And that supper! It was something to be membered by the crowd from town. Such thick, luscious yellow cream that Mother Sitz lifted from the pans of milk in the cement block "milk-house" most of the town-bred folk had never seen before. The biscuits and "short-cake" came out of the oven with just the right brown to them. The big berries were heaped upon the wedges of buttered short-cake, and then cream poured over the berries, with plenty of sugar.
"Yum! Yum!" mumbled Lance Darby, with a huge mouthful obstructing his parts of speech. "Isn't this the Jim-dandiest lay-out you ever saw, Chet?"
"I never sat down to a better one," admitted his chum. "But please don't talk to me. Purt is getting more of the berries than I am—and he isn't talking at all. Just pass the sugar, Lance, and then shut up for a while."
But there was enough serious talk during the supper to arrange a return treat for Eve and Otto Sitz. The farmer boy and his sister had seldom been on Lake Luna and Laura and her brother suggested a trip by boat and canoe to Cavern Island for the following Saturday.
"And no picnic luncheon at the park. That's too common," declared Jess Morse, eagerly. "Let's do something different."
"Trot out your 'different' suggestion, Josephine," said her chum.
"Let's go to the caves. Let's picnic there."
"Oh!" cried one of the Lockwood twins. "That's where we saw the 'lone pirate.'"
"The lonewhat?" rejoined Nellie Agnew. "What do you mean by that?"
The other twin explained how and when they had seen the bushy-headed, wild-looking man at the foot of Boulder Head.
"There's where the caverns open onto the shore, exactly," remarked Chet Belding. "Are you afraid of meeting the pirate, girls?"
"We'll capture him and make him walk the plank!" declared Bobby Hargrew. "Hurrah for the pirate!"
So the trip to Cavern Island for the next Saturday was arranged, Eve and Otto promising to join the party at Centerport. And the run home by automobile in the moonlight was enlivened by plans for the coming good time on the Lake.
Lance ran the sight-seeing automobile carefully and delivered it to Mr. Purcell, the owner, in good season. The man who should have driven it, but who was taken ill, had been removed to the hospital from the inn in the woods.
"I understand one of those girls played the heroine and stopped the car," said the automobile owner.
"Yes, sir," replied Lance. "That was one of the Lockwood twins."
"Which one was it? I'd like to thank her, at least," said Mr. Purcell.
"Couldn't tell you," laughed Lance.
"Why couldn't you? Sworn to secrecy, young man?" demanded Mr. Purcell.
"No, sir. But the twins themselves seem to be. Nobody knows them apart, and they won't tell on each other. One of them is the heroine, but which one nobody knows," and Lance Darby went off laughing.
Meanwhile the twins themselves walked briskly home from the schoolhouse where the party of young folk had separated. On the way they met a girl a little older than themselves, hurrying in the opposite direction.
"Here's Billy Long's sister, Alice," whispered Dora to Dorothy.
"Oh, dear me!" replied Dorothy. "I suppose she has had to work late at the paper box factory. And how she must feel——"
Her twin seized the factory girl's arm as she was hurrying past with just a little nod to the Lockwood twins.
"Alice Long!" ejaculated Dora. "You're crying. What's the matter?"
"Oh, girls! you know about Billy, don't you?" cried Short and Long's sister.
"They haven't caught him?" cried Dorothy.
"No, no! I almost wish they would," sobbed Alice Long. "We don't know where he is. I've just been down to Mr. Norman's to see if the boat has been found."
"And it hasn't?" demanded one of the twins.
"No. It was an old boat that Mr. Norman thought he was going fishing in, same as usual. Billy often brings home a mess of fish, or sells them. You know, he has always been a helpful boy."
"We want to tell you, Alice dear," said Dorothy with a glance at her sister, "that we don't believe a word of what they say about Billy."
"Thank you, Miss," said Alice, eagerly. "I was sure his schoolmates would stand by him. But he was very foolish to run away—if he has run away."
"Otherwise, what has happened to him?"
"That is what is worrying father and me. The boat was old. Something might have happened. He might be drowned," sobbed the sister.
"Oh, no, Alice! Billy was a good swimmer."
"I know that. But often good swimmers are taken with cramps. And if the boat overturned, or sank, out in the middle of Lake Luna——"
"That's too dreadful a thing to think of!" cried Dora. "I believe he ran away because he was afraid of being arrested. Everybody was talking about his having a hand in that robbery."
"Well, he never did it. I could testify that he wasn't out of his bed Tuesday night when the robbery took place. I told the policemen so. But, of course, Billy could have gone out of the window and down the shed roof—and got back again, too—without our knowing it. He has more than once, I suppose," admitted the troubled sister.
"You see, on Wednesday Stresch & Potter sent their store detective to see Billy, and he bulldozed him and threatened him. I expect the boy was badly frightened, although the man was only a cheap bully. So we don't know what to think—whether Billy has deliberately run away, or that some accident happened to him on the lake."
"Chet and Lance Darby were looking for him Saturday over at Cavern Island," said a twin. "But they met with an accident. We're all going over to the island again this coming Saturday, and we'll search the east end for him."
"How would he live over there?" gasped his sister.
"Oh, there are berries this time of year. And of course, he could fish," said Dora eagerly.
"There's a man hiding there, anyway," added Dorothy, but then remembered that the information might add to Alice's fright, so said no more.
"We'll do everything we can to find Short and Long," Dora assured the boy's sister. "And we are telling everybody that we don't believe Billy would do such a thing as they say. As though there wasn't any other boy in Centerport who could have crawled through that window at Stresch & Potter's."
The twins parted from Alice Long, and ran home. They slipped to bed without encountering Aunt Dora and counted that day well spent because the old lady had not yet caught them so that she could identify Dora.
But on Tuesday Aunt Dora appeared at Central High and met Miss Grace G. Carrington—otherwise "Gee Gee."
"I wish to hear my nieces recite," she said, with sharply twinkling eyes behind her glasses.
"It doesn't matter what class—any class will do."
Miss Carrington politely asked the prim old lady to sit beside her on the platform, and Aunt Dora listened to the recitation then in progress. Both Dora and Dorothy took part; but for the life of her the near-sighted lady could not tell when Dora spoke, and when Dorothy answered!
"I suppose you know them apart?" she ventured, to Miss Carrington.
