The old woman seemed not to have heard, for she continued looking thoughtfully at the fire. “I know that she has forgiven,” she said at last. “Your mother is too noble a woman not to do that, but her pride will not let her forget.” Then, turning toward the girls who sat each with a hand tightly clasped in the others, the speaker continued: “I must begin at the beginning to make the sad story clear. I loved your father, as I would have loved a son. I brought him up when his parents were gone. The money belonged to my father and he used to say that he would leave your father’s share in my keeping, as he believed in my judgment. I was to turn it over to my nephew when I thought best.” She was silent a moment, then said: “When your father was old enough to marry, I wanted him to choose a girl I had selected, but instead, when he went away to study art, he married a school teacher of whom I had never heard. I believed that she was designing and marrying him for his money, and I wrote him that unless he freed himself from the union I would never give him one cent. Of course he would not do that, and rightly. Later, in my anger, I turned over to him some oil stock which had proved valueless and told him that was all he was to have. Then began long, lonely years for me because I never again heard from the nephew whose boyish love had been the greatest joy life had ever brought me. I was too stubborn to give him the money which legally I had the right to withhold from him, and he was so hurt that he would not ask my forgiveness. But, when I heard that my boy had died, my heart broke, and I knew myself for what I was—a selfish, stubborn old woman who had not deserved love and consideration. Then, but far too late, I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of your mother. I wrote, begging her to come and bring her two children to my home. I told her how desolate I had been since my boy, your father, had left. Very courteously your mother wrote that, as long as she could sew for a living for herself and her two children, she would not accept charity. Then I conceived the plan of becoming acquainted with you, for two reasons: one that I might discover if in any way you resembled your father, and the other was that I wanted you to use your influence to induce your mother to forget, as well as forgive, and to live with me in Boston and make my cheerless mansion of a house into a real home.”
She paused and Dories, seeing that there were tears in the grey eyes, impulsively reached out a hand and took the wrinkled one nearest her.
“Dear Aunt Jane, how you have suffered.” Nann noted with real pleasure that her friend’s first reaction had been pity for the old woman and not rebellion because of the act that had caused her to be brought up in poverty. “Mother has always said that you meant to be kind, she was convinced of that, but she never told me the story. This is the first time that I understood what had happened. Truly, Aunt Jane, if you really wish it, I shall urge Mother to let us all three come and live with you. Selfishly I would love to, because I would be near Nann, if for no other reason, but I have another reason. I believe my father would wish it. Mother has often told me that, as a boy, he loved you.”
The old woman held the girl’s hand in a close clasp and tears unheeded fell over her wrinkled cheeks. “But it’s too late now,” she said dismally.
Dories and Nann exchanged surprised glances. “Too late, Aunt Jane?” Dories inquired. “Do you mean that you do not care to have us now?”
“No, indeed, not that!” The old woman wiped away the tears, then smiled tremulously. “I haven’t finished the story as yet. This is the last chapter, I fear. I ought to be glad for your mother’s sake, but O, I have been so lonely.”
Then, seeing the intense eagerness in her niece’s face, she concluded with, “I must not keep you in such suspense, my dear. That long legal envelope brought me news from your father’s lawyer. It is news that your mother has already received, I presume. The stock, which I turned over to your father years ago, believing it to be worthless, has turned out to be of great value. Your mother will have a larger income than my own, and now, of course, she will not care to make her home with me.”
“O, Aunt Jane!” To the surprise of both of the others, the girl threw her arms about the old woman’s neck and clung to her, sobbing as though in great sorrow, but Nann knew that the tears were caused by the sudden shock of the joyful revelation. The old woman actually kissed the girl, and then said: “I expected to be very sad because I cannot do something for you all to prove the deep regret I feel for my unkind action, but, instead, I am glad, for I know that only in this way would your mother acquire the real independence which means happiness for her.” With a sigh, she continued: “I’ve lived alone for many years, I suppose I can go on living alone until the end of time.” Then she added, a twinkle again appearing in her grey eyes, “and now you know all.”
“O, Aunt Jane, then youdidwrite those messages and leave them for us to find?”
