TheArgowas scudding along in a good breeze to Barmouth. Ben was carving a small piece of wood into what he fancied was a resemblance to a mermaid. David, his hands clasped behind his head, lounged in a comfortable corner. Tuckerman was at the tiller, and Tom surveyed his pupil through approving eyes.
“Professor, I think we’re ready to give you your diploma,” Tom said, as he noticed the easy manner in which Tuckerman handled the sailboat. “You’re an able seaman. I’ll give you an honor mark as a navigator.”
“And I’ll pass you as a first-rate cook,” said David, turning and nodding his head. “You fried those eggs this morning just as well as I could have, and praise can’t be higher than that.”
“You coax the fish right out of the sea,” said Ben, looking up from his carving. “There was a time when I didn’t believe you’d ever learn to bait a hook so the fish couldn’t nibble it off; but you can do it now. I’ll graduate you as a competent fisherman.”
“And my swimming?” asked Tuckerman, his eye on the water curling over the bow.
“Well, as to that,” said David, “you’re not exactly a merman, but you can paddle along at a decent pace. Yes, we’ll call you a swimmer. I should say you were a pretty good all-around fellow now, Professor.”
Tuckerman looked pleased. Praise from these three boys was very satisfying. And he knew that what they said was not mere idle banter. He had learned a great deal since he had been camping with them.
“Thanks,” he said. “To be able to sail a boat, to cook, to fish, to swim—why, that’s more than I ever expected to learn when I came here from the west. I tell you what! It was a great thing for me when I decided to take a look at my Uncle Christopher’s island.”
“And what are you going to do with it now that you’ve seen it?” asked Tom.
“I don’t know. I’ve got to go back to my home. I don’t suppose anyone would want to live way out in the harbor nowadays. There’s not enough to do there. But I hate to take all those fine old furnishings out of the house. They belong there, and they don’t belong anywhere else.”
“There’s an old house out on the Boston road,” said Ben, “that the owner keeps up as a sort of a museum. He has all the old furniture that was used in colonial days. There’s a great deal of travel on that road in summer, and he charges a quarter for every person that goes over the house. There’s a care-taker, of course. I think she serves tea for a quarter extra.”
“That’s an idea,” said Tuckerman. “Only my house isn’t on a main road. It’s a rather hard place to reach.”
“All the better,” put in Tom. “People like excursions. We could put up signs in Barmouth and all along the road. ‘Be sure to take the boat to famous Cotterell Hall on Cotterell’s Island and hunt for the treasure!’ That would get them all right. You could charge as much as you like.”
“And Tom could run a ferry, and Ben be the care-taker and serve ginger-ale at a dollar a glass,” suggested David.
“And you could cork your face and be the famous mahogany man from the Barbadoes,” retorted Ben. “He’s a wonder in a minstrel show, Professor.”
“It sounds good,” Tuckerman agreed. “It’s certainly up-to-date. But somehow I don’t feel that it’s quite dignified enough for Cotterell Hall.”
“You can make it dignified enough,” said Tom, “by charging enormous prices.”
Tuckerman laughed. “You’re right. You fellows are Yankees sure enough. You make me feel like a greenhorn.”
“And think of the business it would bring to Barmouth,” said Ben, putting the attempt at a mermaid into his pocket and sitting up straight. “People who went to the island would probably have to spend the night at the hotel. Why, you ought to be able to make a deal with the proprietor to share his profits.”
“Ben’s started now,” exclaimed David. “Stop him somebody quick, or he’ll be spending the money we’re making from the concern.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Ben proceeded, as usual paying no attention to David’s jibe. “It’ll put Barmouth on the map. ‘Cotterell Hall, the most famous treasure house on the Atlantic Coast!’”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word ‘treasure,’” Tom protested. “It has a hoodoo sound.”
“And speaking of putting things on the map,” said Tuckerman, “here’s the wharf ahead. Don’t get me all excited while I bring her up to the dock.”
TheArgomade a perfect landing. “Good enough,” said Tom. “That couldn’t have been done better. Professor, you’re a dandy.”
They went up the main street and turned off to the elm-shaded lane where the Halletts lived. They were going to call on Milly Hallett.
Milly was at home. She was, in fact, enjoying an afternoon nap in the Nantucket hammock on the side porch when Tom spied her from the lane.
The sound of footsteps woke her, and seeing who was coming in at the gate she swung her feet down from the hammock, smoothed her rumpled skirt, and patted her fluffy hair. And because she still felt a trifle piqued that Tom was having all the fun of camping on Cotterell’s Island, she decided on the spur of the moment to be a little standoffish with the callers.
“Hello, Milly,” said her brother, in the offhand way brothers have, “we thought we’d come over to see how you were getting along.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Tuckerman,” said Milly, standing up and giving that gentleman the tips of her fingers. “I hope the boys are looking after you all right on your island.”
“I can’t complain,” smiled Tuckerman. “We do as well as we can, without any ladies to help us.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Milly invited politely.
