be glad to have the companionship of the girls.
They read to her in the morning, and on the third afternoon their
suspicions were aroused by the fact that their hostess asked them why
they stayed around the cabin all of the time. It was quite evident to
them that she wanted to be left alone.
“Would it be too far for you to walk into town and see if there isn’t
some mail for me?” Miss Moore inquired early on the fourth morning of the
week. “I am expecting some very important letters. That boy Gibralter was
told to bring them the minute they came, but these Straits are such a
shiftless lot.” Then, almost eagerly, looking from one girl to another,
she inquired: “It isn’t too far for you to walk, is it? You can hire
Gibralter to bring you back in the stage.”
“We’d love to go,” Nann said most sincerely, and Dories echoed the
sentiment. The truth was the girls had been puzzled because Gib had not
appeared. Indeed, nothing had happened for four days. Although they had
searched everywhere they could think of, there had been no message for
them telling in how many days they would know all. An hour later, when
they were walking along the marsh-edged sandy road leading to town, they
discussed the matter freely, since no one could possibly overhear. “If
Aunt Jane really has been writing those notes and leaving them for us to
find, do you suppose that she has stopped writing them because she thinks
we suspect her of being the ghost?” Dories asked.
“I don’t see why she should suspect, as we have said nothing in her
hearing; in fact, we were out on the beach when I told you that I thought
your Aunt Jane might be writing the notes,” Nann replied.
Dories nodded. “That is true,” she agreed. Then she stopped and stared at
her companion as she exclaimed: “Nann Sibbett, I don’t believe that Aunt
Jane writes them at all. I believe Gibralter Strait does. There hasn’t
been a note for four days anywhere in the cabin, and Gib hasn’t been to
the point in all that time. There, now, doesn’t that seem to prove my
point?”
“It surely does!” Nann said as they started walking on toward the town.
“Only I thought we agreed that probably Gib couldn’t write. But I do
recall that he said he went to a country school in the winter months when
his father didn’t need him to help in the store.”
“If Gib writes them he is a good actor,” Dories commented. “He certainly
seemed very much surprised when we showed him the notes, you remember.”
Nann agreed. “It’s all very puzzling,” she said, then added, “What a
queer little hamlet this is?” They were passing the first house in Siquaw
Center. “I don’t suppose there are more than eight houses in all,” she
continued. “What do you suppose the people do for a living?”
“Work on the railroad, I suppose,” Nann guessed. They had reached the
ramshackle building that held the post office and general store when they
saw Gib driving the stage around from the barns. “Hi thar!” he called to
them excitedly. “I got some mail for yo’uns. I was jest a-goin’ to fetch
it over, like I promised Miss Moore. It didn’t come till jest this
mornin’. Thar’s some mail for yo’uns, too. A letter from Dick Burton. He
writ me one along o’ yourn.”
The girls climbed up on the high seat by Gib’s side. The day had been
growing very warm as noon neared and they had found it hard walking in
the sand, and so they were not sorry that they were to ride back. Gib
gave them two long legal envelopes addressed to Miss Moore and the letter
from Dick.
Eagerly Nann opened it, as it had been written especially to her, and
after reading it she exclaimed: “Well, isn’t this queer?”
“What?” Dories, who was consumed with curiosity, exclaimed.
“Dick writes that he told his mother that he had found that upper front
room window open and the blind swinging, but she declares that she
_knows_ all of the upper windows were closed and the blinds securely
fastened. She had been in every room to try them just before she left,
and that was what had delayed her so long that, in her hurry, she took
the key out of the back door, hung it in its hiding place, without having
turned it in the lock. Dick says that he’s wild to get back to Siquaw,
and that the first thing he is going to do is to search in that upper
room for clues.”
Gib nodded. “That’s what he wrote into my letter. He’s comin’ down Friday
arter school lets out, so’s we’ll have more time over to the ruin. Dick
says he’s sot on ferritin’ out what that pilot fella does thar.”
Old Spindly seemed to feel spryer than usual and trotted along the sandy
road at such a pace that in a very little while they had reached the end
of it at the beach.
“Wall, so long,” Gib called when the girls had climbed down from the high
seat, but before they had turned to go, he ejaculated: “By time, if I
didn’t clear fergit ter give yo’uns the rest o’ yer mail. Here ’tis!”
Leaning down, he handed them another envelope. Before they could look at
it, he had snapped his whip and started back toward town. The girls
watched the old coach sway in the sand for a minute, then they glanced at
the envelope. On it in red ink was written both of their names.
“Well of all queer things!” Nann ejaculated. Tearing it open, they found
a message: “_Today you will know all._”
CHAPTER XXIV.
A SURPRISING REVELATION
The girls stood where Gib had left them staring at each other in puzzled
amazement. “Well, what do you make of it?” Dories was the first to
exclaim. Nann laughingly shook her head. “I don’t know unless this
confirms our theory that Gib writes the notes. I almost think it does.”
They started walking toward the cabin. “Well, time will tell and a short
time, too, if we are to know all today,” Dories remarked, then added,
“That long walk has made me ravenously hungry and we haven’t a thing
cooked up.” Then she paused and sniffed. “What is that delicious odor? It
smells like ham and something baking, doesn’t it?”
“We surely are both imaginative,” Nann agreed, “for I also scent a most
appetizing aroma on the air. But who could be cooking? We left Miss Moore
in bed and anyway, of course, it is not she.”
They had reached the kitchen door and saw that it was standing open and
that the tempting odor was actually wafting therefrom. Puzzled indeed,
they bounded up the steps.
A surprising sight met their gaze. Miss Jane Moore, dressed in a soft
lavender gown partly covered with a fresh white apron, turned from the
stove to beam upon them; her eyes were twinkling, her cheeks were rosy
from the excitement and the heat.
“Aunt Jane! Miss Moore!” the girls cried in astonishment. “Ought you to
be cooking? Are you strong enough?”
“Of course I am strong enough,” was the brisk reply. “Haven’t I been
resting for nearly two weeks? I thought probably you girls would be
hungry after your long walk.” Then, as she saw the legal envelopes, she
added with apparent satisfaction: “Well, they have come at last, have
they? Put them in on my dresser, Dories; then come right back. It is such
a fine day I thought we would take the table out on the sheltered side
porch and have a sort of picnic-party.”
It was hard for the girls to believe that this was the same old woman who
had been so grouchy most of the time since they had known her. Would
surprises never cease? The girls were delighted with the plan and carried
the small kitchen table to the sunny, sheltered side porch and soon had
it set for three.
When they returned they found the flushed old woman taking a pan of
biscuits from the oven. How good they looked! Then came baked ham and
sweet potatoes, and a brown Betty pudding. The elderly cook seemed to
greatly enjoy the girls’ surprise and delight. They made her comfortable
in an easy willowed chair at one end of the table facing the sea and,
when the viands had been served, they ate with great relish. To their
amazement their hostess partook of the entire menu with as evident a zest
as their own. Dories could no longer remain silent. “Aunt Jane,” she
blurted out, “ought you to eat so heartily after such a long fast? You
haven’t had anything but tea and toast since we came.”
Nann had glanced quickly and inquiringly at the old woman, and the
suspicions she had previously entertained were confirmed by the merry
reply: “I’ll have to confess that I’ve been an old fraud.” Miss Moore was
chuckling again. “Every time you girls went away and I was sure you were
going to be gone for some time, I got up and had a good meal.”
“But, Aunt Jane,” Dories’ brow gathered in a puzzled frown, “why did you
have to do that? It would have been a lot more fun all along to have had
our dinners all together like this.”
Miss Moore nodded. “Yes, it would have been, but I’m an odd one. There
was something I wanted to find out and I took my own queer way of going
about it.”
“D—did you find it out, Aunt Jane?” Dories asked, almost anxiously.
“Yes and no,” was the enigmatical answer. Then, tantalizingly, she
remarked as she leaned back in her comfortable willow chair, having
finished her share of the pudding, “This is wonderful weather, isn’t it,
girls? If it keeps up I won’t want to go back next Monday. Perhaps we’ll
stay a week longer as I had planned when we first came.” Then before the
girls could reply, the grey eyes that could be so sharply penetrating
turned to scrutinize Dories. “You look much better than you did when we
came. You had a sort of fretful look as though you had a grudge against
life. Now you actually look eager and interested.” Then, after a glance
at Nann, “You are both getting brown as Indians.”
