At the first sight of the old crone Betty had drawn back, and now, as the fishwife spoke, in a voice which she tried to render melodious, though it ended only in a croak, the Little Captain seemed to urge her chums away.
"What does she mean?" whispered Grace.
"Come in and rest—it is wearyin' work, walkin' in the sand," the woman persisted. "I know, for many a day I have walked it lookin' for my man to come back from the fishin' channel. But he's away now, and it's lonesome for an old woman. Do come ye in!"
"No, thank you, we like to be out of doors," answered Betty, forestalling something Amy was going to say.
"I could give you a drink of milk," the old fishwife went on. "Nice cold milk. And cookies I baked myself—molasses cookies."
"No, thank you just the same," spoke Betty,in a voice she tried to render appreciative, though she showed a distinct distaste for the nearness of the old woman. "We have just had breakfast," she added.
"But won't you come in and rest?" the crone persisted. "The walk in the sand——"
"No, we aren't tired," said Mollie, seconding Betty's efforts. "And we must be going back. Come on, girls. I'll race you to the old boat!" she cried, with a sudden air of gaiety, and she set off at a rapid pace.
For a moment the others hung back, and then Betty cried:
"Come on, girls! It sha'n't be said that Billy beat me!"
The old woman stared after the girls, uncomprehendingly for a moment, and then, with a scowl on her face, turned back to the hut again.
"Run on! Run on!" she muttered. "But I'll get ye yet! I'll get ye!"
She turned, and seeing the backs of the girls toward her, shook a gnarled and wrinkled fist at them.
"I'll get ye yet!" she repeated.
As she entered the hut a man's face was thrust down through an opening in the ceiling—a hole that had been covered by a hatch-board.
"Wouldn't they come?" he asked.
"Naw! They turned from me as if I was dirt."
"The snips! Well, maybe we'll get another chance."
"Another chance?" repeated the crone.
"Yes! We've got to, I tell you. If not, Jake will——"
"Hush! No names!" cautioned the woman.
Meanwhile the outdoor girls, having raced to the goal, an old boat half-buried in the sand, came to a panting halt. Mollie had won, chiefly because she had started off before the others, for Betty was accounted the best runner of her chums.
"Well, what does it all mean?" asked Grace, who came limping in last, for, in spite of her expressed promise to the contrary, she still wore those high-heeled shoes. "You act as though you had run away from the plague, Betty!"
"And so we did, my dear. The plague of fish! Ugh! I can almost taste them—fishy, oily fish!"
"And she offered us—milk!" added Mollie.
"It would probably have been—cod-liver oil," spoke Betty, with a shudder of repugnance. "Oh, let me get a breath of real air!" and she turned her face to the misty wind of the sea.
"But what does it all mean?" asked Amy, inrather bewildered tones. "Why did we run away?"
"That's what I want to know," put in Grace. "And I believe—yes, I have dropped my chocolates. Oh, how provoking! I'm going back after them."
"You're going to do nothing of the sort!" declared Betty, with a firmness she seldom manifested.
"But—why?" questioned Grace. "Why can't I go back after my candy?"
"Baby!" mocked Mollie.
"Because it's probably near that abominable hut!" said Betty. "And that old crone might capture you. Did you see how eager she was to get us in there?"
"She did seem rather insistent," agreed Amy. "But was it any more than mere kindness?"
"If you ask me—it was," said Betty, firmly.
"But why?" persisted Grace.
"Eternal question mark!" Betty commented. "Now, girls," she went on, "I don't know all the whys and wherefores, but I'm sure of one thing, and that is nice people don't live in that hut. I don't mean just poor, or unfortunate, or ignorant people, either," she went on. "I mean they aren't nice—or—or safe! There, perhaps you'll like that better."
"Not safe?" repeated Grace. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I saw faces looking from the window of that hut, the day we found the diamonds, that I wouldn't want to meet in the dark, or alone—those who go with the faces, perhaps, I should say."
"Oh!" exclaimed Grace, glancing involuntarily over her shoulder.
"Oh, no one is following us," Betty said; "but I wanted to get well away."
"Why do you think she wanted us to go in?" inquired Mollie.
"Do you think it had anything to do with the diamonds?" was Amy's question.
