CATTY ATKINS, SAILORMAN

Books by

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

CONFLICT

SCATTERGOOD BAINES

YOUTH CHALLENGES

EFFICIENCY EDGAR

CATTY ATKINS

CATTY ATKINS, RIVERMAN

THE HIDDEN SPRING

THE HIGHFLYERS

THE LITTLE MOMENT OF HAPPINESS

MARK TIDD

MARK TIDD IN BUSINESS

MARK TIDD’S CITADEL

MARK TIDD, EDITOR

MARK TIDD, MANUFACTURER

MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS

THE SOURCE

SUDDEN JIM

THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

Established 1817

NEXT I KNEW, SOMEBODY WAS FEELING ALONG THE WALL

CATTY ATKINS, SAILORMAN

Clarence Budington Kelland

Author of “MARK TIDD”

“CATTY ATKINS, RIVERMAN” ETC.

Illustrated

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MCMXXII

Catty Atkins, Sailorman

By Harper & Brothers

Printed in the U. S. A.

First Edition

D-W

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Next I Knew, Somebody Was Feeling Along the Wall]

[When We Got Just Under Her Tail We Could Hear a Murmur of Voices]

[We Cranked Until We Wore the Skin Off Our Hands, and Until Our Backs Were ’Most Busted]

[There Was Excitement for a Minute and Everybody Came Running]

CATTY ATKINS—SAILORMAN

CHAPTER I

It seems as if Catty and I have a lot of luck, and this summer we had more than usual, for Mr. Browning, who lived in New York, and was interested in all kinds of businesses, invited us to go for a cruise on his yacht. He was out to our town to see Mr. Atkins on some sort of business, and before we knew it Catty and I were friends with him, and took him fishing, and went around with him—and the day he left he said we were to come for the cruise.

We were to start in July, and it was hard for us to wait for the time to come around, but it did come. We were kind of surprised that it actually did, but as Mr. Atkins says, if you only wait long enough any time will come. We packed our stuff and took the train, and when we woke up next morning we were coming into New York.

Mr. Browning met us and we went to a big hotel, the biggest I ever saw, and after breakfast we got into his automobile and drove out into the country on Long Island. In about an hour we got to the town where Mr. Browning kept his yacht anchored off a club. We didn’t know what kind of a boat it was going to be, but you can bet we were anxious to find out. There were about a hundred yachts anchored there—all kinds, from great steam yachts and enormous sailing yachts to little thirty-foot launches.

There was a power dinghy tied to the float and a man in it dressed in “whites.” The name Albatross was on the dinghy in gold letters, so we knew it belonged to Mr. Browning, for that was the name of his yacht. Mr. Browning walked out on the float and says, “Hello, Naboth. Everything ready?”

“Ready as human hands kin git it—considerin’,” says Naboth.

“Help get the baggage aboard. Here’s the rest of our crew, Naboth. Catty Atkins and Wee-wee Moore.”

“Huh. Eat more ’n they’ll work,” said Naboth.

“We’ll set them polishing brass,” says Mr. Browning.

“Won’t nuther. Don’t calc’late to have no boys tinkerin’ with my brass. ’Tain’t ’s if it was ord’nary brass. Uh-uh. Seems like I raised that brass from a pup. Hain’t nobody goin’ to tetch a polishin’ rag to it but me, not so long’s I’m able to waggle a fist.... You hear that?” he says, turning to us kind of fierce.

We said we heard, and he said we’d better hear and heed, and then we all got into the dinghy and Naboth started the engine, and we went skittering out toward the fleet. In about three minutes we came up under the stern of a big white boat with Albatross across her stern, and Naboth brought the dinghy up against her jacob’s ladder as soft as if it was an egg and he was afraid of breaking it.

“Make ’em git rubber soles on quick, so’s they won’t scratch up my deck,” says he.

I began to wonder who owned the yacht—whether it was Mr. Browning or Naboth, but I didn’t say anything, and neither did Catty. As Catty says, “You never make a fool of yourself by keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open.”

We climbed up to the deck, and then Mr. Browning took us down into the cabin. You’d be surprised how big that room was. Why it was almost as big as the parlor at home! Behind it was Mr. Browning’s stateroom, with two berths in it, and forward of the cabin was a bath room and the galley, and then came the engine room with the biggest six-cylinder engine I ever saw, and still ahead of that was the crew’s quarters. The boat was seventy feet long! And clean! And shining!

In the main cabin were four Pullman berths that folded into the wall, and Mr. Browning said Catty and I were to sleep there. He showed us how to take them down, and there they were, with the bed clothes all strapped on, and behind them some shelves for our clothes. He told us to fix things up and then to come on deck, for we would be getting under way in a few minutes.

We hustled and then went up on the bridge where we found Mr. Atkins talking to a young man who was introduced to us as Mr. Topper. He looked as if he was about twenty-six or seven, and was so long and thin and sad looking we didn’t know what to make of him. He hardly said a word, but just sat on the leather cushion looking off at the water and wiggling his fingers.

