[The Crystal Spring Nosed Her Way Out of Herrick’s Cove.]

PARTNERS
THREE

BY

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

ILLUSTRATED
BY CHARLES M. RELYEA

M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
PUBLISHERS CHICAGO.

Copyright 1913
M. A. Donohue & Company
Chicago

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

• [The Crystal Spring Nosed Her Way Out of Herrick’s Cove]
• [Bee Plans an Expedition]
• [MAP OF NOBODY’S ID., BY B. MANSFIELD]
• [Marooned]
• [The House of Many Clocks]
• [The Life-Boat Wins]

Partners Three

CHAPTER I
Jack Herrick, Skipper

[The Crystal Spring nosed her way out of Herrick’s Cove], caught the southeasterly breeze on her big sail and moved lazily along past the end of Greenhaven Neck. The Crystal Spring was not built for speed. She was snub-nosed and square-sterned and wide in the beam. The mast was stepped well forward and a short bowsprit made room for a jibsail that was seldom used. Abaft the mast was a small hatch nearly flush with the deck. Amidship was a second hatch, larger than the first. Coiled over it, like a gray snake, was a length of two-inch hose attached at one end to a rusty pump set into the deck. The Crystal Spring was not a beauty, no matter how you looked at her. She was painted black, as to hull, and gray as to deck and hatches. Her mast needed scraping and her patched mainsail was grayer than her deck. On the stern was the inscription “Crystal Spring, Greenhaven.” She sat low in the water and moved sluggishly. To be sure a three-mile breeze isn’t conducive to speed, but even in a gale the Crystal Spring wouldn’t have shown her heels to anything that sailed out of Greenhaven.

With his feet in the shallow cockpit sat the skipper and crew of the Crystal Spring, one arm draped over the long tiller. The skipper and crew was sixteen years of age, had a good-looking weather-tanned face, a sturdy body and was named John Herrick—and called Jack. He had a pair of nice brown eyes, a straight nose well freckled, a fairly wide mouth and a square and rather aggressive chin. Just at present his mouth was puckered up, for Jack was whistling—I almost said a tune. Let’s simply remark that he was whistling and let it go at that, for the fact is that Jack could no more whistle a tune than he could sing one; and if you ever heard him try to sing you’d understand. As he whistled, his gaze roamed from the sail to the shore and thence out to sea. Seaward there was little to look at—only a smudge of smoke like a narrow cloud trailing above the horizon. Shoreward was the end of the Neck and the squat white lighthouse agleam in the sunlight of a late June morning. Behind the lighthouse was the keeper’s little cottage with its weathered roof and green blinds, and its tiny garden of sweet peas and nasturtiums, making a spot of bright color against the yellow-green of beach-grass and the gray of boulders. The tiller moved a little, the sail flapped for an instant and then filled again and the sloop slowly turned to pass Popple Head and run along close to the granite breakwater, seeking the harbor entrance.

With the breeze behind him Jack found the canvas cap he wore uncomfortable and dropped it into the cockpit, revealing a somewhat touselled head of brown hair. I call Jack’s hair brown for want of a better word. As a matter of fact it was of some indescribable shade between brown and the color of oakum, and, at that, it had lighter streaks in it. I think that nature had intended him to have quite respectable and commonplace brown hair, but as his cap was usually just where it was now—that is, off his head—the sun and the winds and salt spray and the fogs had worked their wills. On the whole, the result, especially when the sun was on it, was rather pleasing. The rest of Jack’s attire was quite simple. A white canvas blouse, clean if not altogether guiltless of stains, covered the upper part of his body and a pair of old gray trousers did for the rest. He wore no shoes, although two brown canvas “sneakers,” in each of which a brown cotton stocking was tucked, reposed in the cockpit.

A man in khaki overalls and a red flannel shirt emerged from the door of the lighthouse and waved a hand. Jack waved back. The man was Captain Horace Tucker, the lighthouse keeper. Captain Horace was a distant relation of Jack’s on his mother’s side, and Jack called him uncle, although the relationship was not really as close as that term implied. The lighthouse fell astern and the long, gray wall of the breakwater stretched away beside him. Jack scrambled to his feet, placed one bare foot on the tiller and craned his head. As the tide was almost at flood he could just see over the top of the breakwater. For a minute he scanned the harbor. Then, with a shake of his head, he jumped back into the cockpit.

“Not much doing today, I guess,” he muttered.

Half-way along the breakwater a man was fishing for perch. Jack headed the sloop further away so as not to interfere with him. As the Crystal Spring drew abreast, however, the fisherman called across.

“Much obliged, but there wa’n’t no call to do it. I ain’t had nary nibble so far. I cal’ate Friday’s storm’s driv all the fish out to sea.”

“Try down by the beacon,” called Jack. “The water’s deeper there.”

He pointed ahead of him and the fisherman nodded and pulled up his pole and line. Down the shore, beyond the little rocky island called The Lump, a hand-liner was coming in with all sails set.

“That’s Desco Benton,” murmured Jack. “I guess I can sell to him if that plaguey chug-boat don’t get to him first.” He eyed his sail anxiously, eased the sheet a bit and watched for the end of the breakwater with its red beacon light set up on a tripod of timbers, for all the world like a little fat man with three legs. The sunlight shone dazzlingly on the ruby glass as Jack swung the sloop around the end of the granite barrier and across the bar. Before him lay the big round harbor, with Gull Island almost in the center, and innumerable boats lining the fish wharves or anchored in the channels. At the left the old town of Greenhaven ambled away up the hill, its white houses and crooked streets elbowing and jostling each other at every turn. Straight ahead, at the end of the mile-long basin, across what is known as the Neck Marsh, a second cluster of roofs showed where Cove Village lay along the edge of Lobster Cove.

It was a busy scene even at nine o’clock in the morning. Over at the Eastern Halibut Company’s wharves two schooners were unloading; Jack could see the sunlight glinting on the white bellies of the big fish as they were pitched from deck to wharf; on Gull Island, a short distance ahead, Abner Lacy’s Esmeralda, which had been in collision with a steamer trawler off White Face Bar a few days before, was being winched up the railway for repairs; the ring of the mallets on the blocks and the clicking of the windlass came loudly across the quiet water. Half-way between island and Neck the ferryboat was churning its way; Jack could see Captain Trufitt edging along the narrow deck taking fares. On the town side of the harbor a whale-back was unloading coal and the rattle and hum of the hoisting engine beat incessantly across. An Italian salt bark, her battered red hull deep in the water, had berthed in the broad channel and a lighter was sidling up to her. They would unload until she drew less water and then take her over to one of the wharves. At the Folsom Company’s docks a dozen schooners were fitting for their summer trips to the Banks. Small sailboats and rowboats dotted the blue expanse and just beyond the inner end of Gull Island a neat steam-yacht, resplendent in white paint and mahogany and brass, awaited her turn on the marine railway.

Over on the Neck side they were launching a sloop at Davis’s boat-yard where, hauled up on the shore and covered from the weather with canvas or boards, half a dozen sailing craft of various descriptions awaited their owners’ orders. There was a distinct odor of drying fish in the air—in almost any direction you could catch a glimpse of the “flakes” behind the fish houses—which, mingling with the odors of lumber and pitch and paint from the yards, of seaweed from the shallow beach and of the soft, salty breeze from the ocean, constituted a fragrance that was as much a part of Greenhaven as the granite hill on which it was built. Jack knew that odor well and loved it. He breathed it gratefully now as, guiding the Crystal Spring toward the broad channel, he saw Desco Benton’s Hetty and Grace rush past him near shore, shortening sail as she went. Jack cast an anxious gaze up the harbor.

“I guess that chug-boat will beat me again,” he muttered, “though I don’t see her anywhere yet. Likely she’s at the landing. Get on, you old sea-crab!”

The latter command was addressed to the Crystal Spring, which, now in the lee of the breakwater, was moving more leisurely than ever. Down the harbor the Hetty and Grace came about into the wind and Jack saw the anchor splash. It would take him ten minutes, maybe, to reach her, for he would have to tack in a moment and stand over toward the shore. And then what he feared and expected happened. Out of the press of boats around the town landing a cat-rigged boat driven by a gasoline motor chugged its way. It was painted buff, with a black strip, and to the bare mast was fixed a white placard with the word “Water” on it in black letters. Straight across to the Hetty and Grace it went and Jack sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Either I’ll have to rig up an engine or go out of business,” he muttered. “Well, I’ll try the steam-yacht.”

But when, five minutes later, the sloop wallowed up to within hailing distance of the handsome Sea Mist, a man in blue coat and brass buttons informed him shortly that her tanks were full.

“I’ve got the best water around these parts,” persisted Jack, as the Crystal Spring drifted by. “It’s spring water right out of the ground this morning.”

The man grinned. “That’s what they all say,” he jeered. “And it all tastes like bilge, too.”

“Mine don’t. Better try some. Let me fill up a tank for you, sir.”

“All full, I tell you.” The man turned away, Jack swung the helm over and the Crystal Spring began her day’s cruise in and out of the shipping. It was almost eleven before Jack made his first sale. A Portuguese fisherman bargained a good ten minutes. Then the Crystal Spring was made fast, the hose was lifted to the schooner’s deck and pulled down a forward hatchway and Jack, attaching the long handle to the pump, began his labor. It wasn’t easy work, but Jack’s muscles were used to it, and, as the fisherman had only one butt to fill, it was soon done. Then Jack took his pay, recoiled his hose, cast loose and went on again. What breeze there had been earlier in the day had almost died away and the sloop’s progress was slower than ever. Now and then Jack caught sight of the Morning Star, as the rival water boat was poetically named, chugging its way about the harbor. But even the Morning Star wasn’t doing much business today. At noon Jack made fast to the stern of a lumber schooner near the coal wharf and ate his lunch. It was pleasant enough there in the sun with so much to watch, and the lunch that Aunt Mercy had put up tasted awfully nice, just as it always did, but Jack wished that trade was brisker in his line of business. And just when he was thinking that there was a hail across the basin.

“Water boat, ahoy!” came a voice.

CHAPTER II
A Rescue

Jack jumped to his feet, dropping two of Aunt Mercy’s best doughnuts, and looked about him. The hail came again and Jack saw Desco Benton waving from the Hetty and Grace.

“Right-o!” he called, and quickly cast loose. It took the Crystal Spring almost five minutes to half drift and half sail across to the hand-liner, and all the way Jack wondered what Desco wanted of him. When he was alongside the master of the Hetty and Grace appeared at the rail again.

“Where you been, Jack?” he growled. “I been waitin’ all the mornin’ for you.”

“I’m sorry, Desco. I saw the other boat putting out to you and I thought you’d got water.”

“Them Portuguese? Oh, I sent ’em off in a hurry. That stuff they pump ain’t water, it’s pizen. One of ’em says to me awhile back, he says, ‘Cap’n, this water’s the finest spring water in Greenhaven.’ ‘Spring water’ says I. ‘Spring water! If it is it’s last Spring water!’” And Desco leaned on the rail and laughed hoarsely at his joke. “Where’d they get that stuff, Jack?”

“Right out of the hydrant at the landing,” replied Jack with a smile. “I guess it’s all right when there isn’t a break in the main, but there usually is. Then it’s about the color of pea soup. Have a good trip, Desco?”

“Fair to middlin’! I landed ’em down to Boston. Here, give me hold o’ that pipe. How you gettin’ on, Jack?”

“About the same way—fair to middling,” answered Jack as he uncoiled the hose. “There isn’t much doing just now. Folsom’s boats get their water at the wharves these days. They had a pipe put in. I suppose it’s cheaper for them that way.”

“Huh, I cal’ate it is. An’ Folsom never was a man to waste money. Cal’ate that’s how he’s come by so much on it. I got two butts ’most empty, Jack, and the deck cask, too. Here, Manuel, lug this down to the butts and sing out when you’re ready.”

While Jack pumped the master of the Hetty and Grace leaned across the rail and talked. He was a big, broad-shouldered, yellow-bearded Nova Scotian, of thirty-five or thirty-six years, a good sailor and a lucky master. Desco Benton’s luck was proverbial around Greenhaven and it had stood him in good stead many times. “As lucky as Desco Benton” was a common saying among the fishermen. The Hetty and Grace was a small but staunch little knockabout schooner, Essex built, with the lines of a pleasure yacht. Desco owned every plank and nail in her and was immensely proud of her. She could sail, too. That fact had been demonstrated two years before when Desco had beaten every schooner in the fisherman’s race to Boston Light and back, having his anchor down and all sails snug when his nearest competitor came racing around the breakwater.

“How’s your folks?” he asked presently. “I cal’ate that sister o’ yours is quite grown up by now.”

“Faith’s thirteen, I guess,” Jack replied as he worked at the long pump handle. “She’s going to high school.”

“I want to know! An’ how about you, Jack? Wasn’t you in high school, too?”

“Last year. I had to quit when father died. Someone had to make some money and it looked like it was up to me.”

“Of course. Well, edication’s a good thing, I cal’ate, though I never had much time for it, but it don’t butter no parsnips, Jack.”

“I’m going back some day, I expect. I want to, anyway. I want to go to college if I can, too. Looks now, though, as if I might be pretty old before that happens.”

“College, eh? H’m; I had a feller sailin’ with me a couple o’ years back that was a college grad-oo-ate; name o’ Jasper Fitzwilliam. He wan’t no good at all. But I cal’ate there’s a difference in ’em. I cal’ate that young Folsom’ll have a college edication. I passed him comin’ in, him an’ another boy. They was in a motor-boat about half a mile off The Lump. Seemed to be hove to off there an’ I cal’ate they was fishin’. He’ll be a rich man some day, when his dad dies, eh?”

“I suppose so. He seems a nice chap. He was in my class at high school last year, though I didn’t know him very well. Funny place to fish, off The Lump, Desco. I never heard of anyone catching anything there, did you?”

Desco shook his head as the signal came to stop pumping. The sailor crawled up through the hatch with the hose and Desco bade him lug it forward to the small butt lashed by the deck-house. Jack began his labors again. Desco, his gaze fixed on the western sky, where a few white clouds like great bunches of cotton batting were creeping up, pointed with the stem of his pipe.

“There’s goin’ to be a thunder squall before long, Jack,” he said. “Better get your slicker out.”

Jack looked and nodded. “It feels like it too,” he answered. “I’d just as lief it didn’t come till I get this old lugger back to the Cove.”

There was a yell from the sailor at the hose and Jack stopped pumping. A few minutes later Desco dropped Jack’s line to the deck of the water boat and Jack, pushing the boom out, took the tiller again and waved good-bye to the master of the Hetty and Grace.

For two hours or more he cruised slowly about the harbor without doing any business. It was almost four o’clock, and the Crystal Spring was ambling along just inside Gull Island, when Jack saw the lighthouse tender push her snub nose around the breakwater and turn sharp into the narrow channel. The tender usually bought water when she visited Greenhaven, and Jack, casting an anxious backward glance in search of the Morning Star, hustled the Crystal Spring all he knew how. The lighthouse tender was already out of sight behind the island, although Jack could see the tips of her masts above the buildings. His first tack took him to the end of the breakwater. Then, as the water boat came around, he saw that the tender already had her mud-hook down. The Morning Star, it seemed, had for once been caught napping, and Jack smiled as he pushed the sloop along. But the smile faded a moment later, for around the farther end of the island sped the Morning Star, her eight horsepower engine puffing away at full speed. Had the Crystal Spring been similarly equipped it might have proved a very pretty race, but as it was the Morning Star had everything her own way. Before Jack had covered half the distance between him and the tender, the Morning Star was alongside the government boat. A moment later lines were passed aboard and the two Lampron brothers were manning the pump. As the Crystal Spring sailed by Tony Lampron grinned across at Jack and shouted, “Where you been some time, eh, Mister?” and his brother Frank waved a hand and laughed. Jack made no sign, but he was angry and disappointed, and at the end of the island he swung the Crystal Spring around and headed up the channel for home. It wasn’t likely that there would be any more business today. And he didn’t much care, anyhow. Besides, the thunder storm that Desco had predicted was almost at hand, and Jack could see by the angry streaky look of the clouds that there would be wind as well as rain. He didn’t care to be caught outside in a blow. The Crystal Spring was staunch enough but she was anything but dry in dirty weather. Jack resolved to get around Popple Head and at least under the lee of the Neck before the storm burst.