"Oh, no; but I believe they usually answer to their names. They stand about alike in their classes and we have put them on their honor not to answer for each other. They are good girls and give me little trouble," added Gee Gee, which was a concession from her.
"So if you called one of them to the desk you could not be sure that the one you called really came?" asked Aunt Dora.
"Not as far as physical appearances go," said Gee Gee, shaking her head.
So Aunt Dora was thwarted again and went back to the cottage to invent some other method of tripping the twins. It had become a game, now, that both sides were determined to win; and Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Betsey stood by and watched the play with amusement.
A veritable fleet of canoes, pair-oared and four-oared boats gathered at Central High boat house, just before noon the next Saturday. It was a bright and calm day and the lake looked most inviting.
The girls were in fine fettle, particularly. The subscription paper to raise the sum necessary for the purchase of a new eight-oared shell had gone about town briskly that week and Laura reported that already more than half of the sum necessary had been promised. She had written to the builders of such shells and they had replied that there was one in stock that they would be glad to send the girls of Central High, on approval, if the physical instructor agreed.
"And Mrs. Case is writing to them to-day," concluded Laura. "They will send on the new boat and we can pay for it after the money is all in. And, oh, girls! We'll win that race from the Keyport and other crews, if such a thing is possible. After to-day the crew will be in training. We must try out the boat, and work in her just as soon as she arrives, and every other afternoon thereafter. So, you members of the crew make your preparations accordingly."
"And for goodness sake, Bobby," urged Nellie Agnew, to the little "cox" of the crew, "don't you go to cutting capers in school so that Gee Gee can condition you. She's just waiting for a chance to fix it so you cannot steer for us."
"Aw, pshaw!" said Clara Hargrew. "I don't do anything."
"No; but Gee Gee does something to you," declared Jess Morse, laughing.
"See that you don't give her a chance to stop your after-hour athletics again, Bobby," begged Laura.
"All right; I'll be good," said Bobby, grinning.
"But after school—well, when long vacation comes this time I think I'll have to set the old school house afire to celebrate!"
"No. You had trouble over fires before," advised Dorothy Lockwood.
"That's so," agreed Dora.
"Don't mention fire again!" exclaimed Jess. "That's why we lost the race before—because you could not steer for us, Bobby."
Laura and Lance Darby took Eve and Otto Sitz with them in Lance's nice boat. There were two pairs of sculls and Otto managed to row very well in the bow. Of course Chet took Jess in his boat, and the remainder paired off as fancy beckoned. But the twins paddled their cedar canoe.
And few of the fleet of small craft were propelled to the island in better shape than Dora's and Dorothy's canoe. The others cheered the pretty girls as they forced their craft through the rippling water. The management of a canoe—especially a double canoe—is not so easy as it appears. But the Lockwood twins had taken to that form of aquatic sports very kindly, and there really were few canoe crews in Centerport who handled their craft as well.
The fleet of boats crossed the lake in a short time and, headed by the twins' canoe, reached the eastern end of the island. They swept into the cove where the girls had seen, the previous Saturday, the rough-looking, bewhiskered man upon the shore. Right here under the Boulder Head was the mouth of the cavern from which the island obtained its name.
As the twins swept their canoe on with easy strokes, Dora suddenly uttered a cry of excitement.
"See there, Dory!" she said.
"See where?" demanded her sister, craning her neck to see over Dora's shoulder.
"There! Down in the water! The sunken boat!"
The water in the cove was very clear, but it had considerable depth. The canoe was brought sharply up by the two girls and both peered down.
Below them could plainly be seen a sunken rowboat. It did not appear to be damaged in any way, but had simply filled and sunk.
"What have you found, girls?" demanded Lance Darby, whose boat was nearest to the twins' canoe at the moment. "Is there some deep sea monster down there?"
"Come and look, Lance," cried Dora.
The moment the young Darby saw the submerged craft he exclaimed:
"Here it is, by gracious!"
"Here is what?" demanded Laura.
"The boat. Hey, Chet! we've found it!" he called to his chum, who quickly turned his own boat's prow in their direction.
"What you found?" demanded Laura's brother, coming nearer.
"Here's Mr. Norman's boat that he lent Short and Long," declared Lance, eagerly. "It was just as you said, Chet. Billy came over here to the island."
"Oh, my!" cried Jess. "And if that is so, perhaps he is still here."
"We must find him," said one of the twins, earnestly. "His sister Alice is just about worried to death about him; and the longer he remains in hiding, the worse it will be for him, anyway."
The other boats of the flotilla began to make the cove and soon there was a loudly chattering crowd around the sunken boat.
"Are you sure that's the old rowboat Billy got from Mr. Norman?" asked one of the other boys of Chet.
"Yes, sir! I've been out in it more than once with Short and Long," declared Laura's brother.
"But where can Billy be?" cried Josephine Morse.
"Surely, the poor fellow isn't drowned?" queried Nellie Agnew.
"Oh, don't suggest such a thing!" returned one of the twins. "If you'd seen how badly his sister felt about his absence——"
"I expect the Longs are all broken up about it. And they have no mother," said Laura Belding, softly.
"And Billy could swim like a fish," quoth Lance Darby.
"No chance of his being drowned," declared Chet.
"But, do you suppose he sank the boat here to hide it—sank it purposely?" cried another girl. "Maybe he's hiding here. Why don't they search the island for him?"
"And the caves?" cried another.
"I'dlike to get hold of him," Chetwood Belding said, gravely. "But Billy never in this world crawled through that basement window and opened the door for those burglars. I'll never believe it——"
"Not even if Billy said so himself, dear boy?" interposed Prettyman Sweet.
"I'd doubt it then," rejoined Chet, grimly. "And let me tell you fellows, this absence of Short and Long is a very bad thing for Central High. We lost the game with Lumberport just because Billy wasn't at short; you all know that. I'm mighty glad the game with West High was called off for to-day. Without Billy Long, Central High is very likely to win the booby prize on the diamond this season."
"Right you are, Chet," declared Lance Darby.
"I admit Billy is some little ball player," agreed another boy. "But it looks bad, his running away."
"What wouldyouhave done?" flashed out Dora Lockwood, for the twins had become strong partisans of the absent Billy since talking with Alice Long, "if that store detective had come and bulliedyou?"
"Put him through the third degree, did he?"