The crew, Mr. Topper said, was Naboth and the engineer, whose name was Tom, and the cook, whose name was Rameses III.

“Rameses III?” says I. “Is he a king or something?”

“He’s a king of a cook. No, that’s his name. Rameses Third. Comes from Cape Cod some place. Always fighting with Naboth,” said Mr. Browning.

Pretty soon the crew cast off the mooring, and we were on our way. Mr. Browning was at the wheel, and we started out of the harbor for Long Island Sound. It was a lovely day, and the water was as smooth as glass. Lots of small boats were all around us, and everybody seemed happy except Mr. Topper, and he was about the gloomiest looking man I ever saw.

Just as we came out of the harbor we saw a black yacht, almost as big as we were. It was going along slow, and I saw somebody on deck watching us through glasses. Mr. Topper sat up and made a face and says, “What boat’s that?”

“Never saw her before,” says Mr. Browning. “Why?”

“I don’t like her looks,” says Mr. Topper. “There’s something about that boat that goes against my grain.”

“Fiddlesticks,” says Mr. Browning.

“She’ll follow us,” says Mr. Topper.

“Nonsense. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody knows anything about what we’re up to.”

“You can’t tell. If that boat follows us——”

“But it won’t,” says Mr. Browning.

I looked at Catty and Catty looked at me. That was funny kind of talk, and I wondered what we were getting into.

We turned up the sound, and, sure enough, the black yacht circled and turned and came right along in our wake, about half a mile behind us. Topper pointed. “There,” says he, “what did I tell you?”

“You’re seeing things,” says Mr. Browning. “Black boat, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Turned and followed us, didn’t she?”

“She turned, but not to follow us. Why, Topper, what in the world would anybody follow us for?”

“You know that as well as I do,” said Mr. Topper.

“But nobody knows but you and I.”

“Can’t ever tell. You can’t keep anything secret in this world.”

“We’ve kept this secret. Nobody knows what you know, and nobody knows what I know.”

“But somebody may know I’ve been there, and somebody may suspect—what I know.”

“You’ve got the shivers,” says Mr. Browning.

“I don’t want to lose out now, after all the trouble I’ve been through.”

“And you won’t,” says Mr. Browning. “Forget it.”

I was interested, you can bet, but just then I heard a racket on the after deck that sounded as if we had been boarded by pirates, and when I looked back, there were Naboth and Rameses III going it like all git out. Naboth had Rameses backed against the rail and was whacking at him with a dirty rag, and Rameses was whacking back with might and main, and the way they hollered at each other was a caution.

“You will go monkeyin’ with my brass, will ye?” Naboth hollered. “You hip-shouldered, bow-legged, cow-eyed wampus! Hain’t I told you time and again that I’d chaw ye up if I ketched you layin’ a rag to that rail? Eh? What d’you know about polishin’ brass, you soup-stirrin’, apple-stewin’ whang-doodle?”

“You hit me with that there rag, and I calc’late to show you. I was polishin’ brass when you was cuttin’ eye teeth. I know more about brass polishin’ in a minute than you do in a year. I got a right to shine brass if I want to. Hain’t I part of this here crew, you leather-necked ol’ turtle?”

“They’re at it again,” says Mr. Browning. “Been at it just like that ever since anybody ever heard of them. They always ship on the same yacht. You can’t separate them, but they never do a thing but fight. Next row’ll be because Naboth pokes his nose into the galley. Rameses thinks he’s a sailorman, and Naboth believes he’s a cook.”

“Why not let them swap jobs,” says Catty.

“Some day I’m going to try it,” says Mr. Browning, and then the noise got so loud he turned and yelled at the men. “Hey,” he says, “stop the noise or I’ll heave you both overboard. You get below Rameses III and get lunch. You Naboth, get things stowed away shipshape in the lazarette.”

They quit in a second and Rameses III ducked below. I turned to look behind, and there was the black yacht, not more than half a mile behind, cutting through the water as business-like as could be.

Catty motioned to me and jerked his head aft. I saw he wanted to say something to me, so I got up and went to the after deck and he came along in a minute.

“Hear that talk?” says he.

“Not being deaf,” says I, “I did.”

“What did you make out of it?”

“Nothing,” says I, “unless Mr. Topper is crazy, or he’s running away from somebody with something.”

“Um. He doesn’t look crazy to me.”

“That settles it then,” says I, kind of sarcastic.

“And he isn’t running away from the police. Mr. Browning wouldn’t have that kind of a man aboard.”

“What then?” says I.

“Treasure,” says he, “buried treasure. Old Captain Kidd used to hang around these parts.”

“Piffle,” says I. “All the treasure’s been dug up long before this.”

“Bet it hasn’t,” says he. “Bet Mr. Topper’s got a map, and that black yacht is full of folks who know it, and they’re going to attack us and take it away from him.”

“You’ve been reading books,” says I. “Look, there’s New York back there. Over there is Connecticut. This is Long Island. You’re off your base.”