Would Miss Moore never come to the subject that was uppermost in the
thoughts of the two girls? If she had written the message telling them
that today they were to know all, why didn’t she begin the story, if it
was to be a story?
How Dories hoped that she was to hear what had become of the fortune she
had always believed should have been her father’s. Her own mother had
never told her anything about it, but she had heard them talking before
her father died; she had not understood them, but as she grew older she
seemed vaguely to remember that there should have been money from
somewhere, enough to have kept poverty from their door and more,
probably, since her father’s Aunt Jane had so much.
But Miss Moore rose without having satisfied their burning curiosity.
“Now, girls,” she said, “I’ll go in and read my letters while you wash
the dishes. Later, when the fog drifts in, build a fire on the hearth and
I’ll tell you a story.” Then she left them, going to her own room and
closing the door.
“I’m so excited that I can hardly carry the dishes without dropping
them,” Dories confided to Nann when at last they had returned the table
to its place in the kitchen and were busily washing and drying the
dishes. “What do you suppose the story is to be about?”
“You and your mother and father chiefly, I believe,” Nann said with
conviction.
“Aunt Jane’s saying that she had a story to tell us proves, doesn’t it,
that she wrote the messages?”
“I think so, Dori.”
“I hope the fog will come in early,” the younger girl remarked as she
hung up the dish-wiper on the line back of the stove.
“It will. It always does. Now let’s go out to the shed and bring in a big
armful of driftwood. There’s one log that I’ve been saving for some
special occasion. Surely this is it.”
As Nann had said, the fog came in soon after midafternoon; the girls had
drawn the comfortable willow chair close to the hearth. The wood was in
place and eagerly the girls awaited the coming of their hostess. At last
the bedroom door opened and Miss Moore, without the apron over her
lavender dress, emerged. Although she smiled at them, the discerning Nann
decided that the letters had contained some disappointing news. Dories at
once set fire to the driftwood and a cheerful blaze leaped up. When Miss
Moore was seated the girls sat on lower chairs close together. Their
faces told their eager curiosity.
Glancing from one to the other, their hostess said: “Dori, you and Nann
have been the best of friends for years, I think you wrote me.”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Jane,” was the eager reply, “we started in kindergarten
together and we’ve been in the same classes through first year High, but
now Nann’s father has taken her away from me. They are going to live in
Boston. And so a favorite dream of ours will never be fulfilled, and that
was to graduate together.”
“If only your mother would consent to come and live with me, then your
wish would be fulfilled,” the old woman began when Dories exclaimed,
“Why, Aunt Jane, I didn’t even know that you _wanted_ us to live with you
in Boston.”
Miss Moore nodded gravely. “But I do and have. I have written your mother
repeatedly, since my dear nephew died, telling her that I would like you
three to make your home with me, but it seems that she cannot forget.”
“Forget what?” Dories leaned forward to inquire. Nann had been right, she
was thinking. The something they were to know did relate to her father’s
affairs, she was now sure.
The old woman seemed not to have heard, for she continued looking
thoughtfully at the fire. “I know that she has forgiven,” she said at
last. “Your mother is too noble a woman not to do that, but her pride
will not let her forget.” Then, turning toward the girls who sat each
with a hand tightly clasped in the others, the speaker continued: “I must
begin at the beginning to make the sad story clear. I loved your father,
as I would have loved a son. I brought him up when his parents were gone.
The money belonged to my father and he used to say that he would leave
your father’s share in my keeping, as he believed in my judgment. I was
to turn it over to my nephew when I thought best.” She was silent a
moment, then said: “When your father was old enough to marry, I wanted
him to choose a girl I had selected, but instead, when he went away to
study art, he married a school teacher of whom I had never heard. I
believed that she was designing and marrying him for his money, and I
wrote him that unless he freed himself from the union I would never give
him one cent. Of course he would not do that, and rightly. Later, in my
anger, I turned over to him some oil stock which had proved valueless and
told him that was all he was to have. Then began long, lonely years for
me because I never again heard from the nephew whose boyish love had been
the greatest joy life had ever brought me. I was too stubborn to give him
the money which legally I had the right to withhold from him, and he was
so hurt that he would not ask my forgiveness. But, when I heard that my
boy had died, my heart broke, and I knew myself for what I was—a selfish,
stubborn old woman who had not deserved love and consideration. Then, but
far too late, I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of your mother. I
wrote, begging her to come and bring her two children to my home. I told
her how desolate I had been since my boy, your father, had left. Very
courteously your mother wrote that, as long as she could sew for a living
for herself and her two children, she would not accept charity. Then I
conceived the plan of becoming acquainted with you, for two reasons: one
that I might discover if in any way you resembled your father, and the
other was that I wanted you to use your influence to induce your mother
to forget, as well as forgive, and to live with me in Boston and make my
cheerless mansion of a house into a real home.”
She paused and Dories, seeing that there were tears in the grey eyes,
impulsively reached out a hand and took the wrinkled one nearest her.
“Dear Aunt Jane, how you have suffered.” Nann noted with real pleasure
that her friend’s first reaction had been pity for the old woman and not
rebellion because of the act that had caused her to be brought up in
poverty. “Mother has always said that you meant to be kind, she was
convinced of that, but she never told me the story. This is the first
time that I understood what had happened. Truly, Aunt Jane, if you really
wish it, I shall urge Mother to let us all three come and live with you.
Selfishly I would love to, because I would be near Nann, if for no other
reason, but I have another reason. I believe my father would wish it.
Mother has often told me that, as a boy, he loved you.”
The old woman held the girl’s hand in a close clasp and tears unheeded
fell over her wrinkled cheeks. “But it’s too late now,” she said
dismally.
Dories and Nann exchanged surprised glances. “Too late, Aunt Jane?”
Dories inquired. “Do you mean that you do not care to have us now?”
“No, indeed, not that!” The old woman wiped away the tears, then smiled
tremulously. “I haven’t finished the story as yet. This is the last
chapter, I fear. I ought to be glad for your mother’s sake, but O, I have
been so lonely.”
Then, seeing the intense eagerness in her niece’s face, she concluded
with, “I must not keep you in such suspense, my dear. That long legal
envelope brought me news from your father’s lawyer. It is news that your
mother has already received, I presume. The stock, which I turned over to
your father years ago, believing it to be worthless, has turned out to be
of great value. Your mother will have a larger income than my own, and
now, of course, she will not care to make her home with me.”
“O, Aunt Jane!” To the surprise of both of the others, the girl threw her
arms about the old woman’s neck and clung to her, sobbing as though in
great sorrow, but Nann knew that the tears were caused by the sudden
shock of the joyful revelation. The old woman actually kissed the girl,
and then said: “I expected to be very sad because I cannot do something
for you all to prove the deep regret I feel for my unkind action, but,
instead, I am glad, for I know that only in this way would your mother
acquire the real independence which means happiness for her.” With a
sigh, she continued: “I’ve lived alone for many years, I suppose I can go
on living alone until the end of time.” Then she added, a twinkle again
appearing in her grey eyes, “and now you know all.”
“O, Aunt Jane, then you _did_ write those messages and leave them for us
to find?”
“I plead guilty,” the old woman confessed. “I overheard you and Nann
saying that you wished something mysterious would happen. I had been
wondering when to tell you the story, and I decided to wait until I heard
from the lawyer. I know you are wondering how Gibralter Strait happened
to give you that last message the very day a letter came telling about
the stock. That is very simple. One day when Mr. Strait came for a
grocery order, you were all away somewhere. I gave him that last message
and told him to keep it in our box at the office until a letter should
arrive from my lawyer, then they were to be brought over and that letter
was to be given to you girls.” The old woman leaned back in her chair and
it was quite evident that her recent emotion had nearly exhausted her.
Nann, excusing herself thoughtfully, left the other two alone.
“Dori,” the old woman said tenderly, “as you grow older, don’t let
circumstances of any nature make you cold and critical. If I had been
loving and kind when your girl mother married my boy, my life, instead of
being bleak and barren, would have been a happy one. No one knows how I
have grieved; how my unkindness has haunted me.”