To be on the safe side, however, for already the thunder was rumbling, he kicked down the latch of a little locker under the poop and pulled out a yellow oilskin coat and hat. He substituted his shoes and stockings for the oilskins and slammed the locker door shut again just as the sharp detonations of an engine exhaust reached him. A stone-throw to leeward Charley Paige, leaning against the tiller of his little power boat, waved to him and pointed westward. Jack waved back and, nodding his head, luffed the Crystal Spring around through the swell of the fisherman and headed along the breakwater. The breeze had grown flukey and of a sudden a great gray cloud passed over the sun and the ocean darkened to steel color. A clap of thunder broke overhead. A puff of wind came out of the west and the boom went down as the first puff of the squall caught the big sail. Then came a drop of rain and Jack, straddling the tiller, donned his oilskins, buttoning the long coat closely about him, and pulled the sou’easter down over his head. It was evident that he was in for a wetting after all.

The Crystal Spring began to roll as the wind increased, behaving in a most frolicsome, undignified manner. Half-way between the beacon and the lighthouse point the rain began in earnest, slanting out of the west and pelting at Jack’s back vindictively. There was quite a sea by now, although the rain flattened the surface somewhat and the squall blew the tops of the waves into spume. Jack, finding himself in for it, began to whistle tunelessly, leaning against the tiller and peering out from under the brim of his sou’easter. It was too thick to see very far ahead and it behooved him to be watchful, since a fisherman might be beating his way in around Popple Head. But he sighted nothing and the lighthouse was abeam and he brought the sloop’s blunt nose around. In another minute he would be in the lee of the shore and well out of some nasty weather. The thunder still crashed at intervals and now and then the dun clouds were rent asunder by the livid flashes of lightning. The lighthouse dropped astern and the Crystal Spring, with a final impatient roll, settled back on an evener keel. And at that moment, following a crash of thunder, Jack heard a faint hail.

He shaded his eyes with his hand and peered shoreward. But as far as he could see there was no one in sight. He had about reached the conclusion that he had been mistaken when the hail came again, a mere atom of sound above the rush of rain and sea and the creaking complaint of the sloop’s timbers. Jack turned seaward and strained his eyes through the murk. At first only a blank gray wall of mist rewarded him, but as his gaze accustomed itself to the task, suddenly a darker blur, something neither rain nor sea, came to his vision for a moment and then was lost again. Half doubting, Jack hauled on the sheet and jammed the helm to starboard. The Crystal Spring came about with a resentful lunge that sent the water in her big tank swashing noisily from side to side. With his eyes fixed ahead Jack gave the sloop all she could carry and in a moment the squall caught her again as she passed out of the lee of the land and dipped the end of the long boom in the racing sea. Again came the hail, clearer this time, and seemingly from off the port bow.

Jack moved the tiller a little, peering out from under the sail. And then, almost ahead, a small boat jumped into view, a tiny craft with two figures huddled in her. Jack shouted a response and kept on, and as the Crystal Spring staggered past the smaller craft he saw that the latter was a motor boat, perhaps not over eighteen feet long, apparently broken down. In another moment she was lost to sight. It was no easy matter to bring the water boat’s head into the wind and fully five minutes passed before Jack, allowing for the drift, sighted the launch again. Then, steadying the Crystal Spring as best he could, he bore up to the disabled boat and made a trumpet of his hands.

“Stand by to catch a rope!” he shouted. There was a faint response from the launch and Jack, seizing a coil of half-inch rope from the locker, snagged the tiller with his knee and got ready to throw. The sloop wallowed up to within a dozen feet of the launch and with a sweep of his arm sent the coil hurtling across the water. It was a lucky throw and as the Crystal Spring went by Jack saw one of the occupants seize the rope.

“Make fast to the bow cleat,” he shouted back, “and haul in!”

A figure moved cautiously along the pit of the tossing launch, crawled to the deck and with fumbling fingers tied the line to the cleat. The launch had been drifting stern foremost and now Jack brought the Crystal Spring around so that the launch might come up under her lee. Aboard the latter they were hauling valiantly and in a minute the little motor boat was alongside and the occupants were climbing aboard the sloop. They were sorry-looking mariners. Both appeared to be boys of about Jack’s age. Neither wore oilskins and their blue serge suits were soaked through and through. One of the boys had lost his cap and his hair was plastered tightly to his head.

“Bring that slack with you,” Jack directed, “and make the line fast to that cleat there. That’s the ticket. Now then, I’ll have you ashore in a minute or two, but you’ll find a couple of blankets in the bunk for’ard if you want them. Open that for’ard hatch and you’ll see them.”

But the boys shook their heads as they sank to the cockpit. “We can’t get—any wetter,” said one. “We’re terribly much obliged—to you for—” He paused, and then, “Why, it’s Jack Herrick, isn’t it?” he exclaimed.

Jack nodded as he gazed ahead in search of the Cove.

“That’s me. And you’re Harry Folsom. Catch any fish?”

CHAPTER III
A Pair of Amateur Salts

A quarter of an hour later the three boys were sitting about the “air-tight” stove in the front room of the little, white, clap-boarded, green-shuttered house that was Jack’s home. They had left the Crystal Spring safely moored in the Cove, with the motor boat swinging astern, dropped into the little dory and paddled ashore. From the little beach up to the Herrick house was but a few yards, and in a trice they were inside, listening to the surprised ejaculations of Aunt Mercy and dripping water onto the immaculate waxed floor of the “passage.” Aunt Mercy Fuller was Jack’s mother’s sister, and ever since Mrs. Herrick had died, when Jack was only four years old, the sharp-voiced, kind-hearted little woman had kept house at the Cove. After the death of Jack’s father, only a year ago, Aunt Mercy’s presence was more indispensable than ever, for Jack’s sister, Faith, was only thirteen, and so, still in school. All of Jack’s dry clothing had been requisitioned and the drafts in the stove opened wide, and now, none the worse for their wetting, the two visitors were recounting their adventures to the household.

Harry Folsom was nearly Jack’s age, being some three months younger. He was like Jack in many ways, for which the fact that each came of an old Greenhaven family was perhaps accountable. Harry’s hair was of quite an ordinary shade of dark brown and his face was not tanned and seasoned by sun and weather. And his eyes were gray instead of brown. But dissimilarity seemed to end there. He was much like Jack in build and weight and he had the same easy, careless swing from the hips when he walked, and the same way of looking straightly and unwinkingly when he talked. Harry’s father was Josiah Folsom, the head of the big fish company of Greenhaven, and a man of much wealth. He and Jack had been together at high school the year before, but last fall Jack had left school to sail the Crystal Spring and Harry, or Hal, as he was called, had entered Norwalk Hall, the big preparatory school some thirty miles distant and just over the line into New Hampshire.

His companion Hal had introduced as Beaman Mansfield. Harry called him Bee and so we might as well do the same. Bee was visiting Harry, it seemed, having arrived with him in Greenhaven only the evening before. They were roommates at school and evidently great chums. Beaman Mansfield was fifteen years of age, slight, tall, black of hair and eye, and almost sallow as to complexion. As Harry narrated their exploits Bee interpolated remarks which, if they were not especially informative, seldom failed to amuse.

“You see,” said Harry, “that launch is a new one. Dad got it for me a week ago and I never saw it until yesterday. This morning we thought it would be a good plan to go for a sail in her. So we filled her tank with gasoline and started out. I’d never run a motor boat before, but Bee said he knew something about the things—”

“I know a heap more now,” observed Bee, gravely.

“So we started. She went finely for about ten minutes and we were down off The Lump. Then she stopped. I told Bee to get busy and find out what the trouble was and he monkeyed around with a wrench and a screw-driver for almost half an hour.”

“I deny it!” exclaimed Bee. “I knew at once where the trouble lay!”

“Yes, you did!”

“I certainly did! It was in the engine.”

“Oh! Well, it took you long enough to dig it out. Anyhow, we got her started again and she went like a breeze; must have made at least twelve miles an hour, Jack, and we were about two miles down the shore when—bing, stopped again!”

“And she’s been ‘binging’ ever since,” murmured Bee.

“By then it was time for lunch. So we rowed ashore near the life saving station and walked up to that little store where the old toll-gate used to be. It’s quite a ways up there.”

“About ten miles,” said Bee thoughtfully.

Jack laughed. “I dare say it seemed that far if you were hungry. It’s about three-quarters of a mile, I guess.”

“Well, we were hungry,” replied Bee. “I was, at any rate. I’d had nothing since breakfast but that nasty yellow cup-grease and gasoline.”

“We bought some crackers and some sardines and two oranges. I’ll bet old man Doonin had had them all for at least six months.”

“I think they were some of his Christmas stock left over,” remarked Bee reflectively.

“They were pretty fierce, anyway, and we decided the best thing to do was to hike home and get a real feed. So we went back to the launch and tried to start her again. But she wouldn’t start—”

“It was another case of ‘bing!’” said Bee.

“And it took us all of an hour to get going. Bee and I took turns at the fly wheel—”

“I beg your pardon?” remarked Bee, sitting up quickly. “Did I understand you to say that we took turns? Allow me to correct you, Hal, I took turns!”

“Well, I like your cheek! My arm’s as stiff as—as—as a board! And it aches every time I move it! I’ll bet I turned that old wheel over two thousand times today; and it weighs a ton, too!”

“What sort of an engine has she got?” asked Jack.

“An eight-horsepower Philbert.”

“I think myself it’s a chestnut,” observed Bee. “And if you think your arm aches, why, I just wish you had mine!”

“Did—did you get the boat started finally?” asked Faith anxiously. The boys laughed, and Faith, a pretty, dark-haired young lady, inclined to be shy, blushed.

“Yes, finally,” answered Hal. “That was about—what time, Bee?”

“About two hours after lunch time,” replied Bee, gloomily.

“Yes, about half-past two, I guess. Then she went pretty well for awhile, although she choked and coughed a good deal—”

“She has consumption,” said Bee, with a shake of his head. “She won’t last long.”

“She stopped once near the outer buoy and again just off the light. And that time Bee said he was going to fix her right and began to take the engine to pieces.”

“It was the only thing to do,” explained Bee gravely to Jack. “Take her to pieces and put her together again.”

“You got her to pieces all right,” continued Hal, “but you couldn’t get her together again.”

“Well, there were two or three small thing-mabobs I couldn’t find places for. I still think she’s just as well without them.”

“All that time we were drifting along the breakwater. We haven’t any anchor yet, you see, and there was no place to tie up to. Then the squall came up while we were trying to get her to start and the first thing we knew we were going out to sea at about a mile a minute.”

“She went faster than she did at any other time all day,” said Bee. “It just showed what fixing the engine did for her.”

“Yes, you ‘fixed’ it all right,” said Hal, sarcastically. “If it hadn’t been for Jack we’d be half-way to Africa by now.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Africa,” replied his chum, calmly. “It must be a very interesting place.”

“Maybe,” laughed Hal, “but I don’t care to go there in an eighteen-foot motor boat. Of course we couldn’t do much when the blow came. We tried to keep her bow into the waves, after we’d found we couldn’t row her, but that was pretty hard work. And after awhile, when we got around Popple Head, we gave that up and put all our strength into shouting. I don’t mind telling you that we were getting sort of scared when you came, Jack.”

“You had a right to be,” said Jack, dryly. “If I hadn’t heard you you’d have had a pretty wet night of it. That wind would have taken you across toward the Isle of Shoals, I guess, if you’d floated long enough. Did you have anything to bail with?”

“Only my cap,” said Bee. “And it wasn’t satisfactory. I told Hal I thought his would have been better.”

“Dear, dear,” murmured Aunt Mercy. “You boys certainly had a narrow escape from death. I hope you won’t ever try anything so silly again.”

“No’m, we won’t,” Hal assured her. “We’re not going out in her again until we have an anchor along.”

“And a tomato can,” suggested Bee.

“A tomato can?” Hal questioned. “What’s that for?”

“To bail with.”

“Why not have a bailer?” laughed Jack.

“All the boats I’ve ever been in,” replied Bee, soberly, “carried empty tomato cans for bailing purposes. I wouldn’t know how to use anything else.”

“And I guess,” said Jack, “you’d better get your engine put together again before you take another trip. It might be that the things your friend couldn’t get back were sort of necessary, Hal.”

“I don’t think so,” said Bee. “Maybe, though. I’m not sure that I know where they are. Did I give them to you, Hal?”

“You did not!” replied Hal indignantly. “And if you’ve gone and lost them—”

“Well, they may be kicking around under the grating somewhere. After we get the water out of her we’ll have a look. I don’t believe, though, we’ll ever find them; they were little trifling things.”

The others laughed and Jack arose and went to a window. It was still raining hard, but the thunder and lightning had passed over and the wind had diminished considerably. The old iron-case clock on the mantel behind the glowing stove said a quarter past five.

“You fellows had better stay and have some supper,” he said. “There’s no use trying to get back in this rain.”

“Oh, much obliged,” said Hal, “but we can get across to the ferry all right. It’s just a little way, isn’t it?”

“About a quarter of a mile. But your clothes aren’t dry, I’m afraid. You’re welcome to wear what you have on, but they don’t fit very well. The best thing to do is to telephone over to your folks that you’re all right and then stay here until your things get dried.”

“We—ll, it’s awfully good of you.” Hal looked inquiringly at his friend. Bee appeared not to see the question. He only sighed comfortably and stretched his long legs farther toward the stove. “If we won’t be too much bother, Miss—Miss Fuller, I guess we’ll stay.”

“You won’t be any bother at all,” Aunt Mercy assured him. “I’ll just tell Susan to cook a little more supper.”

“Let me go, Auntie,” said Faith.

“No, I’ll go. I cal’ate I’d better get down a pot of that barberry preserve.”

“Gee,” laughed Jack, “I wish we had shipwrecked folks to supper every night, don’t you, sis?” and Faith shyly owned that she did. Aunt Mercy pretended to be insulted.

“I cal’ate, Jack Herrick, that you don’t ever suffer for preserves in this house!” she declared.

“No, ma’am, not exactly for preserves. But that barberry preserve—say, sis, we ain’t had any of that since about Christmas, have we?”

“You had some last Sunday night,” returned Aunt Mercy with asperity. “And I’ve a good mind not to give you any, if you can’t remember when you do have it!”

“Quite right, ma’am,” said Bee approvingly. “I think it would be good punishment if you just gave it to the rest of us. I’m sure I shan’t forget it, ma’am!”

Aunt Mercy regarded him severely. “Humph!” she said. “I cal’ate, young man, you don’t miss much in this world for want of a tongue in your head!” Whereupon, with a grim smile, she sailed out of the room.

Hal chuckled. “I guess that will hold you for awhile, old Bee!” Then, turning to Jack, “Did you say you had a telephone here?” he asked.

Jack shook his head. “No, but there’s one at Cottrell’s store, just over the hill. I’ll run over there, if you like, and tell your folks you’ll be home after supper.”

“What’s the matter with my going?” asked Hal. “Let me have your oilskin coat, Jack, and point out the way. I guess I ought to let father know I’m all right. He may be getting worried.”

The two boys went out, leaving Bee and Faith together in the quaint little low-ceilinged room. Bee looked about him with interest. “You’ve got an awfully comfortable home here, Miss Faith,” he said. “It’s so sort of old-fashioned and nice.”

“It’s quite an old house,” said Faith embarrassedly. “Father’s grandfather built it almost a hundred years ago. There wasn’t much of anything on the Neck in those days, they say, except the lighthouse. Do you live around here?”

“No, my home’s in Pennsylvania. I wish I did live around here, though, for I’m crazy about the water and boating and fishing and—”

“And being shipwrecked?” suggested Faith with a laugh.

“N—no,” Bee acknowledged, echoing her laughter, “I guess I can do without that for awhile. I was in a blue funk out there. And—and I’d have been seasick in about another minute, I guess.”

“You were both very foolish to go out in a boat you didn’t understand,” said Faith gravely. “Besides, I never think a motor boat is really safe, anyway, do you?”

“I don’t know. I never was in one until this morning.”

“Why—but I thought you said—you understood them!”

“Oh,” responded Bee carelessly, “I had to say that to get Hal to go out. He wanted to wait and find someone to show him how to run the thing. We’d have lost a lot of valuable time, you see.”

“Oh! You mean that—you aren’t going to be here long and you didn’t want to waste a day?”

