Amy remained standing beside the old lobsterman. Mollie and Grace had followed Mrs. Nelson and Betty into the cottage. Mr. Nelson was paying the carriage driver, and arranging to have some things brought over from the station.
"Tin-backs," repeated Amy. "What sort of crabs are they?"
"Soft crabs, just turnin' hard, miss," explained the old man. "If you punch in their backs they spring up and down like the bottom of a tin dish pan. That's why they call 'em that. Tin-backs is tough to eat. I never sell 'em, though some folks do. That's why they call me that, I guess."
"Oh!" remarked Amy. "Then that means you are—honest!"
"Wa'al, miss, I don't lay no special claims to virtue," he protested.
"But if you don't sell tinny crabs—ugh, how funny that sounds—then youmustbe honest!" Amy insisted. "I'm so glad to know you. Tellme, is there any pirate's treasure buried around here?"
Old Tin-Back looked at her, startled. Then he edged away slightly.
"Exactly," laughingly said Amy afterward, "as though I had announced that I was a militant suffragist, and intended burning his boats."
"Pirate's treasure, miss?" repeated the old lobsterman. "I—er—I never found any."
"But Mr. Nelson said there might be some."
"Oh, theremight—yes. And Imightfind a dead whale with a lump of ambergris in him, as big as a barrel," spoke Tin-Back, "but I neverhave."
"What's ambergris?" asked Amy, who rather enjoyed his talk.
"I don't rightly know, miss, but it's something like a lump of suet in a dead whale, and it's worth its weight in gold. It makes perfume!"
"The idea," murmured Amy, with a little shudder. "I don't believe I shall like perfume after that."
"Oh, I don't s'pose they use none of it around Ocean View," spoke Old Tin-Back, with a frank air. "Anyhow, we never see a dead whale in these parts. There was one once, but folks was glad when the high tide carried him out to sea. I guess they're callin' you," he added.
Amy was aware of Betty summoning her within the cottage. She smiled at Tin-Back and entered the house.
"Where were you?" demanded Betty. "I want you to see which room you like best. There are several to choose from."
"I was talking with the lobsterman," explained Amy. "He is called Tin-Back because he never sells that sort of crab, and he hopes he can find a lump of ambergris in a dead whale some day."
"Well, if that isn't a combination!" laughed Mollie. "Oh, but I think my room is thedearestone! Come and see it, Amy."
"Not until she selects her own," decided Betty.
Then began the settling down in the charming cottage of Edgemere at Ocean View. The girls had bedrooms adjoining, and across from one another along a hall that ran the whole length of the house, and ended in a little open balcony at either end. The house stood on a point of land, and from one end a view could be had of the ocean, while the other opened on Lobster Bay. There was a large plot of ground around the Nelson cottage so that other bungalows were not too near. And it was in the midst of a little summer colony of houses, so, though it stood rather by itself, the place was not in the least lonesome.
Trunks were unpacked, valises stripped of their contents, closets and chiffoniers filled, bureaus blossomed with a wonderful collection of combs, brushes, barettes, ribbons, and various bottles and jars. For, though the outdoor girls were not afraid of sun, wind or rain, Betty had warned them that sunburn was not an ailment to be rashly courted, and that cold cream, or talcum powder, judiciously used, might lessen many a smart.
Behold our friends then, a little later, well fortified within with clam chowder and other dainties prepared by 'Mandy, the wife of Old Tin-Back, strolling along the ocean beach. Mrs. Nelson was superintending the efforts of the maid to bring some order out of chaos at the cottage.
"It is perfectly lovely!" murmured Mollie, as she and her chums walked along the strand. "Charming."
"And so sweet of you to ask us down, Betty dear!" declared Grace.
"Oh, it was partly selfishness," Betty admitted. "I didn't want to stay here all summer alone."
"May we always meet with that sort of selfishness," observed Amy.
"I wonder when the boys will come," went on Grace.
"Lonesome already?" asked Betty, smiling.
"No. But Will promised to let me know what new plans he had when he came, and I've tried so hard to guess his secret that I'm tired."
"Give it up," advised Mollie. "Oh, look what pretty shells!" and she gathered several from the sand.