"I don't know what to think," confessed Betty. "But I wouldn't have gone into that hut for a good bit. Though perhaps the worst we would have been asked would have been to purchase some worthless trifles."
"Or perhaps buy smuggled lace," suggested Mollie.
"I never thought of that!" exclaimed Betty. "Of course it might be that."
"If Will were only here!" said Amy.
"We'll tell him when he comes back," Betty said. "Perhaps it may not amount to anything, but if he can give the government some information it may serve him a good turn, since he is just beginning work in the Secret Service."
"But do you really think that old woman, and those you may have seen through the window of the hut the day we made our find, have anything to do with the diamonds?" asked Mollie.
"Frankly, I haven't the least idea," admitted Betty. "And what is the use of guessing and wondering? Only I am sure of one thing. I'll never go into that hut!"
Betty little realized how her boast was to be recalled to her under strange circumstances.
The outdoor girls sat down to rest on the old boat, and talked of many things. The impression caused by the old woman's invitation soon wore off. Then they started back, for they wanted to get their morning bath before luncheon.
"Oh, some one is here!" exclaimed Betty, as they saw an auto standing on the graveled drive of the cottage. "I wonder who it can be?"
"You father or Will wouldn't be back so soon; would they?" asked Amy.
"No, it must be——"
A voice interrupted Betty.
"Ah, I dare say I shall find them! I will keep along the beach. Charming weather, isn't it? Ah, yes, really!"
"Percy Falconer!" said Grace. "Catch me, somebody!"
"Hush! He'll hear you!" cautioned Betty, and a moment later the "johnny" of Deepdale, attired in the latest fashion in motoring togs, came out on the porch, followed quickly by Mrs. Nelson.
"Oh, here are the girls now!" said Betty's mother.
"Yes," assented Betty. "We are back," but there was no enthusiasm in her voice.
"Oh, but I say, I am charmed to see you—all," added Percy, after a glance at the Little Captain. "I motored down, don't you know. Father let me, after some arguing. I should have liked to come in the boat, with the rest of the fellows, but I can't stand the sea, really I can't. But I'm glad I'm here."
"Yes, we—we are glad to see you," Betty said. "We are going in bathing; won't you come along?"
"Ah, thank you, now. I'm afraid it's a little too cool for going into the water to-day; don't you?"
"No, we like it!" said Mollie. "How did you leave Deepdale?"
"Oh, everything is the same, though it's very lonesome, with you girls away."
"Oh, who let him in?" murmured Grace, with a despairing glance at Betty.
"Hush!" the latter cautioned her. "At least he has his car, and we can have a ride now and then," for Mollie's machine was in use by her mother that summer, and the girls had no chance at its pleasures.
"Mercenary!" whispered Mollie to the Little Captain.
Percy was made as welcome as the circumstances permitted, and he sat on the sand under a huge umbrella while the girls frolicked in the water. The boys came back for luncheon, and helped to divide the boredom of the newest arrival, though they made uncomplimentary remarks behind his back, and Betty was in constant fear lest some unpleasant incident should occur. She had to remember that she was the hostess.
Nothing was said of the incident at the fisherman's hut, and that afternoon the young people went for a motor boat trip. That is, all but Percy Falconer. He could not be induced to embark, even on the calm waters of the bay, and so he spent a lonesome afternoon at the cottage, talking to Mrs. Nelson.
Toward evening Betty found a chance to speak to Old Tin-Back, who came with a mess of crabs.
She asked him who lived in the little, lone hut.
"Well, no one as you would care to know, Miss Betty. He's a man that hasn't a good name."
"A man? But I thought a woman——"
"Oh, yes, Mag, his wife, is there, too. She's worse than Pete in some respects."
"Are they smugglers?" Betty wanted to know.
"Well, they might be, if there was anythin' to smuggle. But I call 'em just plain—thieves. Pete could tell lots about other folks' lobster and crab cars being opened if he wanted to, I guess."
A telegram came from Mr. Nelson that evening, saying he would remain in Boston two or three days. He added that there was "no news," which the girls took to mean he had heard nothing about the diamonds. Will sent no word.
