CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVII

Eversince the adventure of the Round Robin on the mountain Captain Sackett had been uneasy. It is not pleasant to know that there are lawbreakers in your neighborhood. Hunting deer out of season was bad enough. But to think of a careless rifle pointed at any creature in brown—​who might have two legs instead of four! The Captain shuddered, whenever he thought of Beverly’s narrow escape, and of Nelly’s risk. Nobody in Old Harbor would shoot deer out of season; the Captain was sure of that. He was inclined to think it must be some passing stranger who had landed from a boat. Or perhaps it was some shepherd from a neighboring island where sheep were turned out for the summer, with one lonely man to keep them company. The exiles on those farislands who saw no human being for weeks together were apt to get hungry for mischief once in a while.

“We’ll keep an eye open,” said the Captain to Hugh and Victor after one of their troubled parleys. “Don’t let’s scare the little girls about it. Only they mustn’t go alone on the mountain again.”

The young men went warily through the woods and scoured the mountain and shore for traces of the deer-chaser, but to no purpose. Even the deer seemed to have disappeared. As to the cave, Dick sometimes believed the ocean had swallowed it up.

Anne kept her secret about the “haunted hut.” The more she thought about the ominous stranger’s threatening words, the less she felt inclined to risk his revenge. How ugly he had looked! And how wickedly he had hissed that word “Scalawag!” Sometimes Anne wished she had told everything to Tante or the Captain in the first place. But now she was ashamed to confess how much she had been afraid.

One day, about a week after Tante’s party,Reddy came to Anne with an important air. “Come out on the rocks!” he whispered. “I’ve got a secret to tell you. Hurry up with these dishes.” And seizing a clean dish-towel he began to rub the plates at a great rate.

“Goodness, Dick!” cried Anne with a laugh. “You’ll rub holes in the granite ware if you go at it like that.”

“Well, hurry,” said Dick. “I can’t wait. But you must promise not to tell.” Anne promised, and presently they stole away to the rocks. With much mystery Dick went about telling her his secret.

“Well, I’ve discovered something,” he began. “And because you were partly in it already, I thought we ought to have it a secret together.”

Anne was pleased. “What is it all about?” she asked eagerly.

“Well; you still insist that your cave wassouthof here, do you?”

“Of course it is,” she answered, looking bored. “Is that all it’s about?”

“No, listen. Suppose that old Geezicks took you home in a circle? Then your cavemight be north of here, mightn’t it? He might have gone all around Robin Hood’s barn, as well as Round Robin, mightn’t he?”

“I suppose so!” said Anne. “And it mightn’t be so far, either. I didn’t see how we went. He wouldn’t let me look. He wanted to confuse me. Oh, Dick! You are clever!”

Dick chuckled. “Clever dog, me! Little old Sherlock Holmes! Well, I think I have found your cave, not two miles from here theotherway.”

“So near? But why haven’t you found it before?” Anne stared in wonder.

“I never went that way. There’s no path, and it is boggy by land. Then by sea it is full of rips and bars, the worst place along the coast, I guess. I took the canoe.”

“Did you see my man?” Anne asked eagerly, but Dick shook his head. “I didn’t explore much. I thought we’d go together, since the cave was really your find.” Anne guessed how much Dick would have liked this adventure for his very own, and she was touched. “That was nice of you, Reddy!” she said. “When shall we go?”

“Right now, if you say so,” he suggested eagerly. Anne hesitated. “Do you suppose it is safe for us to go alone?” she asked. “I haven’t told anybody the whole story.” Then of course Dick made her tell him everything; about the hut in the woods and the story that it was “haunted,” and the threat of the tall stranger. Only she did not tell him the name he had called her father.

Dick whistled when the tale was finished, and his eyes shone. “Great!” he exclaimed. “It sounds like something exciting. Of course we will go by ourselves and ferret out the mystery. Of course I can take care of you! But we will be careful, yes. What will Hugh and Victor say, eh?”

Dick was anxious to recover the prestige he had lost by that laughable fiasco of the clambake. He wanted to get even with Hugh and Victor, who had never ceased to tease him about it.

Anne had some misgivings. But she was not willing that Dick should go without her. And she too thought it would be nice to bethe heroine of a real adventure,—​if adventure it was to be.

