Smugglers’ Island
and the Devil Fires
of San Moros

Page [239] THEIRS WAS A WICKIUP

Smugglers’ Island
and the Devil Fires
of San Moros

By
Clarissa A. Kneeland

With Illustrations by
Wallace Goldsmith

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1915

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CLARISSA A. KNEELAND

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published October 1915

CONTENTS

SMUGGLERS’ ISLAND
and the
Devil Fires of San Moros

CHAPTER I
A PICNIC TO THE ISLAND

Marian Hadley stood in the doorway of her home in a small seaport town of Mexico, watching her ten-year-old brother Delbert come stumbling up the hill with his arms full of mail.

“We’re out early,” he shouted. “The teacher let us all out early. There are the girls coming now, down by the office. Oh! and we’re not going to have any more school this week. The teacher has got to go to the dentist every day, and she isn’t going to feel like teaching; so we are going to have vacation.”

“Dear me,” said Marian, smiling, “what in the wide world will you children do, with so much spare time on your hands?”

“O Marian! Marian! Can’t we—it will be just the time to do it—can’t we go to Smugglers’ Island?” Delbert’s body fairly quivered with excitement, and his dark eyes were shining like stars. “Let me ask Mr. Cunningham for the launch. We could go to-morrow. O Marian, do, please!”

Marian hesitated. “Smugglers’ Island! That is a long way off. We couldn’t be ready by to-morrow; it is late now.”

“We don’t need anything but a lunch. I don’t mean to get up a party. Just us go. We don’t need to go to a lot of fuss.”

If Marian had an especial weakness, it was her brother Delbert. She was proud of that spirited, handsome little face, and rarely clouded it by a refusal if a consent was possible. Besides the sister love she gave him in common with the other children, there was a desire to make up to him the loss of a companion brother who had died a few years before, a brother a little older than Delbert, but of much the same cast of features.

Now she thought, “Why not? Why think one must make elaborate preparations for every little pleasure, when the children would enjoy it as well, maybe better, without?”

She laughed. “Here come the girls,” she said. “We’ll put it to a vote.”

The little girls, Jennie and Esther, came up the path. Jennie was eight, a puny, thin little shadow, with eyes that seemed much too big because the face was so thin and colorless. She had been born a sickly baby and had averaged at least one illness every year of her life since, and had never known what actual health was. When Mrs. Hadley had decided to accompany her husband on his business trip to Guaymas she had thought seriously of taking Jennie with her, though she had had never a moment’s uneasiness at leaving the other three in their sister’s care. But it had seemed a pity to take the little girl out of school, where she was doing well; and also there was a good American doctor in town, whom Marian promised faithfully to send for at the first symptom of anything wrong; so, as Jennie herself did not seem to care about going, it was finally decided she should stay.

Esther, the six-year-old, stood in pleasing contrast to her sister. Having never known sickness, she was a sturdy, robust little specimen, as plump as the baby David, dimpled and rosy, with curly hair that was forever getting into her bright eyes.

Delbert was dancing with delight. “Girls, girls,” he squealed, “listen, quick. All in favor of going to Smugglers’ Island to-morrow, signify by saying ‘Aye.’”

“Aye, aye, aye!” he yelled; and Esther, taking her cue, also launched a myriad of “ayes,” but Jennie shook her head in grave disapproval.

“You are too ev’lastin’ noisy,” she said. “Marian, we are not going in the launch, are we?”

The baby was calling “Aye” most lustily.

“There,” declared Delbert, “that’s a m’jority, Marian. Three out of five’s a m’jority.”

Marian drew Jennie tenderly to her. “Delbert wants to go to Smugglers’ Island to-morrow. It is a long way, but perhaps you would not be seasick in the launch. Do you want to go?”

The little girl’s shining eyes were answer enough. Marian laughed and kissed her. “Delbert,” she said then, “take that bill that is in my purse down to Mr. Cunningham now and refund him for the duties on these packages and thank him for me,—don’t forget that,—and then see if he can let us have the launch to-morrow. It may be let to some one else, but if it isn’t, and if we can have it, why, pay him for that too, and don’t forget that. But I warn you children there’s not a thing for lunch but bread and butter. I haven’t so much as a cooky in the jar, and it’s too late for me to bake now.”

Previously there had lived at the Port for some years an American boy whose chief joy in life had been found on the water, and, having been blest with a small sailboat of his own, he had been able to indulge his sailor propensities to the utmost. Sometimes with other boys, often alone, he had sailed up and down the coast for miles, exploring the shallow bays and winding esteros,[1] and he knew all the sandbars and islands.

[1] An estero (pronounced es-tāʹ-ro) is an estuary, an arm of the sea.

A few miles out from the Port was a group of islands known to the Americans thereabouts as the Rosalie Group. The natives gave them another name, unpronounceable, and certainly unspellable. They consisted of quite an assortment of rocky knolls and stunted trees, and little beaches, fine for bathing. Most people confined their seaward excursions to trips of greater or less duration of time to these islands, some half-dozen in number, but Clarence had ventured much farther; he had even gone as far as San Moros, many miles down the coast.

San Moros was a wide-mouthed, shallow bay, full of rocks and sandbars, but at its farther extremity the young explorer had discovered an island that gave unmistakable evidence of having once been inhabited,—probably by smugglers, as in times past they had flourished like the bay tree all up and down the west coast, as everybody knows.

Boy-like, Clarence had kept his discovery a secret, or at least had revealed it only to a chosen few, Marian and Delbert being among the elect. And when afterwards he had made a second trip to the place, Mrs. Hadley had allowed Delbert to go with him. Clarence had been fond of children and of Delbert in particular, and often took the little boy with him on his all-day trips on the water. On this occasion they had camped over and explored the Island and its surroundings.