"Yes. And scared him by all sorts of threats. And then, everybody around the neighborhood got hold of it, and said that Billy was just the boy to do such a thing," Dorothy broke in.
"Hewasup to all sorts of mischief," Nellie Agnew observed.
"Never did a mean thing in his life, Billy didn't," declared Chet.
"Come on ashore," said Lance, he and Otto Sitz pulling their heavy boat in to a sloping landing. "No use gassing here about that old boat. We can't raise it. But I'll tell Mr. Norman where it is when I go back."
"You're very right, Lance," said Purt Sweet. "It's time to have the luncheon—don't you think? I'm getting howwibly hungry, dontcher know?"
"To see you eat strawberries up at Eve's house last Monday, I thought you would never be hungry again—if you recovered," laughed Jess.
"Aw—now—Miss Josephine—weally, you know," gasped the dude. "You are too, too cwuel!"
"Somebody throw that fellow overboard!" growled Chet. "He's getting softer and softer every day."
"Never mind," whispered his sister, laughing, "he is dressed much less gaudily to-day. What Bobby did to that sash of his last Monday seems to have made Purt less vociferous in his sartorial taste."
"Gee, Laura!" cried Bobby Hargrew, from the next boat, "if Mammy Jinny heard that, she sure would think that schools ought to teach only 'words of one syllabub.'"
"Never mind Mammy Jinny," laughed Laura. "We've got some of Mammy's finest efforts in pie and cake in our hamper. And I admit, like Purt, I am hungry myself. Let's eat before we do another living thing!"
That was indeed a hilarious picnic. The girls had brought paper napkins and tablecloths, as well as plenty of paper plates. No trouble about washing dishes, or packing them home again, afterward. Chet had bought a big tin pail and in this he made gallons of lemonade, and everybody ate and drank to repletion.
"Now, if we were only at the park for just a little while, and could top off on ice cream," said Lance, lying back on the greensward with a contented sigh despite his spoken wish.
"I'd rather see that monkey again," laughed Jess. "That's the cutest little beast."
"It weally is surprising how much the cweature knows," said Purt Sweet. "It is weally almost human."
"So are you!" scoffed Lance. "It's an ugly little animal. Never did like a monkey. And I think Tony Allegretto and his trained monkey are fakes. We didn't see him do anything wonderful."
"Oh, they say that the monkey does lots of other tricks when Tony gets a big crowd into his booth," said Laura.
"Now, who's for seeing the caves?" cried Chet, rising briskly. "You girls declared you wanted to go 'way through the hill."
"Won't we get lost?" asked Nellie, timidly.
"Not a bit of it. It's a straight passage—nearly," said Chet. "Lance and I have been through a couple of times. We come out into just the prettiest little valley in the middle of the island—and not far from the park, at that."
"But peoplehavebeen lost in the caves," objected one girl.
"Not of late years. There are side passages, I know, where a fellow could get turned around."
"It's just like a maze, over at the east end," Lance observed. "But we won't go into that part."
"And the way is marked along the walls of the straight cave in red paint. I've got a box of tapers," said Chet, and ran to the boat for them.
"Gas lighters," said Dorothy.
"Oh, Jolly!" ejaculated Bobby Hargrew. "You know what that new hired girl of ours said when mother showed her how to cook macaroni? She says:
"'Sure, Mrs. Hargrew, do youse be atein' them things?'
"And when mother told her yes, Bridget said:
"'Well! well! Where I wor'rked last they used 'em to light the gas wid!'"
The party of young folk had to follow a narrow path along the shore of the cove for some distance ere they came to the first opening into the caves. The sheer face of Boulder Head rose more than a hundred feet above their heads. There were shelves and crevices in the rock, out of which stunted trees and bushes grew in abundance; but there was no practicable path to the top of the cliff.
"They say that, years ago, a man used to live on this island who could climb that cliff like a goat," Chet said.
"Bet none of you boys could climb it," cried Bobby Hargrew.
"And we're not going to try it, Miss! Not on a double-dare," laughed Chet. "We'll go through it, if you please. Now, here's the opening of the main passage. You see, there's an arrow in red painted on the rock just inside."
"It looks awfully dark," said Nellie, quaveringly.
"And suppose the 'lone pirate' should be hiding in there?" whispered Dora to her twin.
"We—ell! I guess there are enough of us to frighten him away," said Dorothy.
Chet took the lead with a lighted taper. Of course, when he was well inside the small flame gave a very pale glow; but those behind could see it. Then Lance followed with another light at about the middle of the Indian file, and Otto Sitz brought up the rear with a third.
"You look out somebody doesn't creep up behind you and bite, Otto," laughed Bobby Hargrew, who was just ahead of the Swiss boy.
"Dat don't worry me von bit," growled Otto. "It iss only ha'ants I am afraid of, and ha'nts don't live in caves."
"No," said Bobby, shivering. "B—r—r—r! they'd freeze to death in here. Isn't it cold, after coming out of the warm sun?"
But when they were once well into the passage through the rock, and the first 'shivery' feeling had worn off, the girls as well as the boys were hilarious. When they shouted in the high and vaulted chambers their voices were echoed thunderously in their ears. The flaming tapers were reflected in places from many points of quartz, or mica. The floor of the cavern was quite smooth, and rose only a little. In places the walls were worn as smooth as glass. In some dim, past age the center of this island must have been a great lake, and the water had found an outlet through these passages.
At one point they found a little circular chamber at one side, in which was a bed of pine branches. It really looked as though the place had been used——and not so long before——as a camp. There were the ashes of a fire on the floor.
"Here's where the pirate has been living," Dora declared to her sister. "It would scare the girls into fits if we should tell them so."
"Hush!" said Dorothy. "Perhaps that manishere somewhere," and she, at least, was glad to hurry on, although Chet searched the chamber with particular care.
"What do you expect to find here, old man?" asked Lance, laughing.
But his chum only shook his head and led the way toward the distant outlet of the passage.
They came out of the cave into a hollow, grown to a wilderness of small trees, yet carpeted between with a brilliant sod of short grass. On the steep sides were larger trees; but evidently, at a time not then long past, the cup of the hollow had been cleared. And at one side was the ruin of a log hut.
"The man who lived alone at this end of the island, and climbed up and down Boulder Head, used to occupy this hut," said Chet.