"How damp it is!" exclaimed Grace. "Positively, there isn't a bit of curl left in my hair. But just look at Amy's! I never saw it so pretty!"
"The salt air agrees with hers," said Betty. "We'll all have nice complexions if this Newport fog continues," and she indicated the mist arising from the sea.
"Let's sit down and just look at the ocean," suggested Amy, when they had walked some distance down the beach, and while they were thus idly employed, and when the afternoon was waning, they spied a solitary figure approaching them down the stretch of sand.
"It's Old Tin-Back," said Betty. "I wonder if he is looking for us?"
"He seems to be looking for something on the beach," commented Grace, "and unless he thinks we have slipped down one of those funny little holes the sand fleas make, I can't see how he could be searching for us."
But the old lobsterman had a message forthem, nevertheless, for when he came within hailing distance he called hoarsely:
"Ahoy there, young ladies! Your folks want you to come back. I told 'em I'd tell you if I saw you as I come along, and I done it."
"What were you looking for—treasure?" asked Grace, with a mischievous smile at Amy.
"Treasure? Humph, no, miss. I was looking for some of my lobster pots. A lot of them dragged their moorings in the last storm, and they get cast upon the beach sooner or later."
"Did you ever find any treasure on the beach?" demanded Betty.
"Wa'al, no, not exactly what you could calltreasure!" was the slow and cautious answer, "but I did find a pipe once, an' it lasted me for quite a while. Found it jest after I lost my corncob, too. So, in a manner of speakin', I did find suthin'."
"But never gold, or diamonds orrealtreasure, washed up from a wreck?" asked Amy, eagerly.
"No, miss."
"Are there ever wrecks?" inquired Betty.
"Oh, yes, once in a while, though not usually this time of year. In the winter the sea's altogether different, miss. It's terrible cruel and cold. Then we have wrecks. Why, right off there, twoyear ago," and with a gnarled finger he pointed though at no particular object as far as the girls could see, "right off there a three-master went down one night in a January, and all hands—eleven of 'em—was drownded."
"Didn't anyone try to save them?" asked Grace.
THE OLD LOBSTERMAN PEERED THROUGH A BATTERED SPY-GLASS. "THAT'S HER," HE ANNOUNCED.THE OLD LOBSTERMAN PEERED THROUGH A BATTERED SPY-GLASS. "THAT'S HER," HE ANNOUNCED.—Page 51.
The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View.
"Oh, yes, they tried, miss, but they couldn't launch the boat, and the wind was blowin' so they couldn't shoot a line over. The boat went to pieces on the bar, and the bodies washed ashore next day."
He told it simply, and was silent for a space.
"Does anything ever wash ashore from the wrecks?" asked Mollie.
"Oh, yes, once in a while, but not what you could rightly call treasure. Once a banana steamer got on the bar, and they had to throw over lots of cargo to lighten her. Folks here made quite a tidy sum collectin' them bunches of green bananas."
"But no boxes of gold or diamonds—mysterious, locked boxes?" asked Amy, still hopefully.
"No, miss, nothin' like that," and Old Tin-Back looked as though he was not altogether sure whether or not he was being made fun of.
The days passed at Ocean View, sunny, happy days. Each one brought new pleasure and delight to the outdoor girls, and they lived up to their name, for they were seldom in the house. They bathed and rowed in the bay, or paid visits to the quaint little town, where Grace discovered an old French woman who made delicious taffy.
"So Grace's happiness is assured for the summer," declared Mollie.
Then came a day when, as the four went down to see Old Tin-Back set off from the little dock in his dory to take up his lobster pots, they saw a motor boat heading into the bay.
"Oh, if that should be the boys!" exclaimed Grace, hopefully. "They wrote they might come this week; didn't they?"
"Yes," answered Betty.
"What boat ye lookin' fer?" asked Tin-Back.
"ThePocohontas," answered Amy.
The old lobsterman peered through a battered spyglass he took from a locker-box in his dory.
"That's her," he announced.
And so it proved. The big motor boat swung up to the dock and Will, Roy, Henry and Allen smiled at the girls.