It was long months now since Clarence’s family had moved from the Port, but Delbert had always been anxious for a second trip to the Island in San Moros, being eager to show it to Marian and his little sisters.

Before long Delbert came rushing back. “We can go! We can go!” he called. “We—where’s Marian?—oh, there you are. Mr. Cunningham says we can have the launch. The man he usually sends with it is sick or something, but he got Mr. Pearson to take us instead. We can start early in the morning. Goody! And say, Marian, can’t you fix some dough for doughnuts and let me fry ’em for you?”

Marian looked severe. “Do you remember what happened the last time I let you fry doughnuts?” she asked.

Delbert’s eyes twinkled. “Yes,” he said, “but that was learning; I won’t do it that way now.”

“Shall we trust him, Jennie?” she asked.

“If you don’t, there won’t be any doughnuts to-morrow,” Delbert assured her. “Marian has not got time to make ’em.”

“I guess we can this time,” decided Jennie.

“Me fry doughnuts, too,” said Esther.

“I am afraid me had better not,” said Marian; “but you and Jennie may roll and cut them out for Delbert. And Davie, you sit up in your high chair and watch sister stir up these doughnuts quickly, and then Davie shall make a doughnut of his very own. Delbert, put the granite-ware kettle on, and the lard is in that pail on the shelf there by you. I think there is just enough; put it all in.”

She hurried the ingredients together, and, as soon as the dough was ready for rolling out, turned it over to the apprentices and ran out of the kitchen to the numerous other tasks that awaited her.

“You haven’t read us mamma’s letter yet,” called Jennie.

“Oh, I will read it while we eat supper,” Marian answered.

“What mamma say?” shrilled Esther.

“Says they will be back in two weeks,” came Marian’s muffled voice from the far bedroom.

Presently she came back. “Jennie,” she said, “do you know what was done with your and Esther’s bathing-suits when you came back from bathing the other day?”

Jennie looked blank, but Esther answered promptly.

“Down to Bobbie’s.”

“Down at Bobbie’s? Whatever did you leave them there for?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Jennie, her face brightening, “I ’member now. We stopped to play and hung ’em on Bobbie’s mother’s clothesline and forgot ’em.”

“Well, that’s a great way to do! Esther, you run down after them now.”

Esther was kneading doughnut dough industriously. “To-morrow,” she said.

Marian considered a moment, and then said: “No, you go now, it is two days they have been there already, and they may have got into some corner where Bobbie’s mother won’t know where they are, and we won’t have any time to hunt for lost things in the morning. It is a long way to Smugglers’ Island, and we must get off early or we shan’t have time to explore it and get back by dark.”

Esther sighed, and began to clean the dough from her little fat hands. “Tell where we going?” she asked.

“No; better not.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because if Bobbie knows we are going in the launch, he will want to go, too, and I know positively his mamma wouldn’t let him.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you little interrogation-point!” expostulated Marian under her breath. Aloud she answered patiently, “Because Bobbie was awfully naughty and went in the fishing-boat without asking his mamma, and she was so worried about him, and when he got back she told him he couldn’t go anywhere except to school,—not anywhere, not even up here to play with Delbert,—for two whole weeks.”

“Not two weeks yet?”

“No, it is not two weeks yet. Now, do go on, Esther. Just ask for the bathing-suits and don’t make Bobbie feel bad by telling him about a picnic he can’t go to.”

In the morning, before Marian had breakfast out of the way, Delbert came in with a rush. “I have just seen Mr. Pearson. He is going to his breakfast, and he says he is all ready, and he wants to know if there is anything you want him to do.”

“Yes,” said Marian; “tell him to get a demijohn of water. Mr. Cunningham has a demijohn he uses for that, but Mr. Pearson may not think of it.”

“Oh, but there is water on the Island, plenty of it.”

“Yes, my dear, but it has not been filtered, and I don’t want you children drinking anything and everything. Oh! and did you put plenty of water for the chickens, Delbert?—and put a big stone in the pan so they can’t tip it over?

“Bread and butter and doughnuts,” she continued, “and I must take milk for Davie. Dear me! I haven’t enough to fill the jar either. Here, Jennie, get a dime from my purse and take this pail and run down and see if Bobbie’s mother can let me have a quart of milk. If she hasn’t it to spare, you will have to go to Doña Luisa. Delbert, find the hatchet. It will come in handy when we come to build a fire for noon.”

“Haven’t you got eggs, Marian? Take some raw eggs, and we can boil them over a fire; it’s lots of fun.”

“I’ve only three, Delbert, but if you can, get some at Bobbie’s, or ask Fanny’s mother if she can spare me some.”

“We can get crabs and clams, you know,” said Delbert. “There’s barrels of ’em. Clarence and I had ’em. But take plenty of bread and butter, Marian. Mr. Pearson can eat a lot, I know.”

“Yes. Run on now and see about the eggs, and then go down and tell Mr. Pearson about the water. Let me see,” she continued,—“what else? Oh, yes, if we go bathing, I shall have to comb my hair.”

She wrapped up her comb and brush in a clean towel, and then, on second thought, tucked in a little pocket-mirror and a cake of tar soap and two more towels.

“Marian, me got my spade and pail, but me can’t find baby’s,” called Esther.

“His little pail is here,” answered Marian, “but I don’t know where his spade is. Let him take the big dig-spoon instead.” A dig-spoon, be it known, is a spoon so old and dilapidated that mother does not mind if the children use it to dig in the dirt with. The big dig-spoon of the Hadley children was a huge iron affair about a yard in length that had doubtless been originally intended to stir soup in a hotel kitchen.

As they started down the hill on the way to the pier, Bobbie’s mother ran out to her gate. “Marian,” she called, “are you taking plenty of wraps with you? You know it gets cold toward evening.”