It was about nine o'clock, when, after a stroll down the moonlit beach, the boys and girls were returning to the cottage. As they came up the walk a scream rang out.
"What's that?" cried Allen, who was beside Betty.
"It sounded like Jane, the cook," was the answer. "But——"
More screams interrupted Betty, and then the voice of a woman was heard calling:
"Come quick! There's men in the cellar!"
"Come on, boys!" cried Allen, evidently the first to sense the meaning of the alarm.
"Oh, but shouldn't we have some sort of weapons, you know?" spoke Percy.
"Get out of my way!" cried Roy Anderson, brushing past the dude. "My fists are the only weapons I want."
Betty and the other girls hung back in a frightened group. The maid's voice continued to ring out, and now Mrs. Nelson could be heard demanding to know what was the matter.
"Around to the side, fellows!" commanded Allen. "There's an outer door they'll probably try for."
"But who'll guard the front here?" asked Amy's brother.
"Let Percy do that!" Allen flung back over his shoulder. "He probably won't come with us, anyhow," he added.
The three young men hastened around to the side of the cottage, while Percy, hardly knowing what to do, remained with the girls in front. At the side was an old-fashioned, slanting cellar door, the kind celebrated in song as the one down which children slide, to the no small damage of their clothes.
As Allen and his chums reached a point where they could view this door, they saw it suddenly flung up with a bang, and three men spring up the stone steps.
"There they are!" yelled Roy.
"After 'em!" shouted Henry Blackford.
"It wasn't a false alarm, anyhow," added Allen. "Hold on there!" he cried. "Stop! Who are you? What do you want? Stop!"
But neither the commands nor the questions halted the men. They ran on, with never a word of answer or defiance flung back—dogged shadows fleeing through the moonlight to the shrubbery-encompassed grounds of Edgemere.
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" cried Roy.
"Oh!" screamed Grace, covering her ears.
"Good bluff, all right," complimented Allen. "But it won't work."
Nor did it. Roy's bright idea went for naught, for the men still crashed on. They were lost sight of now behind a screen of bushes, but theboys were not going to give up the pursuit so easily.
"Come on!" called Allen. "We'll have them in another minute! They can't get over the stone wall."
"Stone wall?" echoed Henry.
"Sush! It was another bluff, just as my threat was to shoot," cautioned Roy. "It may turn them back."
But it did not. Evidently the men knew the grounds about Edgemere as well as did the boys, for there was no sign of a halt in their headlong pace. On they crashed through bushes and underbrush, dodging among the trees of the garden, and minding not the flower beds they trampled under foot.
"They're getting away from us," remarked Henry, who was panting along beside Allen.
"Yes, they evidently had a line of retreat all marked out."
"Who are they?"
"Haven't the least idea. Tramps, maybe—maybe something worse."
"You mean——"
"I don't know just what I do mean," replied Allen. "Come on, let's do a little sprint, and we may get them. If we don't they'll soon be down on the beach, and it will be all up withthe chase if they have a boat, as they probably have."
"If it was on the ocean side we'd have some chance; the surf is heavy to-night."
"Yes, but they're running toward the bay."
As I have explained, Edgemere was built on a point of land. One side of the house fronted the ocean, and the other the bay. At this point the land was not above a thousand feet wide, and the cottage property extended from shore line to shore line.
As Allen had said, the intruders, coming from the cellar, had turned toward the bay side, and if they had a boat waiting for them in those quiet waters they would have no difficulty in pushing off. But if they had gone the other way the unusually heavy surf would have held them back, at least for a time.
"There they go!" cried Roy, breaking out through the last fringe of bushes.
"And in a motor boat, too!" added Roy.
"If we only had ours," Henry mourned.
But it was vain wishing. ThePocohontaswas docked some distance away, and by the time the boys could reach her, and start an engine that was never noted for going without considerable "tinkering," it would be too late.
For the men had luck on their side. Theyfairly tumbled into a swift looking craft that was near shore, in charge of some one evidently waiting for them. In another instant the chug of the motor told that it had started. Then the boys had the dissatisfaction of standing on the sand, panting after their run, and seeing the men gradually draw out into the bay.
The sky had clouded over and the moon, that might have been a help, was not now of any service.