They pushed off from the landing in the shadow of the fir-trees. The water of the bay was as still as quicksilver, just right for paddling, and Dick was an expert canoeist. He knew when it was safe to keep off-shore; when one might dare the neighborhood of those sharp and cruel rocks that guarded the cliffs.

“Now you must keep calm,” said Dick in his mock-hero manner. “And whatever you do, don’t scream.”

“The idea!” said Anne. “Of course I sha’n’t scream any more than you will. I didn’t scream before.”

In ten minutes or so they had rounded several points, and had passed a cove or two which they had seen before. Then the cliffs grew higher; the mountain seemed to come down close to the water. A series of closely-packed islands near the shore looked as if they had toppled from the cliff in early days. It was a wickedly dangerous place for boats. One felt that it was wise to keep outside these islands. But Dick had already investigatedin his light canoe, and knew that it was safe enough for him.

“I’m going in here,” he said suddenly, rounding the end of what turned out to be an island; though at a distance it had seemed part of the solid shore. Behind this island was another, the edges “overlapping” as it were, so as completely to conceal what lay beyond. Around this too Dick curved. And lo, there they were in the entrance to a narrow slit of a cove, running slantwise into the land, in such a way that no one would ever suspect its existence, unless he should come upon it as Dick had done, in a stealthy, threading canoe. The Indians might have known it long ago. But there seemed no reason why white men should ever find it, except by an accident. At the head of the cove was a beach of sand strewn with pebbles; quite deserted.

“Well?” said Dick, waiting for Anne to exclaim. “Well,” she answered, slowly, “is this my beach? You know I didn’t really see anything except from the shore. Oh yes, there’s the cave!”

As the canoe touched the sand, there to theleft yawned the cave. Anne pointed to the great entrance of rocks, black and romantic-looking. The pair stole up to it very cautiously, half expecting something to dart out at them. But no, it seemed quite empty. Only a few boxes lay about, with broken sides; some ropes and pots of paint; empty gasolene cans; jugs, broken bottles, a sack of straw. “This might be to make somebody a bed,” said Dick. “But it hasn’t been slept on yet.”

The cave was some ten feet deep with a roof high enough for a tall man to stand upright. There was a hole through the roof in one place, a natural chimney, and it looked as if fires had been built there.

“It’s a regular pirate cave!” said Dick. “But there aren’t any interesting relics at all; not even a powder-keg or a cutlass.”

“You really thought there were pirates?” said Anne. “Well, I didn’t.”

“That man was up to some mischief, though,” argued Dick. “He couldn’t be a fisherman. There are no lobster-pots around, or fishing nets, or floats. Though it seems a likely cove for lobsters, too.”

“Here’s the path I came down,” said Anne, who had been investigating. “It goes up through these bushes. You wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t know just where to look.”

“Let’s follow it and see if we can find that hut in the wood,” said Dick. “I’ll never believe you weren’t dreaming, unless we do.”

“All right,” said Anne with an inward tremor, “but we must be very careful.”

“Let me go ahead,” urged Dick.

They climbed the steep path which soon plunged into thick woods, as Anne remembered, broad and easy to follow. “Looks as if it was used pretty often,” observed Dick. Then Anne pulled him by the sleeve. “There’s the hut!” she whispered, pointing. “You don’t see it till you are almost on it. I told you so.”

There was no smoke coming out of the window now, but Dick motioned her to be cautious. They crouched low in the bushes and kept still for several minutes. There was not a sound about the place. The door was closed and the litter outside was cleared away. It looked indeed like the deserted cabin thetall stranger had called it. But was it “haunted”?

“I’m going to peek in at the window,” whispered Dick. Anne followed him, crawling on hands and knees. Cautiously they raised themselves and looked in. The hut was empty of persons, but full of a disarray of things. The one dirty window gave little light, but they gradually made out the strange, untidy details. In the wall were two bunks for sleeping. At one side stood a small stove, the pipe going up through the roof. A rifle hung on a bracket of deer antlers. The skin of a deer hung on a chair back. Dirty plates and knives and tumblers were scattered over the table. The rest of the room was filled with a mess of jugs and bottles, kegs and kettles—​the strange outfit of some trade which the girl did not recognize.

“Moonshiners!” whispered Dick excitedly. Beverly would have known what he meant, for there has always been this lawless business in the southern mountains.

“What are Moonshiners, Dick?” asked Anne, shivering at his tone.