“Oh, I shall be around here for a month, probably. My folks have gone abroad and Hal’s going to put me up for as long as I want. I had a chance of going across with the folks, but Hal talked so much about Greenhaven all winter that I thought I’d rather come here. And I’m glad I did, too. I’m going to have a dandy time. Hal’s people are as nice as pie to me. I suppose you know them, Miss Faith?”

“N—no, I don’t. You see—” She paused and Bee waited politely for her to continue. “What I mean,” she went on at last, “is that the Folsoms are very rich people and we’re—we’re not. So, of course, we don’t know them very well.”

“Oh!” Bee considered that a moment. “Well, I like them very much. Hal’s a dandy, too. I didn’t care much for him at first, though. They put us to room together at school and we had a scrap the first night. Then we didn’t speak for two or three days. Then we had another scrap and Hal licked me and after that we were pretty good chums.”

Faith looked puzzled, but she only said, “Oh!” in a doubtful tone, and Bee went on:

“I suppose you and your brother go to school here?” he inquired. “Hal showed me the high school this morning when we came down to the wharf.”

“I go,” replied Faith, “but Jack had to give it up this year. Poor Jack! He hated to do it.”

“Er—you don’t mean—he wasn’t expelled, was he?”

“Jack? Oh, no indeed. But father died a little over a year ago and so Jack thought he ought to go on with father’s business and make money. Father used to be a fisherman and owned his own schooner. Then, when I was about five, he had an accident. He fell and broke one of his legs when he was ’way up off Newfoundland and it wasn’t set right for two weeks because the schooner was in the ice and there wasn’t any doctor around. And then when they finally got him to a doctor it was too late and his leg was never much good afterwards. So he sold his schooner and bought the Crystal Spring and made her into a water boat. You see there’s always been a spring up on the hill just back of our house and father only had to run a line of pipe to the Cove and then fill up the tank and sail around to the harbor and sell the water. He used to sell lots and lots of water a few years ago, but now the fish companies generally supply the water for their boats themselves. And lately two Portuguese men have started a water boat, too, and as their boat has a gasoline engine poor Jack isn’t doing very well. He said the other day he guessed he’d either have to have an engine put in the Crystal Spring or go out of business.” And Faith, a little breathless and more than a little surprised at her unusual loquacity, came to an embarrassed pause.

“That’s too bad,” said Bee sympathetically. “I wouldn’t think there’d be enough business for two water boats here. If I were he I’d certainly put in an engine and see that it was big enough to beat the other fellows!”

“He wants to, but—I guess it costs a good deal,” replied Faith.

“What costs a good deal, sis?” asked Jack as he and Hal returned to the sitting-room.

“An engine for the Crystal Spring,” explained his sister.

“Oh! Yes, it would cost a lot more than I could afford, I guess,” he said gloomily. “But I’ll either have to have one put in or give up. Those Lamprons can beat me every time. Isn’t supper ready yet? I’m starved to death!”

When, a few minutes later, Aunt Mercy summoned them to the little dining room, that supper proved worth waiting for. The visitors declared that they had never been so hungry and had never tasted things half so good, and Aunt Mercy was so pleased that she was positively wasteful with the barberry preserve!

“May I leave the launch here until I can get someone to come over and fix her up?” asked Hal.

“Yes,” Jack answered, “I’ll look after her. She’ll be all right. If I can find time in the morning I’ll get the water out of her. For that matter, maybe I can fix her up for you myself. I know a little about gas engines. I’ll have a look at her if you want me to.”

“I wish you would,” replied Hal gratefully.

“I’ll come over and help you,” said Bee.

“You’ll stay away from her!” exclaimed his chum with energy. “If it hadn’t been for you she’d have been all right.”

“Hear him!” Bee scoffed, appealing to Aunt Mercy. “Why, that silly chug-chug didn’t know the first thing about going until I worked and toiled over her! Of all ungrateful brutes, Hal, you’re the—the limit!”

“I’d have learned how to run her myself,” said Hal amidst the laughter of the rest, “if you hadn’t been so keen on starting out. I wanted to have someone show me about the thing, Jack, but this idiot couldn’t wait. Say, what do you think he wants to do?”

Jack shook his head. “Drown himself, I guess.”

“He wants to go out to Hog Island and hunt for buried treasure!”

Jack laughed, and even Aunt Mercy smiled at the idea, but Faith came to Bee’s defence. “I think that would be lovely,” she approved. “I read a book once—”

“There isn’t anything on Hog Island, I guess,” said Jack, “but rocks and seagulls. You’d better try somewhere else, Mansfield.”

Bee shrugged his shoulders, undisturbed. “I’m not particular about where it is, Herrick. But I certainly don’t intend to spend a month on the coast and not have one good hunt for buried treasure. I’ve always wanted to hunt for buried treasure and now’s the time. I dare say there’s plenty of it around here. There always is. Captain Kidd probably left a few chests of gold and diamonds somewhere about. He was awfully careless, Kidd was, with his treasure. Why, everyone knows that he buried chests of gold all up and down the Atlantic coast!”

“I’ll bet he didn’t bury any on Hog Island,” Jack laughed. “You can’t dig six inches anywhere there without striking solid ledge. I’ve been out there three or four times.”

“Then we won’t go to Hog Island, Hal,” said Bee calmly. “I merely suggested that particular place because it was the first island I saw. We’ll find another one. How about the thing you call The Lump?”

“Just a ledge sticking out of the water,” said Jack. “If you really want to hunt for buried treasure, though, Mansfield, you might have a go at Nobody’s Island.” He smiled across at Hal. “’Most everyone has around here!”

CHAPTER IV
Buried Treasure

“That’s the ticket!” Bee snapped his fingers gleefully. “That’s the very place I’m looking for. Nobody’s Island, eh? There must be buried treasure on an island with a name like that. Where is it?”

“About three miles up the shore,” replied Jack, smiling. “It isn’t much of an island any more, though. Some years ago the sea ran in back of it and then, I suppose, it was a real island. Nowadays it isn’t an island at all, except once or twice a year when there’s an uncommonly high tide. Come on into the sitting-room and I’ll show it to you on the chart.”

“Father always said there was money buried somewhere there,” said Faith as she followed the boys into the front room.

“I don’t doubt but that there is,” responded Jack as he spread a chart across the center table, “but I don’t believe anyone’s going to find it. I’ll bet a hundred people have dug on Nobody’s Island since I can remember. Years ago, when a man didn’t have anything particular to do, Mansfield, he took a shovel and went over to Nobody’s Island and dug for gold. Here it is; see? The chart doesn’t call it an island, though; it just says, ‘Salvage Head,’ and lets it go at that. These two little rocks out here, just off the beach, are The Tombstones. Boats used to pile up there every little while trying to get around the Head. But in those days Clam River—this is it here—had two mouths, one on each side of the island. You could go in here to the north of Salvage Head and sail clean around and come out here on the east. Then a storm or something filled up the northern inlet and now it’s just sand there and you can walk right across. Father always said that some day that inlet would open up again, but it hasn’t yet.”

“Do you mean that there used to be real wreckers there?” asked Bee eagerly.

“Real as anything! There was a sort of family of them named—what was the name, Auntie?”

“Well, folks used to call them Verny,” replied Aunt Mercy, who had settled herself with her crochet, “but I believe the real name was Verginaud.”

“That was the name, Verny,” said Jack. “There were three of them, old man Verny and two sons. They used to carry a lantern along the shore of the island and the sailors would think it was a boat’s light and go plump into The Tombstones or on the beach. Then the Vernys would flock down and get the pickings. Sometimes they’d go over here on Toller’s Beach—Toller’s Sands it was called then—and decoy ships onto Toller’s Rock or The Clinker. That’s The Clinker, that little rock just off the point. So, you see, they got them coming and going.”

“Gee, that sounds like the real thing!” exclaimed Hal. “What did they do with the stuff they got from the ships?”

“I don’t know; sold it, maybe; kept it, more likely. I guess they didn’t get very big hauls for the ships were mostly coasting schooners or fishermen. They didn’t have to do any work, anyhow, although father said they planted corn and potatoes over here at the back of the island.”

“What became of them?” asked Bee.

“Well, about forty years ago things got so bad that the sheriff took a posse over there and cleaned them out; arrested old Verny and one son; shot him when he tried to get away so that he died afterwards; and burned their cabin down. That was the last of them around here.”

“And what about the buried treasure?” asked Bee eagerly.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Well, there’s always been a belief that Big Verny, as he was called, when he saw the posse coming buried a chest of money and other valuables. I don’t know how much truth there is in it. Father used to say it was so, though.”

“Besides,” said Hal, “folks have picked up money in the sand over there, Jack.”

“I guess that only happened once, Hal. If you really want to hunt for treasure, Mansfield, I guess Nobody’s Island is the most promising place we can offer you.”

“You bet I’m going to hunt! How soon will that chug-chug of yours be ready again, Hal?”

“Oh, maybe in a couple of days. Can you wait that long? I don’t believe anyone will get ahead of you and find the treasure.”

“You can’t tell,” replied Bee with a grin. “Someone might. We’d better not lose much time. Perhaps we’d better hire a boat, eh? How much will you rent yours for, Herrick?”

“I’ll rent her cheap,” replied Jack grimly, “and then make more than I’m making now. Only thing, though, it would take all day to get there in the Crystal Spring; she’s about as fast as a crab.”

Bee was studying the chart again. “Say, can I buy one of these things around here?” he asked suddenly.

“Plenty of them,” laughed Hal.

“You may borrow that if you like,” said Jack. “I don’t use it. Only take care of it, please, because it was my father’s.”

“Sure you don’t mind? I’ll take care of it. Thanks. I want to study this thing right. There’s nothing like knowing the lay of the land when you go after buried treasure. You see,” he went on as he folded the chart up and tucked it safely in his pocket, “I’m a bit of an authority on hunting for buried treasure. I’ve read all the best books on the subject, from Stevenson down to the five-cent variety, and there isn’t much I don’t know. What about getting home, Hal?”

“I guess we’d better start along. It must be—gee! it’s after eight! I didn’t think it was so late. Let’s get back into our rags, Bee, and hike.”

“Jack, if it’s after eight,” said Faith, “they can’t go on the ferry. You know it stops at seven-thirty.”

“That’s so; and I’m sorry, fellows. I tell you what, though. You get your clothes changed and I’ll row you across. All we’ll have to do is walk over to Johnson’s and I’ll borrow one of his dories.”

“But isn’t it raining?” objected Hal.

“Not a bit. Hasn’t been for an hour or more. In fact—” Jack pushed a shade aside and peered out—“the stars are out bright.”

“But isn’t it a longish way across to town?” asked Bee.

“About a mile, but that isn’t far. Want to come along, Faith?”

“May I, Auntie?”

“Why, yes, I suppose it won’t do you any harm. But you see that the seats are dry, Jack.”

And so ten minutes later the quartette set out very merrily across the Neck, which was quite narrow between Herrick’s Cove and the harbor. They climbed the hill back of the cottage, past the spring from which Jack piped his water to the sloop, across the winding road, through somebody’s back yard and so came to the harbor side, where in front of them numberless lights pricked out the dark water and the town beyond. Westward the red gleam of the breakwater beacon shone dully. Jack led the way down the lane toward the float. As they passed the house a door opened and a man’s voice asked: “What’s up?”

“It’s I, Mr. Johnson—Jack Herrick. I want to borrow one of your dories,” explained Jack.

“Help yourself,” was the hearty response. “And get a good pair o’ oars. There’s some of ’em sort o’ mean, Jack.”

Soon they were seated in a dory, Hal in the bow, Jack at the oars and Faith and Bee together facing him. A few strokes sent them into deep water and Jack settled down to the long pull ahead.

“If you see anything, Faith, just sing out,” he instructed. “I’ll make for the town landing, Hal. It’s easier to find than some of the other wharves. Will that be all right?”

“Dandy,” replied Hal from the bow. “If you don’t hear from me again, wake me up when we get there, Jack.”

“This,” remarked Bee, stretching himself comfortably and colliding with Jack’s feet, “is what I call fine. A sailor’s life for me every time! ‘Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!’ O, you Hal!”

“What?” asked Hal sleepily from the other end of the boat.

“Wake up, you lazy beggar, and hear the birdies sing! This is no time for slumber. Look at all the pretty little stars, and the pretty little lights! Smell the—the—what-do-you-call it—the ozone!”

“That’s the fish wharves you smell,” laughed Jack.

“Can’t help it; I like it; and I prefer to call it ozone. Get the ozone effect, Hal?”

“Shut up, you,” mumbled Hal.

“Sleep then,” said Bee disgustedly. “But when we collide with a—a lighthouse or a sunken wreck or—or something you’ll wish you’d kept awake, old Hal. You won’t have a ghost of a show at being rescued. You’ll be trampled under foot in the mad rush; and serve you right for sleeping on—er—on occasion like this. I think—mind you, I say I think—that we are e’en now about to collision with something.”

“Yes, Jack, there’s a boat straight ahead. Pull on your right oar.”

“Well,” said Bee admiringly, “you must be able to see in the dark, Miss Faith. I couldn’t have told whether that was a boat or a trolley car.”

“Oh, it isn’t really dark tonight,” said Faith. “The stars give a lot of light. Jack and I rowed across one night when—well, it was pretty dark, wasn’t it, Jack?”

“Black as your pocket. It was late in the Fall and there weren’t many lights showing. I thought the light on the pier on Gull Island was the light on Curtis’s coal wharf and ran plump into a bunch of spiles. We had quite a lot of fun getting across that time. The old dory leaked like a sieve and when she bumped she sprung a few new leaks and the first thing we knew our feet were in water up to our ankles. Sis had to bail all the way across.”

“Fun!” ejaculated Bee. “Is that your idea of a real good time? I suppose, then, if we ran into a rock and the boat sunk you and Miss Faith would laugh yourselves to death!”

“There’s the place we bumped,” said Jack, nodding toward the dark bulk of Gull Island. “We’re more than half-way over now.”

“Aren’t you tired?” asked Bee curiously. “How far can you row?”

“Oh, four or five miles,” replied Jack carelessly. “More than that, I suppose, if I had to. But after three miles your arms begin to get pretty stiff.”

“I guess mine would!” laughed Bee. “I’m going to try that short stroke of yours some day. Will you show it to me? I’ve never seen anyone row just like that before.”

“Doryman’s stroke,” replied Jack. “It doesn’t tire you like a long stroke. Many schooners ahead, Faith?”

“No, Jack, none, if you keep the way you’re headed. I can see the lantern on the landing now.”

On one of the fishing boats a sailor was playing on a concertina and singing. Jack stopped rowing a minute and they listened.

“That fellow can sing, can’t he?” said Bee.

“It’s Desco Benton, sis,” said Jack. “I’d know his voice if I heard it in a fog at sea.” He plied his oars again and soon the dory was in the shadows of the wharves and shipping. Cautiously Jack sent the boat toward the landing, worming in and out of the launches and sail-boats moored in the basin. Then they awoke Hal—he declared he hadn’t been asleep, but Bee told him he had snored all the way across—and presently the dory sidled up to the float, under the glow of the big lantern, and they said good-night.

It was arranged that Jack was to look over the launch in the morning and if possible fix it up so it could be brought back to town. If the task was beyond him he was to tow it over behind the Crystal Spring. “Anyhow,” he said, “I’ll be here at nine o’clock with her, Hal. You’d better be around then. Good-night!”

“Good-night, and thank you very much for everything, Jack.”

“Not forgetting the supper,” added Bee. “Nor the chart. Will you go with me, Herrick, and look for buried treasure?”

“I will if I can find the time,” laughed Jack. “Good-night!”

Faith added her farewell to his and the dory backed out, leaving the two boys on the landing.

“Port your helm!” bawled Bee.

“Port it is, sir,” called Jack.

“Steady as you are!”

“Steady it is, sir!”

“Good-night!”

“Good-night!”

CHAPTER V
Bee Composes an “Ode to The Sea”

Jack was promptly on time the next morning, the Crystal Spring crowding her nose into the basin just as the clock in the white tower of the City Hall struck nine. Behind the water boat came the launch. By the time Jack had made a landing Hal and Bee came down the gangway to the float.

“I got the engine together all right,” explained Jack as the boys viewed the launch from the stern of the sloop, “but I couldn’t make her start. I’m pretty sure the trouble’s in the wiring. I didn’t have time to go over it thoroughly, Hal. If I were you I’d start at the battery and follow it right up.”

“But I couldn’t tell whether it was right or wrong,” Hal objected. “I guess I’d better get a man to come and fix her up, Jack.”

“Well—but he will charge you three or four dollars, Hal.” Jack frowned thoughtfully. Then, “I tell you what I’ll do. You leave her here until noon, and I’ll come back and look her over, Hal. I’d do it now but there are two or three schooners coming in and they may want water. I’ll come back about twelve. Will you be here?”

“I guess so.” He looked enquiringly at Bee. “There’s nothing especial to do, I suppose.”

“Let’s loaf around the wharves,” said Bee, “and come back here at noon. There’s lots I want to see, Hal. I want to know how they dry the fish, and what the difference is between a haddock and a pollock, and why is a codfish and—oh, lots of things! I think it’s dandy of Herrick to take so much trouble with your old chug-chug and the least we can do is to be on hand and encourage him with our cheerful presence. Besides, it’s quite necessary, if we’re to find that buried treasure, to have this thing fixed up so she’ll take us over to the island.”

“Well, I’ll try to get here by twelve,” said Jack, as he pushed the nose of the sloop away from the landing and swung himself aboard. “And if you can be here you’d better. We may have to have some new wiring or connections or something. And, by the way, Hal, why don’t you stop at Whiting’s and buy a folding anchor and some rope? You oughtn’t to go out again without it, you know.”

“I will. And some other stuff, too. She’s got to have lanterns and a fog-horn, I suppose. And a compass, and—”

“A tomato can,” said Bee gravely. “I refuse to trust my young and valuable life to her again without a tomato can.”

“If I put all the things in her that the law requires,” said Hal gloomily, “I’d be broke. Besides, there wouldn’t be any room for me!”

“Did you find those things I couldn’t get back, Herrick?” Bee asked.

“Yes, they were kicking around in a foot or so of rain water. They weren’t important, anyhow,” he continued with a smile. “Just two or three nuts from the cylinder heads and the commutator. Well, see you later, fellows.”

The Crystal Spring swung her long boom outboard and crept away from the landing, leaving Hal and Bee looking after her.

“I like that chap,” said Bee with conviction. “I think I’ll have to have him along when I look for that buried treasure.”

“If you don’t keep still about your old buried treasure,” laughed Hal, “I’ll dump you into the harbor.”

“You will, eh? In the first place, my young friend, you wouldn’t dare to, and in the second place you couldn’t do it. Now lead me to the codfish.”

When they returned to the Town Landing at twelve the Crystal Spring and her skipper were before them. Jack waved his hand in triumph as they came down the gangway. “I found the trouble,” he announced. “It was just a loose connection here at this binding post, where the wire grounds on the engine. I’ve been all over the wiring and tightened everything up and she will run like a breeze now. Want to try her?”

They piled in, Jack put the switch on, threw the fly-wheel over once and the engine started. Then he threw the clutch in and took the wheel. The launch moved briskly out of the basin, swung around the corner of the sea-wall and, Jack advancing the throttle, began to chug down the harbor at a good ten miles. Bee looked on in awe.

“You certainly understand these things, Herrick,” he said admiringly.

“I used to have a little one-cylinder motor boat when I was about twelve,” replied Jack. “She wasn’t anything like this, but the principal is the same with all of them. Hal, you’ll find that she’ll do best with your throttle about there; see? If you advance it any farther she’ll begin to miss a little. If you want more speed open the cut-out, although that really doesn’t make very much difference, I guess. She steers nicely, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, and she’ll turn almost in her length,” said Hal. “Suppose that carbureter gets out of order, Jack, what do I do?”

“Take my advice and don’t do anything,” replied Jack with a smile. “It’s dollars to doughnuts the trouble’s somewhere else and if you monkey with the carbureter you’ll never get it back again where it was. Sometimes on a cold morning you’ll have trouble getting the right mixture. Hold your hand over the air intake in that case; flood the carbureter first, though. You may have to turn her over a good many times, but she’ll start finally. I wouldn’t fuss with the carbureter ever, Hal.”

“Of course not,” said Bee. “Why, even I had sense enough not to touch that yesterday!”

“Then I’ll bet you didn’t see it,” said Hal. “You took everything else to pieces!”

“I know I did. And look how she went afterwards! I guess you never saw a launch drift any faster than she did out there!”

Jack brought the boat around in a long turn and headed back toward the basin. “Well, I guess you’ll find now that she’ll do something else beside drift. She can make a good twelve miles with the tide, Hal.”

At the landing Jack turned the launch over to her owner and scrambled back to the Crystal Spring. “I haven’t had any lunch yet,” he said, “so I’ll have to get busy. You and your friend come over in the launch some time and see me, Hal. I’m usually around after four, and most all day on Sunday.”

“We will,” Hal replied, “and I’m awfully much obliged for everything you’ve done, Jack. Hope I’ll be able to pay you back some day.”

“Oh, that’s nothing; glad I could do it,” answered Jack as he hauled in the sheet. “Hope she’ll go all right, Hal. So long.”

The others waved to him from the float as the Crystal Spring poked her blunt nose harborward and then turned to climb the hill to Hal’s home and luncheon. In the afternoon they installed the anchor in the locker forward under the gasoline tank, fixed the new lanterns where they belonged, stowed a patent fog-horn and a box compass under one of the seats and then went out for a spin. Bee wanted to learn how to steer and Hal gave him the wheel, but not until they were out of the press of boats in the harbor. Bee had one or two narrow escapes from running into the sea-wall, but by the time they were over the bar he had learned the knack of it. Meanwhile Hal sought to acquaint himself with the mechanism of his engine, slowing it down, stopping it and starting again until Bee protested that the engine would get peeved and refuse to go at all. But fortunately nothing like that happened and they went down the shore beyond The Lump, turned seaward there and headed toward Popple Head and the lighthouse. It was a fine day, with plenty of bright sunlight and a brisk southwesterly breeze that kicked up enough of a swell to send the spray flying aboard now and then. Bee was in his element and insisted on singing all the nautical songs he knew, which, however, were not many. After that he amused himself by turning the bow of the boat so that she got the waves on the quarter and wasn’t detected by Hal until that young gentleman had been thrice drenched to the skin by the clouds of spray that swept over him. Bee, crouching low, escaped the worst of them. Hal made him head the boat around again and Bee had to find a new amusement. He finally solved the problem by composing what he called “An Ode to the Sea” and singing it to an improvised tune that, to Hal at least, lacked harmony.

“O Sea! O Sea! O beautiful Sea!

O Sea! O Sea! O Sea! O Sea!

You’re full of salt and wet, I know,

And you kick up a fuss when the wind do blow!

Some say you’re blue; I think you’re green,

But you’re the nicest Sea I’ve ever seen.

You’re full of waves and fishes, too,

And if I had a line I know what I’d do.

O Sea! O Sea! O beautiful Sea!

You make an awful hit with me.

O Sea! O Sea! O——”

Just then Hal threatened him with an oil-can and his muse deserted him. Off the light they turned back toward the harbor, running alongside the gray granite breakwater, and Bee found much to interest him. The tide was low and along the wall the seaweed hung in swaying fringes. Now and then he saw a star-fish or a crab, and once the launch almost bumped into the breakwater when he caught sight of a rock-cod and nearly fell overboard in his excitement.

“Hal, do you realize,” he asked a minute later, “that this noble craft has no name?”

“Yes, what shall we call her?”

That led to a long discussion that lasted until they were around the beacon and chugging past Gull Island, Hal thoughtfully reducing the boat’s speed to something like four miles an hour for fear that Bee might see another rock-cod! All sorts of names were suggested, but none seemed just right, and finally Bee said; “It’s no use. All the perfectly good names I suggest you don’t like. And you can’t think of any good ones yourself. We’ll leave it to Jack Herrick!”

“The dickens we will! I intend to name my own boat!”

“You’re not a good namer,” replied Bee firmly. “Jack Herrick can mend an engine and run it. Any fellow who can do that can find a right name, Hal. We will go after the Crystal Spring and demand a name for your launch.”

But the Crystal Spring wasn’t to be found, although the launch went up the harbor and back again. Then, as it was getting toward five o’clock they decided to give up the search and seek the landing.

“Tomorrow,” said Bee, “is Sunday. We will go over in the morning and call on Jack Herrick. Meanwhile the launch must wait for a name.”

“I like Sea Spray,” said Hal.

“I’m glad you do,” laughed Bee. “You got quite a lot of it!”

“Or, maybe, Mermaid,” added Hal.

“Mermaid! That’s a punk name! You might as well call it—call it—” Bee searched wildly for a simile—“call it Annabel Lee!”

“Who’s Annabel Lee?” asked Hal.

“I don’t know. It’s just a—a name, I guess; I mean, I cal’ate; nothing like speaking the language of the people you’re with.”

“We don’t say ‘cal’ate’,” protested Hal. “We talk just as good English as you Pennsylvania Dutch do!”

“Well, don’t get waxy about it. I like ‘cal’ate’; it—it’s expressive. Say, what do I do when I get to the landing? Run the bow up on the float, or what?”

“No, you don’t, you idiot! Here, let me have the wheel. You climb out there and take the boat-hook—Gee, we haven’t got any boat-hook, have we? Well, take an oar.”

“The oars are in the locker and you’re sitting on it,” said Bee. “I’ll use my feet.”

So he climbed to the bow and sat there until the launch approached the float and then fended her off with his feet, finally jumping ashore with the painter and making it fast quite knowingly. Then, after seeing the launch safe for the night, the two boys went home to dinner, very proud of their seamanship and very hungry by reason of it.

CHAPTER VI
[Bee Plans An Expedition]

Jack was sitting on the side steps with a shoe in one hand and a blacking-brush in the other. It was nine o’clock Sunday morning and the late breakfast had been over for some time. From the open window of the kitchen, just over his right shoulder, the voices of Aunt Mercy and Susan, the maid, issued cheerfully. Somewhere upstairs Faith was moving about at her morning duties, singing like a thrush. It was a wonderful day. It gave promise of being seasonably warm later on, but just now the sunlight was but comfortably ardent and a little westerly breeze stole across the Neck and the harbor beyond, salty and cool. The house stood some thirty yards from the water, half-way up a little hill green with wild grass and the anemone and sheep-laurel. Herrick’s Cove was a tiny indentation in The Front, as the natives called the ocean side of the Neck, sufficiently protected by jutting ledges at the mouth to make a safe anchorage, with the hill at the back shielding it from the northerly and westerly storms. Between high water and the commencement of the slope a small, steep crescent of beach lay. Into the cove at one side ran a line of spiles supporting both a narrow plank, upon which an agile person could walk to the end, and a four-inch iron pipe. Against the farther spiles the Crystal Spring was moored. The pipe led up hill to the spring and when Jack wanted to fill the tank in the water boat he had only to lift the hatch, drop in the end of a length of cotton hose connecting with the pipe and turn a cock. The cove this morning was as blue as the sky above and as untroubled. The sloop, the tall spiles, and the jutting rocks were reflected as though in a mirror.

The house was a low two-story structure, painted white, with blinds which, originally green, had been wrought upon by the salt winds until they were now of a hue more blue than green. Along the south side of the house a flower bed was already in bloom with old-fashioned spring posies. (Aunt Mercy’s flowers always bloomed a week earlier than any on the Neck.) There was no fence about the house. The front door faced the road that ambled westward to the lighthouse and northward followed the harbor side, ever curving, until it reached the town. Across the road were other houses perched here and there between it and the harbor shore. The settlement was known as Herrick’s Cove, just as the cluster of houses at the other end of Neck was known as The Fort and the residences on the harbor edge half way to the canal, which divided Neck from town, was called The Center. Aside from these settlements Greenhaven Neck was a bare expanse of moorland with here and there a granite ledge lifting its head from the tangle of stunted trees and pepper-bush, sweet-fern, wax-berry and laurel and here and there a bog filled with sphagnum moss and cranberry. One or two summer cottages had gone up on The Front, but in the main, Nature still held full sway.

From where Jack sat on the side steps industriously shining his Sunday shoes he could look straight ahead along the dusty road to where the squatty stone lighthouse, dazzlingly white in the sunlight, stood firmly on its granite ledge. Beyond it, against the blue summer sky, a flock of gulls were circling and dipping, their plaintive, discordant cries coming to him on the breeze. Suddenly, above the hungry notes of the seagulls and the lisp of the west wind and the sounds from the house, came the steady chug, chug, chug of a motor boat. Idly, Jack wondered whose it was and arose to his feet to look. But the boat was hidden by the shore and he subsided again and gave a final brush to the shoe he held. Then he set it down beside its fellow, already polished, and began to whistle one of his tuneless airs, tapping time against the edge of the step below with the blacking brush. At that moment the chug of the motor boat grew suddenly louder and Jack looked down to the cove just as a white launch came around the corner. The boy in the bow at the wheel waved a greeting. Jack waved back and descended the slope. The engine stopped its chatter and the launch sidled up to a spile near the beach. Hal shouted a direction and Bee, leaving the wheel, clambered to the deck in front and picked up the painter. Then leaning toward the spile he sought to pass the end of the rope about it. The natural result was that he pushed the bow of the launch away and in a moment he was clutching the slippery post with his arms and striving to pull back the launch with his feet.

“Whoa!” he shouted. “Come back here! Hey, Hal, push her back!”

But Hal, having no boat-hook nor oar at hand, was helpless, and a moment later the launch had abandoned Bee to his fate and he was clinging to the spile with arms and legs. Jack, on the beach, shouted with laughter. Hal, pulling at an obdurate locker lid to get an oar, sputtered directions and advice.

“Hold tight, Bee! Just a minute! I’ll get an oar! Hang this thing! I can’t get it open! Reach up and grab the plank, Bee!”

But when Bee tried to adopt the latter suggestion he began to slip down the spile and so, with a yell of dismay, returned to his close embrace. By that time Jack had recovered from his amusement and went to the rescue. Climbing onto the plank, he hurried out and reached down a hand to Bee.

“Here, take hold and I’ll pull you up,” he said with a chuckle.

“If I do I’ll drop,” panted Bee. “Take hold yourself!”

So Jack got a grip around one of his wrists and finally Bee managed to wriggle up to the plank. Then he sat down, with his feet hanging over the water, and laughed until the tears came. And Hal, bobbing helplessly about in the middle of the cove, and Jack, clinging to the pipe, laughed with him.

“Did—did you see that launch trip me up?” gasped Bee finally. “And—and look at my Sunday-go-to-meeting suit! It’s all over green slime and crushed oysters! It’s completely spiled!”

“Oh, what a pun!” cried Hal. “Push him overboard, Jack!”

But Jack, viewing Bee’s clothes, had mercy. “You are in a mess, aren’t you?” he asked solicitously. “The crushed oysters, as you call them, will brush off, but that green stain will stick like anything. I’m awfully sorry, Mansfield.”

Bee viewed the front of his attire philosophically. “Well, anyway,” he said, “I won’t have to go to church today, will I? There’s nothing like looking on the bright side of misfortune. Throw us the line, Hal, and we’ll pull you in.”

“You run away and play,” replied Hal, working vigorously with an oar and making little headway. “The line won’t reach half-way there.”

“Well, keep on rowing, old chap. Only be sure and have the launch here by the time I want to go back. Come on, Herrick, let’s go ashore.”

“If you’d kept hold of the line when you had it,” muttered Hal.

“Get up in the bow,” Jack advised. “Then you can put your oar over either side.”

Following that direction, Hal made better progress and at last the launch was tied up to the spiling and Hal had clambered up beside the others. Then they filed ashore and walked up to the house. Bee said he “cal’ated” he wouldn’t go inside as he wasn’t very presentable and so they sat down on the steps.

“How does she run?” asked Jack.

“Like a breeze,” replied Hal enthusiastically. “She’ll be all right now, I guess, if I can keep Bee from meddling with the engine.”

“Humph!” said Bee. “The next time you break down out of sight of land you can do your own repairing.”

“I intend to; don’t you worry! Gee, but it’s swell over here, isn’t it, Bee?”

“Fine and dandy,” replied Bee. “Wish I lived here. Are those chicken-coops yours, Herrick?”

“Yes, but they’re lobster-pots,” laughed Jack.

“Oh!” said Bee blankly. Then, recovering quickly; “I meant chicken-lobster coops,” he explained. “Do you catch many?”

“No, not many nowadays. There used to be plenty of them, but they’re dying out. I’ve got a couple of pots out there now; see where those little red floats are, just beyond the cove? I haven’t looked at them this morning, but I guess there’s nothing in them.”

“Think of catching your own lobsters!” exclaimed Bee wonderingly. “Bet you I know one thing about lobsters you don’t think I do.”

“All right,” said Hal. “Go ahead, professor.”

“They aren’t red when you catch ’em. I forget who told me that. It’s cooking that makes them red. Clever, what?”

“Awfully,” laughed Jack. “And do you know what to use to open an oyster?”

“An ax, I suppose.”

“No, an oyster cracker.”

Bee looked dejectedly at Hal. “Isn’t he a cute little rascal?” he asked mournfully. “‘How do you open a clam? Answer: Use an oyster cracker.’ Isn’t that funny?”

“You’re a clam,” said Hal. “And, say, instead of wasting the golden moments asking conundrums, Bee, we’d better get down to business.”

“Right-o! Jack we have come to consult you on two subjects. In the first place, what are you going to do this afternoon?”

“Oh, forget about this afternoon,” exclaimed Hal, “and let’s get the name fixed up.”

“Everything in turn, old Hal,” replied Bee soothingly. “Let us dispose of the more important affairs first.” He looked enquiringly at Jack.

“This afternoon?” asked Jack. “I don’t know. What’s up?”

“Well, can you come with us and show us Nobody’s Island? Hal says he knows where it is and can go right to it, but I don’t trust him. Will you come along?”

“Yes, if you want me to. How are you going?”

Bee nodded toward the cove. “In that,” he said sadly. “Are you brave enough?”

“I’ll risk it if you fellows will,” Jack laughed. “We can keep close to shore, you know. What time?”

“What time do we have dinner, Hal?”

“Two, on Sundays.”

“My, that’s a long way off! Well, we will say at three, Mr. Herrick. How is that?”

“Any time’s all right for me. I’ll look for you about three or a little later. Are you still thinking of digging for old Verny’s treasure?”

“I certainly am! And if it’s there I’m going to find it! I’ve purchased a book entitled ‘Historical Greenhaven’ and have read all it has to say on the subject of Nobody’s Island and your old friend Verny. The book says that several times silver dollars and pieces of jewelry have been picked up on the beach there. That looks promising, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but I never really heard of but one silver dollar being found, and that was so worn that you couldn’t be certain it had ever been a dollar.”

“But the book says!”

“Oh, don’t be a mule, Bee! Don’t you suppose Jack knows what he’s talking about? Books tell all sorts of lies.”

“All right. But if there’s been one dollar picked up it shows that there are more there.”

“Just how do you figure that out?” asked Hal.

“Logic, my son, logic. That’s something you aren’t acquainted with. But never mind that now. I wrote a letter to my father last night, Herrick—Say, I’m going to call you Jack, if you don’t mind?—And I told him that I was organizing an expedition to search for buried treasure and that he was to send me fifty dollars immediately to outfit the expedition.”

[Bee Plans an Expedition.]

Jack smiled. “Think you’ll get the fifty?” he asked.

“No, not more than twenty-five. But I’ve got twenty dollars now and so I’ll have enough. This thing is going to be done right, fellows; it’s going to be done scientifically. This afternoon we will look over the ground, do you see? Then I’ll know just what is necessary. In two or three days I’ll be ready to begin operations.”

“You’re a silly chump,” laughed Hal. “He won’t talk of anything but Nobody’s Island and hidden treasure, Jack! And he wants to go and camp out there and dig the whole place up!”

“Why not?” asked Bee. “Wouldn’t it be fun camping out, even if we didn’t find anything? Think of the good time we could have!”

“What would we eat?” asked Hal dubiously.

“Fish, which I would catch when I wasn’t digging, and all sorts of things in cans. We could take fresh meat with us, too, I guess. I wish you wouldn’t think so much about your old stomach, Hal.”

“Well, it’s the only one I have and it’s got to last me,” replied Hal untroubledly. “How about you, Jack? Want to join the party?”

“I’d like to awfully, but I don’t suppose I could. I have to stay with the ship down there. I haven’t camped out since I was a little bit of a chap. Maybe I could manage for a couple of days, say Saturday and Sunday.”

“How much,” asked Bee, “will you rent the Crystal Spring and your own personal services for by the week, Jack?”

Jack smiled. “I guess we aren’t for rent,” he said.

“Why not? I’m in earnest. I want you to go along and I’d feel a heap more safe if we had the sloop to depend on. Not that I don’t love that dear little launch down there, but just look what it did to me today! Now come on, like a good chap! What’s your figure?”

“Why—why, if you really mean it,” said Jack, “I guess you can have the Crystal Spring and her skipper for—well, about fifteen a week. That’s pretty near as much as I’ve been making lately.”

“Pretty near as much won’t do,” replied Bee emphatically. “I shall pay you twenty.”

“No, fifteen’s enough.”

“Twenty!”

“Compromise on seventeen-fifty,” advised Hal.

“All right! It’s a bargain, Jack. You’ll get your sailing orders in a day or two; say about Wednesday. We’ll go up or down or over or whatever it is in the sloop and haul the launch with us. We can use the launch for pleasure and the sloop for business.”

“I don’t see any need of having a whole blooming navy on hand,” objected Hal. “If we have the sloop we won’t need the launch, and if we have the launch—”

“Don’t mumble, Hal; talk right out if you have anything to say,” advised Bee. “Now, what time might it be? Great Scott, Hal, we’ll have to scoot!”

“Well, but—”

“Now never mind your ‘buts’; come along!” and Bee seized him by the arm and proceeded to drag him down to the cove. “You might as well learn discipline right now, old Hal. We’ll be back about three, Jack.”

“But we didn’t do anything about that name for the launch,” Hal objected. “I thought we were going to ask Jack—”

“We were, but more important affairs prevented. We’ll attend to that this afternoon. So long, Jack! Turn her over, Hal! That’s the ticket! Once more! There she blows! Reverse her, Hal; we’ll have to back out or sink the water boat. All right; slow ahead! Great work! We didn’t bump a thing! Three o’clock, Jack! Bye, bye!”

CHAPTER VII
On Nobody’s Island

It was nearer half-past three than three, however, when the launch, heralded by a dismal solo on the patent fog-horn by Bee, came into Herrick’s Cove. Jack was all ready, sitting perched on the bow of the sloop. He had taken off his Sunday clothes and felt more comfortable; especially since he had changed those highly-polished shoes for a pair of brown canvas “sneakers.” He tumbled into the launch as Hal ran her alongside and a moment or two later they were chugging down the coast, the rocky shore of The Front only a good stone-throw away. (Bee declared he felt safer near land). Soon Fort Point was reached and Hal and Jack showed Bee the old fortifications thrown up by the citizens of Greenhaven in the War of 1812. A cluster of neat little white houses surrounded the embankments and a few seats dotted the green slopes. Then the Neck was left behind and the launch headed across Eight-Fathom Cove, with Cove Village hugging the yellow beach a half-mile away. Beyond the village Toller’s Sands began, a two-mile stretch of slightly-curving beach backed by white sand-dunes bare of vegetation save for a few patches of sedge and here and there a stunted, grotesque tree.

“There used to be a farm there,” remarked Jack, who was steering. “But the sand finally buried it up. They say that if you dig into that long dune you’ll find the old house. A few years ago some of the fence posts were still sticking up out of the sand, but they’ve gone, too, now.”

“Do you mean,” asked Bee with wide eyes, “that the sand covered up the farm and the house and everything?”

“Yes, but I guess the farm wasn’t a very big one.”

“But—but how long did it take? Why didn’t they stop it?”

“You can’t stop that sand when it starts going. I don’t know how long it took; probably two or three years, though. One day when I was over there with my father he took a piece of wood we found on the beach and laid it on the sand back there and watched. In twenty minutes it was covered up and when we came back a couple of hours later there was a regular mound there. That’s the way those dunes start. A bunch of grass or something gets in the way and the sand blows into and makes a little lump as big as your two hands, perhaps. Then the sand blows and blows—it’s always moving, even on still days—and more of it lodges there, and more and more, and finally there’s a hill as big as those you see. They’re always changing, too. The sand blows from one to another, and sometimes in the Fall or the Winter a big tide sweeps over the beach and eats into them. You get a dandy view from that biggest one. Ever been up there, Hal?”

“No, I guess not. I haven’t been over to the Dunes for years. It would be fun to go some time, wouldn’t it?”

“I’d love to,” agreed Bee. “And we might take shovels and dig out that house!”

“Yes, that would be a nice way to spend a month or two,” replied Hal sarcastically. “Any time you want to amuse yourself that way, Bee, I’ll furnish the shovel.”

“Is that Nobody’s Island there ahead?” asked Bee.

“No, that’s Toller’s Rock,” Jack explained. “The island is beyond it, around the corner. That black reef dead ahead is The Clinker. We’ll keep outside it today, although when the tide is full you can get in between it and the shore.”

The dunes gave place to low grassy hills and Toller’s Rock sprang from the latter, a great mass of weather-beaten granite, and jutted boldly into the sea. Once around The Clinker their destination was in plain sight. The shore receded for several hundred yards to the mouth of a little river which wound its way inland through miles of salt marsh. Beyond the river’s mouth a rounded hill arose from the marsh level. It was well grassed on the landward side and a considerable grove of small trees clothed the summit which was perhaps forty or fifty feet above the beach. Here and there a ledge cropped out, suggesting that at one time Nobody’s Island had been just what Toller’s Rock was now, a bare mass of granite. But why Nature had clothed the one rock and left the other bare was not evident. Bee looked somewhat disappointed as he gazed at it.

“It isn’t very—very romantic looking, is it?” he asked. “It ought to be more rugged and—and forbidding.”

“You’re hard to suit,” laughed Jack. “We’ll anchor in the river, Hal; there used to be an old pier there.”

The pier hardly deserved the name any longer, for all that remained of it were a few rotting spiles. But after the launch had negotiated the sand-bar at the entrance to the little stream Jack worked it in between the spiles and passed the line around one of them and over a rusty spike. Then they pushed the stern of the launch to within a few feet of the shore and managed to jump ashore. The place of disembarkation was some fifty yards up the river and on the southwestern side of the island. Bee declared, though, that it was poppycock to call the place an island, since it was surrounded by water on but three sides. What it really amounted to was a hill rising from a sandy floor that was some six feet above high tide, with the ocean on two sides of it and Clam River on the third. On the fourth side, inland, nothing remained to show that at one time the river had flowed there too, although, as Jack pointed out, only some two hundred feet of sand, sprinkled with beach-grass, separated ocean and stream.

“Some day when there’s a good big northeaster and a high tide the ocean will eat through there again, as like as not, and then it will be a real island once more.”

“Let’s go to the top,” suggested Bee. “One of the first things to do is to make a map of it.”

“What do you want a map for?” asked Hal.

“What for?” Bee viewed him with disgust. “Don’t you know you always have to have a map of a place where you’re going to search for buried treasure? Honestly, Hal, sometimes I look at you in wonder! Don’t you know nothing, scarcely?”

They climbed the hill and reached the grove on top. The trees—oak, maple, wild cherry and hemlock—were small, but vigorous. Bee pointed to one disgustedly.

“That’s a nice thing to find on a treasure island,” he said. “A lot of names and initials cut in a tree trunk! It’s almost enough to discourage a fellow right at the start! I dare say as soon as we get nicely settled and begin to dig for that gold a lot of folks will come here and have a picnic!”

“Well, you needn’t be surprised if someone comes here to camp,” said Jack. “There’s usually a camp or so here every summer, although since the bridge across the river up there fell down it isn’t quite so handy to get to.”

“Oh, they’ll probably build a new bridge or start a ferry,” replied Bee pessimistically. “Let’s sit down here and meditate.”

A flat rock, sprinkled with half-rotted needles from a hemlock tree that grew beside it, afforded an excellent seat. Behind them was the grove; in front the slope of the hill, more abrupt here than elsewhere and covered with coarse grass and bay-berry bushes. Wherever a rock cropped out a little colony of Christmas ferns grew precariously. Just above the beach ran a tangle of sedge and low bushes; wild cherry, sweet fern, sheep laurel; interspersed with weeds and blackberry briars. To the left, half-way down the slope, one lone tree, dwarfed and misshapen, rustled a few leaves in the soft breeze.

“We’ll name this Lookout Rock,” said Bee. “You get a dandy view from here, don’t you?”

Before them lay mile on mile of blue ocean, asparkle in the afternoon sunlight, dotted here and there with a white sail or a trail of smoke.

“Old Verny picked out a pretty good place to build his house, didn’t he?” asked Hal. “Do you know where it stood, Jack?”

“No, I don’t. Somewhere on the ocean side, probably. Perhaps right below where we’re sitting.”

“Was it pulled down or what happened to it?”

“They say the sheriffs or revenue men or whoever they were burned it down when they arrested the old chap. I suppose that explains why there isn’t any of it left. I’ve never seen even a timber of it.”

“I suppose those rocks out there,” said Bee, pointing to the right, “are The Tombstones.”

“Yes, and many a schooner has piled up there, too,” answered Jack. “Father used to say that on a very calm day you could look down between Big Tombstone and Little Tombstone and see the ribs of a ship. I never saw them, though. Usually it’s too rough.”

“You say they used to carry a lantern to attract the boats,” mused Bee. “Where did they do it?”

“Why, right along the beach down there, I guess. On the other side, too, probably; that would catch the boats coming down the shore. They’d think the lantern was a light on another ship and first thing they’d know they were piled up on the rocks or the sands. I never heard what happened to Old Verny. Some say they put him in prison for life, though. They should have hung him!”

“Maybe they did,” said Bee. “Maybe his ghost haunts the island on dark and stormy nights. Wouldn’t that be corking?”

Hal shivered. “If I ever see his ghost around here I’ll take the shortest and quickest route home!”

“Well, I’m going to walk around and make a map of the place,” said Bee, arising energetically. “Want to come?”

Both Jack and Hal, however, declared that they were quite comfortable and that they would wait for him where they were.

“Don’t get lost,” laughed Hal. “And if you come across Old Verny ask him where he buried his treasure.”

Bee produced a pencil and a small tablet of paper and strode off. Jack and Hal exchanged amused glances.

“He’s daffy on the subject,” said Hal. “Doesn’t talk about anything else.”

“Does he really mean to come here and dig?” asked Jack.

“Oh, yes, he’s absolutely serious about it. We’re to bring a tent here and camp out. I don’t mind. I rather like camping out, don’t you? And he insists that you must come with us. He thinks you’re pretty fine, Jack, and says we can’t get along without you. I hope you’ll come.”

“Why, I’d like to. I don’t want to make him pay me for it, Hal, but—I don’t think I could afford to do it unless he did. Has he a lot of money?”

“Bee? Oh, yes; his father’s terribly rich, I believe; he’s a coal operator, whatever that is; owns mines, I guess. Bee gets money whenever he asks for it, pretty near. Still, he doesn’t usually waste it like this. I don’t mean that he’s mean, because he isn’t; he gives a lot to the school funds, like football and baseball and such; but he’s always careful to get his money’s worth.”

“Well, it would be rather good fun to have a camp here for a week or so; especially if we struck good weather, and we’re likely to at this time of year. There’s good fishing all around here, and good shooting, too, in season; lots of ducks on the marsh back there in the Fall. I don’t quite see why he wants the Crystal Spring here, though.”

Hal laughed. “Oh, he just wants to do the thing right, I guess. Thinks it would look more like the stories he’s read. He’s always getting hold of some book about buried treasure; doesn’t read any other kind if he can help it. We might as well humor him. Of course, the hunting for the treasure part of it is just nonsense, but he likes to make believe that he’s going to find it.”

“There’s a whole lot of ground to dig up,” said Jack with a smile. “Of course, if we knew just where Old Verny had his house we might have a go at it, but as we don’t it would be pretty hopeless.”

“Seems as though some of the old fellows in town ought to know where the cabin stood,” reflected Hal. “It wasn’t much more than thirty or forty years ago, was it, that it was burned?”

“About forty-one or two, I suppose.”

“Bee talks to every old chap he runs across on the water-front,” said Hal, “and maybe he’s got a clue. Hello!”

Hal had been digging with his heel in the brown loam at the foot of the rock and now he leaned over and picked something up.

“What do you suppose this is?” he asked, as he bent over it.

“Looks like a buckle,” said Jack. “It’s a funny one, though. Is it iron?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Hal scraped a corner of it on the rock. “By jove, it’s gold, Jack!”

CHAPTER VIII
Hal Names the Launch

“Let’s see.” Jack took the buckle and examined it. It was nearly three inches long and almost as wide and was a heavy, clumsy contraption. Opening his knife, he scraped it a little. Then he shook his head. “Brass,” he said.

“Is it?” Hal was disappointed and his face fell. “Well, I never saw a brass buckle like that before. What do you suppose it was for?”

“It might have come off a harness,” mused Jack. “Only—no I don’t believe it did. Looks more like a buckle you’d wear. I guess it’s pretty old. Let’s take it home and clean it up and see what it looks like. Maybe it was Old Verny’s.”

Just then Bee came climbing up the slope and they showed it to him.

“Great!” he exclaimed as he took it and looked at it. “An old buckle, unmistakably Spanish!”

“Unmistakably your grandmother!” jeered Hal. “How do you know it’s Spanish?”

“It must be. It isn’t American, is it?”

“No, I suppose not. But it might be Chinese or Egyptian or Italian or—”

“Well, it looks Spanish to me,” persisted Bee. “I shall keep it and polish it up.”

“You’ll keep it! Say, who found that thing, I’d like to know?”

“Whatever is found,” replied Bee, dropping the trophy in his pocket, “belongs to the Company, my young friend.”

“What Company?”

“The Treasure Hunters’ Company, Limited,” replied Bee. “That’s us. When we get through we will make an even distribution of everything we have found—”

“Gee, we’ll be rich!” Hal jeered. “What are you going to do with your share, Jack?”

“I guess I’ll put an addition on the house,” replied Jack gravely, “or—no, I know what I’ll do; I’ll put a gasoline engine into the Crystal Spring!”

“I shall invest my share in United States bonds,” said Hal importantly. “Nothing like owning a few bonds. Then, when you’re old and decrepit—”

“Shut up,” said Bee good-naturedly, pushing his way between them and seating himself on the rock. “Now look here, fellow members of the Company. I’ve been over the place and [here’s a rough map of it]. Of course I haven’t got distances absolutely correct, but they’re near enough. They are—er—relatively correct.”

“Think of that!” murmured Hal.

“Now,” continued Bee, “it’s evident that when it comes to digging for the treasure we may—er—eliminate practically three-fourths of the island.”

“Why?” asked Jack, studying the rough map that Bee held.

“Because at that time there was a branch of the river running along somewhere about here. I’ve indicated it with broken lines, you see. Old Verny wouldn’t have been likely to have built his house right on the river, would he?”

“N—no, probably not. It’s pretty certain he built it somewhere around the south side of the hill, Bee. Around here we usually try to get protection from the north winds, you see.”

[MAP OF NOBODY’S ID.]

BY B. MANSFIELD

“My own idea exactly, Jack,” agreed Bee. “He certainly didn’t build it here at the northeast side because that’s all ledge there and he’d have blown away, I guess. He wouldn’t have put it at the back of the hill because he wouldn’t have had any view of the sea except over toward the north. He’d have kept away from the east side because, as Jack says, he’d have got the north winds more or less. That accounts for three sides, doesn’t it? Well, and it leaves us the south side. He would have been sheltered there and he would have been near the river where he must have kept his boat and where he probably had a landing. Do you think those posts down there are part of his pier, Jack?”

“I think so. It isn’t likely that anyone would have built a wharf here.”

“All right. We’re agreed then that the house or the cabin or whatever he lived in was on the south side of the island. Then the question arises: just where was it on the south side?”

“He’s a wonderful arguer, isn’t he, Jack? And, professor, what is the answer to the question which has arisen?”

“It isn’t answered definitely yet,” replied Bee, digging Hal with his elbow, “but if we bear in mind that the old rascal wanted shelter from the north, as he undoubtedly did, we can—er—reduce the probable territory to a small tract. He wouldn’t build very near the beach for fear of high tides, and he couldn’t have built up here on top because the trees are too close together. I’ve looked through this grove and there’s no evidence of any clearing. So, then—”

“Hold on a minute,” interrupted Jack. “You’re forgetting that these trees may have grown since Old Verny left. I dare say lots of them aren’t more than twenty or thirty years old.”

Bee frowned. “That’s so,” he acknowledged. “But wait a bit, Jack. If the trees weren’t here when Verny was he certainly wouldn’t have built on such a bleak spot as the top of the hill, would he?”

“No, I don’t think he would have. I guess it’s safe to say his cabin was somewhere on the slope of the hill, and probably on the south or southwesterly side.”

“Oh, who cares where it was?” demanded Hal, with a yawn. “It isn’t there now and nobody knows that he ever buried any treasure.”

“Now, suppose, then,” continued Bee, undisturbed, “that we divide the island longitudinally and latitudinally with lines in this fashion. The lines, you see, intersect pretty nearly in the middle of this bunch of trees. That has no importance. I merely mention it.”

“For the love of Mike, Bee, get to something that has got importance!” implored Hal. “My brain is reeling already!”

“Your what?” asked Bee unkindly. “Now then, Jack, if we draw a line from where the latitudinal line and the edge of the grove meet on this side to where the longitudinal line meets the beach, and if we repeat the—er—operation on the other side, we have an isosceles triangle—”

“Help!” murmured Hal.

“Enclosing the territory within which it is probable that our old friend the wrecker had his cabin,” continued Bee, warming to his lecture. “It stands to reason, though, that he wouldn’t build very near the apex of the triangle—that is, near the beach—because he would be less protected there than farther up the slope. And we have already decided that he didn’t build on top of the hill. So, then, we have a very small territory left, hardly more than a hundred by, say, fifty. Get that, Hal?”

“I do not! What’s more, I refuse to listen to your ravings any longer. I’m sorry I brought you here. I—”

“Well, you see what I mean, don’t you, Jack?”

“Yes, and I guess your reasoning is all right, Bee. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Only it’s a fair guess that if we ever do find out where Old Verny had his cabin it’ll be somewhere we never thought of.”

“It can’t be,” replied Bee, “because I’ve thought of every place there is! Now come over here and let’s look about. If we know that he had his place somewhere within the territory—er—specified—”

“We don’t know it,” said Hal. “We’ve only got your word for it. And you talk so many words that no one knows what you’re saying. You fellows go and look, if you want to. I’m going to sleep.” And Hal slid down to the ground, put his shoulders against the rock, pulled his hat over his face and evinced every intention of carrying out his threat.

Bee observed him in pained disgust. “Honest, Hal, I’ve a good mind to leave you out of the Company. You don’t take any interest at all in things! Come on, Jack.”

They walked around nearer the river side of the hill and studied the slope there. There was nothing to indicate that at one time a house had stood on it. A few small boulders lay about, to be sure, but they had evidently never been used in building. To the left of Bee’s supposititious territory and just above the beach the small tree stood, misshapen and solitary. Aside from that the vegetation consisted of wild grass and briars and an occasional low bush of bay-berry or laurel. Bee frowned intently as he descended the hill, Jack following.

“What do you suppose his cabin was built of, Jack?”

“Wood, I suppose, since they burned it down. Probably of planks and stuff that he gathered along the shore. Perhaps he used timbers from the wrecks.”

“Wouldn’t he have had a foundation, though?”

“I don’t believe so. Anyway, there aren’t any stones in sight that look as though they’d been used that way. And, of course, burning the house wouldn’t have affected the foundation. Maybe they’ve got covered up, though.”

Bee shook his head silently as though disagreeing with that theory. Finally—

“What gets me, though,” he said, “is that there isn’t even a level place here. It doesn’t seem likely he’d have built on the slope without levelling off a bit.”

“I don’t know. The slope isn’t steep. He might have.”

“He must have. I’m certain the cabin stood somewhere around here. If I was going to dig I’d start pretty near where we’re standing.”

“But look here, Bee, we don’t know that; supposing, of course, he really did bury some money or something, he buried it near the house. He might have buried under a tree or—well, almost anywhere.”

“That’s true, but the story goes that the old chap saw the constables coming and hurriedly dug a hole and hid his wealth. Well, if that is so he wouldn’t have climbed to the top of the hill in plain sight of the officers; now would he? He’d probably have dug a hole behind the house or—That’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“Why, very likely he didn’t have any floor to his cabin and he just dug a hole in the dirt inside! How’s that?”

“Sounds likely enough,” Jack agreed. “But you don’t want to lose sight of the fact, Bee, that maybe there wasn’t anything buried, after all. If they didn’t see him do it, how did they know? And if they did see him do it they’d have dug it up. I wouldn’t bank too much on that yarn.”

“I know,” answered Bee untroubledly. “Still, it’s just as likely that there was treasure of some sort as that there wasn’t. If the old villain was piling ships up on the rocks here for twenty years or so, as the book I read said he did, he must have got something from them.”

“Well, if they were all schooners, and I guess they were, he wouldn’t find very rich pickings aside from the cargoes. Skippers don’t carry diamonds and gold around with them much.”

“They don’t now, maybe, but perhaps they used to. They traded around at different ports, didn’t they? Well, didn’t they have to have money with them to pay for things? Jack, I’m plumb sure there’s something buried on this island, and if I can find it I mean to. And, look here, you said awhile ago that he might have buried the stuff under a tree. Didn’t we decide that the trees weren’t there then?”

“I believe we did,” laughed Jack. “We don’t know that for certain, though. Maybe he buried it alongside a rock, Bee.”

Bee pondered that, his gaze sweeping the slope for likely boulders. “It wouldn’t be hard to dig beside the few rocks here,” he muttered, “and if everything else fails we’ll try that. Well, I suppose we’d better be getting back home. We can’t do any more here today, I guess!”

When they announced that intention to Hal he declared that it was the first sensible thing he had heard Bee say all the afternoon. After they were back in the launch and were moving slowly down the little river, dodging the sand-bars that infested it, Bee was strangely silent. But as he kept his eyes on Nobody’s Island as long as it was in sight it wasn’t hard to guess the reason. He was still pondering the problem of Old Verny’s treasure. Hal, catching Jack’s eyes, nodded at Bee and tapped his own head significantly. Jack smiled. Once around The Clinker, with Nobody’s Island lost behind Toller’s Rock, Bee came back to earth, however.

“We’ll start Tuesday, fellows,” he announced suddenly.

“Start where?” asked Hal, above the thumping of the engine.

“Start for the island; start our search for the treasure.”

“Tuesday? Why Tuesday?”

“Because it’s the day after tomorrow,” replied Bee. “Can you be ready then, Jack?”

“I guess so. You really mean to do it, then?”

“I surely do. We can get everything we want tomorrow, I think; we’ll get up a list tonight, Hal; and we can load the stuff onto the Crystal Spring Tuesday forenoon and go over to the island right after lunch. Can you have the sloop at the town landing about ten o’clock Tuesday forenoon, Jack?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“All right. That’s settled. Now, Hal, let’s settle on a name for the launch, eh?”

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” answered Hal. “She’s already named.”

“She is? What is it?”

“Her name is Corsair,” replied Hal with dignity.

“Horse Hair? Why Horse Hair?” asked Bee bewilderedly.

“I didn’t say Horse Hair I said Corsair!”

“Oh, Coarse Hair! Well, what—”

“C-o-r-s-a-i-r, Corsair, you silly goat!”

“Oh! And again oh! Corsair, eh? Well, that might do. What do you think, Jack?”

“Sounds all right to me,” replied Jack when the name had been relayed to him.

“Still, I think we might find a better one,” said Bee. “Now, let’s see—”

“Look here,” exclaimed Hal warmly, “she’s my boat and if I want to name her Corsair I guess I can. And I do. And so she is!”

“Grammatically, Hal, your construction is weak. ‘I do and so she is’ lacks—er—clarity. If I were you—”

“She’s named Corsair!” insisted Hal doggedly.

“All right; don’t get peevish about it; only it seems to Jack and me—”

“I don’t care what it seems to you,” replied Hal, slathering oil on the engine with a lavish hand. “It’s settled. I’ve named her Corsair—”

“So you remarked before. I think it’s a perfectly lovely name, don’t you, Jack? So—so original, too! By the way, what is a corsair, Hal?”

“Look it up in a dictionary,” growled Hal. “You make me tired. Always butting in—” The rest was lost in the noise of the engine.

Bee smiled sweetly. “No offence, old Hal. Say, all joking aside, what is a corsair?”

“A corsair is a pirate,” replied Hal suspiciously. “It is also a pirate’s ship.”

“Oh, then we’re pirates, are we? That is, you are?”

“The name is Corsair,” averred Hal determinedly.

“All right, Mr. Pirate. And now, if you’ll just slather a few pints of that cylinder oil around the propeller casing you’ll have been pretty well over the boat with it. From the way you’re wasting it you must be some close relation to John D. Rockefeller.”

Hal set down the oil can with a grin. “You’re an awful idiot, Bee.”

“I are indeed. Hello, here we are at Mr. Herrick’s own private little cove! Jack, it’s you who should be the pirate instead of Hal. With a harbor of your own like this you could have a dandy time. You could sit on your doorsteps up there with a spy-glass and when you saw a likely looking merchantman approaching you could sally—no, dash forth and attack her. Then, after you’d swiped—I mean captured all the treasure and made the captain and crew walk the plank you could dash back again. Honestly, Jack, I think you made a big mistake in your choice of professions. Instead of being the driver of a nautical waterwagon you should be flying the Jolly Roger and slicing off people’s heads with a cutlass!”

“You’d have an easy time of it if you were a pirate,” said Hal with elaborate sarcasm. “You wouldn’t need to carry a cutlass. You could just board a ship and talk them to death!”

“Right you are, old Hal! If I was a pirate I’d lay about me with my trusty tongue and the scuppers would be filled with words! Ready with the bow line, there!”

“Half-speed, Hal!” called Jack from the bow. “Stop her!”

The Corsair floated into the cove and alongside the sloop. Jack climbed out and Bee took his place at the wheel.

“Tuesday at ten, Jack,” said Bee. “Don’t forget. If you have anything you think we’ll need put it aboard, like a good fellow. We may see you tomorrow, though. All right, Hal; back her up easy.”

When the launch had made the turn and was pointing her slim bow toward the mouth of the cove Bee made a trumpet of his hands and shouted back:

“O Jack!”

“Hello?”

“Her name is Coarse Hair! Hal says so!”

Jack laughed and waved his hand as the launch disappeared around the point.

CHAPTER IX
The Expedition Lands

At a little before three on Tuesday afternoon a regular flotilla of boats might have been seen to swing around Toller’s Rock. I doubt if it was seen, for the Rock and the shore beyond all the way to the farther side of Nobody’s Island was apparently empty of life, if one excepts the gulls and the land birds. Perhaps the word procession would be better than flotilla, for first came the Crystal Spring, wobbling along under her big gray mainsail, then the Corsair, floating gracefully at the end of a towline, and finally the Faith, dipping and rolling a little in the manner of young and playful dories. The Faith was Jack’s boat, a small, pea-green lapstreak dory that had spent most of its life in Herrick’s Cove and was now palpably excited by its tremendous adventure. The sloop was brought around into the wind near the mouth of Clam River and as close to the shore as Jack dared take her on a falling tide and the anchor was dropped. Then Hal and Bee tumbled into the launch and, with the dory still in tow, ran up the river to the old pier. Here they made fast the Corsair and rowed back in the dory to the Crystal Spring. Then began the unloading of the supplies. Bee remained in the dory and Jack and Hal passed the things down to him to stow away. As fast as the dory was loaded Jack jumped in and took the oars and rowed to the shore. There, with bare legs, the boys removed the cargo from boat to beach. Four trips were necessary before everything had been landed. Bee declared proudly that he had forgotten nothing, and the others, viewing the sands, enthusiastically agreed.

“I guess you’ve got everything but a sewing machine and an automobile there,” said Hal.

The anchor was pulled up and the sloop half-drifted and half-sailed into the mouth of the river. The anchor went down again and the big sail was lowered and furled, Hal and Bee lending willing if inexperienced assistance. There was just room for the Crystal Spring to swing around with the tide in the new anchorage and in case of a blow she was fairly well protected. Even if she did settle her stern on the sand, Jack explained, it wouldn’t matter, since she would float clear again the next tide. Then the three boys tumbled once more into the dory and rowed to the old pier where the Corsair was snuggled. The launch, too, bore her share of the supplies, being laden with six long inch-and-a-half planks, five pounds of spikes and a hatchet. Working with a will, the boys soon had a three-foot platform laid on the old spiles. Hal declared that he didn’t see any use in having a wharf when the things were already landed, but Bee reminded him that there was the treasure to think about.

“It will be a heap easier to bring that chest of gold down here and lower it into the boat than it would be to get it into the dory and out again. You have to think of all those things, Hal. There’s nothing like looking ahead and being prepared.”

Hal laughed. “When you find that treasure, Bee,” he replied, “I’ll swim out to the sloop with it.”

Then they went around to where their goods littered the beach and considered the question of a location for the tent. The tent, a good-sized A of waterproof duck, had been loaned by Hal’s father. In fact, Bee had been very fortunate in not having had to purchase much of anything besides provisions. A pick, a shovel, a crowbar and a hatchet had also been loaned by Mr. Folsom; Mrs. Folsom had supplied blankets, pillows and cooking utensils; Jack had brought fishing lines, hooks and sinkers and Hal had added whatever of his possessions, including a shot-gun and a revolver, that Bee had seen fit to requisition. Even the planks had been obtained gratis, being some that had been left when repairs had been made to the Folsom wharves. Provisions Bee had had to pay for, but as he had obtained a liberal discount through Hal’s father, his capital had not been much depleted.

It was finally decided that the tent should be pitched on the southwest side of the hill at the edge of the grove. Jack pointed out that they would be shielded from the sun during the warmest part of the day and sheltered from rain storms as well by the crest of the hill and the trees. “There may not be any rain storms,” he said, “but if there are they’re likely to come from seaward. We’d better ditch around the upper side of the tent, too.”

It wasn’t easy to get the tent up on the place they had selected for it seemed that wherever they tried to drive a peg they struck ledge. But they finally succeeded and drew aside to admire their handiwork.

“That’s a corking tent,” said Bee. “And I’m glad it’s rain-proof, aren’t you?”

Jack agreed, but wondered whether it would not have been wiser to have had the opening face the west instead of the east. “If we have any very hot weather it’s going to be stifling in there.”

“That’s easy,” said Hal. “We can raise the sides of the tent around the bottom. Let’s get the stuff up here and think about supper. I’m getting starved. Bee was in such a rush to get away that I didn’t have time to eat a decent luncheon.”

“Eat!” Bee groaned. “I thought you’d never get through. That’s one thing that scares me a bit,” he confided to Jack as they descended to the beach. “We’ll have to go to town every day to buy food for that chap, I’m afraid.”

For the next twenty minutes they were busy toiling up the slope with boxes and bundles and trotting down again for more. The only pause came when Bee dropped a bag of lemons from the summit of his load and the elusive things rolled in every direction down-hill. Jack and Hal, glad to rest a minute, sat down and laughed while Bee, depositing the rest of his load on the ground, tried to round them up.

“I can only find eight of the pesky things,” he said at last, raising a perspiring face to his grinning companions. “Come on and help me you pair of gargoyles.”

“We’re tired,” said Hal. “We refuse to lend you any lemon aid.”

“Ow!” Bee collapsed to the ground and gave a spirited imitation of a boy having a fit. In the course of the performance he inadvertently upset the bag again and once more the lemons rolled away. Finally, Jack going to his assistance, all but two of the lemons were found and the routine began again.

“Some day,” panted Bee, as he trudged on up the hill with his bundles, “folks will find this island covered with a lemon grove and they’ll wonder, won’t they?”

When all the belongings were within the tent Hal raised the question of cooking arrangements. Hal had tried all day to confront Bee with some contingency not already provided for by that foresighted youth and so far had failed. He failed again in the present instance, too, for Bee answered promptly.

“Jack’s going to build a stone fire-place near the door here,” he said.

“Oh, am I?” laughed Jack. “How do you know I can?”

“You look like a mason,” replied Bee calmly. “Besides, if you don’t know how I’ll show you.”

“Then why don’t you do it yourself?” challenged Hal. “It seems to me you’re doing more bossing than work.”

“Somebody has to supply the brains, old Hal,” answered Bee cheerfully. “Come on and we’ll lug some stones for the mason.”

There were plenty of them but those that were of the proper size were mostly at the foot of the slope, and long before they had enough at the tent Hal was heard to murmur that for his part he thought it would have been a heap more sensible to have brought a cook-stove along!

But when the fire-place was finished even Hal had to own that it looked a lot jollier than a stove. “And a good deal more appropriate,” added Bee. “Whoever heard of hunting buried treasure on a desert island and cooking meals on a real stove? That would be a—a—one of those things.”

“One of what things?” asked Jack, pausing to view his work.

“Why, one of those an—anach—”

“Anachronism, he means,” explained Hal. “He doesn’t know much English, Jack. You’ll have to excuse him. His education has been sadly neglected.”

“There’s something in that,” replied Bee. “When he put me in to room with Hal, the Principal told me I was next to the stupidest boy in school. Of course, I don’t know what he meant by that.” Bee added the latter part of his remark rather hurriedly, as Hal was poising a nice large stone in his hand and had his gaze fixed disapprovingly on the speaker. “Folks do say such funny things sometimes.” Whereupon Bee by the simple expedient of rolling over backward, got behind Jack and out of range.

“Now, we’ll have to hustle around and find some wood,” said Jack. “We can get some small stuff under the trees, I guess. Dead branches do pretty well. And there’s plenty of stuff on the beach, only it won’t be very dry probably. You fellows scurry around in the grove and I’ll go down to the beach.”

Afterwards they took the hatchet and cut sweet-fern, which Hal discovered quite a patch of at the back of the island, and sheep-laurel and spread it on the ground in the tent. On this they put their blankets, and, although now and then a sharp twig promised some discomfort, they decided that it would prove better than sleeping next to the ground. “And, anyway,” said Bee, who had never run across sweet-fern before, “it smells dandy; even better than sweet-grass.”

After arranging the provisions near the door of the tent there seemed nothing left to do save wait for supper. It was only a few minutes past five and even Hal had to acknowledge that it was still too early to start the fire. Jack suggested that they might collect more wood and save themselves trouble another day, but that idea didn’t seem to appeal to the others. Hal asked Bee why he didn’t do a little digging for the treasure and get up an appetite. He even offered to accompany Bee and look on. But Bee said there was no use digging until he had decided where to dig. So they concluded to take a walk over the island instead.

“Keep your eyes open, fellows,” advised Bee. “We might find the place where Old Verny had his cabin.”

But although they made a complete circuit of the island they discovered nothing more exciting or useful than a horseshoe crab which Bee marvelled at and treasured. From the northwest side of the hill they could follow the winding of Clam River for nearly two miles and Jack pointed out where, far up the little tidal stream, the old bridge used to stand. Far off, backed by a low wall of trees, ran the railway embankment. Farther southward Greenhaven was visible, the sun dyeing the white houses on the hill with rosy light as it sank into the west. Between the town and the island was a well-nigh untenanted expanse of marsh and meadow which, near the shore, merged into the gleaming sand dunes. One or two weather-beaten cabins dotted the area, but they were a good way off and served only to accentuate the loneliness that, with the approach of evening, seemed to envelop Nobody’s Island. Hal gave a little shiver as he turned away.

“Come on and let’s light the fire and have some supper,” he said. “This place will get on my nerves in a minute.”

“It does seem a long way off from everything, doesn’t it?” agreed Bee. “That sunset is wonderful, though.”

“I’d rather see a sirloin steak,” muttered Hal.

“Well, that’s just what you will see in about half an hour,” Bee responded cheerfully. “And I’ll bet Jack can cook one to the King’s taste, too!”

“Oh,” said Jack, “so I’m to do the cooking, am I?”

“Of course. You surely couldn’t expect Hal to do it, and the only thing I ever tried to cook was a fried egg; and I didn’t know enough to take the shell off first!”

They sought the tent and Jack set about getting a fire. “What are we going to have?” he asked.

“We’ve got ten pounds of steak and chops, a bag of potatoes, six loaves of bread, lots of butter, tea and coffee,” enumerated Bee. “And other things besides; bacon, flour, lard, sugar—er—oh, everything the heart of man could desire.”

“Well, we’ll have a slice of steak, then, and some boiled potatoes. I’ll boil enough so there’ll be some left for frying in the morning. How about coffee? Want that or tea?”

“Tea,” answered Hal.

“Coffee,” said Bee.

“Then I’ll have to cast the deciding vote. We’ll have tea. Coffee in the morning and tea the rest of the time. And—Great Scott!”

“What?” the others demanded in a breath.

Jack smiled. “Nothing,” he answered, applying a match to the little heap of twigs in the fire-place. “Somebody might find a skillet and a sauce-pan. A kettle, too, for the tea. Got one, Bee?”

“Surest thing you know.”

“Fine! Just fill it half-full of water for me, will you?”

“Water?” Bee, the tea-kettle in hand, gazed blankly at Jack.

“Of course! We can’t have tea without water, can we?”

Hal, solving the situation, let out a whoop of delight. At last Bee had been caught napping! Bee grinned in a rather sickly fashion.

“Is—is there a spring here, Jack?” he inquired.

“Not that I know of. Why? You brought water along, didn’t you?”

Bee shook his head. “I—I never thought of it.”

Hal kicked his heels with joy. “Get some water for him, Bee; don’t stand there like a dummy! Go on, get some water!”

“But—but Old Verny must have had water! Where’d he get it, Jack? There must be a spring or a well or—or—”

“He probably used bottled water,” said Hal. “I dare say the grocer brought it to him.”

“Well, I never heard of a spring on Nobody’s,” replied Jack, “and I never saw any signs of one. Perhaps Verny had a well.”

“He must have! I’ll look for it,” and Bee started off with the tea-kettle in hand.

“Don’t be an idiot!” cried Hal. “If there ever was a well it’s filled up long ago. You ought to have thought and brought water along. There’s nothing like looking ahead and being prepared, Bee!”

Bee tried to smile at that gibe, but made dismal work of it. “Then—then what can we do? We couldn’t use salt water, could we, Jack?”

“There’s just one thing we can do,” said Hal eagerly, “and that’s go home sensibly. We can’t stay here all night without any water to drink.”

“Go home!” exclaimed Bee blankly.

“Of course. Unless you want to row back to town and get a bucket of water.”

“Speaking of buckets,” said Jack as, the fire burning briskly, he arose to his feet, “have we got one?”

“Two,” said Bee. “They’re in there. Why?”

“Well, you watch this fire and keep it going and I’ll take the bucket and get the water.”

“I refuse to drink salt water!” exclaimed Hal.

“Who said anything about salt water?” laughed Jack. “I’m going to bring you some of the best water there is.”

“Wh—where are you going to get it?” demanded Hal and Bee in chorus.

“Out of the Crystal Spring,” answered Jack as he swung off down the hill to the wharf. “She’s half-full of it!”

“Gee, I never thought of that!” ejaculated Bee, subsiding on the ground with his tea-kettle still tightly clutched.

“It seems to me,” said Hal sternly, “that there’s a whole lot you never thought of.”

Bee had nothing to say. He only added more wood to the fire and in silence watched Jack jump into the dory and pull out to the sloop. For the rest of the evening he was chastened in spirit.

That supper tasted wonderfully good. Jack was a clever camp cook and the way that two-pound piece of steak was cooked and the way the potatoes almost fell to pieces at the touch of a fork showed it. Perhaps the tea was a little bitter; anyhow, condensed milk doesn’t seem to go with tea as well as with coffee; and Hal said uncomplimentary things about the butter, but no one could find fault with the rest of the repast. They sat on the ground between the front of the tent and the fire and ate to repletion. And afterward they heaped more fuel on the dying blaze and snuggled back contentedly while the afterglow dimmed and a half moon grew from frosty silver to mellow gold and threw a broad pathway across the quiet water. They talked for an hour or more, but the fresh air and the exertions of the day soon began to tell and long before nine Hal was snoring frankly, his head propped up on Bee’s shoulder and Bee and Jack were nodding. Finally the lanterns were found and Jack managed to fill them from the gallon oil-can, spilling a good share of the oil on the ground in the darkness, and then lighted them and hung them from the tent poles. Hal was somehow awakened and, yawning and stumbling, got his clothes off and tumbled between his blankets. Bee and Jack speedily followed and soon all was still on Nobody’s save for the lapping of the waves on the beach and the healthy snoring of the members of the Treasure Hunters’ Company, Limited.

CHAPTER X
Bee Digs For Treasure

The next morning dawned fair, with a little southeast breeze blowing from where, afar off on the horizon, lay a bank of haze. The adventurers were up early. The sunlight beat on the wall of the tent and made sleep almost impossible after seven o’clock. There was a chill in the air though, as the three, with towels flying from their hands, scrambled down to the beach and plunged, shouting and laughing, into the water. The sea was several degrees warmer than the air outside and Hal was for remaining there and having his breakfast brought to him on a life-belt. But he got little encouragement from the others and so followed them out and rubbed his body to a glow with a towel in the faint warmth of the early sunlight. After that, although Jack worked as quickly as he knew how, it seemed hours and hours before the bacon and fried potatoes and fragrant coffee were ready. Hal occasioned merriment by trying to toast a slice of bread on the end of a stick and having to rescue it from the fire a half-dozen times before it was ready for eating. Bee regretted the lack of eggs and explained innocently that the reason he had not brought any was because they could find sea-gulls’ eggs on the rocks. “They always do that on desert islands,” he added. He was visibly disappointed when Jack informed him that the gulls didn’t nest on Nobody’s and that, anyhow, he didn’t think Bee would care much for gulls’ eggs if he tried them.

They cleaned the dishes by the simple expedient of carrying them to the beach and rubbing sand on them, afterwards rinsing them off with salt water. Then Bee was, he declared, ready for business.

“You fellows can do what you like for awhile. I’m going to look around and decide where to begin operations.”

Hal groaned. “Look here, Bee,” he protested, “you aren’t really going to waste time and break your back digging are you?”

“Waste time! What did we come here for, I’d like to know? I’m going to find the likeliest spot and then we’re going to dig for that treasure chest. Meanwhile, why don’t you fellows see if you can catch some fish for dinner?”

Hal sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “All right. Come on, Jack. We’ll go fishing. If you find anything, Bee, fire a cannon and we’ll come back.”

They left him, crow-bar in hand, surveying with a thoughtful frown the southwest slope of the hill. They took the launch and went out beyond The Tombstones. There Jack dropped the anchor and they put their lines over. From time to time they looked back toward the island, but Bee was not in sight from where they lay, and Hal unkindly said he was willing to bet that Bee was fast asleep in the tent. By ten o’clock the sun had grown pretty warm and, as they had three small rock-cod and seven perch flopping around in the bottom of the launch, they decided to return to the island. “Although maybe we’re better off out here,” said Hal, “for Bee may put us to work with a pick or a shovel!”

When they came within sight of the tent they saw Bee hard at it. Evidently he had reached a decision as to the locality of the cabin, for he was knee-deep in the earth and his shovel was appearing and disappearing with fine regularity.

“Just look at the silly chump,” said Hal affectionately. “Isn’t he a wonder? I suppose we’ll have to humor him, Jack, and take our turns with the shovel. But I must say that that isn’t my idea of a good time!”

Bee was red and perspiring when they reached him. He had started to dig within some ten or twelve yards of the tent and a little to the west of it and had made quite a good-sized hole in the ground. He leaned on the handle of his shovel and looked up at them triumphantly while beads of perspiration ran down his face.

“This is the place, all right!” he proclaimed. “Just look there.” He pointed to where a rusted nail, about four inches long, lay beside the excavation. “I found that in the first shovelful I turned out, Jack!”

“H’m; found any more?”

“Not yet, but it shows pretty conclusively, doesn’t it, that the cabin stood here or pretty near? Now my idea is to dig trenches about eighteen inches wide right along the slope here; see? If I dig them, say, two feet apart I’m pretty sure to run across the chest or the box or whatever he put his treasure in.”

“Great Scott!” said Hal. “How long do you think it will take you to do that, Bee? Why, you wouldn’t get it done in a month!”

“Get out! Why, see what I’ve dug already, and I’ve only been at it—What time is it, anyway?”

“Almost half-past ten,” replied Jack. Bee’s face fell.

“Really? Well, it took me longer than I thought then.” He sat down on the side of the bank and reflectively examined four big purple blisters that decorated the palms of his hands.

“They’ll break pretty soon,” said Hal cheerfully. “Then you won’t be able to shovel. How long have you been at it?”

“An hour, or a little more.”

“And that’s all you’ve done!”

“It’s hard in places. Look at the rocks.”