Tuckerman took a chair, and the three boys, impressed in spite of themselves by Milly’s society manner, perched on the rail of the porch.
“We were wondering,” said Tuckerman, “whether we could induce you to come out to supper on the island. We hoped the simplicity of the meal would be atoned for by the beauty of the scenery. I can promise you a fine sunset.”
“Thank you for the invitation.” Milly swung gently back and forth. “Let me see—what did I have on hand for this evening?”
“Oh, chuck it, Milly!” said Tom. “Of course you want to come along.”
“I remember now,” said Milly suavely. “I have a date with my friend Sarah Hooper. There’s a new movie in town.”
“Well, of course,” said Tuckerman in a regretful tone, “we can’t compete with a new moving-picture show.”
Milly smiled. “The boys are still giving you plenty of good food, are they? And keeping you amused?”
David moved impatiently on his perch. “The Professor never got better food anywhere. He says so himself.”
“I thought perhaps the menu might get a little tiresome,” Milly suggested sweetly. “Boys are so apt to stick to one or two of the same things when they have to cook for themselves.”
“We don’t,” grunted David.
“She knows we don’t,” said Tom. “I say, Milly, what’s your game?”
“Game?” Milly wrinkled her pretty nose. “I don’t know what you mean!” She glanced again at Tuckerman. “Boys are funny creatures, aren’t they?”
The boys came down from the rail with one accord. Indignant replies were on the tongues of each; but Milly pointed beyond them at the lane. “Here comes Sarah Hooper now,” she said. “It’s just possible I can get her to change our date.”
Up the path came the black-eyed girl, a yellow sweater on her arm. “Hello, everybody!” she sang out, as she reached the porch. “What is it? An experience meeting?”
“They want me to go to supper with them on Mr. Tuckerman’s island,” said Milly. “I told them I had a date with you.”
“Perhaps Miss Sarah Hooper will join the party,” Tuckerman added promptly. “We’d like her to.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Sarah. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t.”
“Milly said,” put in Tom, “that you and she were going to a new movie.”
A glance passed from Sarah to Milly, and Sarah nodded her head. “That’s so,” she agreed. “I do remember we were.”
“However,” said Milly, “if Sally would really like to accept your invitation, we can go to the movies some other time.”
There was a pause, for Sarah was not sure what her friend wanted her to say; and then Ben broke the silence by pounding the porch-rail with his fist. “By jiminy, girls are funny creatures, aren’t they? They’re crazy to come, but they don’t want to admit it.”
“Oh!” began Milly. But Tuckerman interposed.
“The funnier people are, the pleasanter it is to be with them. We do need the company of ladies on our island. We’ve only been seeing each other, and sandpipers and gulls. It would be doing us a great favor if these two ladies would come and freshen us up.”
“Well,” said Sarah, charmed by this gallant speech, “I’d be glad to come. It’ll be a perfect evening.”
Milly got up from the hammock. “I’ll contribute a box of fudge.”
“That’s all that’s needed to make it complete,” said Tuckerman.
The girls went indoors, Milly to tell her mother about the party, and Sarah to telephone to her house.
“Now,” said Tuckerman, on the porch, “we’ve got to give them as good a time as they’d have had at the movies.”
“Milly wanted to come all along,” said Tom. “Why didn’t she say so?”
“I think,” answered Ben, “that she wanted to show us that she was having just as good a time here at home as we were having in camp; and she knew she wasn’t.”
Tuckerman smiled and nodded. “Ben’s hit it on the head. And that’s all the more reason why we should see that they enjoy themselves this evening.”
They all agreed to that line of reasoning, and the first result of it was that they suggested to Milly that she should sail theArgoback to the island. She was very much pleased, and Milly, on her mettle, handled the craft as skillfully as Tom could have done himself.
They landed, and Sarah said that she would like to see the island, since all she had seen of it on her first visit had been Cotterell Hall and the shore about the camp. So the boys and Tuckerman took their guests on a regular tour, through the woods, where the russet-green pine-needles made a clean and fragrant carpet, dappled with patches of sunlight; along the little beaches, curves of yellow sand, where sandpipers played and strutted, or flew in silver bands; up on the ramparts of cliffs, against which the waves rolled in and slipped and slid in white cascades over the low-lying ledges, and so to the southern point, where they watched the sun setting in all its glory, tinting the sky and the sea in wonderful combinations of shifting colors.
Then they went to the camp, where David made a marvelous fish chowder of cunners and cod that Ben had caught that morning. And for dessert they had apple fritters and Milly’s home-made fudge.
When it was time to take their guests back to Barmouth, Tom suggested that they sail around the island. As they cruised up the ocean side they saw a sail to the east. And after watching the distant boat intently for some minutes David exclaimed, “I think that’s the fishing-smack that took me from the cove to Gosport!”