"But those logs were cut a hundred years ago!" cried Dora Lockwood. "See how they have rotted at the ends."
"I guess that's so. Nobody knows who built the cabin."
"Indians!" cried Jess.
"Indians didn't built log houses. The first settlers did that. Indians lived in wigwams," declared Laura.
"Some old hunter lived here, maybe, when the woods were full of bears and wildcats," suggested her chum.
"What's that!" suddenly shrieked Bobby. "There's a wildcat, now!"
"Behave!" commanded Laura, shaking the smaller girl. "You can't scare us that way."
"Nothing more ferocious inhabits these woods than a Teddy-bear," laughed Jess Morse.
"Then it was a Teddy bear I saw in that tree," declared Bobby, pointing. "And it was a live one."
The girls—some of them, at least—drew together. "What did you see, Clara?" demanded Nellie Agnew.
"A little brown animal——"
"A red squirrel!" cried Lance.
"Hark!" cried Chet. "I hear him."
There certainly did come to their ears a chattering sound.
"That's no squirrel," announced Otto. "I haf been hunting enough for them alretty."
"No squirrel was ever so noisy as that, Chet," said his sister.
"There! I see it again," cried the quick-eyed Bobby.
"My goodness, gracious me!" gasped Purt, who was craning his neck to see into the tree tops so that the back of his high collar sawed his neck. "I—I thought it looked like a blue-jay."
"Say!" exclaimed Lance. "You're looking in the wrong direction."
"It's a monkey!" cried Dora Lockwood, at that moment.
"It's Tony Allegretto's monkey," added her twin.
Some of the others caught sight of the animal then. It was truly the large monkey the friends had seen only the week before at the amusement park at the other end of the island.
"He's run away!" cried Laura.
"I hope he has," Dorothy Lockwood said. "That Italian didn't treat him kindly. What was his name?"
"He called the monk 'Bébé'," said Lance.
"Let's see if he will come down to us," suggested Laura, crossing the hollow.
"Now, keep back, the rest of you," commanded Lance. "If anybody can get the little beast, Laura can do it."
"Sure!" chuckled Bobby. "Mother Wit can charm either boys, or monkeys—and right out of the trees!"
But they gave way to Mother Wit and she went alone to the foot of the tree in which Bébé was swinging. He chattered when she came near, and swung upright on the branch. But he did not appear to be much afraid.
Laura found an apple in her pocket, and she offered it to the monkey, calling to him soothingly. Whether his monkeyship was fond of apples, or not, he was curious, and he began to descend the tree slowly.
He was dressed in a part of his odd Neapolitan suit; but it was torn and bedraggled. A cord was fastened to his collar, but it had become frayed and so was broken. His queer, ugly face was wrinkled into an expression of doubt as he approached Laura, and his little eyes snapped greedily. The apple tempted him.
"Come down, Bébé," coaxed Laura.
"Talk Italian to him—he understands that better," giggled Jess.
Bébé chattered angrily.
"Hush!" commanded Lance. "She'll get him yet, if you'll let her alone."
The monkey did seem, when all was quiet, to be about to leap into Laura's arms.
"Come, Bébé," she coaxed, and finally the chattering creature timidly dropped from the branch of the tree and snuggled down into her arms, grabbing the apple on the instant and sinking his sharp teeth into it.
At the very moment of her success there were crashing footsteps in the bushes and into the opening rushed Tony Allegretto, the monkey's master.
"Ah-ah!" cried the Italian, his face glowing and his black eyes snapping. "You try-a to steal-a da monk! Come to me Bébé—or I break-a da neckl!"
He rushed toward the girl holding the monkey. The animal chattered angrily and cowered in Laura's arms.
"Hold on," said Chet, stepping forward. "Nobody's stealing your monkey, and don't you say we are. He was up the tree there and my sister got him down for you. I reckon if you treated him half decently he wouldn't run away from you."
"You! Ha!" sputtered Tony. "You one o' dem fresh boys, eh? Give-a me da monk!"
"Let him have the creature, Laura," said Chet.
"He'll beat him. See how frightened poor Bébé is!"
"Can't help it," said her brother. "He belongs to the dago——"
"Calla me da dago, too!" stammered the angry Italian. "I fix-a you for dis!" and he shook his fist at Chet.
"Come on and do your fixing right now," advised the big boy, easily. "You won't find me as easy as Bébé, I bet you!"
"You 'Merican boys and girls want to steal my monk—want-a spoil-a da act!" cried Tony. He grabbed Bébé out of Laura's arms, although the monkey shrieked his protest at the exchange. But Tony did not beat the little beast, and it clung to him with one arm around Tony's neck while it finished the apple.
"You ought to thank us for finding your monkey for you," said Lance Darby, in disgust.
Tony growled something in Italian and started off up the side of the hollow. Before he got out of sight he was joined by a man who stepped out of hiding in a clump of brush.
"Did you see that?" cried Lance, eagerly, in Chefs ear. "There's another of 'em here."
"Another monkey?" laughed Chet.
But Dora whispered to Dorothy: "That man has whiskers. Do you suppose he is our lone pirate?"
"I'd like to see this piratical individual you girls are talking about," laughed Laura, who was nearest to the Lockwood twins.
At that moment Lance and Chet were walking back toward the entrance to the cave.
"Say, old man," Lance asked his chum, "what were you searching that chamber in the cavern for? What did you expect to find?"
"I don't know that I expected to find anything," answered Chetwood Belding. "But I'll show you what Ididfind," and he drew from his pocket an old knife and placed it in Lance's hand.
The latter turned it over, and whistled under his breath. "I ought to know this old toad-stabber," he said. "Broken corkscrew—yes; small blade broken short off, too. Why, Chet, that's Short and Long's knife!"
"That's right."
"And you mean to say you picked it up in the cavern?"
"Right in that place where somebody had been camping," declared his chum. "But don't say anything about it. We can't do anything toward finding him with all these girls about. But, later——"
"You bet!" agreed Lance.
So the boys rather hurried the departure of the crowd for the place where the boats had been left, and where they had lunched. The walk through the cove did not take long, and the party, happy and laughing, crowded out upon the shore of the cove in front of the subterranean passage.
Instantly one of the twins drew the attention of all by uttering a startled little scream.
"What's the matter with you—er—Sister?" demanded the other Lockwood girl, with a chuckle.