"Well, we're here, you see!" announced Grace's brother. "This is the first real stop of our cruise. Been having a fine time these last five days. But we're glad we're here."
"And we're glad to see you!" respondedBetty. "Do come up to the cottage. Mamma will want to see you. How long can you stay?"
"Oh, a week—two weeks—a month in a place like this with—ahem! such nice girls!" remarked Roy.
"Oh, what's that? You scratched me!" exclaimed Grace as she suffered her brother to imprint a sort of half-way kiss on her cheek. His coat blew open, disclosing something shining through an armhole of his vest.
"Oh, that's my—badge!" he announced.
"Your badge? What are you, a pilot?" demanded Amy.
"Ahem! At your service!" exclaimed Will, with a low bow, as he extended a card to his sister. Grace fairly grabbed it from him, and read her brother's name, while, in a corner of the pasteboard, under a monogram device, were the letters "U. S. S. S."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"That's the secret," Will explained. "I have joined the United States Secret Service, sister mine!"
"Secret Service!" repeated Grace. "What does it mean?"
"It means I'm out for smugglers, counterlaws. So beware!"
For a moment or two the girls did not know whether or not to accept as truth the statement Will had made in such a dramatic manner. Then his sister Grace burst out with:
"Oh, Will, is it really true? Is that the secret you were going to tell me?"
"That's the secret, Sis! Isn't it a good one, and didn't I keep it well?"
"You certainly did, but I didn't expect it would be that. I thought it would be about—about—er——"
She paused in some confusion.
"She thought it would be about agirl!" broke in Mollie. "Why wasn't it, Will?"
"It may be yet. There are lady smugglers, you know!"
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Will Ford!"
"Is it really true?"
"I think he's just teasing us!"
Thus cried the girls in turn, Betty appealing to Allen in an aside to know whether Will really had been appointed to a government position.
"Oh, yes, its true enough," Allen said, smiling indulgently.
And finally, after a little gale of laughter had subsided, Will managed to make the girls, his sister included, understand, and believe that he really was telling the truth. Then they inspected his badge, looked at a sort of identifying card he carried in an inner pocket, and were satisfied.
"But what does it all mean?" asked Grace. "I didn't know you were going in for that sort of thing, Will! How did it happen? And are there any smugglers around here?"
"Hist! Not a word! Sush! Take care!" hissed her brother, stepping about with elaborate precautions on tiptoes, glancing rapidly from side to side, while he flashed a pretended dark lantern, and Allen imitated the low, shivery music of a Chinese orchestra.
"They may be here any minute!" chanted Will in dramatic tones. "Quick! We must hide those diamonds. And then, gal, at the peril of your life, you must give me those papers!" and he hissed after the manner of some stage villains.
"Oh, quit your fooling and tell us!" demanded Grace. "Then we'll go for a ride in yourboat, and you can stop at the Point and get me some chocolates, Will."
"Oh, I can, eh? Awfully kind, I'm sure."
"Do tell us about it," begged Amy.
"Ah, at leastyouare sincere!" exclaimed Will, with a look that made gentle Amy blush.
"Go on," urged Roy. "Then we'll get out on the water again. This weather is too good to miss."
"It was this way," explained Will. "I told dad I wanted a little longer vacation before I started in for college, after my experiences in that turpentine camp, and he agreed that I could have it. I don't know whether I told you or not, but when I ran away from Uncle Isaac's down South, I fell in with a Government Secret Service man. I guess he rather suspected I was up to some game, but he was real decent about it, and didn't give me away.
"I happened to do him a favor—helped him trail a certain man he was looking for, and he was good enough to compliment me on my memory for faces. He said it was the beginning of a successful detective's career.
"Well, I had no notion of being a detective, but it made me stop and think. Iampretty good at remembering faces and voices, you know, even if I do say it myself."
"That's right!" chimed in Allen. "I wish I had that faculty. It is the hardest thing for me to remember the faces and names of those I meet. But go on, Will."
"Well, the upshot of it was that this government man said if I ever wanted a lift he'd be glad to help me. He gave me his card, and, after all my troubles were over, thanks to your efforts, girls," and he included them all in his bow, "I decided to go in for Secret Service work.