“I plead guilty,” the old woman confessed. “I overheard you and Nann saying that you wished something mysterious would happen. I had been wondering when to tell you the story, and I decided to wait until I heard from the lawyer. I know you are wondering how Gibralter Strait happened to give you that last message the very day a letter came telling about the stock. That is very simple. One day when Mr. Strait came for a grocery order, you were all away somewhere. I gave him that last message and told him to keep it in our box at the office until a letter should arrive from my lawyer, then they were to be brought over and that letter was to be given to you girls.” The old woman leaned back in her chair and it was quite evident that her recent emotion had nearly exhausted her. Nann, excusing herself thoughtfully, left the other two alone.
“Dori,” the old woman said tenderly, “as you grow older, don’t let circumstances of any nature make you cold and critical. If I had been loving and kind when your girl mother married my boy, my life, instead of being bleak and barren, would have been a happy one. No one knows how I have grieved; how my unkindness has haunted me.”
Just then Dories thought of her sweet-faced mother who had borne the trials of poverty so bravely, and again she heard her saying, “The only ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving words that might have been spoken and loving deeds that might have been done.”
Impulsively the girl leaned over and kissed the wrinkled face. “I love you, Aunt Jane,” she whispered. “And I shall beg Mother to let us all live together in your home, if it is still your wish.” Then, as Miss Moore had risen, seeming suddenly feeble, Dories sprang up and helped her to her room and remained there until the old woman was in her bed.
When the girl went out to the kitchen where her friend was preparing supper, she exclaimed, half laughing and half crying: “Nann Sibbett, I’m so brimming full of conflicting emotions, I don’t feel at all real. Pinch me, please, and see if I am.”
“Instead I’ll give you a hard hug; a congratulatory one. There! Did that seem real?” Then Nann added in her most sensible, matter-of-fact voice: “Now, wake up, Dori. You mustn’t go around in a trance. Of course the only mystery thatyouare interested in is solved, and wonderfully solved, but I’m just as keen as ever to know the secret the old ruin is holding.”
“I’ll try to be!” Dories promised, then confessed: “But, honestly, I am not a bit curious about any mystery, now that my own is solved.” A moment later she asked: “Nann, do you suppose Mother will want me to come home right away?”
“Why, I shouldn’t think so, Dori,” her friend replied. “You always hear from your mother on Friday, so wait and see what tomorrow brings.”
The morrow was to hold much of interest for both of the girls.
As soon as their breakfast was over, Dories asked her Aunt if she were willing that the girls go to Siquaw Center for the mail. “I always get a letter from Mother on the Friday morning train,” was the excuse she gave, “and, of course, I am simply wild to hear what she will have to say today; that is, if she does know about—well, about what you told us that father’s lawyer had written.”
Miss Moore was glad to be alone, for she had had a sleepless night. She had long dreamed that, perhaps, when she became acquainted with her niece, that young person might be able to influence the stubborn mother to accept the home that the old woman had offered, and that peace might again be restored to the lonely, repentant heart. But now, just as that dream seemed about to be fulfilled, the mother was placed in a position of complete independence, and so, of course, she would never be willing to share the home of her husband’s great-aunt. The desolate loneliness of the years ahead, however few they might be, depressed the old woman greatly. Dories, seeing tears in the grey eyes, stooped impulsively, and, for the second time, she kissed her great-aunt. “If you will let me, I’m coming to visit you often,” she whispered, as though she had read her aunt’s thoughts. Then away the two girls went.
It was a glorious morning and they skipped along as fast as they could on the sandy road. Mrs. Strait, with a baby on one arm, was tending the general store and post office when the girls entered. No one else was in sight.
“Good morning, Mrs. Strait. Is there any mail for Miss Dories Moore?” that young maiden inquired.
“Yeah, thar is, an’ a picher card for tother young miss,” was the welcome reply.