"That wasn't the man we saw with Tony!" declared the girl who had cried out.
"What man?"
"The pirate," said the twin.
"How do you know?" demanded Laura, laughing.
"For I just saw him again. And he couldn't have gotten through the cave ahead of us."
"There are prowlers about," declared Chet to Lance.
"What sort of a looking man, Miss Lockwood?" demanded Lance.
"Oh, he's all bushy black whiskers and hair. I only saw the upper part of his body again. He dodged down behind that boulder yonder."
"Say! the other cave opening is over there," cried Bobby Hargrew.
"And that's a fact," admitted Chet.
"Let's see if the boats are all right," cried Lance, starting on a run for the landing.
"And the rest of the lunch, dear boy!" cried Prettyman Sweet, following him. "Weally, if that has been stolen it is a calamity."
The calamity had occurred!
Soulful were the wails of Purt Sweet. Not a crumb of food left in the girls' hampers when the party set out through the cave for the middle of Cavern Island was now left to appease Mr. Sweet's appetite.
"The lone pirate has done his fell work, sure enough," Laura Belding declared. "And how hungry he must have been, Nellie! He took that pie you made that none of us could eat."
They all laughed at this hit, for the doctor's daughter was not much of a pastry cook and her lemon pie had been voted the booby prize at luncheon.
"Ooh!" gasped Bobby. "Do you suppose it will kill him? Maybe it will give him such a terrible case of indigestion that he will steal a boat, raise the Jolly Roger again, and go to work making people walk the plank and all that sort of thing—and it will be your fault, Nellie Agnew!"
"I'm only afraid he will eat it and die in terrible agony all alone here," wailed Nellie, who could take a joke as well as give one. "And then his ghost will haunt this end of the island——"
"And Otto will never come here again," said Eve Sitz, poking fun at her brother, who had once been very much afraid of a supposed "haunt" in an old house in Robinson's Woods.
"Never you mind," growled her brother. "Thereissha'ants, undt you will findt oudt so some day—yes!"
But Chet and Lance decided that there were altogether too many prowlers at this end of the island for the party to remain longer. Had they been alone, or with the other boys and no girls, they would surely have made an attempt to find the bewhiskered man whom the Lockwood twins had twice seen disappear into the far entrance of the caverns.
"We ought to report him to the park police," said Nellie Agnew. "He may steal something more than food, next time."
"Leave that to us," said Chet, hastily. "Lance and I will report it in proper time."
But to his chum he whispered: "We don't want any police fooling around here. Suppose they found Short and Long?"
"Right—oh!" agreed Lance. "Hope they'll all forget it and not mention the 'lone pirate' when they get home."
But as events proved, some member of the party mentioned the robbery of the lunch—and in a quarter which brought a search of the eastern end of Cavern Island by the police, a happening that Chet would have given a good deal to avoid.
Now, however, Laura's brother was busy inventing something to interest the party, and yet take them away from this end of the island. The twins were discussing with Eve Sitz the advantages of paddling over rowing, when Chet gave a shout which drew all attention to him instantly.
"Come on!" said the big lad. "Let's get into the boats. We'll have a four-oared race. I'll choose a crew of boys and let Laura choose one of girls. I bet we boys, using my boat, can row around that channel buoy out yonder and back again, before Laura in Lance's boat can do it. And Lance has the lightest boat."
"Done!" cried his sister. "And Lance's boat isn't so much lighter, either. What do you say, girls?"
"Let's show 'em!" cried Bobby. "Let me steer, Laura."
"All right," said Laura.
"And Freddie Ackerman here will steer for us," said Chet.
The crews were quickly chosen. Laura took Eve and the twins with her. Chet had Purt Sweet for Number 2 and pulled stroke himself. Lance arranged the start and was referee.
"When I slap these two sticks together, you're to go," instructed Lance. "The line is right between where I stand here on this rock and the boulder at the far mouth of the cavern. I can see the whole course from here. Now, no bumping at the turn. The boat that has the inside at the buoy must be cleared by the other boat. Don't forget. Are you ready?"
"Oh, wait a minute!" squealed Purt Sweet.
"Yes, hold on!" grunted Chet. "Purt's back hair has come down."
"I weally will have to remove my waistcoat—if you will allow me?" suggested the exquisite. "It might get splashed."
"Go as far as you like," said Lance. "Chuck it ashore here. I'll stand on it so as to see better."
But Purt entrusted the precious waistcoat to one of the girls in another boat, and then the two racing boats were brought into line. The referee asked if they were ready again, and, receiving no contrary answer, shouted:
"Go!"
Chet's crew certainly were a scrub lot, and he did not expect to get much speed out of them; but Otto was a strong oar and had Purt been able to keep the stroke the girls would have made a bad showing to the buoy. Up to that turn the boys kept ahead. Laura set an easy stroke, and found that Eve Sitz was not much inferior to either Dora or Dorothy.
"They're going to beat!" gasped Bobby, swinging with the rowers.
"Don't let them worry you," advised Laura, between her teeth. "The race isn't done until we cross the line."
But in turning the buoy the boys came to grief. Or, rather, Purt Sweet came to grief. He managed to catch a most famous crab, and went over on his back, hitting his head a resounding crack upon the handle of Lance's oar, and waving his long legs in the air.
"Now!" cried Laura, increasing her stroke, and the girls' boat went past their opponents' at a fast clip.
The boys got together again after half a minute; but those thirty seconds told the story of the race. The best the boys could do brought them across the line several lengths behind. And the whole crowd were shouting with laughter over Purt's mishap.
"I wish you'd kept your vest on, Purt," snarled Lance. "There'd been some satisfaction in your getting it wet. My goodness! what a lubber you are in a boat!"
"Weally, I couldn't help it, dear boy," sighed Pretty.
"Just the same, you crabbed the race," grunted Chet. "Now the girls have put it all over us."
And the girls certainly did not spare the boys, and joked at their expense all the way home. But the day was voted a very merry one and Eve and Otto went home in the evening strongly of the opinion that the boys and girls of Central High were a jolly company indeed. Eve promised Laura before she went home that, if she could pass the exams, for junior classes under Principal Sharp, she would surely attend Central High in the fall.
"We've got a splendid bit of athletic timber in Eve Sitz," Laura said, discussing the matter with Jess and the Lockwood twins.