"It wasn't as easy as I had expected, but at last I got the promise of a chance, and I began studying up, and taking the examinations. I passed successfully, and received my commission."
"So that's what you were doing all those days you were away so much?" asked Grace.
"That was it, Sis. And now I am a full fledged Secret Service agent, though I haven't arrested anyone yet."
"And are you really going to?" asked Betty.
"That all depends," replied Will. "If I see any law violations I'll have to."
"But are you looking for anyone in particular, up here?" asked Amy. "Any smugglers, pirates, or—or anything like that?"
"Bless her heart! She shall see a pirate arrested the first chance I have!" laughed Will.
"Oh, be serious, can't you?" asked Grace, with just the hint of a snap in her voice.
"Beg your pardon, Amy," apologized Will. "You see it's this way. I'm in the Boston district, and that takes in a good part of the New England coast. I haven't really been assigned to any particular locality yet. I'm supposed to keep my eyes open wherever I am, though."
"Around here?" Mollie wanted to know.
"Yes, here as well as anywhere else. But I'm on a leave of absence now. I'm spending a few days cruising with the boys. I'll soon have to go back to Boston."
"Well, then busy yourself and buy me those chocolates!" demanded Grace. "You don't need to act in your official capacity for that."
"Do you really think there may be pirates or smugglers around here?" asked Amy, who seemed strangely interested in the matter.
"Well, there might be. You never can tell," said Will, with a look around the horizon as though to discover some mysterious and suspicious vessel in the offing.
After Will's explanations he had to answer a hail of questions from the girls. The boys already knew all he could tell them. Then his sister and her chums wished him all kinds of good luck.
"And I hope we see you arrest your first smuggler!" exclaimed Mollie, with a quick gesture of her expressive hands and shoulders.
"Oh, I don't!" cried Amy, with a nervous look behind her.
"Well, if we're going to take the girls for a ride let's do it," suggested Allen.
"How does the boat run?" asked Betty, assheturned her attention to it.
"Fine and dandy!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm.
A little later the merry party of young people were out on the wide, blue waters of the bay.
Several gladsome days followed. The boys were welcomed at Edgemere, and, as the cottage was a large one, Mrs. Nelson insisted on Will and his chums remaining there, though they said they wanted to camp out, or sleep aboard thePocohontas. But the quarters there were rather cramped.
One day, when the boys were coming back in the boat with the girls, the engine suddenly stopped while they were still a short distance from the dock.
"Hello! What's up? Trouble?" asked Roy.
"Yes, it's that magneto again," decided Allen. "I think I'd better tie her up and get a new one.It will be giving us trouble all summer if I don't."
And then, as the craft was ingloriously paddled up to the dock, the boys held a mysterious conversation regarding ground-wires, brushes, platinum points, spark plugs and batteries.
"Oh, will the boat have to go to the repair shop?" asked Betty.
"Will you be sorry?" returned Allen, meaningly.
"You know I shall. I do so enjoy—the water," she answered with a little blush and a bright glance.
"You sha'n't miss anything," he declared. "I'll charter a sailboat while thePocohontasis laid up."
And this he did, arranging with Old Tin-Back for the hire of a catboat that would hold all the party. Thus the glorious summer days were used to best advantage, the young people cruising about the bay, fishing and bathing as suited their fancy.
"Not going out to-day; are ye?" asked Old Tin-Back, as he came down to the dock one morning, and found the boys and girls about to start off.
"We certainly are!" declared Will. "I think something will happen to-day. I have a feeling in my bones that I may land a smuggler or two."
"Oh, Will!" expostulated his sister. "Don't joke. That may be serious."
"I only hope itisserious," he declared.
"What's the matter with going out to-day?" asked Allen.
"Wa'al, it looks like a squall," replied the old lobsterman. "If ye do go don't go out too far."
"Oh, I don't want to go!" objected Grace.
The others laughed Grace out of her fears, and they started off in the sailboat, the motor craft having been left at the repair dock some distance up the coast.
As they swung and dipped over the blue waters of the bay, the signs of the storm increased, and the girls, becoming more and more nervous, insisted on the boys keeping close to shore.