Just then Dories thought of her sweet-faced mother who had borne the
trials of poverty so bravely, and again she heard her saying, “The only
ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving words that might have
been spoken and loving deeds that might have been done.”
Impulsively the girl leaned over and kissed the wrinkled face. “I love
you, Aunt Jane,” she whispered. “And I shall beg Mother to let us all
live together in your home, if it is still your wish.” Then, as Miss
Moore had risen, seeming suddenly feeble, Dories sprang up and helped her
to her room and remained there until the old woman was in her bed.
When the girl went out to the kitchen where her friend was preparing
supper, she exclaimed, half laughing and half crying: “Nann Sibbett, I’m
so brimming full of conflicting emotions, I don’t feel at all real. Pinch
me, please, and see if I am.”
“Instead I’ll give you a hard hug; a congratulatory one. There! Did that
seem real?” Then Nann added in her most sensible, matter-of-fact voice:
“Now, wake up, Dori. You mustn’t go around in a trance. Of course the
only mystery that _you_ are interested in is solved, and wonderfully
solved, but I’m just as keen as ever to know the secret the old ruin is
holding.”
“I’ll try to be!” Dories promised, then confessed: “But, honestly, I am
not a bit curious about any mystery, now that my own is solved.” A moment
later she asked: “Nann, do you suppose Mother will want me to come home
right away?”
“Why, I shouldn’t think so, Dori,” her friend replied. “You always hear
from your mother on Friday, so wait and see what tomorrow brings.”
The morrow was to hold much of interest for both of the girls.
CHAPTER XXV.
PUZZLED AGAIN
As soon as their breakfast was over, Dories asked her Aunt if she were
willing that the girls go to Siquaw Center for the mail. “I always get a
letter from Mother on the Friday morning train,” was the excuse she gave,
“and, of course, I am simply wild to hear what she will have to say
today; that is, if she does know about—well, about what you told us that
father’s lawyer had written.”
Miss Moore was glad to be alone, for she had had a sleepless night. She
had long dreamed that, perhaps, when she became acquainted with her
niece, that young person might be able to influence the stubborn mother
to accept the home that the old woman had offered, and that peace might
again be restored to the lonely, repentant heart. But now, just as that
dream seemed about to be fulfilled, the mother was placed in a position
of complete independence, and so, of course, she would never be willing
to share the home of her husband’s great-aunt. The desolate loneliness of
the years ahead, however few they might be, depressed the old woman
greatly. Dories, seeing tears in the grey eyes, stooped impulsively, and,
for the second time, she kissed her great-aunt. “If you will let me, I’m
coming to visit you often,” she whispered, as though she had read her
aunt’s thoughts. Then away the two girls went.
It was a glorious morning and they skipped along as fast as they could on
the sandy road. Mrs. Strait, with a baby on one arm, was tending the
general store and post office when the girls entered. No one else was in
sight.
“Good morning, Mrs. Strait. Is there any mail for Miss Dories Moore?”
that young maiden inquired.
“Yeah, thar is, an’ a picher card for tother young miss,” was the welcome
reply.
Dories fairly pounced on the letter that was handed her. “Good, it _is_
from Mother! I am almost sure that she will want me to come home,” she
exclaimed gleefully. But when the message had been read, Dories looked up
with a puzzled expression. “How queer!” she said. “Mother doesn’t say one
thing about the stock; not even that she has heard about it, but she does
say that she and Brother are leaving today on a business journey and that
she may not write again for some time. I’ll read you what she says at the
end: ‘Daughter dear, if your Aunt Jane wishes to return to Boston before
you again hear from me, I would like you to remain with her until I send
for you. Peter is standing at my elbow begging me to tell you that he is
going to travel on a train just as you did. I judge from your letters
that you and Nann are having an interesting time after all, but, of
course, you would be happy, I am sure, anywhere with Nann!’” Dories
looked up questioningly. “Don’t you think it is very strange that Mother
should go somewhere and not tell me where or why?”
Nann laughed. “Maybe she thought that she would add another mystery to
those we are trying to solve,” she suggested, but Dories shook her head.
“No, that wasn’t Mother’s reason. Perhaps—O, well, what’s the use of
guessing? Who was your card from?”
“Dad, of course. I judge that he will be glad when his daughter returns.
O, Dori,” Nann interrupted herself to exclaim, “do look at that pair of
black eyes peering at us out of that bundle!” She nodded toward the baby,
wrapped in a blanket, that had been placed in a basket on the counter.
The girls leaned over the little creature, who actually tried to talk to
them but ended its chatter with a cracked little crow. “He ain’t a mite
like Gib,” the pleased mother told them. “The rest of us is sandy
complected, but this un is black as a crow, an’ jest as jolly all the
time as yo’uns see him now.”
“What is the little fellow’s name, Mrs. Strait?” Nann asked.
The woman looked anxiously toward the door; then said in a low voice:
“I’m wantin’ to give the little critter a Christian name—Moses, Jacop, or
the like, but his Pa is set on the notion of namin’ ’em all after
geography straits, an’ I ain’t one to hold out about nothin’.” She
sighed. “But it’s long past time to christen the poor little mite.”
Nann and Dories tried hard not to let their mirth show in their faces.
The older girl inquired: “Why hasn’t he been christened, Mrs. Strait?
Can’t you decide on a name?”
“Wall, yo’ see it’s this a-way,” the gaunt, angular woman explained. “Gib
didn’t fetch home his geography books, an’ school don’t open up till snow
falls in these here parts. So baby’ll have to wait, I reckon, bein’ as
Gib don’t recollect no strait names.” Then, with hope lighting her plain
face, the woman asked: “Do you girls know any of them geography names?”
Dories and Nann looked at each other blankly. “Why, there is Magellan,”
one said. “And Dover,” the other supplemented.
Mrs. Strait looked pleased. “Seems like that thar Dover one ought to do
as wall as any. Please to write it down so’s Pa kin see it an’ tother un
along side of it.”
The girls left the store as soon as they could, fearing that they would
have to laugh, and they did not want to hurt the mother’s feelings, and
so, after purchasing some chocolate bars, they darted away without having
learned where Gib was.
“Not that it matters,” Nann said when they were nearing the beach. “He
won’t come over, probably, until tomorrow morning with Dick.”
“But Dick said he would arrive on Friday,” Dories reminded her friend.
“Yes, I know, but if he leaves Boston after school is out in the
afternoon, he won’t get there until evening.”
“They might come over then,” Dories insisted. A few moments later, as
they were nearing the cabin, she added: “There is no appetizing aroma to
greet us today. Aunt Jane is probably still in bed.” Then, turning toward
Nann, the younger girl said earnestly: “Truly, I feel so sorry for her.
She seems heartbroken to think that Mother and Peter and I will not need
to share her home. I believe she fretted about it all night; she looked
so hollow-eyed and sick this morning.”
Dories was right. The old woman was still in bed, and when her niece went
in to see what she wanted, Miss Moore said: “Will you girls mind so very
much if we go home on Monday. I am not feeling at all well, and, if I am
in Boston I can send for a doctor. Here I might die before one could
reach me.”
“Of course we want to go whenever you wish,” Dories declared. She did not
mention what her mother had written. There would be time enough later.
Out in the kitchen Dories talked it over with Nann. “You’ll be sorry to
go before you solve the mystery of the old ruin, won’t you?” the younger
girl asked.
Nann whirled about, eyes laughing, stove poker upheld. “I’ll prophesy
that the mystery will all be solved before our train leaves on Monday
morning,” she said merrily.
After her lunch, which this time truly was of toast and tea, Miss Moore
said that she felt as though she could sleep all the afternoon if she
were left alone, and so Dories and Nann donned their bright-colored tams
and sweater-coats, as there was a cool wind, and went out on the beach
wondering where they would go and what they would do. “Let’s visit the
punt and see that nothing has happened to it,” Dories suggested.
They soon reached the end of the sandy road. Nann glanced casually in the
direction of Siquaw, then stopped and, narrowing her eyes, she gazed
steadily into the distance for a long moment. “Don’t you see a moving
object coming this way?” she inquired.