Dories fairly pounced on the letter that was handed her. “Good, itisfrom Mother! I am almost sure that she will want me to come home,” she exclaimed gleefully. But when the message had been read, Dories looked up with a puzzled expression. “How queer!” she said. “Mother doesn’t say one thing about the stock; not even that she has heard about it, but she does say that she and Brother are leaving today on a business journey and that she may not write again for some time. I’ll read you what she says at the end: ‘Daughter dear, if your Aunt Jane wishes to return to Boston before you again hear from me, I would like you to remain with her until I send for you. Peter is standing at my elbow begging me to tell you that he is going to travel on a train just as you did. I judge from your letters that you and Nann are having an interesting time after all, but, of course, you would be happy, I am sure, anywhere with Nann!’” Dories looked up questioningly. “Don’t you think it is very strange that Mother should go somewhere and not tell me where or why?”
Nann laughed. “Maybe she thought that she would add another mystery to those we are trying to solve,” she suggested, but Dories shook her head. “No, that wasn’t Mother’s reason. Perhaps—O, well, what’s the use of guessing? Who was your card from?”
“Dad, of course. I judge that he will be glad when his daughter returns. O, Dori,” Nann interrupted herself to exclaim, “do look at that pair of black eyes peering at us out of that bundle!” She nodded toward the baby, wrapped in a blanket, that had been placed in a basket on the counter.
The girls leaned over the little creature, who actually tried to talk to them but ended its chatter with a cracked little crow. “He ain’t a mite like Gib,” the pleased mother told them. “The rest of us is sandy complected, but this un is black as a crow, an’ jest as jolly all the time as yo’uns see him now.”
“What is the little fellow’s name, Mrs. Strait?” Nann asked.
The woman looked anxiously toward the door; then said in a low voice: “I’m wantin’ to give the little critter a Christian name—Moses, Jacop, or the like, but his Pa is set on the notion of namin’ ’em all after geography straits, an’ I ain’t one to hold out about nothin’.” She sighed. “But it’s long past time to christen the poor little mite.”
Nann and Dories tried hard not to let their mirth show in their faces. The older girl inquired: “Why hasn’t he been christened, Mrs. Strait? Can’t you decide on a name?”
“Wall, yo’ see it’s this a-way,” the gaunt, angular woman explained. “Gib didn’t fetch home his geography books, an’ school don’t open up till snow falls in these here parts. So baby’ll have to wait, I reckon, bein’ as Gib don’t recollect no strait names.” Then, with hope lighting her plain face, the woman asked: “Do you girls know any of them geography names?”
Dories and Nann looked at each other blankly. “Why, there is Magellan,” one said. “And Dover,” the other supplemented.
Mrs. Strait looked pleased. “Seems like that thar Dover one ought to do as wall as any. Please to write it down so’s Pa kin see it an’ tother un along side of it.”
The girls left the store as soon as they could, fearing that they would have to laugh, and they did not want to hurt the mother’s feelings, and so, after purchasing some chocolate bars, they darted away without having learned where Gib was.
“Not that it matters,” Nann said when they were nearing the beach. “He won’t come over, probably, until tomorrow morning with Dick.”
“But Dick said he would arrive on Friday,” Dories reminded her friend.
“Yes, I know, but if he leaves Boston after school is out in the afternoon, he won’t get there until evening.”
“They might come over then,” Dories insisted. A few moments later, as they were nearing the cabin, she added: “There is no appetizing aroma to greet us today. Aunt Jane is probably still in bed.” Then, turning toward Nann, the younger girl said earnestly: “Truly, I feel so sorry for her. She seems heartbroken to think that Mother and Peter and I will not need to share her home. I believe she fretted about it all night; she looked so hollow-eyed and sick this morning.”
Dories was right. The old woman was still in bed, and when her niece went in to see what she wanted, Miss Moore said: “Will you girls mind so very much if we go home on Monday. I am not feeling at all well, and, if I am in Boston I can send for a doctor. Here I might die before one could reach me.”
“Of course we want to go whenever you wish,” Dories declared. She did not mention what her mother had written. There would be time enough later.
Out in the kitchen Dories talked it over with Nann. “You’ll be sorry to go before you solve the mystery of the old ruin, won’t you?” the younger girl asked.
Nann whirled about, eyes laughing, stove poker upheld. “I’ll prophesy that the mystery will all be solved before our train leaves on Monday morning,” she said merrily.
After her lunch, which this time truly was of toast and tea, Miss Moore said that she felt as though she could sleep all the afternoon if she were left alone, and so Dories and Nann donned their bright-colored tams and sweater-coats, as there was a cool wind, and went out on the beach wondering where they would go and what they would do. “Let’s visit the punt and see that nothing has happened to it,” Dories suggested.