Marian held up a couple of light shoulder shawls. “Delbert has his coat,” she said, “and Esther and I never want anything around us anyway. There are always a couple of blankets on the launch seats.”

“Oh, you foolish child,” declared the lady; “you wait.” She ran back into the house, and in a moment came back with a very large heavy circular cape, “There, you take this,” she said. “It will cover you and Esther and the baby too. Jennie will need both those flimsy shawls. You know it won’t do to let her get chilled.”

Marian thanked her laughingly and accepted the cape.

Mr. Cunningham was down on the pier. He was a dapper young man, pleasant and good-looking and well liked by everybody at the Port, and he held the most lucrative and responsible position of all the Americans there.

MARIAN LAUGHINGLY ACCEPTED THE CAPE

He smiled as the Hadley party trailed down the hill and out on the pier, the sturdy baby well in the lead.

“Here comes King David and his train,” he called. “By Jove,” he added, observing the huge dig-spoon, “he has his scepter with him too.—Good-morning, Miss Marian; do you mean to tell me that basket is full of lunch?”

“Not quite,” laughed Marian. “There is a hatchet and my workbag and a few other things as well.”

“Workbag!” exclaimed Delbert in disgust. “What did you bring that for?”

“Oh, I may hemstitch a little while you children dig in the sand. I shan’t ask you to do any sewing, Delbert.”

As the big basket was being stowed away in the launch, Mr. Cunningham said laughingly, “If you find you have not enough, Miss Marian, there is some canned stuff in the locker you are welcome to.”

“Thank you,” said Marian, “I think we have plenty. I have been on trips like this before; I know how children eat. Delbert, I forgot to put in anything to cook the eggs in. You wanted to boil them, and we haven’t a thing.”

“Use Esther’s pail,” he suggested.

“It leaks too badly, and baby’s pail is wooden. No, if you want those eggs cooked, you will have to go back and get something.”

“There will be the clams, too,” said Delbert, starting back across the pier on a trot.

“Oh, and, Delbert—”

“What?”

“You might bring Jennie’s cape, too, while you are there; and, Delbert, Delbert! Be sure and lock the door again when you come out.”

“We ought to have something to bring home clams in, too,” she said after a moment, “but he is too far gone now to call back.”

“There is a big pail here in the boat-house,” said Mr. Cunningham, going to get it.

“I shan’t be here when you get back,” he said, coming back with the pail, “but the launch can be turned over to Manuel. I am going up the river for a couple of days. I must be getting ready now, so I will bid you good-bye and wish you a pleasant trip.”

He shook hands with Marian, pulled Esther’s curls, smiled at Jennie, stood the baby on his head a moment, and strode off across the pier.

Soon Delbert came running down the hill again, his arms full.

“Morning, Mr. Faston,” he called to an old gentleman who, with a basket on his arm, was starting toward the plaza for his breakfast steak.

“Good-morning, Delbert. Where you all going so bright and early?”

“Going to Smugglers’ Island.”

Delbert ran down to the launch and scrambled in. “I brought baby’s jacket, too,” he said, dumping the wraps, the granite-ware kettle, and a little bright new dishpan in a heap at Marian’s feet.

“I see you did, but whatever did you bring that dishpan for?”

“Why, it was sitting out there on the table, so I s’posed you forgot it, and I wasn’t going to be sent back again.”

Marian laughed. “I had no notion of bringing it,” she said. “Well, Mr. Pearson, I guess we are all ready. You’d better start off before we think of something else we might like to take.”

“Just think, Marian,” said Delbert; “Mr. Pearson has not been outside the harbor since he has been here.”

“No? Never been to the Rosalie Group, Mr. Pearson?”

Pearson cleared his throat. “No; when a man is busy he don’t get much time for picnics,” he said.

“I am to show him the way,” continued Delbert, “and he is to make the launch go there.”

It was a lovely day. The children were fairly bubbling over with the glee of it, and Marian herself felt unusually gay and light-hearted.

Mr. Pearson was rather silent. He was a newcomer to the Port, and Marian had had hitherto but a bare speaking acquaintance with him. She had an instinctive feeling, however, that he considered children as necessary nuisances; so she tried to keep them from annoying him too much with their chatter. However, though he volunteered no remarks, he answered good-naturedly what was said especially to him, followed minutely Delbert’s instructions as to their direction, and listened with apparent interest when the little fellow told of trips taken with Clarence in the sailboat.

Outside the shelter of the harbor they encountered the high waves of the Gulf, and Davie was so frightened that Marian had much ado to keep him quiet. Jennie, too, began to feel a few qualms of her old enemy, seasickness, so that with them both Marian had little chance to exchange sociabilities with Mr. Pearson.

Leaving the Rosalie Group on their right, they turned down the coast bound for San Moros.

Delbert was entirely unafraid. The higher the wave the better it suited him, and he was constantly declaring he only wished they were going to stay a week. Esther echoed him, as was her wont, and Jennie feebly put in a few remarks of the same tenor, her feeling in the matter, however, being born of a desire to put off the nausea-beset homeward trip rather than to prolong the picnic joy.

FOLLOWED MINUTELY DELBERT’S INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THEIR DIRECTION

Finally they rounded the point and entered San Moros. Delbert remembered just how Clarence had made his way in among the many rocks and sandbars, most of which were covered at high tide. The Island lay some miles back, a crescent in shape, high and rocky at one end and running out to a narrow sandy point at the other. No one approaching it would have mistrusted it was other than the mainland, for the formation was such as to blend it perfectly with the mainland back of it, and it showed no sign of the strip of water between till one was close upon it.

“We landed first by that point of rock,” declared Delbert, pointing, “and then afterwards we took the boat in back of the Island and tied her to the pier till we were ready to go home.”