Dories nodded as she declared: “It’s old Spindly, of course, and I
suppose Gib is on it. I wonder why he is coming over at this hour. It
isn’t later than two, is it?”
“Not that even.” Dories glanced at her wrist-watch as she spoke. For
another long moment they stood watching the object grow larger. Not until
it was plain to them that it was the old white horse with two riders did
they permit their delight to be expressed. “Dick has come! He must have
arrived on the noon train. It must be a holiday!” Dories exclaimed, and
Nann added, “Or at least Dick has proclaimed it one.” Then they both
waved for the boys, having observed them from afar, were swinging their
caps.
“Isn’t it great that I could come today?” was Dick’s first remark after
the greetings had been exchanged. “Class having exams and I was exempt.”
Nann’s eyes glowed. “Isn’t that splendid, Dick? I know what that means.
Your daily average was so high you were excused from the test.”
The city boy flushed. “Well, it wasn’t my fault. It’s an easy subject for
me. I’m wild about history and I don’t seem able to forget anything that
I read.” Then, smiling at the country boy, he added: “Gib, here, tells me
that you haven’t visited the old ruin since I left. That was mighty nice
of you. I’ve been thinking so much about that mysterious airplane chap
this past week, it’s a wonder I could get any of my lessons right.”
“Isn’t it the queerest thing?” Nann said. “That airplane hasn’t been seen
or heard since you left.”
“I ain’t so sure.” Gib had removed his cap and was scratching one ear as
he did when puzzled. “Pa ’n’ me both thought we heard a hummin’ one
night, but ’twas far off, sort o’. I reckon’d, like’s not, that pilot
fellar lit his boat way out in the water and slid back in quiet-like.”
Dick, much interested, nodded. “He could have done that, you know. He may
realize that there are people on the point and he may not wish to have
his movements observed.” Then eagerly: “Can you girls go right now? The
tide is just right and we wanted to give that old dining-room a thorough
overhauling, you know.”
“Yes, we can go. Aunt Jane is going to sleep all of the afternoon.” Then
impulsively Dories turned toward the red-headed boy. “Gib,” she exclaimed
contritely, “I’m just ever so sorry that I called Aunt Jane queer or
cross. Something happened this week which has proved that she is very
different in her heart from what we supposed her to be. She has just been
achingly lonely for years, and some family affairs which, of course,
would interest no one but ourselves, have made her shut herself away from
everyone. I’m ever so sorry for her, and I know that from now on I’m
going to love her just dearly.”
“So am I,” Nann said very quietly. “I wish we had realized that all this
time Miss Moore has been hungering for us to love and be kind to her. We
girls sometimes forget that elderly people have much the same feelings
that we have.”
“I know,” Dick agreed as they walked four abreast toward the creek where
the punt was hid, “I have an old grandmother who is always so happy when
we youngsters include her in our good times.” Then he added in a changed
tone: “Hurray! There’s the old punt! Now, all aboard!” Ever chivalrous,
Dick held out a hand to each girl, but it was to Nann that he said with
conviction: “This is the day that we are to solve the mystery.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
A CLUE TO THE OLD RUIN MYSTERY
The voyage up the narrow channel in the marsh was uneventful and at last
the four young people reached the opening near the old ruin. They stopped
before entering to look around that they might be sure the place was
unoccupied. Then Dick crept through the opening in the crumbling wall to
reconnoiter. “All’s well!” he called to them a moment later, and in the
same order as before the others followed. Everything was just as it had
been on their former visit.
Dick flashed his light in the corner where they had seen the picture of
old Colonel Wadbury, and the sharp eyes, under heavy brows, seemed to
glare at them. Dories, with a shudder, was secretly glad that they were
only pictured eyes.
“Sh! Hark!” It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held
up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had
broken a panel the week before.
“What is it? What do you hear?” Nann asked.
“A sort of a scurrying noise,” Dick told her. “Nothing but rats, I guess,
but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have
looked around in there. Perhaps you’d better go back to the opening,” he
added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories’ pale, frightened face. The
younger girl was clutching her friend’s arm as though she never meant to
let go. “I’m just as afraid of rats,” she confessed, “as I am of ghosts.”
“We’ll wait here,” Nann said calmly. “Rats won’t hurt us. They would be
more afraid of us than even Dori is of them.”
Dick climbed through the hole in the door, followed closely by Gib. Nann,
holding a lighted lantern, smiled at her friend reassuringly. Although
only a few moments passed, they seemed like an eternity to the younger
girl; then Dick’s beaming face appeared in the opening. It was very
evident that he had found something which interested him and which was
not of a frightening nature. The boys assisted the girls over the heap of
debris which held the door shut and then flashed the light around what
had once been a handsomely furnished dining-room. Dories’ first glance
was toward the sideboard where they had left the painting of the
beautiful girl. It was not there.
The boys also had made the discovery. “Which proves,” Dick declared,
“that Gib was right about that airplane chap having been here. He must
have taken the picture, but _why_ do you suppose he would want it?”
“I guess you’re right,” Dick had been looking behind the heavy piece of
mahogany furniture as he spoke, “and, whoever was here has left
something. The rats we heard scurrying about were trying to drag it away,
to make into a nest, I suppose.”
Arising from a stooping posture, the boy revealed a note book which he
had picked up from behind the sideboard.
He opened it to the first page and turned his flashlight full upon it.
“Those plaguity little rats have torn half of this page nearly off,” he
complained, “but I guess we can fit it together and read the writing on
it.”
“October fifteen,” Dick read aloud. Then paused while he tried to fit the
torn pieces. “There, now I have it,” he said, and continued reading: “At
Mother’s request, I came to her father’s old home, but found it in a
ruined state. The natives in the village tell me there is no way to reach
the place, as it is in a dangerous swamp, sort of a ‘quick-mud’, all
about it, and what’s more, one garrulous chap tells me that the place is
haunted. Well, I don’t care a continental for the ghost, but I’m not
hankering to find an early grave in oozy mud.”
“I don’t recollect any sech fellow,” Gib put in, but Dick was continuing
to read from the note book:
“I didn’t let on who I was. Didn’t want to arouse curiosity, so I took
the next train back to Boston. I simply can’t give up. I _must_ reach
that old house and give it a real ransacking. Mother is sure her papers
are there, and if they are, she must have them.”
The next page revealed a rapidly scrawled entry: “October 16th. Lay awake
nearly all night trying to think out a way to visit that old ruin. Had an
inspiration. Shall sail over it in an airplane and get at least a
bird’s-eye view. Glad I belong to the Boston Aviation Club.
“October 18. Did the deed! Sailed over Siquaw in an aircraft and saw,
when I flew low, that there was a narrow channel leading through the
marsh and directly up to the old ruin.
“I’ll come in a seaplane next time, with a small boat on board. Mother’s
coming soon and I want to find the deed to the Wetherby place before she
arrives. It is her right to have it since her own mother left it to her,
but her father, I just can’t call the old skinflint my grandfather, had
it hidden in the house that he built by the sea. When Mother went back,
she asked for that deed, but he wouldn’t give it to her. She told him
that her husband was dead and that she wanted to live in her mother’s old
home near Boston, but he said that she never should have it, that he had
destroyed the deed. He was mean enough to do it, without doubt, but I
don’t believe he did it, somehow. I have a hunch that the papers are
still there.
“October 20. Well, I went in a seaplane, made my way up that crooked
little channel in the swamp. Found more in the ruin than I had supposed I
would. First of all, I hunted for an old chest, or writing desk, the
usual place for papers to be kept. Located a heavy walnut desk in what
had once been a library, but though there were papers enough, nothing
like a deed. Had a mishap. Had left the seaplane anchored in a quiet
cove. It broke loose and washed ashore. Wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get
it off until change of tide, along about midnight. Being curious about a
rocky point, I took my flashlight and prowled around a bit. Saw eight
boarded-up cottages in a row, and to pass away the time I looked them
over. Was rather startled by two occurrences. First was a noise regularly
repeated, but that proved to be only a blind on an upper window banging
in the wind. That was the cottage nearest the point. Then later I was
sure I saw two white faces in an upper window of a cottage farther along.