"Well, there they go," said Allen, in exasperated tones. "I'd give a good deal to know who they were, and what they were after."
"Let's go back to the house and see if we can find out," suggested Roy. "The fuss started there, you know."
"In the cellar—where the diamonds are," added Henry.
"That's so!" cried Allen. "For the moment I had forgotten them! Come on back. Maybe the rascals got the stones!"
The boys went back the same route they had so recently and so uselessly traveled. As they neared the cottage a voice hailed them.
"I say. Hold on! Who are you? What do you want? Remember there are ladies here!"
"It's Percy!" gasped Allen, trying not to laugh. "He's acting as home guard!"
"I wonder if he has his wrist watch on," laughed Roy.
"It's all right," called Henry, not wishing his sister and the other girls to be needlessly frightened. "We're coming back."
"Did you get them?" asked Betty, from the darkness.
"No, they got away in a boat," answered Allen. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, but the servants and mother are quite frightened. Could you see who they were?"
"No. Evidently tramps, or fishermen. We'll have to have a look at those——"
Allen did not complete the sentence, but they all knew to what he referred.
"So you—er—missed them?" questioned Percy, when the two groups were together again. "Too bad! I was just coming to join you. I had to have a weapon, you know, and I found—this."
He showed a little stick which he had picked up.
"I should have hit them with it had I gotten near enough," he went on, seriously—for him.
"It's a good thing you didn't," spoke Roy. "You might have killed one of them with that, Percy."
"Oh, so I should! I—I can strike very hardwhen I am angry. I am just as well pleased that there was no need for desperate measures. I really am!"
But no one paid any attention to him now, though he tried to walk beside Betty. Allen and Roy had taken this vantage place, one on either side of the Little Captain.
"Betty, where are you?" called Mrs. Nelson, from the darkness.
"Here, Mother. Don't worry. It's all right. The men got away in a boat. We are coming in to hear all about it."
The story was soon told.
One of the maids, going down cellar to get something from the food store-room, had surprised a man prowling about with an electric flashlight.
The girl screamed, and her cries were augmented by the yells of another domestic in the kitchen.
Then the first girl saw two other men come from some part of the cellar and join the first one. They ran out just as the boys came up, and the fruitless chase resulted.
"What sort of men were they?" asked Betty of the girl who had given the alarm.
"Oh, I don't know, Miss Betty," was the half-sobbed reply.
"But you must know! Did he wear a tall hat or——"
"A tall hat? Of course not, miss. He was like a tramp, or a fisherman—maybe a clammer."
"That's how I sized them up," Allen said. "Fishermen. Did they say anything to you?" he asked the maid.
"Not a thing—no, sir. He just caught his breath, sort of frightened like, and ran out."
"Did the one you saw call to the others?"
"Oh, no, sir, they all ran out at once, as soon as I went down. I had a light myself."
"What part of the cellar were they in?"
"I couldn't exactly say. They seemed to be all over."
"Well, we'll have a look for—to see if anything is missing," Allen hastily changed his remarks, for the servants knew nothing about the diamonds; or, at least, they were not supposed to know about them.
"Come on, boys," the young law student went on.
"Oh, but hadn't we better send for the authorities?" asked Percy. "Or at least take a weapon," for Allen and the others had nothing in their hands.
"He's loony on the subject of weapons," grunted Roy.
Allen led the way down cellar, the girls and the servants not venturing, though Betty did want to go. But her mother kept her back.
A glance served to show that the diamonds were in the box, safe. As far as could be learned the intruders had not been near them.
"We'll bring them up, after the servants have gone to bed," Allen confided to his chums.
And when the maids had retired there was a sort of "council of war" among the others.
Opinion was divided as to whether the men were ordinary tramps, or perhaps sneak thieves, or whether they were after the diamonds.
"But how would they know they were down cellar?" asked Betty. "We are the only ones who know of the hiding place, and we haven't told anyone, except Percy."
"Oh, I never said a word!" Percy cried. Indeed he only heard the story of the find, after the scare.
"Of course if some men from this neighborhood hid the diamonds in the sand, and knew we girls took them out, and if they were around the house and heard something of the excitement the night papa took them down cellar, it would explain how they knew where to look for them," Betty said.