They soon reached the end of the sandy road. Nann glanced casually in the direction of Siquaw, then stopped and, narrowing her eyes, she gazed steadily into the distance for a long moment. “Don’t you see a moving object coming this way?” she inquired.
Dories nodded as she declared: “It’s old Spindly, of course, and I suppose Gib is on it. I wonder why he is coming over at this hour. It isn’t later than two, is it?”
“Not that even.” Dories glanced at her wrist-watch as she spoke. For another long moment they stood watching the object grow larger. Not until it was plain to them that it was the old white horse with two riders did they permit their delight to be expressed. “Dick has come! He must have arrived on the noon train. It must be a holiday!” Dories exclaimed, and Nann added, “Or at least Dick has proclaimed it one.” Then they both waved for the boys, having observed them from afar, were swinging their caps.
“Isn’t it great that I could come today?” was Dick’s first remark after the greetings had been exchanged. “Class having exams and I was exempt.”
Nann’s eyes glowed. “Isn’t that splendid, Dick? I know what that means. Your daily average was so high you were excused from the test.”
The city boy flushed. “Well, it wasn’t my fault. It’s an easy subject for me. I’m wild about history and I don’t seem able to forget anything that I read.” Then, smiling at the country boy, he added: “Gib, here, tells me that you haven’t visited the old ruin since I left. That was mighty nice of you. I’ve been thinking so much about that mysterious airplane chap this past week, it’s a wonder I could get any of my lessons right.”
“Isn’t it the queerest thing?” Nann said. “That airplane hasn’t been seen or heard since you left.”
“I ain’t so sure.” Gib had removed his cap and was scratching one ear as he did when puzzled. “Pa ’n’ me both thought we heard a hummin’ one night, but ’twas far off, sort o’. I reckon’d, like’s not, that pilot fellar lit his boat way out in the water and slid back in quiet-like.”
Dick, much interested, nodded. “He could have done that, you know. He may realize that there are people on the point and he may not wish to have his movements observed.” Then eagerly: “Can you girls go right now? The tide is just right and we wanted to give that old dining-room a thorough overhauling, you know.”
“Yes, we can go. Aunt Jane is going to sleep all of the afternoon.” Then impulsively Dories turned toward the red-headed boy. “Gib,” she exclaimed contritely, “I’m just ever so sorry that I called Aunt Jane queer or cross. Something happened this week which has proved that she is very different in her heart from what we supposed her to be. She has just been achingly lonely for years, and some family affairs which, of course, would interest no one but ourselves, have made her shut herself away from everyone. I’m ever so sorry for her, and I know that from now on I’m going to love her just dearly.”
“So am I,” Nann said very quietly. “I wish we had realized that all this time Miss Moore has been hungering for us to love and be kind to her. We girls sometimes forget that elderly people have much the same feelings that we have.”
“I know,” Dick agreed as they walked four abreast toward the creek where the punt was hid, “I have an old grandmother who is always so happy when we youngsters include her in our good times.” Then he added in a changed tone: “Hurray! There’s the old punt! Now, all aboard!” Ever chivalrous, Dick held out a hand to each girl, but it was to Nann that he said with conviction: “This is the day that we are to solve the mystery.”
The voyage up the narrow channel in the marsh was uneventful and at last the four young people reached the opening near the old ruin. They stopped before entering to look around that they might be sure the place was unoccupied. Then Dick crept through the opening in the crumbling wall to reconnoiter. “All’s well!” he called to them a moment later, and in the same order as before the others followed. Everything was just as it had been on their former visit.
Dick flashed his light in the corner where they had seen the picture of old Colonel Wadbury, and the sharp eyes, under heavy brows, seemed to glare at them. Dories, with a shudder, was secretly glad that they were only pictured eyes.
“Sh! Hark!” It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had broken a panel the week before.
“What is it? What do you hear?” Nann asked.
“A sort of a scurrying noise,” Dick told her. “Nothing but rats, I guess, but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have looked around in there. Perhaps you’d better go back to the opening,” he added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories’ pale, frightened face. The younger girl was clutching her friend’s arm as though she never meant to let go. “I’m just as afraid of rats,” she confessed, “as I am of ghosts.”