“I guess that is a good enough programme to follow now,” said Mr. Pearson. “Didn’t you say this side was best for crabs? That’s a nice-looking beach along there, fine for you kids to bathe on. We will tie up to those rocks till after dinner.”

“Well, all right,” agreed the boy. “There is a path up to the top of the hill, Marian, but it doesn’t come down on this side. Clarence said the smugglers wore it going up to peek over the hill to see if any one was coming for ’em.”

The little point of rock on the seaward side of the Island made a very good substitute for a pier. They landed there and were able to reach the sand without getting their feet wet. Jennie declared she felt better as soon as she touched shore.

Delbert was anxious to lead the expedition over to the other side of the Island, where remained the signs of former habitation.

“You can go on over now,” said Pearson good-naturedly; “I’ll unload the launch and take a swim, and if you say there is anything there worth looking at I can go over afterwards.”

Delbert hesitated; he was counting on expatiating on the extent and glory of the ruins and preferred a large audience.

“Why, of course, Delbert,” said Marian; “Mr. Pearson can take the launch around after dinner. This is the best side for bathing. I am not sure,” she added, as the children started off, “but after dinner would be soon enough for the rest of us, but—”

Pearson laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “There is no wait in that kid,” he said.

“I see there isn’t,” said Marian, as she started after her eager brother.

The hill was decidedly rocky and steep, with a goodly strip of sandy beach at its base. The crabs scurried away as the children ran across this.

“See, Marian!” called Delbert; “see all those crabs? We’ll have them for dinner. Don’t they look fat?”

“Fat and luscious,” laughed Marian. “You are fat and luscious, too, baby darling,” she continued, catching Davie as he stumbled over a stone, “but those qualities alone will never make a mountaineer of you.”

Delbert forged ahead, scrambling over rocks and skirting thorny bushes, and the others followed as best they could.

“I suppose when you get there you will stop and wait for us,” called Marian.

“Oh, yes,” he answered; but he did not take the hint and slacken his pace then.

His bump of locality was good, and although it was almost a year since he had been there, he made his way directly to the spot on the apex of the hill where a faint path led down on the other side. Here he paused, and, letting out a series of triumphant whoops, announced his arrival to his upward-toiling sisters.

One by one they joined him where he sat on a big gray rock, swinging his lariat, his most treasured possession, a new hair rope given him by an old Mexican a few weeks before.

“Dear me,” said Marian, all out of breath, as she set down the baby, whom she had been carrying the last part of the way; “whatever did you expect to lasso here, Delbert? Crabs?”

“No,” he replied, “burros! Didn’t you know there were burros here? There’s a herd of ’em. Clarence said probably the smugglers had to leave in a hurry and couldn’t stop to round up everything they had. Anyway, there’s burros here. Yes, and pigs, too. We saw their tracks; we didn’t see them, but Clarence said when he was here the first time he heard ’em grunting in the bushes.”

Marian was examining the surroundings. “I believe Clarence was right,” she said. “That is a real path certainly, but there is not a sign of it on the seaward side of the hill. Whoever lived down there used to come up here to this rock. You can see away out into the gulf from here, ever so many miles, but it is so bushy that no one here would ever be seen.”

“Yes,” assented Delbert; “Clarence called this Lookout Rock. Farther back this hill spreads out into a mesa.[2] It’s several miles long. Clarence said there were deer here, too; he saw ’em.”

[2] Pronounced mā-sȧ; a small tableland.

“An’ wil’ cats?” queried Esther.

“No,” said Delbert. “I remember when we camped here it was awful quiet at night, and I asked Clarence if he s’posed there were any panthers here, and he said no, he hadn’t seen a sign of any such thing here, and he guessed if there ever had been, the smugglers had killed them all off.”

“That is not unlikely,” said Marian; “but the burros and pigs must have come from what they had; perhaps the deer, too,—they might have had some for pets. But, come, if we have our breath now, children, we’d better go down; for see, Mr. Pearson has the launch unloaded already, and there is dinner to get when we get back.”

So they followed the twisting trail downward. It was very faint, in some places entirely obliterated, yet taken as a whole was distinct.

Between the Island and the mainland lay a strait that was deep enough for even large steamers, though there was little of San Moros that a big steamer could have ridden safely over. A little rough rock pier had been built here. “And Clarence said the fellow that built it understood his business, too,” declared Delbert, emphatically. “He said it was a good job; but come and look at the bananas,” he continued, leading the way.

The Island, which elsewhere presented such rough, not to say precipitous, sides, here was level or nearly so. A house had once stood there. The mound of its ruins was unmistakable. In one place a forked timber stuck up; on one side was a pile of other timbers overgrown with weeds and shrubbery. There was a spring, too, that had had some sort of masonry cover, broken now, but with a tiny pool of water at the bottom of the rocks. There were the remains of an old stone wall that had once surrounded a garden, of which only a thick, matted banana-patch was left.

A banana plant grows to maturity, produces one bunch of bananas, and then dies. During the time it is doing this a number of young plants spring up about the parent stalk, and each of these produces its one bunch of fruit and group of little ones, which in turn go through the same process. It will be readily seen, therefore, that, with no one to trim out the old stalks and superfluous young ones, a banana-patch would in the course of time become a very crowded place, indeed.

This was just what had happened to the Smugglers’ Island patch. How long it had been left uncared-for no one could tell, but it was now an impenetrable jungle.

Marian and the children walked all round it, looking for bananas, but except for several bunches from which the birds had eaten the fruit, leaving the blackened skins dangling, they saw only one, and that was too high up for them to reach. It did not look very tempting, anyway. A little beyond were a few fan palms, but this kind of palm bears no fruit.