Sort of surprising when you suppose you’re the only living person for a
mile around. O well, ghosts can’t turn me from my purpose. Got back to
the plane just as it was floating and made off by daybreak. Haven’t made
much headway yet, but shall return next week.”
Dick looked up elated. “There, that proves that Mother did forget to
fasten that blind,” he exclaimed. Dories was laughing gleefully. “Nann,”
she chuckled, “to think that we scared him as much as he scared us. You
know we thought the person carrying a light on the rocks was a ghost, and
he, seeing us peer out at him, thought we were ghosts.”
Nann smiled at her friend, then urged Dick continue reading, but Dick
shook his head. “Can’t,” he replied, “for there is no more.”
“But he came again,” Nann said. “We know that he did, because he left
this little note book.”
“And what is more, he took away with him the painting of his lovely
girl-mother,” Dories put in.
Dick nodded. “Don’t you see,” he was addressing Nann, “can’t you guess
what happened? When he came and found a panel had been broken in this
door and the painting on the sideboard, he realized that he was not the
only person visiting the old ruin.”
“Even so, that wouldn’t have frightened him away. He evidently is a
courageous chap, shouldn’t you say?” Nann inquired, and Dick agreed,
adding: “Well then, what _do_ you think happened?”
It was Gib who replied: “I reckon that pilot fellar found them papers he
was lookin’ fer an’ ain’t comin’ back no more.”
“But perhaps he hasn’t,” Nann declared. “Suppose we hunt around a little.
We might just stumble on that old deed, but even if we did, would we know
how to send it to him?”
Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. “Yes, we would,”
he answered her. “Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to
the Boston Tech, I judge.”
“O, what is his name?” Dories asked eagerly.
“Wouldn’t you love to meet him?” the younger girl continued.
“I intend to look him up when I get back to town,” Dick assured them,
“and wouldn’t it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course,
if he hasn’t.”
Nann glanced about the dining-room. “There’s a door at the other end.
It’s so dark down there I hadn’t noticed it before.”
The boys went in that direction. “Perhaps it leads to the room where the
desk is. We haven’t seen that yet.” Dories and Nann followed closely.
Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made
him pause. “Like’s not all this time that pilot fellar’s been in there
waitin’ fer us to clear out.” Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was
true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the
young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been
little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.
One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly
ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. “In all the stories I have ever
read,” Dories told them, “there were secret drawers, or sliding panels,
or——”
“A removable stone in a chimney,” Nann merrily added. “But I believe that
old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different,” she
concluded.
While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around
the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. “There is
the pilot chap’s entrance to the ruin.” He pointed toward a fireplace.
Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough
for a person to creep through.
“Perhaps he had never been in the front room, then,” Nann remarked.
“I hate to suggest it,” Dories said hesitatingly, “but I think we ought
to be going. It’s getting late.”
“I’ll say we ought!” Dick glanced at his time-piece. “Tides have a way of
turning whether there is a mystery to ferret out or not. We have all day
tomorrow to spend here, or at least part of it,” he modified.
At Gib’s suggestion they went out through the hole in the back of the
fireplace. The narrow channel was easily navigated and again they left
the punt, as on a former occasion, anchored in the calm waters on the
marsh side of the point. Then they climbed over the rocks, and walked
along the beach four abreast. They talked excitedly of one phase of what
had occurred and then of another.
“You were right, Dick, when you said that the mystery about the pilot of
the airplane would be solved today.” Nann smiled at the boy who was
always at her side. Then she glanced over toward the island, misty in the
distance. “And to think that that girl-mother and her daughter are really
coming back to America.”
“Do you suppose they will come in the Phantom Yacht?” Dories turned
toward Gib to inquire.
“I don’t reckon so,” that boy replied. “I cal’late we-uns saw the
skeleton of the Phantom Yacht over to the island that day we was thar,
Miss Nann. A storm came up, Pa said, an’ he allays thought that thar
yacht was wrecked.”
“If that’s true, then everyone on board must have been saved,” Nann said.
“Of that much, at least, we’re sure.”
The boys left the girls in front of their home-cabin, promising to be
back early the next day. On entering the cottage, Dories went at once to
her aunt’s room and was pleased to see that she looked rested. A wrinkled
old hand was held out to the girl, and, when Dories had taken it, she was
surprised to hear her aunt say, “I’m trying to be resigned to my big
disappointment, Dories; but even if I _do_ have to live alone all the
rest of my days, I’m going to make you and Peter my heirs. Your mother
can’t refuse me that.” Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She tried to
speak, but could not.
Her aunt understood, and, as sentimentality was, on the whole, foreign to
her nature, she said, with a return of her brusque manner, “There! That’s
all there is to that. Please fetch me a poached egg with my toast and
tea.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
RANSACKING THE OLD RUIN
It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household
tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron,
smiling brightly at her friend. “Good, there are the boys!” she
exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed
with their tams and sweater-coats.
“We’ve put up a lunch,” Nann told the newcomers. “Miss Moore said that we
might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we
are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested.” They were
walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.
Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. “Say, Miss Dori,” he
exclaimed, “Miss Moore’s been here sech a long time, like’s not she knew
ol’ Colonel Wadbury, didn’t she now?”
“No, she didn’t know him,” Dories replied. “He was such an old hermit he
didn’t want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter’s
return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn’t here the year
of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she
really doesn’t know any more than we do.”
“We didn’t start coming here until after it had all happened,” Dick put
in.
“I’m so excited.” Nann gave a little eager skip. “I almost hope the pilot
of the seaplane has not found the deed and that we may find it and give
it to him.”
“So do I!” Dick seconded. Over the rugged point they went, each time
becoming more agile, and into the punt they climbed when Gib, barefooted
as usual, had waded out and rowed close to a flat-rock platform. The tide
was in and with its aid they floated rapidly up the channel in the marsh.
“Shall we enter by the front or the back?” Nann asked of Dick.
“The front is nearer our landing place,” was the reply. “Let’s give the
old salon a thorough ransacking. I feel in my bones that we are going to
make some interesting discovery today, don’t you, Gib?”
“Dunno,” was that lad’s laconic reply. “Mabbe so.”
A few moments later they were standing under the twisted chandelier
listening to the faint rattle of its many crystal pendants. Nann made a
suggestion: “Let’s each take a turn in selecting some place to look for
the deed, shall we?”
“Oh, yes, let’s,” Dories seconded. “That will make sort of a game of it
all.”
Dick held the flashlight out to the older girl. “You make the first
selection,” he said.
Nann took the light and, standing still with the others under the
chandelier, she flashed the bright beam around the room. “There’s a
broken door almost crushed under the sagging roof.” She indicated the
front corner opposite the one by which they had entered. “There must have
been a room beyond that. I suggest that we try to get through there.”
But Dick demurred. “I’m not sure that it would be wise,” he told her.
“The roof might sag more if that door were pulled away.” They heard a
noise back of them and turned to see Gib making for the entrance. “I’ll
be back,” was all that he told them. When, a moment later, he did return,
he beckoned. “Come along out,” he said. “There’s a way into that thar
room from the outside.”
He led them to a window, the pane of which had been broken, leaving only
the frame. They peered in and beheld what had been a large bedroom. A
heavy oak bed and other pieces of furniture to match were pitched at all
angles as the rotting floor had given way. Dick stepped back and looked
critically at the sagging roof, then he beckoned Gib and together they
talked in low tones. Seeming satisfied with their decision, they returned
to the spot where the girls were waiting. “We don’t want you to run any
risk of being hurt while you are with us,” Dick explained. “We want to
take just as good care of you as if you were our sisters.” Then he
assured them: “We think it is safe. Gib showed me how stout the
cross-beam is which has kept the roof from sagging farther.”
And so they entered the room through the window. For an hour they
ransacked. There was no evidence that anyone had been in that room since
the storm so long ago. “Queer, sort of, ain’t it?” Gib speculated,
scratching his ear. “Yo’d think that pilot fellar’d a been all over the
place, wouldn’t yo’ now?”
“Let’s go back to the front room again and let Dori choose next for a
place to search,” the ever chivalrous Dick suggested.