“We’ll wait here,” Nann said calmly. “Rats won’t hurt us. They would be more afraid of us than even Dori is of them.”
Dick climbed through the hole in the door, followed closely by Gib. Nann, holding a lighted lantern, smiled at her friend reassuringly. Although only a few moments passed, they seemed like an eternity to the younger girl; then Dick’s beaming face appeared in the opening. It was very evident that he had found something which interested him and which was not of a frightening nature. The boys assisted the girls over the heap of debris which held the door shut and then flashed the light around what had once been a handsomely furnished dining-room. Dories’ first glance was toward the sideboard where they had left the painting of the beautiful girl. It was not there.
The boys also had made the discovery. “Which proves,” Dick declared, “that Gib was right about that airplane chap having been here. He must have taken the picture, butwhydo you suppose he would want it?”
“I guess you’re right,” Dick had been looking behind the heavy piece of mahogany furniture as he spoke, “and, whoever was here has left something. The rats we heard scurrying about were trying to drag it away, to make into a nest, I suppose.”
Arising from a stooping posture, the boy revealed a note book which he had picked up from behind the sideboard.
He opened it to the first page and turned his flashlight full upon it. “Those plaguity little rats have torn half of this page nearly off,” he complained, “but I guess we can fit it together and read the writing on it.”
“October fifteen,” Dick read aloud. Then paused while he tried to fit the torn pieces. “There, now I have it,” he said, and continued reading: “At Mother’s request, I came to her father’s old home, but found it in a ruined state. The natives in the village tell me there is no way to reach the place, as it is in a dangerous swamp, sort of a ‘quick-mud’, all about it, and what’s more, one garrulous chap tells me that the place is haunted. Well, I don’t care a continental for the ghost, but I’m not hankering to find an early grave in oozy mud.”
“I don’t recollect any sech fellow,” Gib put in, but Dick was continuing to read from the note book:
“I didn’t let on who I was. Didn’t want to arouse curiosity, so I took the next train back to Boston. I simply can’t give up. Imustreach that old house and give it a real ransacking. Mother is sure her papers are there, and if they are, she must have them.”
The next page revealed a rapidly scrawled entry: “October 16th. Lay awake nearly all night trying to think out a way to visit that old ruin. Had an inspiration. Shall sail over it in an airplane and get at least a bird’s-eye view. Glad I belong to the Boston Aviation Club.
“October 18. Did the deed! Sailed over Siquaw in an aircraft and saw, when I flew low, that there was a narrow channel leading through the marsh and directly up to the old ruin.
“I’ll come in a seaplane next time, with a small boat on board. Mother’s coming soon and I want to find the deed to the Wetherby place before she arrives. It is her right to have it since her own mother left it to her, but her father, I just can’t call the old skinflint my grandfather, had it hidden in the house that he built by the sea. When Mother went back, she asked for that deed, but he wouldn’t give it to her. She told him that her husband was dead and that she wanted to live in her mother’s old home near Boston, but he said that she never should have it, that he had destroyed the deed. He was mean enough to do it, without doubt, but I don’t believe he did it, somehow. I have a hunch that the papers are still there.
“October 20. Well, I went in a seaplane, made my way up that crooked little channel in the swamp. Found more in the ruin than I had supposed I would. First of all, I hunted for an old chest, or writing desk, the usual place for papers to be kept. Located a heavy walnut desk in what had once been a library, but though there were papers enough, nothing like a deed. Had a mishap. Had left the seaplane anchored in a quiet cove. It broke loose and washed ashore. Wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get it off until change of tide, along about midnight. Being curious about a rocky point, I took my flashlight and prowled around a bit. Saw eight boarded-up cottages in a row, and to pass away the time I looked them over. Was rather startled by two occurrences. First was a noise regularly repeated, but that proved to be only a blind on an upper window banging in the wind. That was the cottage nearest the point. Then later I was sure I saw two white faces in an upper window of a cottage farther along. Sort of surprising when you suppose you’re the only living person for a mile around. O well, ghosts can’t turn me from my purpose. Got back to the plane just as it was floating and made off by daybreak. Haven’t made much headway yet, but shall return next week.”