“All right,” says he, “you wait and see. Come on, they may suspect we’re talking about it.”

We walked forward, and just as I got to the bridge I heard Mr. Browning say, “Hush. Here come the kids. You’ll be scaring the lives out of them.”

Well we chugged along and Mr. Browning showed us how to keep the log and navigate by chart. He showed us how to set a course, and all day we were busy checking up lights and nuns and bell buoys and beacons and red and black stakes. It was a lot of fun, and Mr. Browning said if a fog was to come up, that would be how we would find our way. Every time we passed a mark we would put it down in the log with the exact hour and minute.

Along about five o’clock—we had crossed the sound diagonally and were running up the Connecticut shore just near enough so we could see how lively it was through the glasses—Mr. Browning says, “There we are. The Thimbles. It’s a hard place to get into. All rocks and reefs.” He slacked speed and headed for what looked like a solid cliff of rock, and on both sides we could see the water lapping on nasty ledges of rock. In a few minutes we swung into a channel of deep water, with high rocks lifting on either side, and on the rocks were summer cottages. And pretty soon we were right among the Thimbles, and could see dozens and dozens of little rock islands, all with cottages on them, and channels running every which way.

“This used to be a refuge for pirates, years and years ago,” said Mr. Browning. “They used to run in here and hide, and folks have dug up every inch of this place for buried treasure.”

“Ever find any?” says Catty.

“I don’t know,” says he.

“Do you think there is any—anywheres? Must have all been dug up years ago,” says Catty.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Mr. Browning. “I guess a lot of it was buried, and it isn’t likely it’s all been found.”

“Gosh,” said Catty, “I wish we could get a chance to dig for some.”

“Well,” says Mr. Browning, with a grin, “you may before this cruise has ended. Never can tell what will happen when you’re on salt water.”

Catty looked at me and wrinkled his nose, as much as to say, “I told you so.”

And then—the black yacht nosed through the passage and dropped her anchor not a hundred yards from us.

CHAPTER II

Mr. Topper just pointed with the longest, boniest finger I ever saw, and I thought he was going to cry.

“There,” says he. “Look at that.”

“Fiddlesticks,” says Mr. Browning. “Ninety yachts out of a hundred come in here for anchorage the first night out of New York.”

Mr. Topper grabbed the glasses and stared at the black yacht. “Her name’s Porpoise,” he said.

“See anybody you know?”

Mr. Topper shook his head. “Everybody’s below except a man in dungarees. Part of the crew. Smoke’s coming out of the funnel. Galley stovepipe must come up there. Probably all getting ready for dinner.”

“Then,” said Mr. Browning with a chuckle, “whether they’re friendly or hostile, we won’t have to worry for an hour.” And just then Rameses III poked his head above deck and stood there mumbling.

“Food’s on the table. Gittin’ cold. Work myself to the bone gittin’ hot grub for folks and they never do nothin’ but dally and loiter till it’s colder’n dead fish. Dunno whatever I took up with bein’ a cook fer. Git no thanks. Nothin’ but kicks and dishwashin’. Nothin’ to me whether folks eats hot food or not. Sp’ile their stummicks if they want to. I do my duty, and if they hain’t willin’ to profit by it, why, ’tain’t no skin off’n my neck.”

We filed down and took our seats, and for a while nobody said a word, because we were hungry and the things Rameses III had cooked were mighty good. Then Mr. Browning says, “Got to row up to the village to send a telegram. Better come along, Topper.... Why don’t you boys wait around a while and go for a swim before you turn in?”

“Sounds good,” says Catty.

So, when dinner was over, Mr. Topper and Mr. Browning piled into the dinghy and Naboth went along to run the engine, and Catty and I were left alone on the Albatross with Rameses III and Tom, the engineer. Tom was one of the silent kind. All the time we spent on that boat I never heard him say a word. All he ever did was to shake his head for yes or waggle it for no.

We took the phonograph onto the after deck and started her going and just sat and enjoyed ourselves. We were full of grub and our lungs were full of fine air, and everything was growing still and shadowy so that a fellow didn’t want to do much and was mighty well satisfied just to be there. After a while a ramshackle launch came alongside. It was loaded with vegetables and melons and such, but Rameses III shooed the man off and wouldn’t buy anything. After that things were quiet for a while, and the shadows sort of sprawled out from the high rocks toward us, and you couldn’t see any more what was rock and what was water—and then lights began to twinkle off on the shore, and a fellow started to tune up on a cornet. Our riding lights were lit, and the only way we could tell the black yacht was still there was by the light at her masthead. It looked kind of like a star that had got lost and settled down close to the water. Then a young fellow and a girl came sliding past in a canoe and Catty and I joked with them some.

“Well,” says Catty after a while, “guess my dinner’s settled. Let’s go in for a swim.”

We dropped off our clothes and stood up on the rail and dove in. Wow! I’ve been in some pretty cold water, but that water in the Thimbles was colder than I’d expect to find it at the North Pole. It wasn’t so bad after a minute though, and we swam around enjoying it to beat everything.