Tom shifted the tiller, and theArgotook a course toward the larger boat. As they sailed, David, in answer to Milly’s questions, told of his adventure with the crew of the smack.
To the northeast lay a small island, and the larger boat sailed around its southern point. TheArgokept up its chase, and presently came on the fishing-smack at anchor off a half-moon beach.
The big boat stood silhouetted against the violet sky of the summer night. It was too dark to distinguish figures on her deck. Apparently she had come to anchor there for the night.
“How about it, Dave?” asked Ben. “Is that the craft that kidnapped you?”
“Looks like her picture,” was the answer.
“Want to hail your good friend Sam?” inquired Tom.
“No, I don’t,” said David. “He might throw something out here that the girls wouldn’t like.”
“Oh, don’t mind us,” exclaimed Milly and Sarah in chorus.
“I don’t know what the smack—if it is Dave’s boat—is doing around here,” said Tuckerman. “There can’t be much to steal from that island.”
For a time theArgobobbed about, but there came no hail from the boat, no light appeared, she might have been a ship without a crew.
“Let sleeping hornets lie,” Tuckerman advised. And at the suggestion Tom sheered away. TheArgosailed up the shore of the island and pointed her bow toward the twinkling lights of the town.
They were all enjoying the breeze, the star-sprinkled sky, the soft swish of the water against the side of the boat when Ben, from a brown study, spoke. “If the men on that smack are the thieves who broke into Mr. Fitzhugh’s house, might they be hunting around here for the Cotterell treasure?”
“Well, I wish them luck at finding it,” said David.
“Thieves who broke into Mr. Fitzhugh’s house!” cried Milly. “Oh, do tell us about that!”
Then the whole story came out, and when she had heard it all Milly said positively, “I think Ben’s right. They’re planning to steal something from your island.”
“Hope they don’t take our cooking outfit,” said Tom.
“Or any of my fine old colonial furniture,” added Tuckerman.
“Oh, no,” scoffed David. “It’s the treasure they’re after.”
“Don’t you want to take our watch-dog back with you?” said Sarah. “He’s fine at biting tramps.”
There was a laugh from the crowd. And they were still talking of ways of protecting the island from prowlers when the sailboat ran up to the wharf.
The campers escorted the girls to their homes and then went back to the harbor.
On the waterfront they encountered a man—he had been a sea-captain in his day—smoking a pipe and regarding the lights of the harbor. He knew the boys. “Hello, Tom,” he said, “I hear you’re out on the island, hunting for Sir Peter’s treasure.”
“Well, we’re camping on the island,” Tom admitted.
“Haven’t found the treasure yet, have you?” The mariner chuckled. “There’s treasure hid all along the coast, if you believe the stories. I was brought up on yarns about treasures, Captain Kidd’s and others. And I’ve hunted for ’em, too. But I never laid my hands on none. Howsomever, I always thought there might be something to the story about Sir Peter. But it’s one thing to think there’s a treasure, and another to lay hands on it.”
“Where would you look?” asked Ben.
The mariner reflected. “Well, if I was hiding a treasure I’d put it where I could get it if I wanted it in a hurry. Seems to me I’d pick out a place in the chimney-breast. I’ve heard of folks hiding things in places like that.”
“Seems to me we’ve got to pull the house down,” said David. “And then like as not we wouldn’t find it.”
“Might be so,” the mariner agreed. “It don’t pay to take too much trouble hunting for things like that. But some people just have to.”
The four embarked in theArgo. “Ben’s one of the people that just have to,” said David. “I guess he’ll pull the house down.”
“I hadn’t thought of the chimney-breast,” said Ben. “We’d better look there to-morrow.”
“Go to it, Tige,” laughed David. “We’ll get out the pick-ax and crow-bar.”
Next morning the four campers, following the suggestion made by the sea-captain on the Barmouth wharf, resumed their search for the Cotterell treasure. David treated the whole matter as a joke; he thought that either the story about Sir Peter having hidden his silver plate was a legend without any foundation in fact, or that one of the family had found the treasure and disposed of it. Tom leaned to the same opinion, although he did not say so as openly as did David, perhaps because he saw that both John Tuckerman and Ben thought the treasure was yet to be found. Ben was still as positive as ever, and argued that if Sir Peter’s plate had ever been discovered that fact would certainly have been mentioned in Crusty Christopher’s notebooks.
They examined the chimney-breast in the kitchen and dining-room, looking for any possible hiding-place. They went all over the house again, looking for any secret door or panel that they might have missed before. They tapped the walls and they measured them; but nowhere could they figure out such a place as they were hunting. Finally Tuckerman said, “I don’t see how we can search anywhere else, unless we do as Dave suggested—pull the house down—and I don’t want to do that.”
“The house is worth more than the treasure,” said Tom.
“That’s so,” Tuckerman agreed. He frowned and bit his lip. “I don’t like to be stumped, that’s the long and short of it. I don’t like to admit that I can’t work out the puzzle.”
“Puzzles never bother me,” said David. “I think they’re stupid things. I never want to know the answer to any of the problems in the algebra books. What good does it do you to know them? Of course some people get so hipped over knowing the answers they can’t eat till they find them out—whether a dog or a rabbit will reach a given point first, things like that, or about men rowing a boat against the tide; but they don’t get me the least little bit excited. Leave them to Benjie, I say.”
And that was what they did. They left Ben up in the attic, the last room they had searched. Attics fascinated Ben. In a way they were like puzzles; there were so many odds and ends that needed putting together. He walked idly about, looking at chairs and tables that had lost some of their legs, at statuettes that were broken and disfigured, until he came to the window that opened to the east. There he stopped in a brown study.
A distant sail caught his eye. It reminded him of something. Oh, yes, from the window he could see the line of the little island where they had found the fishing-smack at anchor the night before. He couldn’t tell if this sail belonged to the smack; it was too far away; but the sight of it started a train of thought he had been working over that morning.
He went downstairs and was glad to find that the others had left the house. In the living-room he took the two pieces of parchment from the drawer of the secretary and carefully copied the writing on them on a large sheet of paper. This he laid on the lid of the desk and put an inkstand on the paper. Then he returned the pieces of parchment to the drawer.
Satisfied with this, he went outdoors and crossed the island to the beach where he had found the chest. He sat on a log, and waited patiently. Presently he saw a sail, to the east; and this time he felt fairly sure that it was the same fishing-smack that they had chased the previous night.
He jumped up and began to burrow in the crevice between the rocks. He did not attempt to pull the chest out; it was too heavy for him to do that unaided; but he kicked his heels and pushed himself in. And after a while he pushed himself out again and stood up. Looking at the smack, he decided that she was near enough for anyone on her deck to have witnessed his strange performance.
The next step in his plan came when the dishes had been washed after dinner. He proposed that they should sail over to the little island and see if the smack was still in the neighborhood.
“After the thieves, are you?” asked David. “Now see here, my lad, if we should find them, what then? Are you going to step aboard and tell them they’re arrested?”
“Dave’s had enough of his friend Sam,” said Tom. “He thinks if Sam meets him again he’ll get a belaying-pin on the back of his head.”
“Benjie wants to argue with them,” said David. “I’ll admit I’d like to get square with the rascal, but I don’t see how we can do it that way.”
“If Dave’s sure it’s the same boat,” suggested Tom, “we might notify the police at Barmouth.”
“Well,” said Ben, “the only way to make sure that Dave’s right is to sail around and look at her in daylight.”
“That sounds sensible,” Tuckerman agreed. “We needn’t get into any kind of a scrap with them.”
So theArgoset sail and cruised eastward; but although she rounded the other island several times that afternoon her crew caught no sight of the bark they were looking for.
When they got back to their own island they found Lanky Larry and Bill Crawford fishing from the pier. The canoe in which they had paddled over from Camp Amoussock floated at the landing-stage.
“If you’re after cunners,” said Ben, “you ought to try the rocks on the ocean side; if it’s flounders you’re trying to tempt you won’t find them near the pier.”
“We didn’t really come over here to fish,” responded Bill, “but we always carry a couple of lines in the canoe; that is, when it doesn’t upset. We came over to invite you four fellows to the water sports to-morrow morning. We’ve got a fine program, and you can enter any of the events when you get there.”
“I guess the Professor will want to enter the tub-race,” said Tom with a grin.
“Maybe I will,” agreed Tuckerman. “Well, mates, how about it? The invitation sounds very good to me.”
Tom and David both nodded and said they would like to go. “You’d better count me out of it,” said Ben. “I’ve got a date for to-morrow.”
“Date?” inquired Tom. “What sort of a date? With a lady or a man?”
“A date with myself.” Ben looked a trifle embarrassed. “I’ve got something on hand I meant to do in the morning.”
“Shucks!” exclaimed David. “All right, Bill, we’ll be over right after breakfast. And we’ll bring Benjie along. You might enter him in the fancy diving contest.”
Bill and Lanky pulled in their fishing-lines and embarked in their canoe. The campers started to get supper. But Ben, making an excuse that he thought he must have mislaid his pocket-knife in the house, hurried through the woods to the beach at the northern end. So far as he could see no one had been there since he had left in the morning; the chest was still in the crevice between the rocks.
That evening Ben prowled about the island. He went to Cotterell Hall, he went to the beach at the north again, he kept a watchful eye for sails in any quarter. When he came back to camp the other three had turned in. And being very sleepy, he followed their example.
He was up at dawn next morning, and again made his rounds. The paper he had placed on the lid of the secretary was apparently untouched, the chest was still in the crevice. Breakfast was waiting when he returned. “Now, Benjie,” said David, “get busy with the bacon. We’re going over to Camp Amoussock, and we want you to show those fellows your famous flip-flap.”
“You go along without me,” Ben urged.