"I hope she'll take up rowing. We can put her into Celia's place on the eight for next year, and then there will be no danger of Hester Grimes getting it," said Jess, who was very outspoken.
"She is better material for stroke than Hester," admitted Laura.
"And enough sight better tempered," Dora observed.
"You know what Hester is doing now?" demanded Jess, in anger.
"What is it?" asked Dorothy.
"She is trying to make the other girls think that the Executive Committee only cares about the eight-oared boat race, and that we'll put up no fight for Central High's entries in the other events."
"She is going to make trouble if she can," declared Dora.
"It isn't so," Laura said, firmly. "There is going to be a fine canoe race—we look to you twins to make good for Central High in that."
"We'll do our best," said the twins together, nodding.
Aunt Dora did not approve of the twins being on the lake so much; in her girlhood "young ladies" of the twins' age did not row, and paddle, and swim, and otherwise imitate boys.
"And I remember that you never were any fun, as a girl, Dora," observed Mr. Lockwood, at the supper table that night, when his sister uttered her usual criticisms of the twins' conduct. "You squealed if you came across a caterpillar, and a garter snake sent you into spasms, and it tired you to walk half a mile, and——"
"Thanks be! I was no tomboy," gasped Aunt Dora.
"Far from it," said the flower lover. "And mother was always having the doctor for you, and you got cold the easiest of any person I ever saw—and do to this day——"
"That is perfectly ridiculous, Lemuel."
"I believe you're sitting in a draught now, Dora," said Mr. Lockwood, quickly.
"Well—I——Achoo! I believe you! I never did see such a draughty place as this house, Lemuel. Ahem! Dora! get me my little knit shawl, will you, child?"
"Oh, yes, Auntie," said one of the twins, as they both rose.
"We're both through our suppers, Auntie," said the other. "We'll bring the shawl."
"Now!" exclaimed the exasperated old lady, when the twins were out of the room. "Which of 'em went for it?"
Her brother shook his head sadly, but his eyes were a-twinkle. "I could not undertake to say, Sister."
It annoyed Aunt Dora very much to hear the girls talk continually of the coming Big Day on Lake Luna and the part the girls of Central High would take in the races. And that next week Dora and Dorothy certainly were full of the new eight-oared shell.
It arrived at the boathouse early in the week, and proved to be the handsomest shell that had ever been launched in Luna waters. Even the wealthy Luna Boat Club did not own a shell like it.
Every other afternoon Mrs. Case allowed the crew to go out for a spin, and Professor Dimp, who coached the boys' crews, looked after the girls' rowing, as well. Some of the girls' parents went down to the shore in the early evening to watch the practice work off Colonel Richard Swayne's estate; but would Aunt Dora go? Only once!
By some inquiry she learned that each member of the crew of eight girls had her own particular seat in the big shell. Dorothy was supposed to row Number 2 and Dora Number 6. But the twins sometimes changed seats—and who was to know the difference?
Not the coach, for Professor Dimp could tell them apart no better than other people. Had Aunt Dora been sure that her namesake rowed in her right place on the evening when she viewed the practice, she would have met the shell at the landing, seized Number 6 oar, and marched her home and locked her into her own room until tickets could be bought for Aunt Dora's home city.
But in their natty-looking costumes the twins looked more alike than ever—were that possible!
It was all in the papers one evening about detectives from Centerport's police headquarters, aided by the park police, beating the eastern end of Cavern Island, and the caves as well, for poor Short and Long. Reporters had accompanied the expedition; but they rather made fun of the crowd of police searching so diligently for one small boy. It was suggested in the news stories that the efforts of the officers might better be aimed at finding the burglars themselves instead of chasing a frightened youngster who was supposed to have helped the real criminals.
The only thing the police succeeded in doing was to pick up two men who were fighting. These were Tony Allegretto, who had a concession at the amusement park, and another Italian.
The fight might have been a serious matter had not the police came upon the men when they did. Tony had already drawn a knife. The papers reported that Tony and his monkey were shut up together in the park calaboose waiting for court to sit the next morning. The other Italian had been sent off the island and warned to keep away.
But no trace of Short and Long was found during the police search. Mr. Norman, the boat builder, raised the sunken rowboat Billy had borrowed, however, and brought it back to his landing.
The Lockwood twins chanced to be passing Mr. Norman's place when the old boat arrived, and they walked down the long dock to look at it.
"No sign of anything wrong having happened to little Billy," said Mr. Norman. "He tied this old craft, and she filled after a time and sank, breaking the painter, which was a long one. That's all that happened. I don't care about the boat a mite; I only wish I knew what has become of the poor little chap."
"They've just chased him away from home," said Dorothy. "Billy Long never helped those burglars."
"Of course he didn't," said Mr. Norman. "That's whatIsay. Only folks who don't know the boy will say they believe the police."
"And don't you believe Billy is over there on the island?" asked Dora.
"No. He's got away. He's a sharp boy, Billy is, and next thing you'll hear of him, he'll be off working somewhere and sending his folks home a part of his wages, believe me! I know Billy Long," said the boat-builder.
The Longs lived not far from the Lockwood cottage, and the twins went around through their street. This was on one of those rare days when Alice Long, the oldest sister and the "mother" of the Long family, stayed at home from the box factory to "catch up" in her housework.
Until Mrs. Long died, two years before, Alice had gone to Central High, too, and she was a smart and intelligent girl. But she was a faithful one, as well, and she kept the home together for Mr. Long and the younger children, despite the fact that she could spend only a day once in a while at home. A younger girl did many of the ordinary household tasks, as well as looking after Master Tommy Long, an active piece of mischief now four years old.
As the twins came up the walk before the little cottage they heard Tommy bellowing at the top of his lungs—and they were perfectly sound lungs, too!
"What have you got in here—a lion?" asked Dorothy, putting her head in at the open door.
"Better say a monkey!" exclaimed Alice, much exasperated.
She was just then hustling Tommy across the floor so rapidly that the toes of his shoes scarcely touched the carpet. Upstairs she went with struggling, roaring Master Tommy, and in another moment he was shut into a bedroom and the key turned in the lock.
"There!" gasped Alice, coming back and sitting down, after placing chairs for her visitors. "You think I'm rather harsh with the little plague? You don't know what he's done to-day."
"Has he beenverybad?" asked the tender-hearted Dorothy.