“Say,” Catty says after a minute, “let’s swim over and have a look at the pirate.”

“What pirate?” says I.

“Only pirate there is. Here we are, you and I. We’ve been sent in by a frigate that’s chasing pirates to spy out this hiding place. We don’t know anybody’s here, but we’ve got to find out, and go back and guide the cutters in to attack. They always had cutters, didn’t they? And they called it ‘cutting out.’ Well we’re going to cut out this pirate, and burn their stockade and rescue prisoners, and maybe find bales and boxes and heaps of rich merchandise that’ll make us wealthy. Come on.”

“All right,” says I, “but let’s not get lost.”

“Always can see the riding light,” he says. “Swim as still as you can.”

So we started off towards the pirate, swimming so quiet we could hardly hear ourselves. It wasn’t much of a swim, though there was quite a little current. We got to the pirate and all around her. There wasn’t a light except her riding light, and for a while we couldn’t hear a sound. It was just as if she was deserted. But when we got just under her tail we could hear a murmur of voices and Catty reached out and touched my shoulder and whispered, “Grab hold of her stern and listen.”

WHEN WE GOT JUST UNDER HER TAIL WE COULD HEAR A MURMUR OF VOICES

So we grabbed and lay still on the water. But we couldn’t make out a word for quite a while. Then one of the men got up and stood right over us and says, “Well, so far—so good.”

“Any fool can chase a boat in broad daylight,” says the other man, who came and stood by him.

“But we aren’t sure he’s aboard.”

“I am,” says the other man.

“Wish I was. If we’ve been fooled——”

“Oh, he never suspected a thing. How should he?”

“A man that knows what he knows is suspicious of everybody and everything—if he’s got any sense. And this fellow’s got some sense. We shouldn’t have hung to his heels so close.”

“Rubbish.”

“And, as I said, he may have fooled us. I didn’t see him aboard that yacht.”

“Why don’t you row and pay him a friendly call? Nothing unusual in that. Here we are anchored side by side and nobody would think anything of it if you made a call.”

“He doesn’t know me, but I don’t want him to see me. If he never sees me at all—so much the better.... By jove!”

“What now.”

“I’ve a notion to slip into the water and swim over. Kind of take a look at things.”

“Go it,” says his friend, “if it’ll make you feel any better.”

Catty nudged me.

In a couple of minutes we heard the man say, “Well, here goes,” and then there was a faint splash.

“Everybody’s spying tonight,” Catty whispered. “Let him get a little start and we’ll follow him.”

So we did, and you can bet we swam mighty silently. We had the advantage because we knew he was there, and he didn’t know we were there. Of course we couldn’t see him because it was so dark and we couldn’t hear him, so we just swam straight for our light and kept our eyes peeled.

When we got almost to the Albatross we lay still and floated and listened, but there wasn’t a sound. Then we swam around the yacht keeping so close our hands almost touched her sides, and still we didn’t see or hear our pirate friend. I was just a little ahead when we came under the stern and started up the starboard side toward the jacob’s ladder, which was down. I was just slipping along as still as a fish, and then, all of a sudden, as I reached out to grab the lower step of the ladder, I didn’t grab the step at all, but I did take right hold of a man’s arm.

“Wow!” says he, startled, and he kicked out like he thought a shark was trying to eat him.

“Wow yourself,” says I, and then he twisted his arm away and slipped into the water and began to swim like all git out.

“What’s the hurry, Mister?” says Catty, but he didn’t answer a word.

Catty and I scrambled up the ladder and rubbed down as quick as we could and got into our clothes.

“Well,” says Catty, “I guess we kind of scairt him.”

“He acted so.”

“And he didn’t find out anything, either.”

“Neither did we.”

He looked at me kind of pitying and says, “Oh, we didn’t, eh. How about finding out they really were following us? How about finding out one of them wasn’t sure Topper was aboard? How about making certain they really are some kind of pirates, and don’t mean us any good? Pretty fair night’s work, seems to me.”

“Guess that’s right,” says I, “but now we know it, what do we do?”

“I was wondering,” says he.

“Better tell Mr. Browning,” says I.

“Maybe he won’t like our butting in. He didn’t tell us anything, and it looked like he was trying to keep Mr. Topper quiet so we wouldn’t hear how worried he was. Nobody ever loses any money by keeping his mouth shut.”

“Maybe not,” says I, “but what then?”

“Why,” says he, “we know something’s up and we’re warned. The thing to do is to keep our eyes and ears open until we find out what it’s all about. Guess we better mind our own business, except when we’re alone and can get some fun out of it.”

“All right,” says I, “just as you say.”

It wasn’t more than ten minutes later when the dinghy came back with Mr. Topper and Mr. Browning and Naboth. Mr. Browning asked us if we’d been in for a swim, and we told him we had, and we guessed we’d turn in for the night. I was feeling kind of sleepy and Catty said he was, too. So we went below and opened our berths and rolled in. It felt mighty good. The air was cool and fresh and the yacht swayed just enough in the current to give it a dandy kind of soothing motion, and I’d have been asleep in two minutes if Naboth and Rameses III hadn’t started a rumpus in the galley. They were arguing at the top of their voices.