And finally, when they were some distance from Ocean View, but fortunately near a little sheltering cove, the storm broke with sudden fury.
"Down with that sail!" yelled Allen, as the gust struck the boat, heeling her over so that one rail dipped well under water.
"Oh, we're going to capsize!" screamed Grace.
"Keep still!" ordered her brother.
With frightened eyes the girls clung to one another, huddled together in the little cockpit cabin, while a big wave coming from the stern seemed to threaten to swamp them.
"Oh! Oh!" screamed Grace. "We'll be drowned!"
"Nonsense! Keep quiet!" commanded Will, with the authority only a brother could have displayed on such an occasion. His stern voice had the desired effect and Grace ceased clinging to her chums with a grip that really endangered them.
"Oh, I'm so sorry I was silly!" she exclaimed contritely, as the big wave passed harmlessly under the sailboat. Then the craft swung behind a projecting point of land and they were in calmer waters. Allen had let the sail come down on the run, and all danger of capsizing was over. The wind still blew in fitful gusts, however, and the rain, which had been holding off, came down in a drenching shower.
"Get out the mackintoshes!" cried Roy, for those garments had been brought with them at the suggestion of Old Tin-Back.
Protected now against the downpour, and incalmer waters, the young people were themselves once more. The jib gave way enough to the craft for Allen to head it toward a little dock which seemed to be the landing place of the neighborhood fishermen.
"What are you going to do?" asked Will. "Stay here until the storm is over?"
"Might as well," Allen answered. "And yet—hello! What's that?" he interrupted himself suddenly, pointing out to the bay.
"A motor boat broken loose from its mooring," answered Roy.
"And if it isn't thePocohontasI miss my guess!" added Amy's brother.
"That's right!" declared Allen. "John's repair shop is in this cove. He must have anchored her out, and the storm tore her loose. He evidently doesn't know it."
"Well, we know it!" cried Will, "and she'll be on those rocks in a few minutes more. See! She's drifting right toward them!"
It needed but a glance to disclose this. The drifting motor boat, under the influence of wind and waves, was heading straight toward some half-submerged but sharp rocks that were a danger-point in the little cove.
"What's to be done?" demanded Roy.
"You must save your boat, that's certain!"put in Betty, thus sustaining her reputation as a Little Captain.
"We've got to," said Will. "But to take you girls out there again——"
"Don't you dare do it, in this storm!" broke in Grace, for the wind and rain had now reached their height.
"Can't you land us?" asked Betty, taking in the situation at a glance. "That will be best. Put us on shore and then this boat will be so much easier to handle. The wind is right, and you can get thePocohontasbefore she goes on the rocks."
"She's got the idea," declared Allen, admiringly. "We can save our boat, if we hustle."
"Then—'hustle'!" cried Betty, with a little blush, as she shook her head to rid her flashing eyes of raindrops. "Put us ashore at the dock, and save thePocohontas."
"But what will you do?" asked Allen. "I don't like to leave you on the beach alone."
"We four girls won't be lonesome," declared Mollie. "It isn't the first time we've roughed it. Besides, there is some sort of a fisherman's shanty there. We'll go inside, if the storm gets too bad. But I think it is going to clear."
Indeed there were indications that the weather at least was going to get no worse. There wasa hasty conference among the boys, who cast anxious eyes toward their drifting boat. Then the sailing craft was worked up to the little dock, and the girls sprang out.
"We'll come back for you," promised Will.
"If you can't it will be all right," Betty assured him. "We can walk back along the beach after the storm. It isn't more than a mile or two, and we haven't done very much walking lately."
"Well, we'll see what happens," spoke Allen, anxious to get out to thePocohontas, which was dangerously near the rocks.
The girls paused on the dock a moment, to watch the boys beating back out over the bay, and then turned to go up the beach. They had never been on this part of the coast before. It was lonesome and deserted, save for one rather shabby hut just above high-water mark. Over beyond some distant sand dunes, the boys had been told, was the establishment of the boat-builder, where they had taken their craft to have a new magneto put in.
"Shall we go in and ask for shelter?" asked Amy, as they neared the hut.