“No, sir,” said David. “This is a sporting proposition, and it’s up to every man to do his bit.”
So Ben went along with the others.
All of Camp Amoussock was in bathing-suits, and the four guests were shortly attired likewise. Then began all sorts of water sports. Tom and David and Ben went in for most of the swimming races and the diving contests. Tom took second place in the fifty-yard race, and Ben won the competition for fancy diving. When they came to the tub-race John Tuckerman entered his name.
Amid shouts and cat-calls a dozen tubs set out from the float. The race was to be around a buoy and back to the starting-place. Tuckerman paddled easily, keeping his tub out of the course most of the others were taking. Two tubs jostled, and two boys were upset into the water. Bill Crawford rounded the buoy first, then a small, red-headed boy who sat very still, barely patting the water with careful finger-tips.
“Here comes the Professor!” cried Tom from the beach. “Keep it up, keep it up, Professor! You’re doing wonders!”
Tuckerman reached the buoy. He had found it fairly easy to keep a straight course, but now he had to steer to the left. To do this he tried to give a sidewise sweep with his foot. The tub rocked, rolled. He attempted to counter-balance; and then he was in the water, splashing about and trying to get hold of the tub.
He flopped up on one side, only to slip over on the other. The tub might have been greased, so difficult was it to make the round thing stay in one position for more than a minute. At last he gave up trying to make it behave, and swam, pushing it before him, until he could touch bottom with his feet.
“Never mind, Professor,” said David, as the bedraggled Tuckerman walked up on the beach. “Many a man has found a tub-race his Waterloo.”
There were cheers from the float, and all turned to look. Bill Crawford and the red-headed boy were now neck and neck. Someone shouted, “Now’s your time to spurt, Bill!”
Bill spurted. His tub lost its balance; Bill somersaulted backward into the water. The red-headed boy just managed to avoid Bill’s splashing and paddled along more cautiously than ever, hardly touching the water now, just directing his course with his fingers and toes.
Up to the float he came. He grasped the edge, and a moment later the boy and the tub were on the float, and the race was won.
“The Tortoise wins!” cried Lanky. “Good old Tortoise! He may be slow, but he gets there away ahead of the Hare.”
Then came dinner, and then theArgoset sail again. “Now, Benjie,” said David, “you can keep that date you were telling us about. My word, but you look impatient.”
Ben was impatient. He sat in the bow, keeping a lookout for a certain sail.
There were no boats to be seen, however, nearer than a three-masted schooner that moved like a pasteboard ship along the rim of the horizon. TheArgoappeared to have that part of the off-shore ocean entirely to herself, and except for the swish of the water against her side there was no noise to break the quiet of the summer afternoon.
The island stood out in its shades of green against the brilliant blue sky. The house was a patch of white as the sailboat drew up to the pier. The landing made, the four campers went ashore. Ben started up the path toward the house, and the others, as people are apt to do when someone leads the way, followed without any definite object in mind.
Ben had almost reached the front steps when the door of Cotterell Hall opened. He stopped in surprise; and so did the other three.
A man in colonial costume, buff-colored coat and breeches, with a three-cornered hat in his hand, stepped out at the front door.
The man made a bow and held out his hat in a gesture of welcome. “I give you a good-day, gentlemen,” he said. “What fortunate chance brings you to Peter Cotterell’s door?”
Tuckerman took it on himself to answer. Returning the bow, he said, “The good shipArgohas brought four adventurers to your island, worthy sir. We trust we do not trespass.”
The gentleman in buff stood with his hat at his hip. “You’re not from the town of Barmouth?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” said Tuckerman, and added, “Your island looked so inviting that we made bold to come ashore.”
“I’m glad you’re not from Barmouth,” said the gentleman. “I have no stomach for those folks, rebels against His Britannic Majesty’s lawful government. To visitors such as you my island and my house are always open. Will you come in and refresh yourselves?”
“You are very good, Sir Peter,” said Tuckerman, with a smile.
“Why do you call me ‘Sir Peter’?”
“I understood that was your title.”
The gentleman frowned. “I believe that some of the rebels call me that, because of my loyalty to the King of England. However, it is an honorable title. I have no objection. Yes,” he added, “you may call me Sir Peter. I like the sound.”
“Well then, Sir Peter,” said Tuckerman, “I think we’ll accept your invitation with the greatest pleasure.”
The gentleman on the step stood aside, and the four marched into the house. Sir Peter indicated a room on the left. They went into the large drawing-room, and Ben, casting a hasty glance at the secretary, saw that the paper he had placed on the lid was still there.
“Be seated,” said Sir Peter. He stood for a moment near the portrait on the wall, and the campers saw how much his face and figure and the cut of his clothes resembled those of the man in the picture. He caught their eyes comparing him with the portrait. “Yes, my picture,” he said. “It’s considered a rather fair likeness.” And he added deprecatingly, “Of course no one can ever judge a likeness of himself.”