“I tell you he could do it,” says Naboth. “A whale could swaller a man if he wanted to, and anyhow this here Jonah was a skinny man accordin’ to all the pictures I ever seen of him. Why, you ol’ lunkhead, a feller as skinny as Jonah could go slippin’ and slidin’ down a whale’s gullet as smooth and slick as soft soap. I’ve seen whales.”

“I’ve seen more whales ’n what you have, says Rameses III, and no whale I ever see could swaller anythin’ bigger’n a two months old pickaninny baby like they use for alligator bait in Africy. Naw. A whale might swaller up a man after it had chawed him, but the’ wa’n’t a tooth mark onto Jonah nowheres. Not a tooth mark. My idee is this here Jonah was one of them fellers that always wants to git his friends all het up with a tall story, and that he never even seen a whale.”

“Let’s try and settle this here thing scientific,” says Naboth. “How long’s a whale?”

“Sixty-seventy feet.”

“Good. How long be you?”

“Nigh six feet.”

“Any whale that amounts to anythin’ is ten times as long as you be, hain’t he?”

“Calc’late he is.”

“But a whale runs to mouth and head, don’t he? Whale’s mouth’s more’n ten times as big as your’n?”

“Yes,” says Rameses III, “but I hain’t sure it’s ten times bigger’n your’n.”

“It’s fifty times bigger,” says Naboth.

“Mebby.”

“Why? I ask you why. Tell me that, consarn ye. Tell me why has a whale got a mouth as big as that.”

“To chaw with,” says Rameses III.

“Naw. To fit his stummick. Got to have a big mouth to keep company with his stummick. A feller can stand up and walk around inside a whale’s stummick, can’t he?”

“Hain’t never seen it proved.”

“The size of the mouth proves it. No use havin’ a big mouth ’less you got a big stummick. No use havin’ a big stummick ’less you got a big mouth. And, here’s where the science comes in, by gum! It ’ud be foolish to have a stummick bigger’n a cave and a mouth bigger’n a cellar if the’ wa’n’t some hole connectin’ ’em that was big enough to let sumthin big through it, because the mouth it takes in big things and the stummick has to have big things to fill it, and neither the mouth nor the stummick would be any good if big things couldn’t git from the one to the other. And there you be, and that’s proof. It’s science. It’s how I jest know a whale could ’a’ swallered Jonah if he’d ’a’ wanted to—even a medium sized whale, and the one we’re talkin’ about is a extry big whale.”

“It couldn’t,” says Rameses III, “because it didn’t; and that hain’t science, it’s common sense; and how do I know it? I’ll tell you: because nobody but this here feller Jonah ever claimed to be swallered by a whale, and there’s been tall liars since his day. The’s been men had all sorts of things happen to ’em but never another but jest this here one Jonah feller dared claim a whale swallered him and then spit him up ’cause he didn’t like the taste of him. And this here Jonah wa’n’t no American, either. He was some kind of a furriner, and them furriners is as full of lies as an egg is of meat, and that’s common sense. If this here whale in question was to up and swaller an American, and this here American was to come back and tell it and hold up his hand and cross his heart, why, mebby I’d b’lieve him. But not no Dago, or whatever this Jonah was——”

And then I sort of lost track of things, and the next I knew it was morning and Mr. Browning was shaking me to get up.

CHAPTER III

Next morning we hauled up our anchor and left the Thimbles early. Rameses III did not have breakfast ready until we were well out in the Sound and had headed for Point Judith. It was another beautiful day. The Sound was as smooth as a piece of glass and there wasn’t a thing to do but be lazy, and there are times when I like being lazy a lot. Catty said he felt like he could lay back in a chair on deck and look at the water and snooze for a month. But I knew he couldn’t. Snoozing wasn’t in his line. No, sir, says I to myself. In half an hour that kid will be down taking the engine to pieces or doing something else to get us both into trouble. That’s the kind he is. He can’t sit still, and if there isn’t a thing to do, why, he invents something.

This time it was the engine room, and we hadn’t been through breakfast half an hour when he was down there sure enough, gassing with Tom, the engineer, and learning how to run the thing. By noon he knew all the parts of the engine by their nicknames, and it was all Tom could do to stop him from commencing with a screwdriver and a monkey wrench to find out what it looked like inside. He was daubed with grease from head to foot where he’d tried to crawl into the shaft tunnel to see how the clutch worked, and his fingers were blistered from monkeying with the hot cylinders. But he was happy, and what more can you ask.

I wasn’t het up much over engines, but I did want to learn how to steer, so I hung around the bridge until Mr. Browning explained the compass to me and let me steer a while. Mr. Topper just sat on the cushion behind the wheel looking like somebody had poisoned his oatmeal, and kept his eyes fastened on the black yacht that followed us out of the Thimbles and was about half a mile behind us now.

We made pretty good time that day, keeping just off the Connecticut shore, and rounding Point Jude, and then cutting across to Newport. We got there just before six o’clock. I was kind of excited, because I was never in a naval base before, and I was never anywhere where millionaires were thick like I’d heard they were in Newport. I don’t know which I was hottest to see—a warship or a multi-millionaire.

The Albatross nosed into the harbor past the big coast defense guns that nose out over the rock, and past the old fort, and then we turned to the right around a kind of an island with officers’ houses on it, and cast our anchor near the station of the New York Yacht Club. I enjoyed it a heap, and so did Catty. The place was full of destroyers anchored side by side like sardines in a sardine tin. There were dozens of them, and a couple of cruisers and other boats of the navy.

We had hardly cast anchor when the black yacht poked her snout around the island and anchored about a hundred yards from us. Mr. Topper snorted and Mr. Browning shrugged his shoulders, but Catty and I—we knew. We knew that yacht was after us and Mr. Topper and meant business of some kind, and we made up our minds we would keep our eyes pretty wide open to see what it was.

After supper we went ashore with Mr. Browning and walked around looking for millionaires, but we didn’t see any to speak of. Catty claimed he saw one, but I didn’t believe it, because he didn’t wear a silk hat and hadn’t any diamonds to speak of. Catty claims millionaires don’t always wear silk hats and diamonds, but I know better. Anybody that can afford them, wears them; I should, and everybody’s kind of like me, I’ll bet. If I was a millionaire I’d sleep in a Prince Albert coat and patent leather shoes, and when I got up in the morning, the first thing I’d put on would be a dozen diamond rings. No sense having all that money if you can’t kind of dazzle folks that haven’t.

The dinghy of the black yacht followed us in, and Catty and I kept our eyes on the man that came in with it. He was kind of big and wide with black hair and real nifty yachting clothes, white pants and all, and buttons with anchors on them. I got a good close look at him. Just as we were turning to go back to the boat Catty saw him go into the telegraph office on the corner and he nudged me.

“Let’s see what he’s up to,” said he, and then he says to Mr. Browning, “Wait just a minute at the boat for us, will you, Mr. Browning? We’ll be right there.”

“All right. Don’t get lost, and don’t let a millionaire bite you,” says he.

So we hiked back, and there was our man standing at the counter writing a message. Catty nosed up beside him and made believe he was writing a message, but he wasn’t. Pretty soon the man handed in his message, and Catty and I came away.

“Well?” says I.

“Got it,” says he.

“What did it say?” says I.

“It was to a man named Jonas P. Dunn in New York, and it said: ‘Followed them to Newport. Can’t lose them. Will act when advisable.’ And his name is House. That’s all.”

“It’s something,” says I. “I don’t like that part that they’ll act when advisable. It doesn’t sound cheerful. Wonder how they’ll act, and when it’ll be advisable.”

“That,” said Catty, “is for us to find out.”

It began to cloud up and get cold by the time we were getting back to the Albatross, and pretty soon it began to rain. The yacht began to roll a little, not so much because of the waves but on account of us laying at anchor with the wind blowing against us. I was pretty sleepy and so was Catty, so we went below and fixed up our berths and rolled in. It was the finest motion to go to sleep by that I ever felt. Regular rock-a-bye-baby, and before I knew it I was dreaming about pirates and desert islands and thingumbobs. I don’t know how long I slept, but all at once something waked me up and I lay still, kind of scairt. Then there came a sort of grinding bump and the Albatross rolled like a rolling pin, and I landed right out in the middle of the floor. Catty got there about the time I did.

“What’s the matter?” says he.

“Don’t know. Feels like we’re wrecked,” says I.

“How’s a boat going to get wrecked that’s lying at anchor?” says he.

“How should I know?” says I, and then Mr. Browning dashed out of his stateroom and up on deck, and we dashed after. It was raining like all git out. The wind was driving the rain along in a straight line, and it was so dark you couldn’t see the back of your neck. Just as we got there another bump came that threw me flat on the deck.

“Anchor’s dragging,” shouted Mr. Browning. “We’re drifting down onto somebody.”

Well, I didn’t know what to do, nor how serious it was, and I did know it was mighty cold and wet and uncomfortable, so Catty and I huddled together and waited to see. In a few minutes our eyes got used to the dark so we could see we had drifted down onto a big schooner yacht, and the two boats were bumping and grinding together and wearing off each other’s paint. Mr. Browning and Naboth and Tom and Rameses III were running around with fenders, and somebody was yelling at us and calling us pet names, and Naboth was yelling names back.

“Hey, you fat-bellied sardine can, what you rampagin’ down on top of us fer, hey? A-scrapin’ our paint off on your dirty nose.... You gasoline-stinkin’ bum-boat!” bellowed a voice out of the dark.