Marian sat near the site of the old house, while the children rummaged about and explored. This was certainly an ideal place in which to hide from the world, a sunny little spot, sheltered and secluded, for the hill hid the place from the seaward view, and across the narrow strait lay only the rocky, thorny tangle of the uninhabited hill of the mainland, with not even an Indian ranch for miles and miles, Clarence had said. Marian wondered what chance or incident had caused the abandonment of the place.

Presently she rose.

“Come, children,” she called, “we were going to catch crabs for dinner, you know. We must be going back.”

So they went back up the dim little path to Lookout Rock and began to pick their way down from there as best they could.

“Why, Marian,” called Delbert, “Mr. Pearson has moved the launch. It is not by the rocks now. Where’s he gone?”

Marian glanced up.

“I guess he thought we were pretty long in coming and has gone exploring on his own hook,” she said.

“I’ll see,” said Delbert, and he went out to where he could see the water all around the end of the Island and in to the little pier.

“No,” he said, as he came back, “he has not gone round there.”

They went on down the hill.

“I don’t see why he should move it,” persisted Delbert. “That is the best place for it on this side of the Island, and this is the best beach for bathing.”

They went over to where the things were piled up. Pearson had dumped them all together and thrown one of the launch blankets over them; and on top of this a note was pinned with two wooden splinters.

MARIAN TOOK IT OFF AND READ IT, AND THEN STOOD LOOKING AT IT FOR SEVERAL SECONDS

Marian took it off and read it, and then stood looking at it for several seconds.

“Delbert,” she said quietly, “did you know of any trouble between Mr. Pearson and Mr. Cunningham?”

“Trouble?” repeated the boy, startled,—“trouble? Why—why, no,—not—not trouble. Why?”

“Because,” said Marian, still quietly, “Mr. Pearson has stolen the launch and gone away and left us here.”

CHAPTER II
FOR SHELTER IN A STORM

Delbert stared with wide eyes for a moment; then he snatched the note from Marian’s hand to read for himself. He was not much accustomed to reading writing, but this was very plainly written with a purple indelible pencil on a leaf torn from a pocket memorandum-book.

Miss Marian,—

Boss Cunningham has done me plenty of dirt and now he is going to regret it just one gasolene launch. Sorry to inconvenience a lady and all that, but the kids want to stay overnight anyway.

Delbert looked up again into his sister’s face; then, dropping the note, he sped across the sand and up the hillside to where he could get a good view of the Gulf beyond the bay.

Marian picked up the note, and still stood looking at it.

“How we get home?” inquired Esther.

That was precisely the question that was racing round in Marian’s brain.

“I don’t know—yet,” she said.

Slowly she took off the blanket that was thrown over the things. The other blanket was there, too, and all of their things, also the five-gallon demijohn of filtered water and a tin box of crackers, nearly full, three cans of corn, and a quart can of tomatoes. She remembered Mr. Cunningham had said there were some eatables in the locker.

A big crab came slowly up and regarded them. Marian returned his look gravely. “Yes,” she said, “I see you are there, and we may thank our stars you are there, too, you and your relations.”

“W-won’t Mr. Pearson come back?” faltered Jennie.

“I am afraid not,” answered Marian.

“But—but what shall we do?”

Marian reached down into her boots, where her heart had sunk, and pulled up a smile by main force and put it on her lips. A connoisseur in smiles would have known at a glance that it never grew there of its own accord, but Jennie was only eight and was not versed in artificial smiles.

“Well, my dear,” said the big sister, “we can’t walk back and we can’t swim back, so I guess we shall just have to Robinson Crusoe it here till some one comes after us. When they find we don’t come home, they will hunt for us, of course. See here,” she added, briskly, pulling out the big pail Mr. Cunningham had lent them for clams, “you children take this pail and get some crabs. I will build a fire, and we will have dinner right away before anything else awful happens to us.”

The children, reassured by her tone and smile, took the pail and trotted off down the beach. They had caught crabs on the little beaches of the Rosalies and understood the business. Even Davie got a stick and landed a few.

Marian gathered some sticks and built a fire in the shade of a big rock. She had it well started when Delbert came back to her.

“I can see something black away out in the Gulf; probably it is him,” he said.

“Probably,” she answered.

They brought the things up to the fire and began to unpack the basket.

“I don’t see why he did it!” finally burst forth Delbert with clouded face and quivering lips.

“Well,” said Marian quietly, “he evidently was a different kind of man from what we supposed. There are a few such people in the world.”

“But, Marian, no one knows where we are. They wouldn’t know where to look for us if they were hunting for us.”

“No, but I have been thinking, probably Mr. Pearson doesn’t know that. What did you say to him last night?”

“Nothing. Mr. Cunningham did the talking. He just called and asked him if he could go out with a party in the launch to-day, and he said yes and came over and asked who was going, and when Mr. Cunningham told him, he asked what time we should want him. It was this morning he asked me if I knew the way, because he had never been out to any of the islands, he said.”

“Did you tell Mr. Cunningham where we were going?”

Delbert thought a moment. “No; I just asked could we have the launch for all day.”

“And you didn’t tell Bobbie or any of the other children?”

“No; I didn’t see any of them last night, and not to talk to this morning. When I went for the milk, I just said we were going in the launch. But Bobbie’s mother knew we were going; she brought out the cape to you.”

“Yes, but she didn’t know where. I never thought to mention it to any one. When you came back with Jennie’s cape, you told Mr. Faston we were going to Smugglers’ Island, but unless some of them remember hearing Clarence tell of it they won’t know where Smugglers’ Island is.”

Delbert shook his head. “Clarence didn’t tell about it to any one but his folks and us. We had it for a secret. Why, Marian, they won’t know at all where to look for us!”