"Too many ifs," commented Allen. "Havethere been any strangers around lately—tramps or anyone like that?"
At first Betty said there had been none, but later she recalled that a maid had reported to her that an undesirable specimen of a man had begged something to eat at the kitchen door the morning after Mr. Nelson had hid the diamonds down cellar.
"And," Betty said, "he may have been hanging around when father and Will left for Boston that day."
"But how could he know the stones were hidden down cellar?" asked Mollie.
"I don't know that he could tell that, exactly," Betty admitted, "but if you remember, as papa was going away he called back: 'Be sure to keep the cellar locked!' Don't you remember?"
"Yes, I heard that," Amy contributed.
"Well, if a tramp, who was not really a tramp, but some one in disguise, heard that he might jump to some conclusion," Betty went on.
"Too much jumping," Allen said. "As a matter of fact we're all in the dark about this."
"And it isn't a very pleasant suspense, either," declared Betty, as she looked at the black box with the diamonds safe in the secret compartment. "What are we going to do with that?"
"Hide it in a new place," suggested Henry.
That much was decided on, and the treasure was taken up to the attic, though there the danger of fire was ever present.
"Oh, I wish father were home," said Betty, a worried look on her face.
But it would be several days before Mr. Nelson could return, and those days were anxious ones indeed for the outdoor girls. The morning after the scare in the cellar inquiries were made, but no trace of the mysterious men was found.
"I can't stand this much longer!" declared Betty, one night. "I almost wish we'd never found the diamonds."
"You're nervous," said Mollie. "We've been too much in the house. To-morrow we shall try one of our old stunts—a picnic!"
"Good!" cried Grace. "That will be fun!"
"Did you bring plenty of olives?"
"And I do hope we didn't forget the cheese crackers!"
"Oh, everything is here—more than we'll eat, I think, by the weight of the baskets."
"Where did I put—oh, here they are!"
This last, with a sigh of relief, as she found her package of candy, came from Grace. Mollie, Amy and Betty had, in turn, been heard from in the aforequoted remarks.
"It's a glorious day; isn't it?" questioned Grace as she walked on beside Amy.
"Yes, but not so nice that you need forget you're carrying only a box of chocolates," remarked Betty, pointedly. "Take one of these baskets."
"Oh, excuse me," apologized Grace, and she turned quickly, wincing a bit as she did so.
"Those same ridiculous shoes!" cried Mollie.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Grace Ford."
"Why? They're the most comfortable ones I have, to go tramping about in, and they're so stained from the salt water that they can't be damaged any more. Just right for the picnic, I think."
"Yes, but you walk worse than a Chinese woman before the binding of feet was forbidden. Don't let her carry anything spillable, Betty, or we won't have all the lunch we count on," Mollie urged.
"Oh, is that so!" exclaimed Grace, with as near an approach to "snippiness" as she ever permitted herself.
"Oh, I'll carry the basket," said gentle Amy, always anxious to avoid a quarrel.
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" insisted Betty, who had, like the Little Captain she was, arranged the commissary department on lines she intended to see carried out.
"Oh, well, if we're going, let's go!" exclaimed Mollie. "We're wasting the best part of the day getting ready."
It was the day after Mollie had proposed that the outdoor girls go on a little picnic, and her plan had been enthusiastically adopted. As she had said, the affair of the diamonds was gettingon the nerves of them all. They had stuck too close to the house, and there was a "jumpiness" and fault-finding spirit seldom manifested by the four chums.
They were to take their lunch, and spend the day on the beach, or in the scrubby woods, not far away, taking to a boat if they felt so inclined.
The boys had offered to take them out for a cruise in thePocohontas, but the girls felt that they would rather be by themselves on this occasion.
Accordingly lunch baskets had been packed and now this glorious summer morning they were about to start. The boys, their kind offer refused, had gone off on a fishing jaunt—that is, all but Will, and he had not returned from Boston. Grace had a hasty note from him in which he stated that work connected with his new duties would keep him busy for a week or so, after which he hoped to join his friends at Edgemere.
"No news of a diamond robbery around Boston," he wrote, in a letter. "I've written to a fellow in New York about it, though. Sometimes the police keep those things out of the papers for reasons of their own. Maybe they think the robbers won't know the diamonds have been taken, if nothing is printed about it, at least that's the way it looks."