He pulled a bell-rope that hung by the big fireplace. “I can offer you a glass of negus,” he continued. “Something unusual, that I get from the Barbadoes.”
A moment later a dark-skinned servant—mahogany-hued in fact—came into the room and received his master’s orders.
“Will any of you take snuff?” asked Sir Peter, when the servant had withdrawn. He produced a small silver snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket.
He passed the snuff-box, but each of his guests declined. Ben, looking up with a grin, asked, “Does your servant come from the Barbadoes, Sir Peter?”
“Why yes, he does.” Sir Peter helped himself to a pinch of snuff, then dusted his coat with a fine cambric handkerchief. “An excellent servant, too. Indeed, I am much pleased with all my service, from my steward James Sampson down.”
“James Sampson!” exclaimed Ben, his eyes dancing. “Where have I heard that name before?”
At this point the servant reappeared, bearing a lacquered tray on which were five glasses and a decanter. He set the tray on a table, and as Sir Peter filled the glasses the servant handed them to the guests.
The refreshment was delicious. None of the boys had ever tasted anything like it before, but all of them declared it fine. Sir Peter poured a second glass all round, and then, when the servant had left again, the gentleman in buff seated himself in an arm-chair, swung one leg over the other, and beamed at his new friends. “As you say, the negus is excellent,” he observed, “but several glasses will, to use a somewhat common expression, begin to make one see things.”
“We’re seeing things already,” put in David.
Sir Peter disregarded this remark. He twisted his glass in his fingers. “As it happens, I’m particularly glad that you arrived here to-day,” he continued. “I have a number of guests here. I am giving an entertainment this evening. The guests are at present on the upper floors.”
There was a light tap of heels in the hall. Sir Peter looked toward the door. “Here comes one of them—a lady.” He stood up, and the campers did likewise. “Ah, it’s Mistress Penelope Boothby,” Sir Peter declared with a bow.
A young woman stood in the doorway, a very lovely young woman in a flowered silk gown. She courtsied down to the floor, then with a light laugh exclaimed, “Oh la, Peter Cotterell, whom have you here? What odd costumes the gentlemen wear!”
The gentleman in buff coat and breeches turned from the young woman in the doorway to the four campers, who as they glanced at their own rough outing clothes did look like a line of embarrassed schoolboys standing in front of a teacher.
“Now that you mention it, Penelope,” said Peter Cotterell, “I do note a difference between the garments of these lads and this gentleman and those we are accustomed to seeing worn by our neighbors. I understand, however, that they come from a distance, and one would hardly expect costumes to be the same in all the colonies. It occurs to me that possibly my new guests might like to make fresh toilets in one of the rooms abovestairs. I have a large wardrobe, gentlemen, and it is yours to choose from.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Tom. “I wonder if you have anything big enough to fit my friend David Norton?”
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” said Tuckerman. “I’m sure I could pick out something much better looking than these togs.”
The young woman stepped into the room. Her blue eyes were very merry as she looked at the awkward row. “I think an apricot coat would suit this one,” she said, nodding at Ben. “Something in puce this one,” she indicated Tom. “Lavender for him,” she waved at Tuckerman. “And for the fourth—let me see—” She squinted her eyes and tilted her head on one side.
“A beautiful green,” Ben suggested. “The color of seaweed in water.”
Miss Boothby laughed, and David flushed a magnificent scarlet.
“He certainly oughtn’t to wear a red coat,” said Peter Cotterell. “He’d be too much all of one color.”
“I like these things I’ve got on,” said David. “They mayn’t be very good-looking, but they suit me first rate.”
“Oh, I like them, too,” agreed Miss Boothby, and her quick smile made David flush again, this time at the stubbornness of his tone.
“If you care to look at my wardrobe—” Cotterell resumed. “Ah, here is James Sampson now.”
At the door appeared a man in chocolate-colored coat and breeches, his brown hair tied in a queue.
“My steward,” stated Cotterell.
“So you’re Sampson, are you?” asked Ben. “I’ve heard of you, and I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I think I’ve seen some of your handwriting.”
“He writes a legible hand,” said Cotterell. “He keeps some of my accounts. Sampson, please show my guests to the rooms upstairs. They desire to change their attire.”
Miss Boothby touched David’s arm. “For my sake wear a suit of green,” she whispered.
David blushed. “Oh, very well,” he said awkwardly. “But I guess I’ll look like a frog.”
They followed Sampson into the hall and up the stairs. As they passed open doors they saw a number of people in gay, colonial clothes. All through the house there was the hum of voices.
Sampson conducted them into the attic, where many suits and dresses hung on pegs along the walls.
“Here is the wardrobe,” he said. “I think you will find everything you may need. And yonder is a mirror.” With a bow he withdrew.
“Well,” exclaimed David, when the servant was out of earshot, “what do you make of all this?”
“Sir Peter is certainly much more amiable than I’d been led to suppose,” mused Tuckerman. “There’s nothing of the hermit about him.”