“Shet up,” howled Naboth, “you slab-sided lobster pot. You ornery garbage scow. Think you kin take up all the harbor with your ol’ she-camel? Sheer off there! Sheer off, or we’ll jest up and ride right over the top of ye.”

There were all kinds of compliments, and then Mr. Browning told Tom to start the engines, and ordered Naboth to see to the anchor. We got under way, and backed off from the other boat about a hundred yards and dropped anchor again. “There,” says Mr. Browning, “hope she holds this time.” So we started to turn in again, but before we could get below Naboth and Rameses III had started a quarrel about a rope fender that had got itself dropped overboard. Naboth claimed Rameses should have held the end of the rope, and Rameses claimed Naboth just let go out of pure meanness. In a minute they had forgotten the fender and veered around to Rameses III’s coffee, which Naboth claimed was made out of shavings and varnish, and from there they touched on legs and hair and relatives and laziness, and moved on to Jonah’s whale, and how much of an iceberg floats under water, and what makes the Gulf Stream hot—and then we turned in and let them go it.

In the morning when we woke up it was still cold and drizzly, and the wind was blowing a gale, so Mr. Browning said we’d stay right there in the harbor for the day and wait to see if the weather didn’t improve. It didn’t seem very bad in there, but I guess he thought the open water outside would be pretty rough. There was a lot of it out there to get rough, anyhow. So we got fixed to loaf all day and wait for the wind to go down.

There were some books down in the cabin, and I got settled to read, but Catty wasn’t in a reading humor. He wanted to do something, and finally he made up his mind to take the little dinghy and row ashore. So I went along with him. We walked all over Newport in the rain, and bought some post cards to send home, and some candy. Then we stopped in the yacht club station, and there was a book on the table called Lloyd’s Register of Yachts, or something like that, and we looked in it, and there was the name of every yacht in America with its dimensions and who owned it. We found our boat, and then Catty says, “Let’s see who owns the Porpoise.” So we looked it up; it belonged to Jonas P. Dunn.

“H’m,” says Catty, “that’s the man the telegram went to.”

“So it is,” says I.

“Then he’s the boss pirate,” says Catty, “and these fellows here are only hired men, like you might say.”

“Sure,” says I, “but what of it?”

“We might find out,” says he, “if Topper ever heard of a man named Dunn.”

“And then what?”

“Why,” says Catty, “then we’d know.”

“Know what?”

“If he’d ever heard of him,” Catty says with a grin.

Well, we loafed around some more, and then rowed back to the Albatross, and it was some row right into the teeth of the wind. Catty had rowed in, and it was my turn to row back. I kind of wondered why he volunteered to take the first turn, but I saw now. He’d figured out the wind would blow us into the dock, but it would take tough work to get us back.

“You’re a sweet one,” says I.

“What’s the matter?” says he, as innocent as a pint of cream.

“Why,” says I, “rowing in so’s I’d have to row back against this wind, and bust my spine.”

“Um,” says he, kind of satisfied with himself, “it pays to kind of keep your eyes open. But you’ll learn, Wee-wee. A few years knocking around, and you’ll learn to think it over before you take the first proposition offered you.”

We got back safe, but I was some tuckered out, and went down in the cabin where Mr. Topper was reading a book and smoking.

“Say, Mr. Topper,” says Catty, “did you ever hear of a man by the name of Jonas P. Dunn?”

“Jonas P. Dunn!” says he, jumping up like he’d been shot, “Jonas P. Dunn! Where’d you hear that name?”

“Why,” says Catty, “it’s just the man’s name that owns the Porpoise—that black yacht over yonder.”

“His boat!... His boat!... Are you sure?”

“Dead certain; Lloyd’s Register says so.”

Well, sir, Mr. Topper jumped for Mr. Browning’s door and hammered on it and Mr. Browning, who was taking a nap, hollered out kind of cross to know what the racket was, and Mr. Topper says to come out quick. So out came Mr. Browning.

“D’you know who owns that black yacht?” says Mr. Topper kind of sharp.

“No.... Who?... And what of it?”

“Jonas P. Dunn,” says Mr. Topper.

Mr. Browning whistled and then bit his lip.

“Does look as if there was something to worry about, doesn’t it?”

“Jonas P. Dunn is the man I’m more afraid of than anybody else in the world.”

“And that’s his yacht?”

“It says so in Lloyd’s.”

“Well, if that is Dunn’s boat, and I guess it must be, then we want to go mighty easy. Dunn is the kind of a man who sticks to a thing he starts after. He’s got all the money in the world, and he doesn’t care much how he gets more.... Um.... We’ll have to give that yacht the slip.”

“Let’s run now,” says Topper.

“We’d have a lovely time out there in this gale,” says Mr. Browning. “We might make New Bedford, and we might make Davy Jones’ Locker. No, there’ll be no running out before tomorrow. When we get up into Buzzards Bay we can give them the slip some place—among among the islands. Lots of places to dodge in and hide.”

“I wish we were there this minute,” says Mr. Topper.

“Well,” says Mr. Browning, “I don’t mind owning I feel that way myself.”