At any rate Will reported no news, and Mr. Nelson had pretty much the same story to tell. His wife had written to him about the men in the cellar, and he had advised getting some fisherman of the neighborhood to stay on guard every night, until he could come down to Ocean View again.
"We might get Old Tin-Back," suggested Betty.
"It would only make me nervous," her mother said. "I don't believe the men will bother us again."
"Well, they won't find the diamonds down cellar if they do pay us another visit," Betty had said. She had, after some thought, hidden the precious stones in her own room, wrapping the box in some sheets of asbestos, which Allen had left over after putting some on the muffler of the motor boat.
"The asbestos will protect the diamonds in case of fire," Betty said, "and I'll protect them in case of thieves. Anyhow, no one, not even the servants, know where they are, and it would take a good while to find them in my room."
For she had discovered an ingenious little hiding place for the mysterious black box.
The boys, after the scare of the men in the cellar, had offered to take the diamonds up toBoston, or some other city near Ocean View, and put them in the vault of some bank.
"But you might be robbed on the train, going up," objected Betty. "We'll keep them here until the secret is discovered. That will be the best thing to do."
"And that may never be," Allen had said, for he had long since given up the cipher. Nor had experts, to whom he had submitted it, been able to furnish a clue to its solution.
So, while the boys had gone out fishing in the motor boat, the girls prepared for their picnic, leaving the diamonds at home.
Percy Falconer had declined the boys' invitation to go fishing, and when Betty heard him say that he feared to go out on the water she had looked at her chums with hopeless despair on her face.
"What if he wants to come on the picnic with us?" she whispered to Grace.
"We—we'll run away from him!" had been the ultimatum. But Percy did not pluck up enough courage to trust himself, the only youth, with four girls.
"I'll go for a run in my car, and may pick you up and bring you back later," he said, with a glance at his wrist watch. He was still a guest at Edgemere.
"Well, let's start!" called Betty, and the four girls set off down the beach.
"Why are you going that way?" asked Grace, as Mollie and Betty, who had taken the lead, started along a certain path amid the sand dunes.
"Just for fun," answered Betty. "I have a fancy for looking again at the place where we found the diamonds."
"We can't seem to get rid of them, day or night—sleeping or waking," spoke Amy. "Isn't it dreadful how they follow one?"
"Well, I, for one, don't want to get rid of them," Mollie said, with a laugh. "They are far too pretty and valuable to lose sight of. Though of course I want whoever owns them to get his property back."
"Even those horrid men?" asked Grace.
"Well, if they have a right to the diamonds, the fact of their being horrid, as you call it, should not deprive them of the stones," Betty said.
"We ought to get a reward, anyhow," spoke Amy.
"That's right, little girl!" exclaimed Betty. "Well, I do wish it was settled, one way or the other. Having fifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds, more or less, in one's possession isn't calculated to make one sleep nights. And I justwould love one of those big sparklers in a ring. I think——"
But Betty did not complete her sentence. There was a rattling sound on the farther side of a sand dune around which the girls were just then making their way. Some gravel and shells seemed to be sliding down the declivity.
"What's that?" asked Grace, shrinking back against Betty.
"I don't know," answered the Little Captain. "Maybe the wind."
But it was not the wind, for, a moment later, the wrinkled face of the aged crone of the fisherman's cabin peered at the girls from over the rushes that grew in the sand hill.
"Oh, excuse me, my dears," she said in her cracked voice. "I didn't see you. Out for a walk again; aren't you, my dears? Won't you come up to my cottage, and have a glass of milk?"
"No, thank you," Betty answered, and she could not help being "short," as she said afterward. "We are going on a little picnic."
She swung around into another path between the dunes, and changed her mind about going to look at the hole near the broken spar, where the diamonds had been found.
"Oh, I wonder if she heard us?" whisperedMollie, as they lost sight of the old crone around the rushes and dunes.
"I hope not," said Betty, and her usually smiling face wore a worried look.
"That woman seems to—persecute us!" burst out Mollie, when the girls were well on their way again, out of range of the sand dunes, going down the beach where the salty air of the ocean and bay blew in their faces.