A few seconds later they again were under the chandelier. Dories, as
interested and excited now as any of them, took the light and flashed it
about the room, letting the round glow rest at last on the huge
fireplace. “That’s where I’ll look,” she told the others. “Let’s see if
there is a loose rock that will come out and behind which we may find a
box with the deed in it.”
Nann laughed. “Like the story we read when we were twelve or thirteen
years old,” she told the boys. But though they all rapped on the stones
and even tried to pry them out, so well had the masonry been made, each
rock remained firmly in place and not one of them was movable.
“Now, Dick, you have a turn.” Dories held the flashlight toward him, but
he shook his head. “No, Gib first.”
The red-headed boy grinned gleefully. “I’ll choose a hard place. I reckon
ol’ Colonel Wadbury hid that thar deed somewhar’s up in the attic under
the roof.” Dories looked dismayed. “O, Gib, don’t choose there, for we
girls couldn’t climb up among the rafters.” But Nann put in: “Of course,
dear, Gib may choose the loft if he wishes. But how would you get there?”
Gib had been flashing the light along the cracked, tipped ceiling of the
room. Suddenly his freckled face brightened. “Come on out agin.” He
sprang for the low opening as he spoke. Then, when they were outside, he
pointed to the spot where the roof was lowest. “Yo’ gals stay here whar
the punt is,” he advised, “while me ’n’ Dick shinny up to whar the
chimney’s broke off. Bet yo’ we kin git into the garrit from thar. Bet
yo’ we kin.”
Dick was gazing at the roof appraisingly. “O, I guess it’s safe enough,”
he answered the anxious expression he saw in the face of the older girl.
“If our weight is too much, the roof will sag more and close up our
entrance perhaps, but we can slide down without being hurt, I am sure of
that.”
The girls sat in the punt to await the return of the boys, who, after a
few moments’ scrambling up the sloping roof, actually disappeared into
what must have once been an attic.
“I never was so interested or excited in all my life,” Nann told her
friend. “I do hope we will find that deed today, for tomorrow will be
Sunday, and I feel that we ought to remain with your Aunt Jane and put
things in readiness for our departure on Monday.”
“Yes, so do I.” Dories glanced up at the roof, but as the boys were not
to be seen, she continued: “I am interested in finding the deed, of
course, but I just can’t keep my thoughts from wandering. I am so glad
that Mother will not have to keep on sewing. She has been so wonderful
taking care of Peter and me the way she has ever since that long ago day
when father died.” Then she sighed. “Of course I wish she hadn’t been too
proud to accept help from Aunt Jane.” But almost at once she contradicted
with, “In one way, though, I don’t, for if I had lived in Boston all
these years, I would never have known you. But now that you are going to
live in Boston, how I do wish that Mother and Peter and I were to live
there also.”
“Maybe you will,” Nann began, but Dories shook her head. “I don’t believe
Mother would want to leave her old home. It isn’t much of a place, but
she and Father went there when they were married, and we children were
born there.” Then, excitedly pointing to the roof, Dories exclaimed:
“Here come the boys, and they have a packet of papers, haven’t they?”
Nann stepped out of the punt to the mound as she called, “O, boys, have
you found the deed?”
“We don’t know yet,” Dick replied, but the girls could see by his glowing
expression that he believed that they had.
They all sat in the punt, which had been drawn partly up on the mound and
which afforded the only available seats. Dick and Nann occupied the wide
stern seat, while Dories and Gib in the middle faced them. Dick
unfastened the leather thong which bound the papers and, closing his
eyes, just for the lark of it, he passed a folded document to each of his
companions. Then he opened them as he said laughingly:
“Just four. How kind of old Colonel Wadbury to help us with our game!
Now, Nann, report about yours first. Is it the Wetherby deed?”
After a moment’s eager scrutiny, Nann shook her head. “Alas, no! It’s
something telling about shares in some corporation,” she told them.
“Well, we’ll keep it anyway to give to our pilot friend,” Dick commented.
“Mine,” Dories said, “is a deed, but it seems to be for this Siquaw Point
property.”
Dick reported that his was a marriage license, and Gib dolefully added
that his was some government paper, the meaning of which he could not
understand. He handed it to Dick, who, after scrutinizing it, said:
“Well, at least one thing is certain, it isn’t the deed for which we are
searching.” Then, rising, he exclaimed: “Now it’s my turn. I want to go
back to the salon. I had a sort of inspiration awhile ago. I thought I
wouldn’t mention it until my turn came.”
They left the punt and followed the speaker to their low entrance in the
wall. Although they were curious to know Dick’s plan, no one spoke until
again they stood beneath the rattling chandelier. At once the boy flashed
the round light toward the corner where the piercing eyes under shaggy
brows seemed to be watching them. Then he went in that direction. Dories
shuddered as she always did when she saw that stern, unrelenting old
face. “Why, Dick,” Nann exclaimed, “do you suspect that the picture of
the old Colonel can reveal the deed’s hiding-place?”
The boy was on his knees in front of the painting. “Yes, I do,” he said.
“At least I happened all of a sudden to remember of having heard of
valuable papers that were hidden in a frame back of a painting. That is
why I wanted to look here.” He had actually lifted the large painting in
the broken frame. Dories cried out in terror: “O, Dick, how dare you
touch that terrible thing? He looks so real and so scarey.” The boy
addressed evidently did not hear her. Handing the flashlight to Nann, he
asked her to hold it close while he tore off the boards at the back.
For a tense moment the four young people watched, almost holding their
breath.
“Wall, it ain’t thar, I reckon.” Gib was the first to break the silence.
“You’re right!” Dick placed the painting from which the frame had been
removed against the wall and was about to step back when the rotting
boards beneath him caved in and he fell, disappearing entirely. Dories
screamed and Gib, taking the light from Nann, flashed the glow from it
down into the dark hole. “Dick! Dick! Are you hurt?” Nann was calling
anxiously.
After what seemed like a very long time, Dick’s voice was heard: “I’m all
right. Don’t worry about me. Gib, see if there isn’t a trap-door or
something. I seem to have fallen into a vault of some kind.” Then after
another silence, “I guess I’ve stumbled onto steps leading up.” A second
later a low door in the dark corner opened and Dick, smiling gleefully,
emerged, covered with dust and cobwebs. “Give me the light and let’s see
what this door is.” Then, after a moment’s scrutiny, “Aha! That vault was
meant to be a secret. The door looks, from this side, like part of the
paneling.”
“Oh, Dick!” Nann cried exultingly. “_That’s_ where the Wetherby deed is.
Down in that old vault.”
“I bet yo’ she’s right.” Gib stooped to peer into the dark hole.
“Can’t we all go down and investigate?” Nann asked eagerly.
Dick hesitated. “I’d heaps rather you girls stayed out in the punt,” he
began, but when he saw the crestfallen expression of the adventurous
older girl he ended with, “Well, come, if you want to. I don’t suppose
anything will hurt us.”
Although Dories was afraid to go down, she was even more fearful of
remaining alone with those pictured sharp grey eyes glaring at her, and
so, clinging to Nann, she descended the rather rickety short flight of
steps. The flashlight revealed casks which evidently had contained
liquor, and a small iron box. “That box,” Dick said with conviction,
“contains the Wetherby deed.” He was about to try to lift it when Nann
grasped his arm. “Hark,” she whispered. “I heard someone walking. It
sounds as though it might be someone in that library or den where the
desk was.”
They all listened and were convinced that Nann had been right. “It’s that
pilot chap, I reckon,” Gib said. But Dick was not so sure. “Please,
Nann,” he pleaded, “you and Dories go out to the punt and wait, while Gib
and I discover who is prowling around. I didn’t hear an airplane pass
overhead, but then, of course, he might have come in from the sea as he
did before.”
The girls were glad to get out in the sunlight. They stood near the punt
with hands tightly clasped while the boys went around to the back to
enter the opening in the wall of the den. It seemed a very long while
before Nann and Dories heard voices.
Then three boys approached them. A tall, slender lad, dressed after the
fashion of aviators, with a dark handsome face lighted with interest, was
listening intently to what Dick was telling him.