“No,” replied Marian steadily; “it was an awfully mean trick for Mr. Pearson to serve us, even without counting the stealing of the launch, but you see, Delbert, Mr. Pearson supposes every one knows where Smugglers’ Island is. He heard what you said to Mr. Faston, and, besides that, I’ve been thinking, and there was not a single thing said on the way out this morning that would have led him to suppose we were the only ones that knew about the place. We talked about my never having been here before, but not a word but what other people knew. He supposes of course everybody knows, and that when we do not come home to-night they will come straight here in the morning.”

“But they won’t,” said the boy. “When we don’t come home they will think we are camping over. They won’t know till Mr. Cunningham gets back that we were coming home to-night, and he is not coming back for two days.”

“Oh, they will all know I wouldn’t have taken you children out camping with only Mr. Pearson along; besides Bobbie’s mother knows we didn’t take any bedding along, and even if she didn’t, she would know that if we had intended to be gone overnight you would have asked Bobbie to take care of the chickens.”

“Well, anyway, what if they do know we meant to be back? They don’t know where we are. Hunting the Rosalie Group over won’t find us.” Then he smiled a little grimly. “Do you know, Marian, it will be the chickens that will tell them about it? They won’t worry about us to-night; they will s’pose, of course, we will get in all right; but in the morning all our chickens and old Peter Duck and Madam Waddle and the whole brood of ’em will simply swoop down when Bobbie goes to feed his chickens. Then they will begin to investigate. That’s all the good it will do them; they won’t find us,” he concluded moodily.

“Marian,” he burst forth presently, unable in his nervous state to put up with his sister’s silence,—“Marian, what do you think?”

“Delbert,” she answered, pausing in her work and looking up at him, “the biggest thing in my mind just now is that bunch of bananas we saw over on the other side.”

Delbert’s eyes roved over the provisions before him. “How long will this last us?” he inquired.

“Well, I planned it for perhaps two meals for six people; as it happens, there are only five to eat it, and we have Mr. Cunningham’s eatables as well, you remember,”—she gave a little laugh. “You remember he said we were welcome to them, if we didn’t have enough of ours.”

“Huh! I should think so. You bet Mr. Cunningham would never do a dirty trick like that. We—we can starve here for all Pearson knows or cares.”

Marian put down the kettle and went to her brother, with his flushed face and flashing eyes winking back the tears. She drew the slender little form into her arms close and tipped up the handsome, quivering little face.

“Delbert boy, darling,” she said softly, “we are not going to starve. The children might if you and I were not here, but we are here; there are clams and crabs for the gathering, and I know a boy who, with his jack-knife, can make a trap that will catch quail, and I once knew him to kill a rabbit with a bow and arrow.”

“Yes, and you scolded me for it, too,” he said.

“I did. We didn’t need that bunny rabbit at all, but these babies are going to need feeding, and we shall have to feed them with whatever we can get, rabbits or what. And we can take care of them, Delbert, you and I, till somebody comes. We will do it in spite of Mr. Pearson.”

“Pearson!” said the boy fiercely; “he can just go to—to blazes.”

Marian leaned down and kissed him. “No, dear,” she said lightly, “but he may go to some other port and let the police catch him and send him and the launch back to Mr. Cunningham.”

The boy laughed chokily and, twining his arms about his sister’s waist, held her closely while she stroked his hair.

“No, darling,” she said presently, “we will not worry. You and I can do a lot of things; you will see. Now, here come the girls with the crabs. We mustn’t let them be frightened.”

Delbert straightened up. “How many did you get?” he called, and Marian smiled at the easy cheerfulness of his tone.

“Oh, you will do,” she said approvingly, “you will do.”

While she cooked and prepared the crabs, she sent the children off after clams. Under Clarence’s tuition Delbert had become quite an expert at finding clams, and fortunately they were plentiful. Marian, poor child, wondered how long one could live on an exclusive diet of crabs and clams before getting utterly sick and tired of them.

She decided to put everybody on a rather short allowance of bread, so as to make it last longer and explained it to them when she called them up to eat. They did not mind; they preferred crabs anyway.

“Marian,” said Delbert, “I can’t think of a thing between Mr. Pearson and Mr. Cunningham, except that Mr. Cunningham didn’t like his work when he first came and discharged him from the shop. But he has been working somewhere else ever since; that needn’t have made him mad.”

“Probably there is something that we don’t know about,” she said.

“Well,” he persisted, “I bet Mr. Cunningham didn’t know about it either. He wouldn’t have sent him out with us if he hadn’t thought he was all right. There was a fishline and hooks, too, in the locker,” he continued. “Did you see anything of them, Marian?”

She shook her head. “He only left us the crackers and canned stuff—oh, and a box of matches, and I had another one in our basket.”

“How many fires can we build with them?” he asked.

“A good many, but we don’t need to use them; we can keep live coals over from one time to another, as papa does in the fireplace winters. That is what we’ll do and use the matches only when we really have to. On a sunshiny day I could light a fire with the crystal from my watch.”

They had never heard of such a thing, and Jennie and Esther wanted her to take it off and show them how at once.

Marian declined. “We have a fire now,” she said. “The thing for us to do is never to let it go out, day or night. If it goes out in spite of us, because of something we cannot help, then we can build one some other way.”

“Don’t people on desert islands build signal fires?” asked Delbert.

“Yes, and put out flags of distress, too. We couldn’t keep a fire going all night, but we could put up one of the towels or the tablecloth daytimes, and we can build our fire nights where it can be seen out at sea. And I think about the first thing we’d better do is to get up a woodpile.”

That was an easy task. There was much driftwood along the beach, besides the sticks that could be gathered from the hillside; and the children enjoyed gathering it up, and Marian would have also if she had not been inwardly so perplexed and worried.

To add to her worries, the sky turned cloudy and the wind rose. Suppose it were to storm, and she with not even a tent to shelter these little ones!

“Delbert,” she asked, finally, “isn’t there a cave on this Island?”

“Sure,” he answered; “right down here a way. Let’s go see.”