"Oh, hardly as bad asthat," remarked Amy.
"Well, she always seems to be following us," insisted Mollie, "and I am positively tired of being asked to her cottage to drink milk."
"I'd never touch a thing she offered," said Betty. "I would be afraid it wouldn't be—clean."
"She always seems to leer at one so," went on Mollie.
"Oh, you're making out a terrible case against the old woman," Grace put in, carefully selecting a chocolate from her supply.
"Well, she is very persistent," observed Betty. "And now let's forget all about her, and the—well, I won't mention them, but you know what I mean," and she smiled at her chums. Indeed Betty was beginning to think she had been just a little indiscreet in speaking aloud of the precious stones.
"We'll just have a good outing, as we used to," she went on.
"Like the time when we found the five-hundred-dollar bill," suggested Amy.
"Or when the girl fell out of the tree," added Mollie.
"Gracious! Thoseweretragic times enough!" broke in Grace.
"But we enjoyed them—after they were over," added Betty. "And I think we shall enjoy finding—well, finding what we did find, after Allen straightens it out for us."
"Oh, is he going to straighten it out for us?" asked Mollie.
"Well, isn't he working hard on it?" Betty wanted to know.
"I thought Will was going to get us clues," Mollie went on. "Or your father?"
"Oh, of course they may find the owners, but they are waiting for something to be published in the papers."
"Well, is Allen doing any more?" Amy asked. "If he is he hasn't said anything to us about it,though of course you'd be the first one to hear of it, Betty," she said, innocently enough.
"I?" cried the Little Captain, with upraised eyebrows. "Why I, pray?"
"Oh, because you and Allen are——"
"That's enough!" laughed Mollie. "Spare her blushes, child!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Amy, in confusion.
"You needn't worry about me," said Betty, quickly. "What I meant was that Allen is working on a plan to solve the mystery."
"Has he told you all about it?" Grace wanted to know.
"Not all. We agreed that it would be better to say nothing to any one else about it until he was ready to act."
"Oh, of course," admitted Mollie. "The fewer the outsiders are who know about the—well, let's call them 'apples,' and then no one will suspect. The fewer who know about the 'apples' so much the better. But I do hope we each get one—'apple'—out of it," and she laughed.
"We ought to," returned Betty. She looked back toward the sand dunes, possibly for a sight of the old fishwife, but no one was in view.
The girls wandered on. The day was bright and beautiful, giving little hint of the tragic occurrence that was in the air. It was as if theoutdoor girls were on one of the walking tours which they had instituted. The sand, however, was not conducive to rapid progress, and they were content to stroll idly.
They were now past the place where the diamonds had been found, though they were all anxious for a sight of the hole in the sand, to see if they could discover any signs that those who hid the precious stones there had come back to find their booty gone. But they did not think it wise to visit the place, with that queer old woman in the nearby sand dunes.
Now and then they would stop to pick up some prettier shell than usual, or to gather a few of the odd-shaped pebbles.
"They look just like that queer candy they sell in Tracey's," commented Grace, as she rattled a handful of the little stones of various colors, shapes and sizes.
"Oh, the pebble candy—yes," assentedMollie. "I wonder what they will imitate next?"
"Plenty of wood here for a marshmallow roast," commented Amy, a little later, as she idly kicked the bits of drift on the beach.
"Yes!" exclaimed Grace. "But we didn't bring any. I meant to, but——"
"She had so much other candy she couldn't carry marshmallows," interrupted Betty.
Grace threw a wisp of seaweed at her chum, but the Little Captain easily dodged it.
"I wonder if Percy will really come for us in the car?" asked Amy, after a pause.
"Do you want him to?" asked Betty, with a smile.
"I? No, indeed!" and Amy's face was suffused with a blush.
"Oh, well, don't get fussy about it," mocked Mollie. "We don't want him, either."
"He'd have trouble running his car through this sand," Grace said. "It's awfully deep and dry. Let's stop. When are we going to eat?"
"Eat?" cried Mollie.
"Eat?" echoed Amy. "Why we just had breakfast!"
"Eat?" spoke Betty, in a tone characterized as "dull and hopeless," in stories. "Why, Grace Ford, if you have done anything else but eat—candy—ever since we started on this picnic, I'd like to know it!"