"Well, it's raining pretty hard," returned Grace.
"Oh, don't let's go in!" said Betty, suddenly,as she looked at a window of the hut. "It's much nicer outside."
"But it's raining so!" protested Mollie, with a quick look at her chum.
"I know. But we're neither sugar nor salt, and this isn't the first rain we've been out in. Besides, I'm sure, in there, it will smell of—fish! I can't bear to be shut up in a stuffy cabin that smells of fish. I vote we stay out. See, it is beginning to clear already," and she pointed to a streak of light in the west.
"Is that your real reason—a dislike of the smell of—fish?" asked Mollie, in a low voice, that Betty alone could hear.
"Not exactly, no," was the reply, equally guarded. "I happened to catch a glimpse of some faces at the window of that hut, and I did not like the look of them—they were—ugh! I don't know what to say," and Betty gave a slight shiver that was not caused entirely by the chilling rain.
"I saw them, too," spoke Mollie, in louder tones now, for Grace and Amy had walked on ahead. "And one of them was—a woman's face."
"Yes, but such a face!" agreed Betty. "It was hard—cruel—oh, I'll never go in that hut."
"Nor will I. The rain is stopping, I think."
"Then let's walk back to Ocean View," proposed Betty. "What do you say, girls?" she called to Amy and Grace. "Shall we walk back? It's stopping, and the sand will be firm and hard after the rain."
"I don't mind," spoke Amy, always willing to be accommodating.
"Oh, well, I suppose we'll have to, if the boys don't come for us," assented Grace.
"They won't be back for some time," declared Betty. "See, they have just reached the boat, and in time, too, I think. A little later she would have been on the rocks."
Allen and his chums had indeed been fortunate in saving thePocohontas. Through the clearing air the girls watched them preparing to tow the motor craft back.
"It will be some time before they can come for us," repeated Betty. "We might as well go on."
"But they won't know where we are," objected Grace, who did not altogether relish the idea of walking. She was wearing shoes with very high heels.
"They'll understand," responded Betty. "See, they are looking this way. I'll give them some sign language they'll understand," and she began waving her arms, and pointing in the direction of Ocean View, down the coast.
"Who in the world will understand that?" demanded Mollie.
"Allen will," answered Betty.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mollie with a laugh. "Then this isn't the first time you have talked with him in sign language."
"Silly!" protested Betty. "Come on, girls," and she strode off down the wet sands. The rain had almost stopped.
"This is better than waiting back in that hut," observed Mollie, walking beside the Little Captain.
"I should say so!" exclaimed Betty. "Oh, those horrid faces."
"Just like smugglers!" declared Mollie.
"What's that about smugglers?" demanded Grace, quickly, turning around. She was in advance with Amy.
"Oh—nothing," spoke Betty, and Grace resumed her talk with her other chum.
The girls walked along the beach. Now a turn of the coast hid the boys from sight, and their work of towing back the drifting motor boat.
"Oh, it's farther than I thought!" sighed Grace, as the atmosphere became clearer, and, some distance down the coast they could see the little village of Ocean View.
"Oh, it isn't far at all!" declared Betty. "Wehaven't done enough walking lately, that's the reason. We'll soon be there."
As the girls made a turn around some high sand dunes they heard the staccato puffing of a motor boat.
"Can that be the boys?" asked Mollie, quickly.
"Of course not! They are away behind us," declared Betty, "and that sound came from in front. See, there it is—a motor boat," and she pointed to one just leaving the shore of a little cove.
Several men had evidently just leaped into the craft which, because of the shallow water, had to be shoved some distance out.
Then a strange thing happened. The men appeared to be surprised at the sight of the girls—an unexpected sight, it would appear—for some of them seemed anxious to put back, while others were urgent for keeping on out into the bay.
"That's queer!" commented Betty.
"What?" asked Amy.
"Those men seem anxious to come back; at least, some of them do, and others don't," went on Betty. "Look, they seem to be quarreling among themselves!"
"Goodness!" cried Grace, shrinking back against Betty. "They are fighting!"
"It does look so," responded the Little Captain. "One man seems to be trying to jump overboard!"