CHAPTER IV

The bad weather kept up all the next day, but by night the wind went down, and next morning after that it was warm and fine. Mr. Browning got us up mighty early, because he had planned with Mr. Topper to try to sneak out at daylight and so dodge the Porpoise. We got up the anchors as quietly as we could and off we went, and no sign of life aboard the enemy ship. It was fine, but as we came out of the harbor we found out that the sea doesn’t always go down the minute the wind does. There was a big sea running, a sort of enormous swell, and our course was right in the trough of it. I was kind of scared at first when I saw those waves.

Why, when we got on top of one and looked down, it seemed as if we were a hundred feet in the air, and when we slid down between two waves, with one of them racing right down onto us, it seemed as if we were in a valley and one of the sides was sure to fall right over on us and finish us. But the motion was so easy and the waves were so big, that it got to be real pleasure, like sliding down hill. There didn’t seem to be a bit of danger, though we could see where the waves dashed against the rocks on the shore and the spray was thrown a hundred feet into the air. It was easy to imagine what would happen to us if we got swept in there. It would be good-by Albatross and good-by Wee-wee and good-by everybody else.

But we didn’t get swept.

There weren’t many boats out, though we did see a few lobster men, and a destroyer wallowed past us going like the mischief. I noticed that Catty stuck to the after-deck, with Mr. Browning’s glasses, watching the mouth of the harbor, and every little while Mr. Topper would go back there and strain his eyes over the course we had taken. All at once Catty sung out, “Here she comes,” and sure enough, there was the black yacht, four or five miles back, just nosing between the rocks. We hadn’t dodged her worth a cent.

There was nothing to do but keep on going, so we kept. I was helping navigate and keep the log, marking down when we passed each spar and buoy and nun and lighthouse. In a few hours we passed the Hen and Chickens, and a little while afterward we sighted the lightship, and then we turned to the northward and entered Buzzards Bay. It got smoother right away, because we got under shelter of the islands that shut the bay off from the ocean, and then we picked our course up the channel and rounded the lighthouse just this side of New Bedford, and wiggled through the opening in a stone breakwater, and cast anchor in a harbor full of yachts. There must have been close to a hundred of them—all kinds. It was Padanaram, where the New Bedford Yacht Club has a clubhouse and where most of its yachts lay.

About half an hour later in came the Porpoise and dropped her anchor not far from a whopping big schooner yacht. She sort of settled down with a grunt of satisfaction that she had come up with us again. Well, we hadn’t gained anything.

Catty and I went in for a swim. It was Catty’s idea and it turned out he wanted to go in so we could swim around out of earshot and talk things over.

“The trouble with this crowd,” says he, “is that they don’t plan anything. They just run, and trust to luck to throw the Porpoise off our track. No sense in that. The enemy is planning. They’re keeping watch all the time, and they’re ready. The only way we can duck them is to plan better than they do.”

“All right,” says I, “go ahead and plan.”

“I’m going to,” says he. “I’ve been studying the chart of these waters, and it ought to be easy to give them the slip. Over across there are a lot of islands, and harbors and channels to fiddle around in. Off at the end is Penikese Island where the Leper colony is, and next is Cuttyhunk, and the chart shows a little land-locked basin that you get into through a sort of canal. I bet if we could manage to duck in there, nobody could see us from outside. Then there’s Robinson’s Hole and Wood’s Hole, and farther up the bay are inlets and things. Then, once we get through one of the Holes, we’re in Vineyard Sound, and across that is Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. I’d say this was a part of the coast made on purpose to hide in.”

“Suits me,” says I, “let’s hide.”

“Yes,” says he, “but the Porpoise won’t blind and be it while we hide. If we could get them to count up to a couple of thousand while we find a place to hide, it would be all right.”

“Might ask ’em,” says I.

“Wish they’d run on a sandbar,” says he.

“But they won’t,” says I.

“No chance. So we’ve got to plan it. We’ve got to fix it so we can go while they’ve got to stay. They’re pirates, aren’t they? Well? It’s fair and lawful to do anything to pirates.”

“Sink ’em,” says I.

“Guess we hadn’t better go that far,” he says with a grin, “but there’s something we can do. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ll find out.”

“What,” says I, “do you s’pose they’re after? What has Mr. Topper got that they want?”

“Treasure,” says he.

“What kind of treasure?”

“Oh, gold and precious stones, and rings and jewelry and all the things old Captain Kidd and those other pirates used to hide in chests.”

“Think he’s got a map?”

“Yes,” says Catty.

“Um ...” says I.

“Say,” Catty says, and he lifted his head out of water, “wouldn’t it be a joke if we could send them off on a wild-goose chase?”

“How?”

“By letting them get hold of the wrong map,” says he. “We could fix up a map, and let it fall into their hands—and make them think they’d got hold of the right one. Then they’d leave us alone and go hiking off as fast as they could to get the treasure before we could.”

“Good idea,” says I, “but how could we fix it so’s they’d get the map?”