Dick looked up elated. “There, that proves that Mother did forget to fasten that blind,” he exclaimed. Dories was laughing gleefully. “Nann,” she chuckled, “to think that we scared him as much as he scared us. You know we thought the person carrying a light on the rocks was a ghost, and he, seeing us peer out at him, thought we were ghosts.”
Nann smiled at her friend, then urged Dick continue reading, but Dick shook his head. “Can’t,” he replied, “for there is no more.”
“But he came again,” Nann said. “We know that he did, because he left this little note book.”
“And what is more, he took away with him the painting of his lovely girl-mother,” Dories put in.
Dick nodded. “Don’t you see,” he was addressing Nann, “can’t you guess what happened? When he came and found a panel had been broken in this door and the painting on the sideboard, he realized that he was not the only person visiting the old ruin.”
“Even so, that wouldn’t have frightened him away. He evidently is a courageous chap, shouldn’t you say?” Nann inquired, and Dick agreed, adding: “Well then, whatdoyou think happened?”
It was Gib who replied: “I reckon that pilot fellar found them papers he was lookin’ fer an’ ain’t comin’ back no more.”
“But perhaps he hasn’t,” Nann declared. “Suppose we hunt around a little. We might just stumble on that old deed, but even if we did, would we know how to send it to him?”
Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. “Yes, we would,” he answered her. “Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to the Boston Tech, I judge.”
“O, what is his name?” Dories asked eagerly.
“Wouldn’t you love to meet him?” the younger girl continued.
“I intend to look him up when I get back to town,” Dick assured them, “and wouldn’t it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course, if he hasn’t.”
Nann glanced about the dining-room. “There’s a door at the other end. It’s so dark down there I hadn’t noticed it before.”
The boys went in that direction. “Perhaps it leads to the room where the desk is. We haven’t seen that yet.” Dories and Nann followed closely.
Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made him pause. “Like’s not all this time that pilot fellar’s been in there waitin’ fer us to clear out.” Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.
One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. “In all the stories I have ever read,” Dories told them, “there were secret drawers, or sliding panels, or——”
“A removable stone in a chimney,” Nann merrily added. “But I believe that old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different,” she concluded.
While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. “There is the pilot chap’s entrance to the ruin.” He pointed toward a fireplace. Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough for a person to creep through.
“Perhaps he had never been in the front room, then,” Nann remarked.
“I hate to suggest it,” Dories said hesitatingly, “but I think we ought to be going. It’s getting late.”
“I’ll say we ought!” Dick glanced at his time-piece. “Tides have a way of turning whether there is a mystery to ferret out or not. We have all day tomorrow to spend here, or at least part of it,” he modified.
At Gib’s suggestion they went out through the hole in the back of the fireplace. The narrow channel was easily navigated and again they left the punt, as on a former occasion, anchored in the calm waters on the marsh side of the point. Then they climbed over the rocks, and walked along the beach four abreast. They talked excitedly of one phase of what had occurred and then of another.
“You were right, Dick, when you said that the mystery about the pilot of the airplane would be solved today.” Nann smiled at the boy who was always at her side. Then she glanced over toward the island, misty in the distance. “And to think that that girl-mother and her daughter are really coming back to America.”
“Do you suppose they will come in the Phantom Yacht?” Dories turned toward Gib to inquire.
“I don’t reckon so,” that boy replied. “I cal’late we-uns saw the skeleton of the Phantom Yacht over to the island that day we was thar, Miss Nann. A storm came up, Pa said, an’ he allays thought that thar yacht was wrecked.”
“If that’s true, then everyone on board must have been saved,” Nann said. “Of that much, at least, we’re sure.”
The boys left the girls in front of their home-cabin, promising to be back early the next day. On entering the cottage, Dories went at once to her aunt’s room and was pleased to see that she looked rested. A wrinkled old hand was held out to the girl, and, when Dories had taken it, she was surprised to hear her aunt say, “I’m trying to be resigned to my big disappointment, Dories; but even if Idohave to live alone all the rest of my days, I’m going to make you and Peter my heirs. Your mother can’t refuse me that.” Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She tried to speak, but could not.