It did so appear to the outdoor girls. The motor boat containing the half-dozen rough-looking men was rapidly leaving the shore of the cove, but one man in it seemed anxious to return to the beach. His companions had forcibly to restrain him, as he seemed willing to leap into the water, and swim back.
Confused shouts and cries came from the men in the boat, as though they were of several opinions. Finally, however, the majority seemed to gain their point, and the man who had appeared so excited quieted down.
But, as the boat gathered headway, this man, sitting in the stern, never took his eyes from thefour girls. He watched them until the craft was so far out that his features could not be distinguished.
"Wasn't that odd?" demanded Amy, being the first to speak after the little episode.
"It certainly was," agreed Betty.
"They seemed afraid—yes, actually afraid of us," put in Grace.
"And there wasn't the least need of it," laughed Mollie. "I wouldn't have harmed one of those men—oh, for anything!"
"I guess not!" Amy declared. "I was all ready to run if they headed their boat back this way."
"What in the world do you suppose was the matter?" asked Grace, as they stood looking after the vanishing boat. The boys were no longer in sight, being hidden from view behind a projecting point of land.
"Perhaps this is private grounds we are on," suggested Mollie, "and they didn't like to see us trespassing."
"It couldn't have been that," Grace remarked. "Everyone walks along the beach, and I believe no one is allowed to claim any land below high water mark, so it couldn't have been that."
"Maybe there are quicksands here!" exclaimed Amy, looking nervously about. "There are suchthings, you know. The Goodwin Sands, in England, are awful. If you once are caught in a quicksand you never get out."
"Nothing like that around here," asserted Betty. "If there was, you can depend on it, Daddy never would have hired a cottage."
"Besides," added Grace, "if there had been danger the men would not have been in two minds about coming back to warn us. They would surely not have let us run into danger."
"No, it couldn't have been that," decided Betty. "But the men were certainly divided in opinion about coming back here, and they must have left just before we came in sight. Well, it will never be solved, I suppose, but I don't know that it need worry us. Though if the boys were here I think they would make quite a mystery of it."
"Will would make quite a fuss about it, if he were here, I guess," laughed Grace. "He'd be sure the men were pirates, or something like that, show his new badge and want to question them."
"Then I'm glad he isn't here!" exclaimed Amy, with such warmth that Grace exclaimed:
"Oh, Amy! I never knew you cared—so much."
"I don't! That is—yes, of course I care! That is—oh, I wish you'd let me alone!" burstout the blushing Amy, whereas Grace teased her all the more, until Betty put an end to it saying:
"Well, let's get along. The men don't seem to be coming back, and mamma may be worried, knowing that we went out when a storm was brewing. Old Tin-Back is sure to tell her that we went off defying the elements."
"Isn't he a queer old character?" remarked Mollie.
"Yes, but I like him," Betty answered. "He says he has never yet given up hope of finding some treasure washed ashore from a wreck. He's always looking as he walks along the beach."
"And that in spite of the fact that, with all his years of looking, he has found only a pipe," laughed Mollie. "He is very persevering, is Old Tin-Back."
"Most fishermen are," spoke Betty.
"I suppose thingsareoccasionally washed up by the sea," Amy observed. "Let's look as we walk along the beach."
Hardly knowing why they did so, the eyes of the outdoor girls roamed the beach, which, as the tide had just gone out, was strewn with odds and ends. Nothing of moment, though, it seemed—bits of broken boxes and barrels, bottles and tin cans, probably the refuse from coasting vessels.
"Oh, I'm tired!" suddenly exclaimed Grace. "Let's see if we can't find a place to sit down."
"Tired! No wonder, wearing such high-heeled shoes!" objected Betty. "You are violating one of the ethics of the outdoor girls' organization!" she went on. "You can't expect to walk in those."
"I'm not going to try again," confessed Grace. "Oh, I simply must sit down."
"The sand is so wet," objected Mollie.
They managed to find a broken spar, cast up by the waves, and by putting on it some boards, which they turned over to find the dry side, they evolved a comfortable seat.