“He’s a bird!” chuckled Tom. “I’ll bet he gives us a mighty fine supper.”
“I don’t blame him a bit for wanting to keep those roughnecks over in Barmouth from melting up his silver,” Ben asserted.
“See here, you fellows,” broke in David, “I want to know what’s the game.”
“Game?” echoed Ben.
“Game?” said Tom. “What do you mean?”
“Game?” repeated Tuckerman, and his tone was a trifle indignant. “I don’t call it a game when a gentleman like Sir Peter Cotterell invites us to his party.”
David sat down on a sofa. “All right, all right. I’m the goat, as usual. Fetch me a green coat and trousers.”
“I daresay Miss Boothby will dance with you,” Tom cheered him.
“Youmay like this sort of thing,” said David, “but it’s not in my line.”
Ben threw a coat at him. “Take that. Hello, here’s a shelf full of wigs. Want to try a white one, Dave?”
For the next five minutes they looked about the room, at the coats and the breeches and waistcoats, at the wigs and the other articles that made up Sir Peter’s wardrobe.
Then they began to try on the costumes, seeking for the proper sizes. Ben could find nothing that suited him exactly. And while they were trying on different coats, there came a sound of singing from downstairs.
Ben, holding a coat in each hand, went into the hall and leaned over the banisters. Men and women were singing a quaint, old-fashioned song in the dining-room. The tune was fascinating, at times it sounded like a jig, at times there were different parts for the different voices. Ben listened, nodding his head in rhythm with the music. “You ought to hear this,” he called over his shoulder to the three in the attic. “It’s a regular musical show.”
The others came out into the hall. Tuckerman beat time on the banister with a powdered wig he had been trying to squeeze on his head. Tom, putting his hands on David’s shoulders, began to dance to the tune.
With a grin, Ben turned and went back to the attic. “I’ll beat them to it,” he muttered, and flinging down the two coats he was holding he took a yellow satin coat, embroidered with silver lace, from a peg on the wall.
This coat was a fine sample of the tailor’s art. But Ben, having taken it down, stared at the peg from which it had hung, and at the wall behind it.
He gave an exclamation, a low whistle of surprise. He knocked on the wall with his knuckles. He glanced through the open door, and saw that the others were still occupied with the singing. He backed away from the wall, still keeping his eyes on it. And then he stumbled over a footstool and sat down with a bump on the floor.
He got up and laid the embroidered coat on a chair by the window. He looked outdoors. And then for the second time in five minutes he uttered an exclamation. The fishing-smack was standing close inshore on the eastern side of the island. He could see her moving slowly to the north, her canvas plainly visible above the tops of the trees.
“Gee whillikins!” muttered Ben. “I’ll bet my scheme worked!”
Another minute and he was out in the hall. The singing downstairs had stopped and there was a clapping of hands.
“Come here!” ordered Ben.
The other three followed him into the attic, to the window opening to the east.
“Is that your fishing-smack, Dave?” Ben demanded.
David looked. “By Jove, I believe it is!”
“Do you want to know where she’s going?” was Ben’s next question.
“Shoot,” said Tom.
“She’s going to the beach where I found the chest in the hiding-place in the rocks. Her crew are after that chest, I’ll bet you a fiver!”
The three stared at him in surprise. “What makes you so certain?” asked Tuckerman.
“Because I know. I have reasons for knowing. They’re after that chest. They think it’s the Cotterell treasure, just as I thought it was.”
“You mean they’re going to land on our beach and carry off our chest under our very noses?” demanded Tom.
“They are unless we stop them,” nodded Ben.
“Then,” said David, “I’m going to stop them. Seems to me there was an old musket somewhere around here.”
There was an old musket in the corner of the attic; there were two, in fact; and a fowling-piece and a couple of antique duelling-pistols. The boys and Tuckerman seized on all the firearms, regardless of the rust that came off on their clothes, and hurried into the hall.
Down the stairs they went, making a great noise. And the clatter of their feet was so loud that the gentleman in buff and all his friends ran out from the dining-room to see what was the matter.
“Why, it’s an army coming!” cried Peter Cotterell in great surprise.
The four halted in the front hall.
“What’s the meaning of this!” exclaimed Cotterell. “I invited you to share my wardrobe, not to ransack the house for weapons. Come, will one of you please explain?” Indignation mingled in his tone with surprise.
“There’s a boat off-shore, and her crew is going to land on the beach at the northern point and steal your treasure chest,” said Ben.
“My treasure chest! My silver plate!” Cotterell raised his hand, clenched it into a fist. “Those rascally rebels from Barmouth!”
“I don’t know where they come from,” said Ben. “But we’re going to chase them away.”
“Chase them away?” Cotterell spurned the suggestion. “No, sir. We’ll capture them.”
He looked around at his guests. “Gentlemen, what do you say? Would you like to bag a few robbers?”
There were shouts of approval.
“Not so loud, not so loud,” said Cotterell. He turned to the boys and Tuckerman. “Can you spare us a few of those extra musquetoons, or whatever they are, that you found abovestairs? With those, and the fencing swords in the living-room, and a few other odds and ends, we should do quite nicely. I have a pistol myself. I never go without it in these revolutionary days. Let me see. I left it in the kitchen, in a pot on the shelf, where it would be out of the way.”
The firearms were handed around, and shortly a group of fantastically-garbed people stood in front of the house. The campers and Cotterell and Sampson were to lead the expedition, and some of the ladies insisted on bringing up the rear.
They had not gone far, however, when Sampson suggested a new idea to the others, and after a few minutes’ talk Cotterell’s steward and two of the other men left the main party and turned off in the direction of the creek.
Through the woods went the expedition, a long line of people following Ben, who had a musket almost as long as himself stuck over his shoulder, which necessitated his constantly ducking and dodging to avoid overhanging branches.
When they reached the northern edge of the woods they divided into three bands. One was headed by Ben and David, the second by Tom and Cotterell, and the third by Tuckerman. Each band was to make its way down to the beach in front of the rocks by a different path, but not to come out from the shelter of the bushes in the ravines until its leader was sure that the crew from the fishing-smack had landed and were looking for the chest. The ladies were to stay in the woods. To this Miss Penelope Boothby objected. She said that with the riding-crop she had picked up in the house she could easily defend herself against a dozen pirates. Cotterell said, “I’m sure you could, my dear Penelope. But the bright colors of your gown might give us away. And if we have to crawl through the brambles, what would happen to your light silk dress?”
Ben and David, with two men, threaded their way down a ravine to a network of bushes that fringed the edge of the beach. From here, without being seen themselves, they could see what was going on. The fishing-smack had come to anchor a hundred yards off shore, four men had rowed to the island and were now on the beach. Pointing to one of these men, David whispered in Ben’s ear, “That’s my friend Sam. I’d know his ugly mug anywhere.”
“They’re after the chest,” Ben returned. “Yes, they’ve found the right place. See, one of them’s crawling in, with a rope in his hand.”
Three bands of watchers, at three places along the beach, saw the crew of the smack haul the chest out from the crevice. As soon as they had it out they threw open the top. And as they all bent over, eager to lay hands on the Cotterell treasure, a voice hailed them from a clump of bushes not fifty feet away.
“Throw up your hands!” cried the voice. “Throw them up quick!”
The crew stood up. They saw a man in buff coat and breeches facing them, a pistol in his hand.
“Up with your hands!” cried another voice from a bush on the other side.
The crew hesitated a second. One of them glanced over his shoulder. “They’ve got us cornered!” he muttered, and stuck his hands up over his head.
The three scouting parties marched out on to the beach. The muskets and firearms were leveled at the four men round the chest.
“It’s a regular army!” exclaimed one of the crew. And putting on as much of an air of bravado as he could with his hands above his head, he demanded, “What do you want of us? We’re not stealing anything. We found that chest here.”
“Keep your hands up!” cautioned Cotterell, as he walked forward. “As you say, you’re surrounded by an army. And while your hands are up, I’ll ask some of my friends to see if you have weapons in your pockets.”
The search was quickly made, and each man relieved of a pistol.
“Now,” said Cotterell, “you may ease your muscles. But let me tell you the first one who tries to get away will be knocked down and handcuffed.”
“All right. We’ll go easy,” said the man who was known to David as Sam. “But I don’t know what you’re after. We came ashore and saw this box in that crack in the rocks.”
“It’s my box,” said Cotterell. “I own everything on this island.”
“Well, take it if it’s yours,” growled Sam. “We don’t want it. I thought a box on the beach was public property.”
“You think a good many things are public property,” Cotterell retorted. He looked at Ben and David. “Have either of you seen this man anywhere before?”
“I have,” said David. “He’s the fellow who carried me off in that boat out there.”
“Has anybody here seen any of these other men?” Cotterell asked next.
Tom spoke up. “I’m pretty sure they’re the fellows Lanky Larry and I followed from the cove to the house called the Gables.”
“And what are they suspected of having done at the Gables?” continued Cotterell.
“Of stealing some jewels,” said Tom.
The man in the buff coat nodded. “In other words, they are probably not very desirable citizens to have at large. I think it’s my duty to give them into custody.”
“Oh, come now,” said Sam. “You don’t really know anything about us. There’s your chest. You see we haven’t taken anything from it. We were sailing along the coast and we came ashore to have a look at the island. That’s a reasonable thing to do.”
“You haven’t any right to arrest us!” exclaimed one of the other men. “You haven’t got a warrant. And who’s going to believe what that young fellow said about seeing us somewhere else?”
“Perhaps we can supply the authorities with further proof,” said Cotterell with a smile.
There came a shout from someone on board the fishing-smack, and all those on the beach looked in that direction. A man was waving a handkerchief over the side of the boat.