The girls heard him say, “Of course, I knew someone else was visiting my
grandfather’s home, especially after I found the painting of my mother——”
He paused when he saw the girls, and Nann was sure that the boys had
neglected to tell him that they were not alone. Dick, in his usual manly
way, introduced Carl Ovieda. Dories thought the newcomer the nicest
looking boy she had ever seen. At once Dick made a confession. “I know
that we ought not to have done it, Mr. Ovieda. We read the note book that
we found, hoping that it would throw some light on the mystery.”
“I’m glad you did!” was the frank reply. “The truth is, I was getting
rather desperate. You see, Mother and Sister are to arrive tomorrow from
overseas, and I did so want to have the deed of Grandma Wetherby’s old
home to give to Mother. The place has been vacant for years, but the
taxes have been paid. Of course no one would dispute our right to live
there, but there couldn’t be a clear title without having the deed
recorded.”
Gib asked a question in his usual indifferent manner, but Nann knew how
eager he really was to hear the answer, “Air they comin’ in that thar
Phantom Yacht, yer mother and sister?”
The newcomer looked at the questioner as though he did not understand his
meaning; then turning toward Nann and Dories he asked, “What is the
Phantom Yacht?”
Nann told him. Then the lad, with a friendly smile, answered Gib: “No,
indeed. That yacht was sold, Mother told me, when we returned to
Honolulu. That is where we have lived nearly all of our lives, but ever
since my father died, Mother has longed to return to her own home
country.”
Nann, glancing at Dick, realized that he was very eager to speak, but was
courteously waiting until the others were finished, and so she said: “Mr.
Ovieda, I believe Dick wishes to tell you of an iron box in which he is
almost sure the lost deed will be found.”
The dark, handsome face lightened. Turning to the boy at his side, he
inquired: “Have you really unearthed an iron box? Lead me to it, I beg.”
“We’ll wait in the punt,” Nann told the three boys. Dories knew how hard
it was for her friend to say that, since she so loved adventure.
However, it was not long before a joyful shouting was heard and the three
boys appeared creeping through the low opening. Carl Ovieda waved a
folded document toward them. “It is found!” Never before had three words
caused those young people so much rejoicing. After they had each examined
the paper, yellowed with age, and Carl had assured them that he and his
mother and sister would never be able to thank them enough for the
service they had rendered, Nann exclaimed: “I don’t know how the rest of
you feel, but I am just ever so hungry.”
“I have a suggestion to make,” Dories put in. “Let’s all go back to the
point of rocks and have a picnic.” Then, as the newcomer demurred, the
pretty young girl hastened to say, “Oh, indeed we want you, Mr. Ovieda.”
The tall, handsome youth went to the place where he had left his small
portable canoe and paddled it around.
“Miss Dories,” he called, “this craft rides better if there are two in
it. May I have the pleasure of your company?”
Blushing prettily, Dories took Carl’s proffered hand and stepped in the
canoe. Nann, Dick and Gib, in the punt, led the way.
Half an hour later, high on the rocks, the five young people ate the good
lunch the girls had prepared and told one another the outstanding events
of their lives. “I’m wild to meet your sister, Mr. Ovieda,” Dories told
him. “Does she still look like a lily, all gold and white. That was the
way Gib’s father described her.”
The tall lad nodded. “Yes, Sister is a very pretty blonde. She has iris
blue eyes and hair like spun gold, as fairy books say. I want you all to
come to our home in Boston just as soon as we are settled.” His
invitation, Nann was pleased to see, included Gib as well as the others.
That embarrassed lad replied, with a hunch of his right shoulder, “Dunno
as I’ll ever be up to the big town. Dunno’s I ever will.”
“You’re wrong there, Gib!” Dick exclaimed in the tone of one who could no
longer keep a most interesting secret. “You know how you have wished and
wished that you could have a chance to go to a real school. Well, Dad has
been trying to work it so that you might have that chance, and, just
before I came away, he told me that he had managed to get a scholarship
for you in a boys’ school just out of Boston. Why, what’s the matter,
Gib? It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
It was hard to understand the country boy’s expression. “Yeah!” he
confessed. “That thar’s what I’ve been hankerin’ fer. It sure is.” Then,
as a slow grin lit his freckled face, he exclaimed: “It’s hit me so
sudden, sort of, but I reckon I kinder feel the way yo’re feelin’,” he
nodded toward the grandson of old Colonel Wadbury, “as though I’d found a
deed to suthin, when I’d never expected to have nuthin’ not as long as
I’d live.”
The girls were deeply touched by Gib’s sincere joy and they told him how
glad they were for his good fortune. Then Carl Ovieda sprang to his feet,
saying that he was sorry to break up the party, but that he must be
winging on his way. He held out his hand to each of the group as he bade
them good-bye, turning, last of all, to Dories, to whom he said: “I shall
let you know as soon as we are settled. I want you and my sister to be
good friends.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BEST SURPRISE OF ALL
As the four young people neared the home cabin, they were amazed to
behold Miss Moore seated in a rocker on the front porch and, instead of
her house dress, she had on her traveling suit. Dories leaped up the
steps, exclaiming, “Why, Aunt Jane, what has happened?”
The old woman replied suavely: “Nothing at all, my dear; that is, nothing
startling. Mr. Strait drove over this morning with some mail for me and I
asked him to return at two. Now hurry and pack up your things. We’re
going home.”
Dories put her hand to her heart. “O,” she exclaimed, “I was afraid there
had been bad news from Mother.” Then, hesitatingly, “I thought we weren’t
going home until Monday.”
“We are going now,” was all that her aunt said.
Dories ran back to the beach to explain to the three standing there, then
the girls bade the boys good-bye and hastened up to the loft to pack
their satchels and don their traveling costumes.
“What can it mean?” Dories almost whispered. “There must have been
something urgent in the letter Aunt Jane received this morning,” she
concluded.
Nann snapped down the cover of her suitcase, then flashed a bright smile
at her friend. “To tell you the truth,” she confessed, “I am glad that we
are going today. Since your Aunt Jane will not travel on Sunday, and
since the mysteries have all been solved, there would be nothing to do
from now until Monday.”
Before the other girl could reply Nann, with eyes glowing, continued
enthusiastically: “And how wonderfully the old ruin mystery turned out,
didn’t it? I feel ever so sure that Carl Ovieda and his sister will prove
good friends.” Then, teasingly, “Carl seemed to like you especially
well.”
Dories’ surprised expression was sincere. “Me?” she exclaimed
dramatically, then shook her head. “Of course you are wrong! You are so
much prettier and wittier and wiser, Nann, boys _always_ like you better
than they do your friends.”
“I hold to my opinion,” was the laughing response. “But come along now, I
hear the rattly old stage coming. If we are to make the 3:10 train,
Spindly will have to make good time.” Nann glanced at her wrist watch as
she spoke; then, taking their suitcases, they went down the rickety
stairs. On the front porch they found Miss Moore waiting among her bags;
her heavy black veil thrown back over her bonnet. Gib’s father, having
left the stage at the beach end of the road, was coming for the baggage.
“O, Aunt Jane!” Dories suddenly exclaimed, “aren’t we going to put the
covers on the furniture and fasten the blinds?”
It was Mr. Strait who answered: “Me’n Amandy’ll tend to all them things,
Miss. We’ll come over fust off Monday an’ take the key back to the
store.”
Miss Moore nodded her assent. Then, with the help of the two girls, she
picked her way through the sand to the stage and was soon seated between
the two black bags as she had been three weeks previous, but now how
different was the expression on the wrinkled old face. On that other ride
the girls had been justified in believing her to be a grouchy old woman,
but today Dories noticed that when her aunt smiled across at her, there
was a wistful expression in the grey eyes that could be so sharp and a
quivering about the thin lips. “Poor Aunt Jane,” was the thought that
accompanied her answering smile, “she dreads going back to her lonely
mansion of a home, but of course I am to remain with her for a few days,
or, at least, until I hear from Mother.”
When Siquaw was reached the girls saw that the train was even then
approaching the small station, and, in the rush that followed, they quite
forgot to look for Dick and Gibralter to say good-bye. It was not until
they were seated in the coach, and the train well under way, that Dories
exclaimed: “We didn’t see the boys! Don’t you think that is queer, Nann?
They knew we were going on that train. I wonder why they weren’t at the
station to see us off.”