Poor Grace looked a little startled at this combined attack on her.
"Why, I—I haven't done anything," she said, innocently enough. "I just asked when you were going to eat and you take me up as though I had proposed throwing those—'apples'—we found, into the sea."
"If you look back along the way you'll see at least three empty candy bags," declared Betty.
"Oh, well, they were little bags," protested Grace. "I had them put in small bags on purpose so I would know just how much I was eating."
"I don't believe you ever know how much candy you are eating," laughed Mollie. "Never mind, Grace, we all have our faults."
"We'll eat soon," promised Betty. "I want to get in the shade."
They strolled on, walking near the wet edge of the sand where the tide was coming in, for that section of the beach made firmer footing.
"There's a good place for our picnic," finally decided Mollie, as she saw a little clump of scrub evergreens which grew rather close to the water. "We can eat and have a fine view at the same time."
"Is that the boys' boat out there?" asked Mollie, as they made their way toward the bit of shade.
"No, that's a small schooner. It's been anchored there for some days," Betty said. "There's something queer about it, too."
"Something queer?" repeated Amy.
"Yes, the men in it don't seem to be gathering clams, which work all the other schooners areengaged in around here, and they're not net fishermen aboard her."
"Who told you that?" asked Mollie.
"Old Tin-Back. He notices anything odd about the boats. He said he passed her in his dory the other day, and some one yelled to him not to come too close."
"Why was that?" Grace asked.
"That's what Tin-Back didn't know. He thought it was very strange," Betty went on. "But come on, I know Grace must be—famished! Aren't you, my dear?"
The baskets were opened, and the contents spread out on a cloth on the sand. Grace reached for the bottle of olives.
"For an appetizer," she explained.
"You need it, after munching candy all the way here," commented Mollie.
And then, as they ate, the girls talked of many matters, now and then looking off toward the bay or ocean, whereon could be seen many vessels, mostly little clamming schooners, drifting with the wind on their squared sails, dragging the big rakes along the bottom. But the schooner of which Betty had spoken rose and fell at her anchor, and there was no sign of life aboard.
"This is just perfect," remarked Grace, as she found a comfortable position, leaning backagainst a tree. "Please don't disturb me, any one, I'm going to sleep."
"I believe I'll join you," added Mollie. "Salt air always makes me drowsy. Or perhaps it is the effect of the bright sun on the sand."
While Mollie and Grace closed their eyes, Betty dug idly in the sand, and Amy produced a handkerchief and a tiny embroidery frame and began initialling a corner.
"Virtuous girl," observed Betty. "You shame us all by your industry."
"It's only that I promised Henry I would put his initials on some new handkerchiefs he bought," Amy explained. "I must hurry and finish them, for he is going West on a trip soon."
"It's nice to have a brother," remarked Betty, idly.
She tossed some sand and little pebbles toward Grace, but the latter had actually gone to sleep, and the deep and regular breathing of Mollie proclaimed the same fact.
"Oh, I can't stand this!" the Little Captain cried, a few minutes later. "I want to do something. Let's go for a little walk, Amy, and let them sleep."
"All right."
"Will you go as far as the place where we found the—'apples'?" asked Betty, with a lookaround to be sure no stray fishermen were in the neighborhood.
"Yes, if you like."
"Then come on. I want to see if the men came back, and tried to find the box that was buried in the sand."
It was rather a longer walk than Betty had thought, but finally she and Amy came within sight of the lone fisherman's hut, and the log that lay on the edge of the hole in the sand, though the latter, so Betty expected, would be filled up by the action of the waves or wind ere this.
"I do hope that horrid old woman doesn't invite us in again," Betty remarked. "She is a—pest!"
The Little Captain and Amy were walking down the sands, in the midst of a number of high dunes, or hills.
"There's the place!" Betty said. "It doesn't seem to have been——"
A noise behind caused her to turn suddenly. A scream came to her lips, but it was choked off by the sudden forward rush of the old crone who roughly placed her withered hand over Betty's mouth.
"I—I've got her!" she croaked. At the same time a man caught Amy by the arm, and stifled her impending cry in the same manner.