Marian’s hopes rose, only to fall again when she viewed the cave. It stood barely above high tide, a dark hole, foul and ill-smelling from the myriads of bats that lived in it.

“Dear me!” she said, “we can’t sleep in this, Delbert. Besides, if a storm should come up, the water would wash right in.”

“It goes back a long way,” said Delbert. “Clarence and I went in with a torch, but the farther you go the smellier it gets. Phew! No, I should say we couldn’t sleep in it. If it’s a cave to sleep in that you want, I guess we shall have to hunt one up.”

So they climbed back up the hill and began an investigation of the big masses of rock which at that end of the Island looked as if some giant hand had tossed them up and they had since lain in the same wild confusion in which they fell.

It would be very strange, thought Marian, if some sort of shelter could not be found among these. But she had no luck. Several places she discovered that would have been ideal in pleasant weather, an overhanging rock to keep off the dew, or a thick, dry, mossy bed, but when wind and rain were to be considered—

Finally Delbert called to her from a point farther up than she had yet gone.

“O Marian, here is a sort of a crack; maybe it would do.”

She scrambled over the intervening rocks and surveyed the “crack,” and though it was far from being what she wanted, she saw at once that it was the best place they had yet found.

It might, perhaps, have been called a miniature cave. It was not high enough to stand up in, but extended back some ten or twelve feet, growing smaller and smaller, till at its extreme end it was not more than a foot in height. Its width was about the same as its depth. A few feet away from the opening rose another rock, a smooth-faced, gigantic mass that would keep the worst of the wind and rain away from the mouth of the cave, or crack, as Delbert called it.

“I believe it is the best we can do,” she said. “We could at least keep dry and warm in there. All the other places would be good only in good weather. We’ll get some sticks and poke around and see if there are any snakes or anything.”

Delbert promptly followed the suggestion. He crept in and punched and poked most industriously and raked and scraped with energy, but could start nothing, and he declared there did not seem to be any cracks leading any farther back.

“That’s all right, then,” said Marian. “I didn’t want to dispute the right of way with any snakes or centipedes. Now we’d better go down to the bananas and get a lot of dried banana leaves to help out our bed.”

This they did, gathering an enormous bundle and tying it with the lariat rope. Then Marian slung it over her shoulder and so with a very little assistance conveyed it to the Cave.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon. The sun had disappeared completely from the gray sky, and the wind had risen so that there was no doubt at all about the approach of a storm.

“We must bring everything up,” decided Marian. “Everything must come under shelter here right away. We must not leave even the dig-spoon down on the beach.” She was seized with a nervous dread of the water, which was already rolling in higher than usual.

The little feet got tired of going up and down the rocky hillside, but Marian and Delbert persevered till everything, even the wood they had gathered, was safe at the Cave. Then Marian arranged things as best she could for the night. She packed their belongings, so that they would be some shelter for the bed of banana leaves and blessed Bobbie’s mother for the big cape, which, with Jennie’s pinned to it, would serve as a third blanket. Then she built a fire back of the big rock that sheltered the mouth of their cave bedroom, and cooked the clams for their supper.

The children huddled together by the fire. They were enjoying the experience. Marian was big; she would take care of them; and it is fun to cuddle down behind a big rock and watch your supper cook over a dancing camp-fire.

COOKED THE CLAMS FOR SUPPER

After supper Marian carefully packed a solid chunk of wood in a bed of coals, covered these with ashes and dirt, and piled little rocks over them to protect them from the rain that she felt sure would come in abundantly before morning. She kept a fire going for light, as they had no lamp or lantern of any description.

The children were tired and willing to go to bed after they had eaten, and Marian herself was fully ready to lie down after she had got them all packed away. She slept, too, for a while, but when the storm came it wakened her, and there was no more sleep for her all that long, long night.

The roar of the sea was terrific; the big waves were sweeping in from the sea and breaking on the beach with thundering crashes. The flashes of the lightning were intense, and the thunder seemed to Marian to shake the very earth. She had thought they would be protected from the wind, but it seemed to sweep over them with perfect freedom. She shivered and shrank closer to the children. Davie was next to her. He seemed to be warm and comfortable and he slept peacefully in all that pandemonium. Poor little chap, he had been all worn out climbing up and down the hill and chasing crabs on the beach. The others woke, and Marian anxiously inquired if they were all warm. Delbert said his feet were cold, but aside from that all were fairly comfortable. Crowded in together as they were, they kept one another warm.

But they were frightened, and no wonder! The storm outside was a regular tempest, and they were cooped in that little hole, sheltered from the rain, indeed, but exposed to everything else.

They were afraid the rock roof would fall and crush them, that the lightning would strike them, and Jennie was afraid the water would wash up to where they were.

Marian knew there was no danger of the first and no probable danger of the second, and she knew they were far beyond the reach of anything less than an actual tidal wave that might engulf the whole Island.

She soothed and reassured them by every argument she could think of, and then she sang to them all the songs she could call up that might tend to reassure the shrinking human spirit at such a time, beginning with

“The Lord’s our Rock; in Him we hide,

A shelter in the time of storm”;

and finishing with a rollicking glee with a rousing chorus that announced that

“We’re all right, all safe and tight,

Let ’er howl, Bill, let ’er howl!”

And indeed “she” was howling outside so furiously that it was only because Marian’s lips were so close to their ears that they could hear her songs at all.

Some time along toward morning the thunder and lightning ceased, and though the rain still came down in a steady pour, the wind still blew, and the waves still thundered on the beach, one by one the children dropped off to sleep. Marian did not. She lay there in a cramped, uncomfortable position, for to change it meant to get out from under the covering and expose the children to more of the cold wind. She wondered where Pearson was passing the night. How she longed for morning, yet when it came it brought little enough of relief. The worst fury of the storm seemed to be over, but the wind was still high and there was some rain.