Her aunt understood, and, as sentimentality was, on the whole, foreign to her nature, she said, with a return of her brusque manner, “There! That’s all there is to that. Please fetch me a poached egg with my toast and tea.”
It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron, smiling brightly at her friend. “Good, there are the boys!” she exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed with their tams and sweater-coats.
“We’ve put up a lunch,” Nann told the newcomers. “Miss Moore said that we might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested.” They were walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.
Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. “Say, Miss Dori,” he exclaimed, “Miss Moore’s been here sech a long time, like’s not she knew ol’ Colonel Wadbury, didn’t she now?”
“No, she didn’t know him,” Dories replied. “He was such an old hermit he didn’t want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter’s return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn’t here the year of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she really doesn’t know any more than we do.”
“We didn’t start coming here until after it had all happened,” Dick put in.
“I’m so excited.” Nann gave a little eager skip. “I almost hope the pilot of the seaplane has not found the deed and that we may find it and give it to him.”
“So do I!” Dick seconded. Over the rugged point they went, each time becoming more agile, and into the punt they climbed when Gib, barefooted as usual, had waded out and rowed close to a flat-rock platform. The tide was in and with its aid they floated rapidly up the channel in the marsh. “Shall we enter by the front or the back?” Nann asked of Dick.
“The front is nearer our landing place,” was the reply. “Let’s give the old salon a thorough ransacking. I feel in my bones that we are going to make some interesting discovery today, don’t you, Gib?”
“Dunno,” was that lad’s laconic reply. “Mabbe so.”
A few moments later they were standing under the twisted chandelier listening to the faint rattle of its many crystal pendants. Nann made a suggestion: “Let’s each take a turn in selecting some place to look for the deed, shall we?”
“Oh, yes, let’s,” Dories seconded. “That will make sort of a game of it all.”
Dick held the flashlight out to the older girl. “You make the first selection,” he said.
Nann took the light and, standing still with the others under the chandelier, she flashed the bright beam around the room. “There’s a broken door almost crushed under the sagging roof.” She indicated the front corner opposite the one by which they had entered. “There must have been a room beyond that. I suggest that we try to get through there.”
But Dick demurred. “I’m not sure that it would be wise,” he told her. “The roof might sag more if that door were pulled away.” They heard a noise back of them and turned to see Gib making for the entrance. “I’ll be back,” was all that he told them. When, a moment later, he did return, he beckoned. “Come along out,” he said. “There’s a way into that thar room from the outside.”
He led them to a window, the pane of which had been broken, leaving only the frame. They peered in and beheld what had been a large bedroom. A heavy oak bed and other pieces of furniture to match were pitched at all angles as the rotting floor had given way. Dick stepped back and looked critically at the sagging roof, then he beckoned Gib and together they talked in low tones. Seeming satisfied with their decision, they returned to the spot where the girls were waiting. “We don’t want you to run any risk of being hurt while you are with us,” Dick explained. “We want to take just as good care of you as if you were our sisters.” Then he assured them: “We think it is safe. Gib showed me how stout the cross-beam is which has kept the roof from sagging farther.”
And so they entered the room through the window. For an hour they ransacked. There was no evidence that anyone had been in that room since the storm so long ago. “Queer, sort of, ain’t it?” Gib speculated, scratching his ear. “Yo’d think that pilot fellar’d a been all over the place, wouldn’t yo’ now?”
“Let’s go back to the front room again and let Dori choose next for a place to search,” the ever chivalrous Dick suggested.
A few seconds later they again were under the chandelier. Dories, as interested and excited now as any of them, took the light and flashed it about the room, letting the round glow rest at last on the huge fireplace. “That’s where I’ll look,” she told the others. “Let’s see if there is a loose rock that will come out and behind which we may find a box with the deed in it.”
Nann laughed. “Like the story we read when we were twelve or thirteen years old,” she told the boys. But though they all rapped on the stones and even tried to pry them out, so well had the masonry been made, each rock remained firmly in place and not one of them was movable.
“Now, Dick, you have a turn.” Dories held the flashlight toward him, but he shook his head. “No, Gib first.”