"I should say he has!"
"What's he done?" demanded Dora.
"It has certainly been one of Tommy's 'bad days.' You'd think he was possessed. Poor mother! I can imagine the trouble she used to have with Billy."
"But what did Tommy do?" asked Dorothy, bent on trying to plead for the culprit, who was now alternately roaring and kicking the panels of the door upstairs.
"One thing he did was to pour sand into my tub of clothes that I had to leave this morning. He called the tub 'Lake Luna' and said he wanted to make an island in the middle of it, like Cavern Island where Billy is hidden."
"Oh!" gasped Dorothy.
"I had to clean out the tub and rinse the clothes half a dozen times to get the sand out."
"But, Billy!" exclaimed Dora. "They say he isn't over at that island."
"Well, I wish I knew where he was," sighed the worried sister.
Just then Tommy stopped yelling and spoke in a shrill, but perfectly plain tone:
"Sis! I'm a-goin' to bust a winder and fall out, I am!"
"Oh!" ejaculated Dorothy, jumping up. "He'll be hurt."
But Alice put forth a restraining hand to stop her before she could flee to the rescue.
"Don't bother. He doesn't want to jump himself. Tommy is bluffing."
"Bluffing!" gasped Dora. "Did you ever? I should be scared to death that the little scamp would do it."
"I used to be," sighed Alice. "Now I know better. I came to realize that Tommy was taking advantage of my love for him—and he's got to learn better than that."
"Isn't he a scamp?" whispered Dorothy.
In a few moments, after silence from the "chamber of torture," the shrill voice cried again:
"Sis! I've found the matches an' I'm a-goin' to set fire to the curtains—now you see!"
The twins gazed upon the calm face of Alice with wide-open eyes. Alice went on talking without showing the first signs of fear that Master Tommy would keep his pledge. She was resting after a hard day's work, and she enjoyed having her old schoolmates drop in to see her.
After further silence, the boy's shrill voice took up the cry again:
"Sis! don't you smell sumfin burnin'?"
"Idobelieve I smell something burning—cloth, or something," whispered the nervous Dorothy, sniffing.
"It's an old black rag I put in the kitchen fire, without opening the damper," said Alice, coolly.
"Suppose hehasgot the matches?" demanded Dora.
"There are none in that room," returned Alice, placidly.
"Goodness me!" gasped Dorothy. "I wouldn't have a boy around for a farm!"
Again came the wail from above:
"If you don't smell nothin', Sis, it's 'cause I pulled off all the match heads an' swallered 'em! I'm goin' ter die—I'se p'izened, Sis!"
"Why! what a dreadful little scamp he is," gasped Dorothy.
Alice jumped up, with her lips set tightly. She ran into the kitchen, from which she returned in a moment with a cup of warm water and mustard.
"He's got to be taught a lesson," declared the much troubled sister, with decision, and she marched upstairs.
"Now, Tommy, if you have swallowed matchheads, you must take this," declared Alice Long, and when Master Tommy, now rather disturbed by the prospect of the ill-smelling cup, tried to escape, she got his head "in chancery," held his nose until he opened his mouth, and made him swallow the entire mess.
It was certainly a bad dose, and its effects were almost immediate and quite surprising to Master Tommy. The twins waited below stairs while the trouble continued; and finally down came Alice with Master Tommy—a much sadder, wiser, and humbled youngster—by the hand.
"I—I'm going to be a good boy," announced Master Tommy, making a wry face.
"I should think you would," Dora said, trying to be severe.
"That's all right," grumbled Tommy, turning to Dorothy for comfort. "I didn't swaller any matchheads."
"Why did you say you did?" asked Dorothy.
"Just to plague Alice. But I won't do it again. Ugh! that was nasty stuff she gave me. That's what she'd give me if Iwasp'izened. I don't want to be p'izened," declared the little fellow, frankly.
"And you don't want to say what isn't so, either, eh?" queried Dora.
"We-ell," said Master Tommy, slowly, "lots of things thatain'tso, is better than them thatareso. There's fairy stories."
"Quite right," said Dora, quickly. "But there's nightmares, too—bad dreams, you know. They are not so, but they aren't pleasant to dream, are they?"
"Oh, no!" cried Tommy. "And I had a turrible bad dream—onct! And I was scart—yes, sir! And Billy heard me crying and he took me out of my crib and took me into bed with him."
Alice smiled. "I remember Tommy told about that. He said the cats got to fighting and were scratching and biting him."
"And Billy woked me up and took me to bed with him," said Tommy, placidly. "I wish Billy would come home again."
"When did this happen?" asked Dorothy, quickly, trying to turn the conversation from an unpleasant topic, as Alice's eyes filled with tears.
"Just the other night," said Tommy.
"But Billy's been away two weeks."
"It was jes' afore he went-ed away."
"It wasn't long before Billy went," agreed Alice, nodding.
"I know when!" cried Tommy. "It was the night afore I felled and scraped my knee on the doorstep."
"Why, Tommy!" cried his sister, springing out of her chair. "Are you sure of that?"
"Yes'm. I be sure," declared Tommy. "I dreamed the cats were scratchin' me; an' then that very nex' mornin' the old doorstep scratched me!" cried the small boy.
Alice turned to her visitors, her face pale in her earnestness.
"Oh, girls!" she cried. "I remember that night of Tommy's dream very well. He hurt his knee on Wednesday—the morning following the burglary. Billy took Tommy into bed with him before midnight, and they slept together all night. Doesn't that prove that Billy was not out of the house on the night of the burglary? Doesn't it?"
Dora and Dorothy looked at each other, and each slowly shook her head.
"Do you suppose the police would accept Tommy's testimony?" Dora asked, sadly.
The twins were very sorry for Alice and the other Longs and they did not believe the absent Billy guilty as charged; but who in authority would believe the testimony of such a little boy as Tommy? The fact that Billy had been at home, and in his bed, all the night of the burglary at Stresch & Potter's store was established in the minds of Billy's friends only.
The twins saw Chet Belding on the way home and heard some news, after telling Billy's friend of what Tommy had said.
"Of course Billy hadn't any hand in that robbery," Chet declared. "But I wish he hadn't run away. Father and Mr. Hargrew say they'd both go his bail. I wish I knew where he was."
"Didn't you think he was hiding somewhere on Cavern Island?" asked Dora, shrewdly.