“Why, they make liquor in secret and sell it in secret. It’s against the law,” said Dick.

“How awful! And he dared call my father a Scalawag!” thought Anne indignantly. But it did not matter now. You couldn’t take the word of a lawbreaker about anything.

“What’s the name printed on that old packing-case?” asked Dick, whose eyes were growing used to the dim light of the hut. “Can you see, Anne?” They both pressed their noses close to the window panes.

“C. F.” spelled Anne.

“P-O-O-L-E!” went on Dick. “Why Anne!” he gasped in surprise.

“C. F. Poole!” repeated Anne. “That’s Father’s name. What can it mean?”

“Maybe they just got the box off your father somehow,” said Dick uncomfortably. He began to wish they had not come. “Let’s go away, Anne.”

But Anne had spied something else. On the floor under the window was a soiled and empty envelope. It was addressed toP. Leveenin a neighboring town. But the writing was Mr. Poole’s; the date just a week ago;and the mark was that of a Canadian city. He could not write to her, but he could write to this foreign-sounding moonshiner! Anne did not mention this discovery to Dick. But it troubled her greatly. It fitted in disagreeably with her forebodings.

“We’d better get away,” said Dick. “Moonshiners are as bad as pirates when you spy their secrets. We must tell Cap’n Sackett and have them smoked out, while they’re at the game.”

“Yes,” agreed Anne. “I ought to have told him before. That may be the very rifle that nearly killed Beverly!” she thought with a shudder. “And what will they find out about Father?” Her only comfort was that Captain Sackett himself was to be the investigator.

They hurried down the path as fast as they could, and Anne got into the canoe.

“Well, we’ve discovered something all right,” triumphed Dick as he pushed off the canoe and crept into his own seat. “It might be more exciting if we had met those fellows up there in the hut. But I guess it was just as well for our health that wedidn’t——”

He held his paddle poised and stared fixedly out to sea. Anne followed his gaze. A motor boat was making her way in towards the beach, rapidly. There were two men aboard. The canoe lay still in the shadow of the trees while the boat disappeared around an island. Then, before it should reappear in the cove, Dick gave some swift strokes of the paddle that took them out behind another reef. Evidently they had not been seen. The steersman was busy threading the narrow, difficult channel. The other had seemed to be absorbed in a newspaper. Anne had had a chance to see both faces clearly.

“The tall man is the one who brought me home!” she whispered. “And the other one with the dark face must be the hunter who nearly shot Beverly!” The pair gazed at one another. They saw the mysterious boat re-enter the cove and disappear again. “They’re both moonshiners,” said Dick.

“One of the two is P. Leveen,” thought Anne, “and Father writes to him!”

The Round Robin was of course greatly excited when they told the story of their adventure.They could hardly wait to hear what Captain Sackett would say. But Tante declared they must not bother him that night. He was busy about something. Dick was disappointed also because Hugh and Victor had disappeared upon some mysterious errand, and he could not excite their envy with his tale. Indeed, even Tante seemed preoccupied, as if she had more important things upon her mind. But what could be more important than the arrest of these moonshiners?

“Any mail for me?” asked Dick, and was told No. Anne did not even bother to ask about mail for herself. She had quite given up hoping for a letter from home. And now she did not want one!

Soon after supper Tante excused herself and retired to her room with the daily papers and a packet of mail. Even the Twins could not help seeing that something was troubling Tante; but no one could tell Anne what it was.

“Ever since the Veterans brought the papers she has looked worried,” said Beverly. “We haven’t seen the news, so we don’t know what it may be. I hope it isn’t another war! Hughand Victor went right back to the village, without waiting for supper. I wonder what it is?”

Anne sighed. “I always seem to be waiting,” she said. “I wanted to ask Tante something. But perhaps to-morrow will do as well.”

At that same moment Tante was reading the newspaper, open at a page where a black head line read—​“Failure of Great Banking Firm! Treasurer flees to Canada! Involves thousands in ruin!” Below was the picture of a blonde, well-dressed man whom Tante had seen hundreds of times sailing in his yacht or riding in his automobile in this very neighborhood, but to whom she had never spoken a word.

Presently she came downstairs looking rather pale. “Let’s have a song before bed, shall we?” she said. So they sat quietly on the piazza while Norma sang a slumber song, to quiet their minds before sleep.

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