A merry laugh back of them was the unexpected answer. Seated directly
behind them were the two boys about whom they had been talking. Rising,
they skipped around and took the seat facing the girls.
“Well, where did you come from?” Dories began, then noticed that Gib wore
his one best suit and that he was carrying a funny old hand satchel. His
freckled face was shining from more than a recent hard scrubbing. Nann
interpreted that jubilant expression. “Gibralter Strait,” she exclaimed,
“you’re going away to school, aren’t you?” Then impulsively she held out
her hand. “You don’t know how glad I am. I have great faith in you. I
know you will amount to something.”
As the country lad was squirming in very evident embarrassment, his
friend drew the attention of the girls to himself by saying: “I suppose,
Mistress Nann, that you don’t expect _me_ to amount to anything.” The
good-looking boy tried so hard to assume an abused expression that the
girls laughingly assured him that they had some slight hope of his
ultimate success in life.
Dories glanced across at the seat where her aunt was sitting and,
excusing herself, she went over and sat with the elderly woman, although
Nann could see that they talked but little, her heart warmed toward her
friend, who was growing daily more thoughtful of others. After a time
Miss Moore said: “Dories, dear, I think I’ll try to take a little nap.
You would better go back to your friends. I am sure that they are missing
you.”
Then as the old lady did close her eyes and seem to sleep, the four young
people talked over the past three weeks in quiet voices and made plans
for the future. “I hope we will be friends forever,” Dories exclaimed,
and Nann added, “Perhaps, when we have made the acquaintance of Mr.
Ovieda’s sister, we can form a sort of friendship club with six members.
We could meet now and then, and have merry times.” Dories’ doleful
expression at this happy suggestion caused Nann to add, as she placed a
hand on her friend’s arm, “I know what you are thinking, dear. That all
the rest of us will be in Boston, but that you will be in Elmwood. But
surely you will come to visit your Aunt Jane often during vacations.”
Before Dories could reply the boys informed them that they were entering
the city. Dories, who had traveled little, was eager to stand on the
platform at the back of the car that she might have a better view, and
later when the young people returned to the coach it was time to collect
their baggage and prepare to descend. First of all, Dick and Gib assisted
Miss Moore to the platform and then carried out her bags. Then they
hailed a taxi driver at her request. Then Miss Moore surprised the girls
by saying hospitably: “Come over and see us tomorrow, Dick and Gibralter.
You know where I live.” She actually smiled at the older boy. “Dories
will be with me for a few days, I suppose, and Nann as well.” Then, when
the older girl started to speak, the old woman said firmly, “You accepted
an invitation to be my guest for one month, and only three weeks of that
month have passed.” This being true, Nann did not protest.
Dories squeezed her friend’s arm ecstatically. She had dreaded the moment
when Nann would leave for the hotel where her father stayed. Gib lifted
his cap as he saw Dick doing when the taxi drove away.
Then the old woman addressed the girls. “They’re fine boys, both of
them!” she said. “That’s why I was willing you should go anywhere with
them that you wished. I knew they would take as good care of you as they
would of their sisters.”
Dusk came early that autumn afternoon, and so, try as she might, Dories
could see little of the neighborhoods through which the taxi was taking
them. It was a long ride. At first it was through a business district
where many lights flashed on, and where their progress was very slow
because of the traffic. Then the noise gradually lessened, big elm trees
could be seen lining the streets, and far back among other trees and on
wide lawns, lights from large homes flickered. At last the taxi turned in
between two high stone gate posts. Miss Moore was sitting ram-rod
straight and the girls, watching, found it hard to interpret her
expression. Dories asked: “Aunt Jane, have we reached your home?”
They were surprised at the bitterness of the tone in which the reply was
given: “Home? No! We have reached my house. A place where there is only a
housekeeper and a maid to welcome you is _not_ a home.”
Dories slipped a hand in her aunt’s and held it close. She wanted to say
something comforting, but could think of nothing. The taxi had stopped
under the portico by the front steps, and, when she had been helped out,
Miss Moore paid the driver. Then they went upon the wide stone porch,
followed by the man, laden with their baggage. “I can’t understand why
there isn’t a light in the house. The maids knew I was to return almost
any day.” Miss Moore rang the bell as she spoke.
Suddenly lights within were flashed on. The heavy oak door was thrown
open and a small boy leaped out and hurled himself at one of the girls.
“Dori! Hello, Dori!” he cried jubilantly. “Here’s Mother and me waiting
to surprise you all.” And truly enough, there back of him was Mrs. Moore,
smiling and holding out her hand to the old woman, who stood as one
dazed. Then, comprehending what it all meant, she went in, tears falling
unheeded down her wrinkled cheeks. She took the outstretched hand as she
said tremulously, “My Peter’s wife is here to welcome me _home_.” She was
so deeply affected that Mrs. Moore, after stooping to quietly kiss her
daughter, led the old woman into a formally furnished parlor and sat with
her on a handsome old lounge. Then to the small boy in the doorway she
said, “Little Peter, show Dori and Nann up to their room.”
What those two women had to say to each other, no one ever knew, but that
it drew them very close together was evident by the loving expression in
the grey eyes of the older woman when she looked at the younger.
Meanwhile the two girls, led by the small boy, entered a large upper room
which seemed to overlook a garden. Like the rooms below, it was formally
furnished after the style of an earlier period, but it seemed very grand
indeed to Dories.
Her eyes were star-like with wonderment. “Nann,” she half whispered in an
awed voice when Peter had gleefully displayed the wardrobe where the
girls were to hang their dresses and had opened each empty bureau drawer
that they were to use, “do you suppose that Mother, Peter and I are to
live here forever?”
“I’m sure of it!” Nann replied. “And O, Dori, isn’t it wonderful?”
Just then a bell in some room below tinkled musically. “That’s the supper
bell,” the small boy told them. “Hilda’s the cook, and O, Dori, such nice
puddings as she can make. Yum! Jum!” Then he cried excitedly: “Quick!
Take off your hats. Here’s the bathroom that belongs to you. Honestly,
Dori, you have one all to yourself, and Mother and I, we have one.”
The girls smiled at the little fellow’s enthusiasm. Dories felt as though
she must be dreaming. It all seemed so unreal.
A few moments later they went downstairs and found that Miss Moore, whose
room was on the first floor, had changed to a house dress. She was seated
in a comfortable chair by the fireplace, on which a log was burning, and
she looked content, at peace with the world. She was saying to her
nephew’s wife: “I do love Dories; she is a dear girl, but I will confess
that I was disappointed because she does not look like the lad I had so
loved.”
Hearing a sound at the door, the old woman turned, and for the first time
really beheld the small boy who appeared in front of the girls.
“Peter!” was her amazed exclamation; the light of a great joy in her
eyes. Then she pointed to a life-size painting over the mantle in which
was a pictured boy of about the same age. “They are so alike,” she said,
with tears in her eyes, as she looked up at Mrs. Moore, who, having
risen, was standing by the older woman’s chair. Dories, gazing up at the
picture, thought that it might have been a painting of her small brother
except for the old-fashioned costume.
The elderly woman was holding out her arms to the little fellow, and,
unafraid, he went to her trustingly. “My cup of joy is now full!” she
said, her voice tremulous with emotion. Then, smiling over the boy’s head
at his mother, she asked: “Niece, shall we tell our plan to the girls
that _their_ cup of joy may also be full?”
Mrs. Moore nodded and the old woman continued: “Nann, your father has
written to Dories’ mother for advice. It seems that a change in his
business will take him traveling about the country for at least a year,
and he wanted to know what she thought would be best for you. He was
thinking of sending you to some distant relatives, but we, my Peter’s
wife and I, have decided to keep you as a sister-companion for our Dori.”
Then, before the girls could express their joy, the old woman concluded,
as she held little Peter close: “And so, at last, after many years of
desolate loneliness, this old house among the elms is to be a real
_home_.”
THE END.
_SAVE THE WRAPPER!_
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Transcriber’s Notes
--Rearranged front matter to a more-logical streaming order and added a
Table of Contents.
--Preserved the copyright notice from the printed edition, although this
book is in the public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected a few typos (but left nonstandard spelling and
dialect unchanged).
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