"Yes, I did. I found his knife Saturday when we were in that cave," admitted Chet, frankly. "Don't you girls tell anybody. But Lance and I were through all the caverns with a man who knows them like a book—that was after the police searched. He couldn't be found.
"Oh, and I say! did you hear about Tony and his monkey?"
"We read that Tony had been fighting and was arrested," Dorothy said.
"Yep. And it was a near thing he didn't get sent to jail. The judge only fined him. The other man the police drove out of Centerport altogether. They thought he was the worse of the two. And Tony had paid for his concession at the park, and promised to be good.
"But the joke of it is," continued Chet, laughing, "the police don't want Tony to tell all he knows. You see, they shut him into the calaboose at the park and when they went to take him across on the boat to court, Tony wasn't there."
"He had escaped?" interrupted Dorothy.
"That's what," said Chet. "And how do you suppose he'd done it?"
"We couldn't guess," cried the girls.
"Why, the monkey unlocked the door of the cage and let his master out. The jailer had left the key in the lock while he went to breakfast, and the monkey did the rest. You know, that was one of the tricks we saw him do," continued Chet.
"Tony didn't think he had to stay in jail if the door was unlocked, so he walked down to his booth and got his own breakfast. And the police found him there and took him along to court. But they were easy on Tony for fear he would make the park police the laughing stock of the city. Lance and I happened to be over there early—it was when we searched for Billy in the caves—and we saw Tony rearrested."
"That Italian must be a bad one," Dora said. "How did he get off?"
"Tony said the man he was fighting with cheated him out of his share of some money," replied Chet. "And that man is gone, so who is to know the truth?"
The stretch of placid Lake Luna between the boat landing of Central High and the easterly end of Cavern Island was dotted with craft of various kinds and sizes, several afternoons later, when the twins slipped away from Aunt Dora and—with a word to their father in a whisper as to their goal—ran down to the dock and got their canoe into the lake.
Aunt Dora was suffering from what she called a "grumbly head"—which meant that she had a mild attack of neuralgia.
"But mercy, sirs!" Mrs. Betsey said, in a tone of exasperation rather strange for that dear old lady, "she has a 'grumbly' tongue all the time. I don't know what I shall do about keeping Mary if she stays much longer, girls."
"For the good of the family I may have to admit my identity and go home with her," groaned Dora.
"No, you sha'n't!" cried her twin. "You shall not be sacrificed. If Mary goes, we'll divide the work between us, and hire a laundress once a week to relieve Mrs. Betsey."
"My! what a bright girl you are, Dory," laughed Dora. "You've got it all fixed, haven't you? But what about after-hour athletics? No canoeing, and other fun. We'd have all our time out of school taken up with the housework."
"I don't care, Dora!" said Dorothy, firmly. "You could never live with Auntie. Why, she'd nag you to death."
"Dear old thing!" sighed Dora. "I wish she could see herself as others see her. How do you suppose papa came to have such a sister?"
"He has all the mildness of his generation of Lockwoods, and Aunt Dora has all the militancy."
"Oh, see there!" exclaimed her sister. "Hester Grimes and Lily Pendleton out in Hessie's canoe."
"That's a fine canoe," said Dorothy. "It's better than ours."
"But I believe we can beat them just the same."
"I shouldn't wonder if Hessie and Lily were intending to try for the honor of representing Central High in the girls' canoeing contest next month."
"I bet you!" returned her sister. "But Mrs. Case and the girls will have something to say about that."
"Mrs. Case has our records; but I heard that she will time us all again before the Big Day."
"We must do our very best, then," Dora declared, earnestly.
"True as you live!" her twin agreed.
They launched their canoe, stepped in lightly, knelt on the cushions, and dipped their paddles in the water. The craft shot away from the landing amid the approving remarks of the bystanders. The twins certainly did manage their canoe in admirable style.
The rhythm of their bodies, as they swayed to the paddling, was perfect. Their strokes were deep and in unison. The drops that flashed from their paddles as they came out of the water shone like jewels in the sun. The twins had a splendid reach and at every stroke the light canoe leaped ahead and trembled through all its frame.
Other boating parties saw them coming and gave the twins a clear way—all but Hester and Lily. They seemed to be waiting, and Hester flung a backward look every now and then as the Lockwood girls drew farther out into the lake.
"They're speeding up, too," said Dorothy to her sister.
"Let's race them, if they want to," Dora returned. "Who's afraid?"
"You know Mrs. Case would rather we did not race crews that intend to compete for the trophies."
"We—ell! The lake's free. And we're going the same way Hester and Lily are. If they race us, what's the odds?"
Dorothy was just as eager for a trial of speed as her sister. She nodded, and increased the power of her stroke, for she chanced to have the bow.
Immediately Hester and Lily redoubled their efforts and the handsome canoe belonging to the butcher's daughter shot ahead at a swifter pace. But the twins were in fine fettle, and their craft gradually crept up on the one in the lead.
It was evident to everybody who was near that Hester and Lily were putting forth all their strength to keep the Lockwoods from passing them, and some of the nearby boating parties cheered the race on.
Dora and Dorothy kept steadily at work, speaking no word, but gradually increasing their stroke until their craft was fairly flying through the calm water. Hester and Lily were older girls, and heavier; but they hadn't the lithe strength and skill of the twins.
Nearer and nearer the latter's canoe drew to Hester Grimes's boat. The twins were breathing easily, but to their full lung capacity, when they drew beside the other canoe; but they could hear Hester pant and Lily groan as they strained at the paddles.
On and on crept the second canoe, its bow soon at the middle of Hester's boat. Only a couple of yards divided the contestants. Several four-oared boats and the boys' eight-oared shell kept pace with them, and cheered the race.
The twins weaved back and forth like a perfect piece of mechanism. It was a pretty sight to watch them. The paddling of Hester and her chum was more ragged; but they were making a good fight.
The twins' canoe, however, continued to forge ahead. There was little doubt that they would soon pass their rivals.
And just then Hester uttered an angry cry, dipped her paddle more deeply, swerved her canoe, and its side came directly in the path of the twins' boat.
"Look out!" shrieked Lily. "You'll run us down!"
And that is what the twins did.
Crash went their canoe into that of Hester: both boats tipped alarmingly, and in a moment all four girls were struggling in the lake.