"Oh, isn't this just lovely!" exclaimed Betty, as she gazed out over the bay, now glistening beneath the sun, which had come out from behind the storm clouds.
"It is perfect," agreed Amy.
Mollie was idly digging in the sand behind the spar. She used a shell, and had scooped out quite a hole. Suddenly the shell scraped on something with a shrill sound.
"Oh, don't!" begged Grace. "You set my teeth on edge! What is it, Mollie?"
Mollie did not answer at once. She was digging in the sand more quickly now. Again the shell scraped on some metal.
"Oh, Mollie!" objected Grace again, putting her hands over her ears. "What is it?"
"I—I think I've found something," replied Mollie in a low voice. "Look, girls, it's some sort of box."
They leaned over her. Her shell had scraped away the wet sand from the top of a square piece of metal. Mollie tapped it.
"It—it sounds hollow!" she whispered.
"Probably a tin can," said Betty.
"No," spoke Mollie, resolutely.
"Here, let me help you!" exclaimed Amy.
She looked about for something with which to dig. Near where Mollie had uncovered the piece of metal a queerly shaped stick stuck upright in the sand. Amy pulled it out, with no small effort, and at once began digging.
"Oh, it's some sort of a box—an iron box!" cried Mollie, with eager, shining eyes. "We have really found something."
Mollie and Amy dug until they had wholly uncovered the object. Then, with a quick motion, Mollie put her hands under the lower edges, and with a sudden effort brought up out of the hole in the sand a curious iron box.
"It—it really is—something!" she said.
Instinctively Betty looked out over the bay in the direction taken by the strange, quarreling men in the motor boat.
Mollie Billette set the black iron box down on the log that had formed the seat for the outdoor girls. A little wind was rapidly drying the dampness. The wind even dried some of the sand on the box, and scattered it in a little rattling shower on a bit of paper on the beach.
The girls did not seem to know what to say. Betty looked back from her glance across the bay, in the direction of the now unseen boat, in time to notice Mollie, ever neat, wiping her damp hands on her pocket handkerchief. Amy was looking at the queerly-carved stick which had served her as a shovel to dig in the sand.
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Grace. "Isn't it wonderful! It really is a box!"
"Yes, it's certainlythat, all right!" added the more practical Mollie.
"And if it should contain treasure!" went on Grace, rather at a loss because her chocolates were all gone.
"Old Tin-Back should have found this," commented Mollie.
"Or the boys," spoke Betty. "I wish they were here."
"The idea!" exploded Mollie. "As if we didn't know what to do as well as though the boys were here to tell us. That isn't our Little Captain; is it, girls?" she asked the others.
"Oh, I only meant about the legal end of it," said Betty, quickly.
"Oh, I see! She just wants—Allen!" remarked Grace.
"No, it isn't that at all!" Betty cried, quickly. "But you know there are certain rules about things found at sea, or near the sea. For instance, if this is above the high-water mark it might be, the property of whoever owns the land back there."
"Well, it's above high-water mark all right," declared Amy. "Though I think in a heavy blow or at a high tide the water might come up here. But we can't go by rules now; can we, Betty?"
"Oh, I suppose not."
"I'm going to take the box home with us," Mollie declared. "It may have been washed ashore from some ship, and there may be nothing in it but——"
"Tobacco!" exclaimed Grace with a laugh.
"Tobacco?" questioned the others in a chorus.
"It looks just like a tobacco box," the chocolate-loving girl went on. "But perhaps it isn't."
"Of course it isn't!" declared Mollie.
"I'm sure it contains treasure," said Amy. "Oh, if it should! Wouldn't the old lobsterman be surprised?"
"Well, he wouldn't be the only one to be surprised," spoke Mollie.
"I think we would ourselves," added Betty, with a laugh. "Now, girls, let's see what we really have found."
With a bunch of seaweed Mollie brushed from the box the sand that clung to it. Then the outdoor girls gathered around the case as it rested on the log.
"Look!" exclaimed Grace as the covering of sand was disposed of. "There are some letters on the box."
"So there are!" agreed Betty. They leaned forward to look.
Staring at them from the black top of the box were three white letters. They were rather scratched and faded, but the girls soon made them out as follows: