Nann laughed. “O, I’d heaps rather ferret the thing out for myself than be told.” Then she said more seriously: “Honestly, Dori, I don’t think the notes refer to the mystery of the old ruin at all. I think, if that is ever solved, we’ll have to find it out for ourselves.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’d rather not tell quite yet.” They entered the kitchen. “Now,” Nann said, “I’m going to make a fire and get breakfast. We’ve been up so long that I’m ravenously hungry. I’m going to make flapjacks no less.”
“Good!” Dories replied. “I won’t refuse to eat them.” Although consumed with curiosity concerning what her friend had said, Dories decided to bide her time before asking Nann to explain.
Miss Moore did not awaken, apparently, until midmorning and the girls did not want to go away until they had served her breakfast. They had been to her door several times and to all appearances the elderly woman had been asleep. When, at length, Miss Moore did awaken, she complained of having been disturbed by noises in the night. “Why did you girls tiptoe around the living-room just before daybreak?”
“Why, we didn’t, Aunt Jane! Truly we didn’t,” Dories replied. She did not like to tell that it would have been a physical impossibility for them to have done so, as they were crouched behind “cabin seven” at that hour watching “cabin eight.”
The old woman looked at the speaker sharply, then continued: “I called your name and for a time the tiptoeing stopped. Then, when I pretended to be asleep, it began again. I was sure that under the crack of the door I could see a fire burning as though you had lighted wood on the grate.”
“Oh, no, Miss Moore, we didn’t, I assure you,” Nann exclaimed. “There wasn’t any wood on it. We swept it clean yesterday afternoon.” A cry from Dories caused the speaker to pause and turn toward her. She was pointing at the fireplace. There was a small charred pile in the center of the grate. The old woman’s thoughts had evidently changed their direction for she asked, querulously, if they were going to keep her waiting all the morning for her breakfast.
While out in the kitchen preparing it, Dories whispered, her eyes wide, “Nann,whatdo you make of it all? You are smiling to yourself as if you had solved the mystery.”
“I believe I have, one of them; but, Dori, please don’t ask me to explain until I catch the ghost red-handed, so to speak.”
“White-handed, shouldn’t it be?” Dories inquired, her fears lessened by Nann’s evident delight in something she believed she had discovered.
When Miss Moore’s breakfast had been served, the girls, wishing to tidy up the cabin, set to work with a will. Nann was sweeping the porch and Dories was dusting and straightening the living-room when a queer humming noise was heard in the distance. “Dori,” Nann called, “come out here a moment. Can’t you hear a strange buzzing noise? It sounds as though it were high up in the air. What can it be?”
The other girl appeared in the open doorway and they both listened intently.
“Maybe it’s a flock of geese going south for the winter,” Dories ventured, but her friend shook her head. “That noise is coming nearer. Not going farther away,” she said. The buzzing and whizzing sounds increased with great rapidity. Springing down the steps, Nann exclaimed, “Whatever is making that commotion, is now right over our heads.”
Dories bounded to her friend’s side and they both gazed into the gleaming blue sky with shaded eyes.
“There it is!” Nann cried excitedly. “Why, of course, it’s an airplane! We should have guessed that right away. I wonder where it is going to land. There’s nothing but marsh and water around here besides this narrow strip of beach.”
“Oh, look! look!” This from Dories. “It’s dropping right down into the ocean and so it must be one of those combination air and sea planes.”
“Unless it has broken a wing and is falling,” Nann suggested. The airplane, nose downward, had seemed verily to plunge into the sea.
“Let’s run to the Point o’ Rocks.” Dories started as she spoke and Nann, throwing down the broom, raced after her. It was hard to go very rapidly where the sand was deep and dry, and so by the time they had climbed up on the highest boulder out on the rocky point, there was no sign whatever of the airplane either sailing safely on the water nor lying on the shore disabled.
“Hmm! That certainly is puzzling,” Nann said as she half closed her eyes in meditative thought. “Now, where can that huge thing have gone that it has disappeared so entirely?”
“I can’t imagine,” Dories replied. “If only Gibralter were here with his punt, we might be able to find out.” Then she exclaimed merrily, “Nann, there is another mystery added to the twenty and nine that we already have.”
“Not quite that many,” the other maid replied, giving one last long look in the direction they believed the plane had descended or fallen. “I’m inclined to think,” she ventured, “that there is a bay or something beyond the swamp. O, well, let’s go back to our task. It’s lunch time, if nothing else.”
They decided, as the day was unusually warm for that time of the year, to eat a cold lunch, and, as their aunt did not wish anything then, the girls decided to walk along the beach in the opposite direction and see if they could find the cove where Gib kept his punt in hiding. But, just as they reached the spot where the road from town ended at the beach, they heard a merry hallooing, and, turning, they beheld Gibralter Strait riding the white horse that was usually hitched to the coach.
“Oh, good, good!” was Dories’ delighted exclamation. “Now perhaps we will find out about the plane. Of course the people in town saw it and Gib may know——” She stopped talking to stare at the approaching steed and rider in wide-eyed amazement. “How queer!” she ejaculated. “Nann, am I seeing double? I’m sure that I see four legs and Gib certainly has only two.”
There were undeniably four long, slim legs, two on either side of the big white horse, but the mystery was quickly explained by the appearance, over Gib’s shoulder, of a head belonging to another boy.
“Nann Sibbett!” Dories whirled, the light of inspiration in her eyes, “I do believe that other boy is Dick Burton, of whom Gib has so often spoken.”
And Dories was right. Gib waved his cap, then leaped to the sand, closely followed by the newcomer. One glance at the young stranger assured the girls that he was a city lad. His merry brown eyes twinkled when Gibralter introduced him merely as the “kid that was crazy to find a way into the old ruin.”
The city boy took off his cap in a manner most polite, adding, “By name, Richard Ralston Burton, but I’m usually called Dick.”
Nann, realizing that Gib hadn’t the remotest idea how to introduce his friend to them, then told the lad their names, adding, “Oh, Gib, you just can’t guess how glad we are that you have come at last. The mysteries are heaping up so high and fast that we simply must solve a few of them.”
But it was quite evident that the boys were equally excited about the airplane, which they, too, had seen as they were riding on the white horse along the road in the swamps. “I say,” Gib began at once, “did yo’uns see where that airplane fellow dove to? D’you ’spose he’s smashed all to smithereens on the rocks over yonder?”
The girls shook their heads. “No,” Dories replied, “we just came from there and there wasn’t a sign of that airplane. We thought that at least we would see the wreck of it.”
“It must o’ landed round the curve whar the swamp comes down to the shore,” Gib said.
“Come on, old man, let’s investigate.” Then Dick smiled directly at Nann as he added, “We won’t be gone long.”
Turning, the two girls, with arms locked, walked slowly back toward their home cabin, but their gaze was following the rapidly disappearing boys.
“My, how they did scramble over the rocks. I wonder why they went over the top. I’m sure one can see better from up there,” Dories turned to her friend to exclaim with enthusiasm. “Isn’t Dick Burton the nicest boy? I’m ever so glad he came. He’ll add a lot to our good times.”
Nann nodded. “One can tell in a moment that Dick has been well brought up,” she commented. “Isn’t it too bad that Gib isn’t going to have a chance to make something of himself? I believe he would be a writer if he had an education. You know how imaginative he is and how he enjoyed telling us the story of the Phantom Yacht.”
The girls sauntered along to the point of rocks and stood watching the waves break over the boulders that projected into the water.
“Isn’t it queer how calm it is sometimes and how rough at others, and yet there isn’t a bit of wind blowing, and it’s as warm and balmy one time as another,” Dories said, then leaped back with a merry laugh as an unusually large breaker pursued her up the beach.
“I think it may be the stage of the tides,” Nann speculated, “or else there may have been a storm at sea. O good! Here come the boys.”
Dick’s expressive face told the girls of his disappointment before he spoke. “Didn’t see a thing unusual,” he said. “Of course we couldn’t go far because of the marsh.”
“It sure is too bad the surf’s crashin’ in the way ’tis today,” Gibralter told them. “Here’s Dick, come all the way from Boston to stay till Sunday night, jest so’s we could go up that little creek in the marsh. He’s wild to get into the ol’ ruin, aren’t you, Dick?”
“Yep,” the other boy agreed, “but if we can’t make it this week end, I’ll come down next.” Then with sudden interest, “How long are you girls going to be here on Siquaw Point?”
Although Dick asked the question of Nann, it was Dories who replied. “Aunt Jane said this morning that she thinks we will be leaving in about ten days now. You see,” by way of explanation, “my elderly aunt came down here for absolute rest, and now that she is rested, we may go back to town sooner than we expected.”
The four young people had seated themselves on the rocks.
Nann put in with: “I, for one, don’t want to leave this place until we have cleared up a few of the mysteries.” Then, chancing to thrust her hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat, she drew out a half dozen slips of crumpled yellow paper. “Oh, Gib,” she exclaimed, “where in the world do you suppose these came from? We find them in the queerest places. We can’t understand in the least who is leaving them.”
Gibralter’s face was a blank. “What’s that writin’ on ’em?” He picked one up as he spoke and scrutinized it closely.
“In nine days you shall know all,” Dick read as he looked over his friend’s shoulder.
“Know all o’ what?” Gib queried.
The boys looked from Dories to Nann. The girls shook their heads. “We thought maybe you could help clear up some of the mysteries,” the latter said. “Have you ever heard of any queer person hanging around this beach? A hermit or a—a——”
Gib leaned forward, his red-brown eyes gleaming. “D’y mean, mabbe, the lantern person that yo’ uns saw one night on the rocks?”
Nann nodded. “We thought it might be someone who visited the ruin by night and—” the speaker glanced at the visiting boy, then interrupted herself to inquire, “Dick, do you remember whether your people left your cabin locked or not?”
The lad addressed turned and looked at the cottage nearest for a moment as though trying to recall something. Then a lightening in his eyes proved that he had succeeded. Springing to his feet, he exclaimed, “I declare if I hadn’t forgotten it. I’m glad you spoke, Miss Nann. Mother said that in the hurry of getting away she wasn’t sure whether or not she had locked the back door. She always hides the key under the back porch, so that if any one of us comes down out of season, he can get in.” Then, when the others had also risen, Dick suggested, “Let’s walk around that way and see what we will see.”
Dories glanced quickly at Nann and saw that her friend was gazing steadily at an upper window. She surmised that Nann was trying to decide whether or not to tell the boys that she had seen the blind moving, for, after all, how could she be sure but that it had been her imagination. The watcher saw Nann’s expression change to one of suppressed excitement, then she whirled with her back to the cottage and said in a low voice, “Everybody turn and look at the ocean. I want to tell you something.”
Puzzled indeed, the boys and Dories faced about as Nann had done, and, to help her friend, the other maid pointed out toward the island. “What’s this all about?” Dick inquired. “Miss Nann, you look as though you had seen something startling. What is it?”
Very quietly Nann explained how for the third time she had seen an upper blind open ever so little as though someone was peering out at them, and then close again.
“You think someone is hiding in our cottage?” Dick asked in amazement. Nann nodded. “Well then, we’ll soon find out.” The city boy’s tone did not suggest hesitancy or fear. “You girls would better go over to your own cabin and wait until we join you.”
It was quite evident that Nann did not like this suggestion, but Dories did, and said so frankly. “I’ll run home anyway,” she said when she saw how disappointed Nann was. “Probably Aunt Jane would like me to read to her.”
And so it was that Nann accompanied the two boys around to the back of the Burton cottage. As before, the door creaked open, and very stealthily they entered the dark kitchen. This being the largest cottage in the row, the stairway was boarded off from a narrow hall; there being a door at the foot and another at the top. The one at the bottom was unlocked, and so the three investigators began the ascent, groping their way in the dark. “Wish’t we had along some matches,” Gib began, when Nann whispered, “I do believe that I have some. I took a dozen with us this morning. Yes, here they are in my watch pocket.” Dick, in the lead, took the matches, and as he opened the upper door, he scratched one. It very faintly illumined a long hall with a boarded-up window at the end.
There were four closed doors along the hall. The one at the right front would lead into the room where a window blind had moved. Nann almost held her breath as Dick, after scratching another match, tried the door. It did not open. “Mabbe it’s jest stuck,” Gib suggested. “Let’s all push.” This they did and the door burst open so suddenly that they plunged headlong into the room and the flicker of the match went out. How musty and dark it was! Quickly another match was lighted; but there seemed to be no occupant other than themselves. The closet door, standing open, revealed merely row after row of hooks and shelves. There was no furniture in the room of a concealing nature. Nann went at once to the blind and found that it was swinging slightly. “Well,” she had to acknowledge, “I believe after all I was wrong in my surmise. Let’s get back. Dories will be worried about me.”
Dick, before leaving the room, hooked the blind carefully on the inside, and, after closing the window, he remarked, “It’s queer Mother should have left a window open as well as the back door. But I remember now. She said that they were afraid of losing the train. Something had delayed them. I had gone on ahead to start school.”
When they were again safely out in the sunshine, Nann inquired, “I wonder where your mother left the key. It isn’t in the door.”
Before replying Dick went to one corner beneath the porch, removed a lattice door which could not have been discovered by anyone not knowing about it, reached his hand around to one of the uprights where, on a nail, he found the key hanging. He held it up triumphantly. Then, after locking the kitchen door, he replaced the key and the lattice, exclaiming as he did so, “I believe I understand now what happened. In the hurry, Mother put the key in the right place without having locked the door, so that’s that.” But Nann was not entirely convinced.
The late afternoon fog was drifting in when the three started to walk along the beach. They saw Dories running to meet them. “Well, thanks be you’re all alive,” was her relieved exclamation.
Nann laughed. “Did you think a cannibal was hiding in the Burton cottage?” Then she added, pretending to be disappointed, “I had at least hoped to find a ghost or a——”
“Look! Look!” Gib cried excitedly, pointing beyond the rocks.
“What? Where?” the girls scrambled to the top step of cabin three, which they happened to be passing, that they might have a better view of whatever had aroused Gib’s interest.
“Is it the Phantom Yacht?” Nann asked, almost hoping that it was.
“No, ’tisn’t that, I’m sure, because it isn’t white.” Gib continued to stare into the gathering dusk. “It’s some queer kind of craft, as best I can make out, and it’s scooting away from the shore at a pretty speedy rate and heading right for the island.” For a moment the young people fairly held their breath as they watched.
Dick was the first to break in with, “Gee-whiliker! I know what it is! Stupid that I didn’t get on to it from the very first.”
“Why, Dick, what do you think it is?” Dories inquired.
“I don’t think; I know! It’s that seaplane! Look! There she soars. See her take the air! Now the pilot’s turning her nose, and heading straight for Boston.”
“Whoever ’tis in that airplane is takin’ a purty big chance,” Gibralter commented, “startin’ up with night a comin’ on and fog a sailin’ in.”
Dick was optimistic. “He’ll keep ahead of the fog all right, and those high-powered machines travel so fast he’ll be at the landing place, outside of Boston, before it’s really dark. He’s safe enough, but the big question is, who is he, and what was he doing over there close to the old ruin?”
“Maybe he knows about that opening in the swamp,” Nann ventured.
“I bet ye he does! Like’s not he has a little boat and goes up to the ol’ ruin in it.”
“But where do you suppose his airship was anchored?” Dories inquired. “Probably in the cove beyond the marsh,” Dick replied, when Gib broke in with, “Gee, I sure sartin wish we’d taken a chance and gone out in the punt. I sure do. I’d o’ gone, but Dick, he was afraid!”
The city lad flushed, but he said at once, “You are wrong, Gib, but I promised my mother that I would only go out in your punt when the tide was low, and when I give my word, she knows that she can depend upon it.”
“You are right, Dick. It is worth more to have your mother able to trust you, when you are out of her sight, than it is to solve all the mysteries that ever were or will be.” Nann’s voice expressed her approval of the city lad. Gib’s only comment was, “Wall, how kin we go at low tide? It comes ’long ’bout midnight!”
“What if it does? We can—” Dick had started to say, but interrupted himself to add, “’Twouldn’t be fair to go without the girls since they found the opening in the swamp. It will be low tide again tomorrow noon, and I vote we wait until then.”
“O, Dick, that’s ever so nice of you! We girls are wild to go.” Nann fairly beamed at him.
“Wall, so long. We’ll see you ’bout noon tomorrow.” This from Gib. Dick waved his cap and smiled back over his shoulder.
“I can hardly wait,” Nann said, as the two girls went into the cabin. “I feel in my bones that we’re going to find clues that will solve all of the mysteries soon.”
A glorious autumn morning dawned and Dories sat up suddenly. Shaking Nann, she whispered excitedly: “I hear it again.”
“What? The ghost? Was he ringing the bell?” This sleepily from the girl who seemed to have no desire to waken, but, at her companion’s urgent: “No, not the bell! Do sit up, Nann, and listen. Isn’t that the airplane coming back? Hark!”
Fully awake, the other girl did sit up and listen. Then leaping from the bed, she ran to the window that overlooked the wide expanse of marsh.
“Yes, yes,” she cried. “There it is! It’s flying low, as though it were going to land, and it’s heading straight for the old ruin. Get dressed as quickly as you can.”
“But why?” queried the astonished Dories. “We can’t get any nearer than we did yesterday; that is, not by land, and the tide is high again, and so we can’t go out in the punt.”
Nann did not reply, but continued to dress hurriedly, and so her friend did likewise.
“I don’t know why it is,” the former confided a moment later, “but I feel in my bones that this is the day of the great revelation.”
“Not according to the yellow messages. They would tell us that in seven days we would know all.” Dories was brushing her brown hair preparing to weave it into two long braids.
“But, as I told you before,” Nann remarked, “I don’t believe the papers refer to the old ruin mystery at all. In fact, I think the ghost that writes the message on the papers does not even know there is an old ruin mystery.”
“Well, you’re a better detective than I am,” Dories confessed as she tied a ribbon bow on the end of each braid. “I haven’t any idea about anything that is happening.”
The girls stole downstairs and ran out on the beach, hoping to see the airplane, but the long, shining white beach was deserted and the only sound was the crashing of the waves over the rocks and along the shore, for the tide was high.
“I wonder if Dick and Gib heard the plane passing over their town?” Dories had just said, when Nann, glancing in the direction of the road, exclaimed gleefully, “They sure did, for here they come at headlong speed this very minute.” The big, boney, white horse stopped so suddenly when it reached the sand that both of the boys were unseated. Laughingly they sprang to the beach and waved their caps to the girls, who hurried to meet them.
“Good morning, boys!” Nann called as soon as they were near enough for her voice to be heard above the crashing of the waves. “I judge you also saw the plane.”
“Yeah! We’uns heerd it comin’ ’long ’fore we saw it, an’ we got ol’ Spindly out’n her stall in a twinklin’, I kin tell you.”
The city lad laughed as though at an amusing memory. “The old mare was sound asleep when we started, but when she heard that buzzing and whirring over her head, she thought she was being pursued by a regiment of demons, seemed like. She lit out of that barn and galloped as she never had before. Of course the airplane passed us long ago, but that gallant steed of ours was going so fast that I wasn’t sure that we would be able to stop her before we got over to the island.”
Gib, it was plain, was impatient to be away, and so promising to report if they found anything of interest, the lads raced toward the point of rocks, while the girls went indoors to prepare breakfast. Dories found her Great-Aunt Jane in a happier frame of mind than usual. She was sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, when her niece carried in the tray. And when a few moments later the girl was leaving the room, she chanced to glance back and was sure that the old woman was chuckling as though she had thought of something very amusing. Dories confided this astonishing news item to Nann while they ate their breakfast in the kitchen. “What do you suppose Aunt Jane was thinking about? It was surely something which amused her?” Dories was plainly puzzled.
Nann smiled. “Doesn’t it seem to you that your aunt must be thoroughly rested by this time? I should think that she would like to get out in the sunshine these wonderful bracing mornings. It would do her a lot more good than being cooped up indoors.”
Dories agreed, commenting that old people were certainly queer. It was midmorning when the girls, having completed their few household tasks, again went to the beach to look for the boys. The tide was going out and the waves were quieter. Arm in arm they walked along on the hard sand. Dories was saying, “Aunt Jane told me that she would like to read to herself this morning. I was so afraid that she would ask me to read to her. Not but that I do want to be useful sometimes, but this morning I am so eager to know what the boys are doing. I wish they would come. I wonder where they went.”
“I think I know,” Nann replied. “I believe they are lying flat on the big smooth rock on which we sat that day Gibralter told us the story of the Phantom Yacht. You recall that we had a fine view of the old ruin from there.”
“But why would they be lying flat?” Dories, who had little imagination, looked up to inquire.
“So that they could observe whoever might enter the old ruin without being observed, my child.”
“But, Nann, why would anyone want to get into that dreadful place unless it was just out of curiosity, which, of course, is our only motive.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the older girl had to confess, adding: “That is a mystery that we have yet to solve.”
Suddenly Nann laughed aloud. “What’s the joke?” This from her astonished companion. Since Nann continued to laugh, and was pointing merrily at her, Dories began to bristle. “Well, what’s funny about me? Have I buttoned my dress wrong?”
The other maid shook her head. “It’s something about your braids,” she replied.
“Oh, I suppose I put on different colored ribbons. I remember noticing a yellow one near the red.” She swung both of the braids around as she spoke, but the ribbon bows were of the same hue. Tossing them back over her shoulder, she said complacently: “This isn’t the first of April, my dear. There’s nothing the matter with my braids and so—” But Nann interrupted, “Isn’t there? Unbeliever, behold!” Leaping forward, she lifted a braid, held it in front of her friend, and pointed at a bit of crumpled yellow paper. Dories laughed, too.
“Well,” Nann exclaimed, “that proves to my entire satisfaction that a supernatural being doesnotwrite the notes and hide them just where we will be sure to find them.”
“But who do you suppose does write them?” Dories asked. “This morning I’ve been close enough to four people to have them slip that folded paper in my hair ribbon. Their names are Nann Sibbett, Great-Aunt Jane, Gibralter Strait and Dick Moore. Dick, of course, is eliminated because he was nowhere about when the messages first began to appear. It isn’tyourhand-writing,” the speaker was closely scrutinizing the note, “and, as for Gib, I’m not sure that he can write at all.” Then a light of conviction appeared in her eyes. “Do you know what I believe?” she turned toward her friend as one who had made an astonishing discovery. “I believe Great-Aunt Jane writes these notes and that she gets up out of bed when we are away from home and hides them.”
Nann laughed. “I agree with you perfectly. I suspected her the other day, but I didn’t want to tell you until I was more sure. But why do you suppose she does it—if she does?”
Dories shook her head, then she exclaimed: “Now I know why Aunt Jane was chuckling to herself when I looked back. She had just slipped the folded paper into my hair ribbon, I do believe.”
“The next thing for us to find out is when and why she does it?” The girls had stopped at the foot of the rocks and Nann changed the subject to say: “I wonder why the boys don’t come. It’s almost noon. We’ll have to go back and prepare your Aunt Jane’s lunch.” She turned toward the home cottage as she spoke. Dories gave a last lingering look up toward the tip-top rock. “Maybe they have been carried off in the airplane,” she suggested.
“Impossible!” Nann said. “It couldn’t depart without our hearing.”
When they reached the cabin, Dories whispered, “I’ve nine minds to show Aunt Jane the notes and watch her expression. I am sure I could tell if she is guilty.”
“Don’t!” Nann warned. “Let her have her innocent fun if she wishes.” Then, when they were in the kitchen making a fire in the wood stove, Nann added, “I believe, my dear girl, that there is more to the meaning of those messages than just innocent fun. I believe your Aunt Jane is going to disclose to you something far more important than the solving of the ruin mystery. She may tell you where the fortune is that your father should have had, or something like that.”
Dories, who had been filling the tea-kettle at the kitchen pump, whirled about, her face shining. “Nann Sibbett,” she exclaimed in a low voice, “do you really, truly think that may be what we are to know in seven days? O, wouldn’t I be glad I came to this terrible place if it were? Then Mother darling wouldn’t have to sew any more and you and I could go away to school. Why just all of our dreams would come true.”
“Clip fancy’s wings, dearie,” Nann cautioned as she cut the bread preparing to make toast. “Usually I am the one imagining things, but now it is you.”
Dories looked at her aunt with new interest when she went into her room fifteen minutes later with the tray, but the old woman, who was again lying down, motioned her to put the tray on a small table near and not disturb her. As Dories was leaving the room, her aunt called, “I won’t need you girls this afternoon.”
“Just as though she divined our wish to go somewhere,” Nann commented, a few moments later, when Dories had told her.
“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” the younger girl suggested, “let’s pack a lunch of sandwiches and olives and cookies. Then when the boys come we can have a picnic. It’s noon and they didn’t have a lunch with them, I am sure.”
“Good, that will be fun,” Nann agreed. “I’ll look now and see if they are coming. We don’t want them to escape us.”
A moment later she returned from the front porch shaking her head. “Not a trace of them,” she reported. Hurriedly they prepared a lunch and packed it in a box. Then, after donning their bright-colored tams and sweater coats, they went out the back door and were just rounding the front of the cabin when Nann exclaimed, “Here they come, or rather there they go, for they do not seem to have the least idea of stopping here.”
Nann was right. The two lads had appeared, scrambling over the point of rocks, and away they ran along the hard sand of the beach, acknowledging the existence of the girls merely by a hilarious waving of the arms.
Nann turned toward her friend, her large eyes glowing. “They’ve found a clue, I’m sure certain! You can tell by the way they are racing that they are just ever so excited about something.” As she spoke the boys disappeared over a hummock of sand, going in the direction of the inlet where Gibralter kept his punt hidden.
Dories clapped her hands. “I know!” she cried elatedly. “They’re going out in the punt. The tide has turned! Oh, Nann, what do you suppose they saw?”
“I believe they saw the pilot of the airplane enter the old ruin, so now they are going to get the punt, and they’re in a great hurry to get back to the creek before the airplane leaves.”
“Oh! How exciting! Do you suppose they will make it?”
Nann intently watched the blue water beyond the hummock of sand as she replied, “I believe they will.” Then she added, “Oh, dear, I do hope they’ll take time to stop and get us. It wouldn’t be fair for them to have all the thrills, since we girls found the channel in the marsh.”
“Of course they’ll take us,” Dories replied, although in her heart of hearts she rather hoped they would not, as she was not as eager as Nann for adventure. “You know Dick said it wouldn’t be fair to go without us.”
Nann nodded. Then, with sudden brightening, “Hurry! Here they come! Let’s race down to the point o’ rocks and see if they want to hail us.”
Then, as they started, “Do you know, Dori, I feel as though something most unexpected is about to happen. I mean something very different from what we think.”
The girls had reached the point of rocks and were standing with shaded eyes, gazing out at the glistening water.
The flat-bottomed boat slowly neared them. Dick held one oar and Gib the other. They both had their backs toward the point and evidently they had not seen the girls.
“Why, I do declare! They aren’t going to stop. They’re going right by without us.” Nann felt very much neglected, when suddenly Gib turned and grinned toward them with so much mischief in his expression that Dories concluded: “They did that just to tease. See, they’re heading in this way now.”
This was true, and Dick, making a trumpet of his hands, called: “Want to come, girls? If so, scramble over to the flat rock, quick’s you can! We’re in a terrifical hurry!”
Dories and Nann needed no second invitation, but climbed over the jagged rocks and stood on the broad one which was uncovered at low tide and which served as a landing dock.
Dick, the gallant, leaped out to assist them into the punt, then, seizing his oar, he commanded his mate, “Make it snappy, old man. We want to catch the modern air pirate before he gets away with his treasure.”
The wind was from the shore and Gib suggested that the small sail be run up. This was soon done and away the little craft went bounding over the evenly rolling waves and, before very many minutes, the point was rounded and the swamp reached.
“Where is the airplane anchored?” Nann inquired, peering curiously into the cove which was unoccupied by craft of any kind.
“Well, we aren’t sure as to that,” Dick told her, speaking softly as though fearing to be overheard. “We climbed to the top of the rocks and lay there for hours, or so it seemed to me. We were waiting for the tide to turn so we could go out in the punt. But all the time we were there we didn’t see or hear anything of the airplane or the pilot. Of course, since it’s a seaplane, too, it’s probably anchored over beyond the marsh.
“Now my theory is that the pilot has a little tender and that in it he rowed up the creek and probably, right this very minute, he is in the old ruin, and like as not if we go up there we will meet him face to face.”
“Br-r-r!” Dories shuddered and her eyes were big and round. “Don’t you think we’d better wait here? We could hide the punt in the reeds and watch who comes out. You wouldn’t want to meet—a—a—”
Dories was at a loss to conjecture who they might meet, but Gib chimed in with, “Don’t care who ’tis!” Then, looking anxiously at the girl who had spoken, he said, “’Pears we’d ought to’ve left you at home. ’Pears like we’d ought.”
The boy looked so truly troubled that Dories assumed a courage she did not feel. “No, indeed, Gib! If you three aren’t afraid to meet whoever it is, neither am I. Row ahead.”
Thus advised, the lad lowered the small sail, and the two boys rowed the punt to the opening in the marsh.
It was just wide enough for the punt to enter. “Wall, we uns can’t use the oars no further, that’s sure sartin.” Gib took off his cap to scratch his ear as he always did when perplexed.
“I have it!” Dick seized an oar, stepped to the stern, asked Nann to take the seat in the middle of the boat and then he stood and pushed the punt into the narrow creek.
They had not progressed more than two boat-lengths when a whizzing, whirring noise was heard and the seaplane scudded from behind a reedy point which had obscured it, and crossed their cove before taking to the air. Then it turned its nose toward the island. All that the watchers could see of the pilot was his leather-hooded, dark-goggled head, and, as he had not turned in their direction, it was quite evident that he didn’t know of their existence.
“Gone!” Dick cried dramatically. “’Foiled again,’ as they say on the stage.”
“Wall, anyhow, we’re here, so let’s go on up the creek and see what’s in the ol’ ruin.”
Dick obeyed by again pushing the boat along with the one oar. Dories said not a word as the punt moved slowly among the reeds that stood four feet above the water and were tangled and dense.
“There’s one lucky thing for us,” Nann began, after having watched the dark water at the side of the craft. “That sea serpent you were telling about, Gib, couldn’t hide in this marsh.”
“Maybe not,” Dick agreed, “but it’s a favorite feeding ground for slimy water snakes.” Nann glanced anxiously at her friend, then, noting how pale she was, she changed the subject. “How still it is in here,” she commented.
A breeze rustled through the drying reed-tops, but there was indeed no other sound.
In and out, the narrow creek wound, making so many turns that often they could not see three feet ahead of them.
For a moment the four young people in the punt were silent, listening to the faint rustle of the dry reeds all about them in the swamp. There was no other sound save that made by the flat-bottomed boat, as Dick, standing in the stern, pushed it with one oar.
“There’s another curve ahead,” Nann whispered. Somehow in that silent place they could not bring themselves to speak aloud.
“Seems to me the water is getting very shallow,” Dories observed. She was staring over one side of the boat watching for the slimy snakes Dick had told her made the marsh their feeding ground.
“H-m-m! I wonder!” Nann, with half closed eyes looked meditatively ahead.
“Wonder what?” her friend glanced up to inquire.
“I was thinking that perhaps we won’t be able to go much farther up this channel, since the tide is going out. The water in the marsh keeps getting lower and lower.”
“Gee-whiliker, Nann!” Dick looked alarmed. “I believe you’re right. I’ve been thinking for some seconds that the pushing was harder than it has been.”
They had reached a turn in the narrow channel as he spoke, but, when he tried to steer the punt into it, the flat-bottomed boat stopped with such suddenness that, had he not been leaning hard on the oar, he would surely have been thrown into the muddy water. As it was, he lost his balance and fell on the broad stern seat. Dories, too, had been thrown forward, while Gib leaped to the bow to look ahead and see what had obstructed their progress.
“Great fish-hooks! If we haven’t run aground,” was the result of his observation.
“Nann’s right. This here channel dries up with the tide goin’ out.”
“Then the only way to get to the old ruin is to come when the turning tide fills this channel in the marsh,” Dick put in.
“Wall, it’s powerful disappointin’,” Gib looked his distress, “bein’ as the tide won’t turn till ’long about midnight, an’ you’ve got to go back to Boston on the evening train.”
“I’d ought to go, to be there in time for school on Monday,” the lad agreed.
“Couldn’t you make it if you took the early morning train?” Nann inquired.
“May be so,” Dick replied, “but we can decide that later. The big thing just now is, how’re we going to get out of this creek?”
“Why—” The girls looked helplessly from one boy to the other. “Is there any problem about it? Can’t you just push out the way you pushed in?”
Dick’s expression betrayed his perplexity. “Hmm! I’m not at all sure, with the tide going out as fast as it is now.”
“Gracious!” Dories looked up in alarm. “We won’t have to stay in this dreadful marsh until the tide turns, will we?” Then appealingly, “Oh, Dick, please do hurry and try to get us out of here. Aunt Jane will be terribly worried if we don’t get home before dark.”
The boy addressed had already leaped to the stern of the boat and was pushing on the one oar with all his strength. Gib snatched the other oar and tried to help, but still they did not move. Then Nann had an inspiration. “Dori,” she said, “you catch hold of the reeds on that side and I will on this and let’s pull, too. Now, one, two, three! All together!”
Their combined efforts proved successful. The punt floated, but it was quite evident that they would have to travel fast to keep from again being grounded, so they all four continued to push and pull, and it was with a sigh of relief that they at last reached deeper water as the channel widened into the sea.
“Well, that certainly was a narrow escape,” Nann exclaimed as the punt slipped out of the narrow channel of the marsh into the quiet waters of the cove.