The red-headed boy grinned gleefully. “I’ll choose a hard place. I reckon ol’ Colonel Wadbury hid that thar deed somewhar’s up in the attic under the roof.” Dories looked dismayed. “O, Gib, don’t choose there, for we girls couldn’t climb up among the rafters.” But Nann put in: “Of course, dear, Gib may choose the loft if he wishes. But how would you get there?”
Gib had been flashing the light along the cracked, tipped ceiling of the room. Suddenly his freckled face brightened. “Come on out agin.” He sprang for the low opening as he spoke. Then, when they were outside, he pointed to the spot where the roof was lowest. “Yo’ gals stay here whar the punt is,” he advised, “while me ’n’ Dick shinny up to whar the chimney’s broke off. Bet yo’ we kin git into the garrit from thar. Bet yo’ we kin.”
Dick was gazing at the roof appraisingly. “O, I guess it’s safe enough,” he answered the anxious expression he saw in the face of the older girl. “If our weight is too much, the roof will sag more and close up our entrance perhaps, but we can slide down without being hurt, I am sure of that.”
The girls sat in the punt to await the return of the boys, who, after a few moments’ scrambling up the sloping roof, actually disappeared into what must have once been an attic.
“I never was so interested or excited in all my life,” Nann told her friend. “I do hope we will find that deed today, for tomorrow will be Sunday, and I feel that we ought to remain with your Aunt Jane and put things in readiness for our departure on Monday.”
“Yes, so do I.” Dories glanced up at the roof, but as the boys were not to be seen, she continued: “I am interested in finding the deed, of course, but I just can’t keep my thoughts from wandering. I am so glad that Mother will not have to keep on sewing. She has been so wonderful taking care of Peter and me the way she has ever since that long ago day when father died.” Then she sighed. “Of course I wish she hadn’t been too proud to accept help from Aunt Jane.” But almost at once she contradicted with, “In one way, though, I don’t, for if I had lived in Boston all these years, I would never have known you. But now that you are going to live in Boston, how I do wish that Mother and Peter and I were to live there also.”
“Maybe you will,” Nann began, but Dories shook her head. “I don’t believe Mother would want to leave her old home. It isn’t much of a place, but she and Father went there when they were married, and we children were born there.” Then, excitedly pointing to the roof, Dories exclaimed: “Here come the boys, and they have a packet of papers, haven’t they?”
Nann stepped out of the punt to the mound as she called, “O, boys, have you found the deed?”
“We don’t know yet,” Dick replied, but the girls could see by his glowing expression that he believed that they had.
They all sat in the punt, which had been drawn partly up on the mound and which afforded the only available seats. Dick and Nann occupied the wide stern seat, while Dories and Gib in the middle faced them. Dick unfastened the leather thong which bound the papers and, closing his eyes, just for the lark of it, he passed a folded document to each of his companions. Then he opened them as he said laughingly:
“Just four. How kind of old Colonel Wadbury to help us with our game! Now, Nann, report about yours first. Is it the Wetherby deed?”
After a moment’s eager scrutiny, Nann shook her head. “Alas, no! It’s something telling about shares in some corporation,” she told them.
“Well, we’ll keep it anyway to give to our pilot friend,” Dick commented.
“Mine,” Dories said, “is a deed, but it seems to be for this Siquaw Point property.”
Dick reported that his was a marriage license, and Gib dolefully added that his was some government paper, the meaning of which he could not understand. He handed it to Dick, who, after scrutinizing it, said: “Well, at least one thing is certain, it isn’t the deed for which we are searching.” Then, rising, he exclaimed: “Now it’s my turn. I want to go back to the salon. I had a sort of inspiration awhile ago. I thought I wouldn’t mention it until my turn came.”
They left the punt and followed the speaker to their low entrance in the wall. Although they were curious to know Dick’s plan, no one spoke until again they stood beneath the rattling chandelier. At once the boy flashed the round light toward the corner where the piercing eyes under shaggy brows seemed to be watching them. Then he went in that direction. Dories shuddered as she always did when she saw that stern, unrelenting old face. “Why, Dick,” Nann exclaimed, “do you suspect that the picture of the old Colonel can reveal the deed’s hiding-place?”