Marian’s carefully banked fire was utterly drenched and washed away, and she had to light a new one with a precious match. She built it under shelter of the Cave, and then the smoke nearly drove them out into the storm.

There was some of the clam soup left from supper, and, reinforcing it with one of Mr. Cunningham’s cans of corn, she was able to fill them all up with a hot breakfast.

They could not see anything because of the big rock in front of the Cave, and to go out past the range of it meant to be drenched, or at least dampened, and every one but Davie could see that that would not do. The little girls could stand up in the wider part of the Cave, but when Delbert forgot himself and tried it he got such a bump that he fairly cried with the pain.

Marian smoothed up their bed and packed the food back into the basket, and then racked her brain for methods of amusement. There was not much that could be done, but they played a few simple little games that could be played while sitting still, and really, all things considered, got on marvelously well.

In the afternoon there was a cessation of wind and rain for a while, so that they did venture out a little, but Marian was so fearful of their getting their clothes damp that it was not much diversion, after all. Of course, every tree was loaded with drops of water that the slightest shake released, and the ground under foot was soaked and running in little rivulets.

The second night was only less miserable than the first. There was no storm to frighten them, and they slept more, but they were colder and more uncomfortable when they were awake, which was really a good deal of the time, after all. By morning the wind had died down and the sun was struggling to break through the remaining clouds.

When Bobbie went to feed his chickens on the evening of the day the launch party went out, his little round, freckled face wore an unusually sober expression. As he tossed out the handfuls of corn, he gazed out over the waters regretfully. The way of the transgressor is hard certainly, but only the last part of the way, the first part is most remarkably easy. He had been down on the pier that fateful morning with his mother’s full knowledge and consent,—nothing wrong in that,—and when the fishing-boat was ready, the men had said, “Come along, Bobbie,” and “Come, jump in if you want to, kid,” and there was no time to go and ask his mother; they would not have waited for him if he had; even his mother admitted that. There was no time to go and ask, so he had gone without asking, and see what he had had to suffer on account of it. One whole week already with no diversions besides school and errands, and another, dreary with monotony, stretching ahead of him.

To-day had been worst of all, with the Hadley house closed and silent, and Bobbie knew they would have asked him to go with them if it had not been for that ill-fated fishing-trip.

He heaved a sigh and flung out the last kernels, and then, as many of Delbert’s chickens were hungrily helping themselves and the launch was not yet in sight, he went over to the Hadley yard, climbed through the shed window, and measured out the amount of corn he knew Delbert always fed his flock. After he had given it to the eager biddies, he went back home, and a little later, when he ran out to shut up his own, he went over and closed Delbert’s coop also, first carefully counting the inmates, as he knew Delbert always did. When he found one was missing, he searched till he found the silly thing perched on a barrel in the yard, a tempting meal for coyotes, and, hustling the misguided fowl into the coop, closed the door securely. It was a service that he and Delbert performed for each other so often that he did not even mention the matter to his mother, and she, busy with her household tasks, gave the launch party scarcely a thought, and supposed, of course, it came home on time.

The storm was the worst the Port had known for years. Bobbie might have saved himself the trouble of closing the coops so carefully, for both were blown to pieces, and numbers of the chickens of each were drowned. People had no thought or time to spare for chickens and their coops. Roofs were sent flying, and many a wall had to be braced and watched through the wild night. While Bobbie’s mother hurried to and fro, moving things out from under the leaks in the roof, quieting her frightened children, and keeping general watch and ward, she thought of the Hadleys and spoke of them to her husband.

“Marian’s kitchen roof is probably leaking like a sieve,” she said, “but I guess the rest of the house is all right.”

“Yes,” he answered, “I was just thinking it was lucky Hadley fixed things up so well before he left. As it is, it is the safest house in town.”

“Dear me!” cried the lady suddenly, discovering a stream of water coming down in a corner hitherto considered safe and dry, “I only wish ours was. Half the things I have will be utterly ruined if this keeps up.”

“And it is going to keep up all right,” was the consoling reply of her husband.

In the gray morning, when the storm abated and men in waterproofs began to venture out and take stock of the damage done and compare notes, it was discovered that the launch had not come back; that while frailer shelters had gone crashing down, compelling their inmates to flee through the storm to other shelters, the “safest house in town” had stood untenanted and alone.

When Mr. and Mrs. Hadley, hurried back from Guaymas by the awful news, reached the Port, every foot of the Rosalie Group had been searched over. On one had been found a child’s handkerchief beaten into the sand. They gave it to Mrs. Hadley, and she looked at it a moment silently. Just a ragged, soiled little thing it was, with a faint trace of what had once been a picture printed in bright colors.

“It’s Esther’s,” said the mother, and she put it away, the most sacred of her treasures. As a matter of fact, it was not Esther’s at all,—Esther had hers with her at that moment,—but the grimy little rag was taken for evidence indisputable that the launch party had been on that particular island.

Over and over the boats went out and searched. All of the Rosalies, all of the esteros and marshy mud flats for many miles were gone carefully over, not, indeed, with any hope now of discovering the lost ones, but for some trace, some sign, something washed from the wreck.

When Mr. Cunningham returned, he declared himself completely mystified. He knew the launch was in perfect condition when it went out that morning, for he had examined it himself; and he knew Pearson was in every way competent to run it. There had been plenty of warning of the oncoming of the storm, plenty of time to have returned in safety.

But the launch did not return; it had gone out into the blue, and the blue had swallowed it entirely. The waves lapped, lapped on the rocks and little beaches, the seabirds swooped and called to one another, and in time even the gray-haired father gave up the search, and he and his quiet, sweet-faced wife packed up all their belongings and left the scene of their terrible sorrow.