“There’s no use digging where the ground has never been disturbed before,” said Jack, who was examining the rusty nail, “and that ground never has. See the way those stones fit against each other. You’re at the foot of a ledge, I guess; that stuff looks like rotten granite.” He tossed the nail aside and Bee quickly rescued it and dropped it into his pocket.

“I’ll try farther down,” he murmured. He climbed out of the hole, measured off two feet on the slope and began again with the pick. But it was evident that Bee’s enthusiasm was suffering a temporary eclipse. The half-dozen blows he struck were weak and uncertain. Suddenly he put the pick down and looked at the palm of his right hand.

“Has it broken?” asked Hal eagerly. Bee nodded and reached for his handkerchief to tie around it. But Jack interposed.

“Here,” he said, “give me that pick. I’ll dig for awhile. You rest. And you’d better wash that blister and keep the dirt out of it. Haven’t an old pair of gloves with you, have you?”

“No.” Bee opened and closed his hand experimentally. “That’s funny, isn’t it? I suppose my hands are pretty soft.”

“Probably,” said Jack. “Where do you want to dig this?”

“I thought we’d dig a trench about two and a half feet deep right along here. I’ll just tie a handkerchief around this and help you in a minute.”

“You sit down and tend your wounds,” said Hal. “I’ll take the shovel a while. I guess my hands are as soft as yours, though.”

“I’ve heard rosin was good for them,” said Bee.

“If you hold the shovel loosely, Hal, and stop when you feel the blisters coming you’ll be all right. As soon as I get out of the way you can come along behind with your shovel.”

“Just like a couple of Italians digging a trench for gas pipes,” murmured Hal. “I never thought I’d live to see this day!”

Bee washed his sore hand with sea water and wrapped a handkerchief about it. Hal fell in behind Jack and shoveled aside the sod and dirt loosened by the pick. With coats off and sleeves rolled up the two boys labored valiantly and at the end of half an hour had a trench some eight feet long and a foot deep. The soil was a thin, dusty brown loam, with streaks of coarse gray sand which Jack said was disintegrated granite. Hal, wiping his forehead, said he was quite ready to believe it, and didn’t Jack want to swap implements awhile? Bee said they were getting on finely and thought there were fewer stones than higher up.

“Maybe there won’t be any in the next trench,” he said hopefully.

Hal leaned on the pick and viewed him reproachfully. “Bee, you don’t really mean that you’re going to dig another one of these ditches?” he asked.

“Of course; probably three more—unless we find the treasure first.”

“Find the treasure!” growled Hal. “I’ll bet you anything there isn’t any treasure here and never was! And if you think that I’m going to waste my young life swinging a silly old pick and having sunstroke you’ve got another guess! Besides, I can feel the blisters coming.”

“You knock off,” said Jack. “I’ll get this a little deeper and then maybe the boss will let us quit until it’s cooler.”

“It is pretty hot,” acknowledged Bee. “We might wait until after dinner.”

Hal stuck the end of the pick into the sod with a vicious blow and climbed out of the trench. “I’ve quit,” he announced disgustedly. “Come on, Jack.”

“Has the whistle blown?” laughed Jack. “You go ahead and get cooled off. I’m not tired. I’ll get this a little deeper and be with you in a few minutes.”

Hal went off grumbling to the tent and Bee seized the pick and tried to wield it. But the bandage on his hand interfered sadly. He kept going, however, until Jack decided to quit.

“There, that’s down pretty near two feet,” said Jack. “Now we’ll take a rest and then get some dinner. Come on. If you insist on using that hand, Bee, you’ll have it so sore you won’t be able to move it. You leave the digging to Hal and me today. After all, we’ve got plenty of time, I guess. No use trying to do it all today.”

They found Hal stretched out on his blankets in the tent.

“It’s no use your coming in here if you want to get cool,” he announced peevishly. “It’s as hot as Tophet in this place.”

“Let’s get up under the trees where there’s a breeze,” Jack suggested. The breeze, however, was hard to find. Still, it was cooler than in the tent, and the three boys stretched themselves out on a thin carpet of pine needles and leaves.

“Just see how smooth it is today,” said Bee, nodding at the water. “Let’s go out after dinner and see if we can see that wreck you told about, Jack.”

“All right. We can try. I guess we won’t find the water much smoother while we’re here. We ought to have one of those glass bottomed boats they use out in California. I was reading about them once. They say you can look right down into the water for fathoms and see the fishes and the seaweed and coral.”

“What’s a fathom?” asked Bee.

“Six feet. Father used to tell about a couple of men who used to sail out of here. They were brothers. One of them was six feet and four inches and the other was six feet and two inches tall. They used to call the taller one Long Fathom and the other Short Fathom.”

“I thought a fathom was a long way; four or five hundred feet,” said Bee.

“Maybe you were thinking of a cable. A cable’s six hundred feet, and ten cables make a knot.”

“And a knot is more than a mile, isn’t it?”

“Eight hundred and two feet more. Twenty knots equal just about twenty-three miles.”

“I don’t see why they don’t measure distance on the water by miles,” said Hal. “It’s beastly confusing.”

“If you come to that,” replied Jack, “the knot is the more sensible measurement. Every degree of the earth’s circumference is divided into sixty knots, making twenty-one thousand and six hundred knots. There are three hundred and sixty degrees, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I knew, of course,” laughed Bee. “Only I guess I’d forgotten. Now let’s see. A fathom is six feet, a cable is six hundred feet and ten cables make a knot. And a knot is—is eight hundred and sixty feet longer than a mile.”

“Eight hundred and two feet,” corrected Jack. “And now, as the lesson is over, say we go down and see what the neighbors have brought in for dinner.”

“Fine idea!” agreed Hal. “I’ve got just one question to ask, though, before the class is dismissed. Professor, how many knots are there in a knotical mile?”

“Why, he’s just told you,” began Bee. Then the pun dawned on him and he chased Hal down the hill with wild threats. They had some of the chops for dinner, with potatoes baked in a bed of ashes, bread and tea. And afterwards Jack made a batter of prepared flour and fried griddle cakes in the skillet. Unfortunately Bee had neglected to provide syrup, but sugar did pretty nearly as well, and by the time the last cake had disappeared the trio had no ambition beyond lying on their backs and staring sleepily into space.

“I wouldn’t look at a shovel for a million dollars,” muttered Hal. “And if any one mentions food to me I’ll die!”

“Those were some cakes,” groaned Bee. “Did you—did you put lead in them, Jack?”

“Lead? Get out! They were as light as feathers!”

“Were they? Then I guess I know how a feather mattress feels!” He rolled over in search of a more comfortable position and gave an exclamation of surprise. “There’s a man in a rowboat down there, fellows, and he’s coming ashore!”

CHAPTER XI
The Man With The Glass Eye

By the time Jack and Hal had painfully assumed sitting positions the arrival had beached his dory and was stepping ashore.

“Who is it?” asked Hal.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe a clammer. Which way did he come, Bee?”

“Search me. I only saw him when he was shoving his boat onto the sand. What’s a clammer?”

“A man who digs clams,” laughed Jack. “I guess he’s coming up to look us over.”

The man had pulled up his dory—a rather disreputable looking craft sadly in need of paint—just inside the mouth of the river and was slowly climbing the slope. When he reached the place where the boys had been digging he stopped and examined the excavations for fully a minute. Then he came on and the campers had their first good look at him.

“My word!” ejaculated Hal sotto voce. “Isn’t he a fine old cutthroat!”

Which uncomplimentary description seemed very appropriate to the rest. The man was short, stocky and wide of shoulder. A pair of rusty black trousers, a faded blue pea-jacket and a cheap gingham shirt comprised the bulk of his attire. But it was the countenance that had prompted Hal’s simile. The face was wrinkled and seamed and of the hue of leather, and a straggling brown beard covered the lower half of it. The nose was hooked and crooked and a pair of light colored eyes, which might have been gray or green, gleamed brightly at the group by the tent. The eyebrows were heavy and came together over the nose. On his head was an old felt hat, the front brim pulled down. A ragged mustache met the beard and hid the mouth, but the man seemed to be smiling as he greeted the boys.

“Howdy do, mates,” he said in a gruff voice that seemed to come from his scuffed boots. “Fine weather we’re having.”

“You can’t beat it,” replied Hal flippantly.

The stranger paused in front of the group and thrust his big, gnarled hands into the pockets of his jacket. The boys were gazing fascinatedly now at the man’s right eye which, no matter how its companion roamed, remained fixed upon them with a baleful gleam.

“Campin’ out, I see,” said the man. “Havin’ a fine time, too, I bet ye.”

“Great,” agreed Hal. “Anything we can do for you?”

“Thank ye, my boy. I might take a bit to eat if it’s right handy. Not wishin’ to put ye to no trouble, however.”

“That’s all right,” said Jack. “We haven’t anything cooked, though. Maybe there’s some tea left, and we’ve got plenty of bread and butter.”

“The butter’s not very good,” warned Hal.

“I ain’t partic’lar,” was the response. The left eye followed Jack as he disappeared into the tent, while the right eye continued to regard Hal and Bee unblinkingly. Jack returned with several big slabs of bread and a generous square of butter. The teapot proved good for another cup of tea and soon the stranger, seated on an inverted bucket, was lunching. He ate slowly, consuming the bread in huge bites and washing it down with draughts of the luke-warm tea. If he was really as hungry as he had led them to suppose he disguised the fact well. “I cal’ate you’re going to build,” he observed between mouthfuls of the bread and butter.

“Build?” echoed Jack. “No, I guess not.”

“Oh? Well, I see you’d been a-diggin’ of a hole down there.”

“Yes,” replied Hal, who had taken a violent dislike to the visitor, “we were digging for clams.”

Both eyes turned toward Hal and the ends of the ragged mustache quivered in what was apparently a smile. “Fond of a joke, you be, ain’t ye?” he inquired with a rumble that might have been a laugh.

“Yes, I be,” answered Hal, in spite of a warning look from Jack. “Be n’t you?”

“Oh, yes, son, oh, yes!” rumbled the man. “I be mighty fond of a good joke—on t’other fellow! I cal’ate what you’re diggin’ for is yellow clams, eh?”

“Yellow clams?” repeated Jack questioningly.

The left eye closed in a portentous wink. “Aye, gold clams, mate. Ho, they all try it. Man an’ boy, I been around this place fifty year or more, on an’ off, an’ I’ve seen ’em diggin’ an’ diggin’ an’ diggin’, but I never seen nothin’ come up, mates. Big Verny hid it well.”

“Did you ever see him?” asked Bee eagerly.

“Often, when I was a youngster. I’ve spoke to him, too. A big man he was, might be six foot an’ more, an’ as strong as a bull.”

“He lived here, didn’t he?” pursued Bee. “Do you remember where his cabin was?”

The visitor’s active eye swept over the slope. “Not exactly,” he answered. “It might have been pretty near where you been diggin—” (An exclamation of satisfaction from Bee.) “Or, again, it might have been more to the land’ard side. I recollect it was between the trees an’ the beach.”

“Then the trees were here then?” asked Jack.

“Them trees has always been here long as I can remember, mate. An’ Big Verny’s cabin was here long before I first seen the island. A funny sort o’ hutch it was, too; built of wreckage an’ pieces o’ tin for a roof. There was a sort o’ shed farther along. He kept a cow an’ a pony in it.”

“Did he live here all alone?” Hal asked.

“No, there was two sons with him some o’ the time. An’ he had a wife once, but she died.”

“Is it true that he used to show lanterns and make ships run on the rocks?” Bee inquired.

“Well, I can’t say as to that, son. There was them as said he did an’ them as said he didn’t. Anyway, there was a sight o’ wrecks around here them days. An’ finally the revenue officers came over here one night—just about sundown it was—and cleaned up the nest. Big Verny they caught, but Jule got away. He was the youngest of the boys. He weren’t so very young neither. Folks say he ran plumb into the sea and swum down the shore to the beach.”

“What became of the other son?”

“He put up a fight an’ they shot him. Died in the jail, I heard. Big Verny was tried and sent to prison. He died too, after.”

“Do you really think he buried anything on the island?” asked Bee.

“Big Verny? Sure he did, mate, an’ some day it’ll be found. It’s here somewhere.” He looked about him speculatively. “Maybe you’ll strike it yourself. Nobody knows where he put it. Some says he buried it near the cabin an’ some says he buried it in the sand. There’s no way o’ knowin’. I used to dig myself years ago when I was younger; blistered my hands many’s the time. Why, I’ve stuck a shovel, one time or another, in most every foot o’ this old hill! Never found any gold, though; ’ceptin’ this, and it be silver.”

He dug a gnarled hand into a pocket of his trousers and brought up a few coins from amongst which he selected a worn one. He flipped it across to Jack.

“What is it?” asked Jack as he examined it.

“A English shillin’. I dug it up somewhere near here; I forget just where, now.”

Bee and Hal examined the coin in turn. It was worn almost smooth, but sharp eyes could still detect the stamping. Bee was eager and excited.

“What have I told you fellows?” he demanded. “If this—gentleman found this here, why, there must be more of them!”

“That’s only silver,” said the man. “There’s gold here too; doubloons, likely, and solid bars of it. An’ jewels, too, most likely. Big Verny caught a lot o’ things in his nets!”

“I wish you could remember where the cabin stood,” said Bee as he returned the coin. The man chuckled hoarsely.

“I’ve often wished the same myself. Likely there’s where he hid his money, mate. Well, I’ll be goin’. Good luck to you, mates; I’m hoping you find them yellow clams. Be you goin’ to stay here long on the island?”

“Until we find that treasure,” replied Bee determinedly.

The man chuckled. “Ho, bully boy! Keep at it, mate, keep at it. You can’t never tell when your shovel’ll strike wood. Then you’ll all be rich, eh? Think o’ them red fellows a-glitterin’ at you, and jewels, red an’ white an’ green an’ blue, a-tricklin’ through your fingers, eh? Aye, aye, good luck to you, mates!”

“Do you live around here?” asked Jack.

The visitor waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the winding river. “Up there when I’m to home. Bill Glass is my name, mate. Lots o’ folks knows Honest Bill Glass. Poor I be, but honest; which is due to my attendin’ Sunday school reg’lar, mates.”

“Fishing, are you?” Jack nodded at the dory pulled up on the beach.

“I do a bit at times. Clammin’, too. Maybe you’d want some clams, mates? I sell ’em cheap. I’ll bring some around to you some day soon. Don’t buy if you don’t want ’em. Honest Bill Glass don’t take money without givin’ complete satisfaction. Poor I be, but honest, mates. Good day to you.”

He went off down the slope, slowly, with an odd drag to his feet, and again stopped at the trench. After a moment he looked up and back and waved a hand. Then he went on. They watched him push off his dory and scramble aboard with an agility surprising in one who looked to be fully fifty-five or -six years old, and settle at the oars. He rowed with short, slow strokes up the river. For several minutes they could follow the course of the old dory, and then it was lost to sight behind the bank at a turn.

“Well, he’s a character,” said Jack. “‘Honest Bill Glass,’ eh? I’ll bet he would steal the shoes off your feet if he had a chance!”

“A regular old pirate is what he looks like,” said Hal. “He might have stepped right out of one of those silly stories you’re forever reading, Bee.”

“Mightn’t he?” agreed Bee with enthusiasm. “But what was the matter with his eyes? Did you notice them?”

“Sure; one of them is glass,” replied Hal. “Gee, I’d hate to meet him on a dark corner at night! I’m not sure I won’t dream of him as it is. I hope he doesn’t come butting in here again.”

“He said he was going to bring us clams,” replied Bee. “I wonder where he lives.”

“Probably up there at the end of the river,” said Jack. “There are two or three shanties near the railroad. I guess, though, we can dig all the clams we need ourselves. I don’t like his looks, fellows.”

“But I’m glad he came,” said Bee. “I was beginning to get a bit discouraged. Now, though, we know that the treasure must be here.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t believe him on oath,” scoffed Hal. “Did you notice that shilling he passed around?”

“Yes, and if he found that here on the island—”

“He didn’t.”

“How do you know he didn’t?” demanded Bee anxiously.

“Because I could read the date on it, even if it was worn almost off. It was 1884. That’s less than thirty years ago, and Old Verny hid his treasure—if he did hide any—more than ten years before that.”

“Are you sure about the date?” asked Bee, crestfallen.

“Ab-so-lutely, old Bee. It was plain as the nose on your face if you held the coin right. I don’t see what he wanted to lie for, though.”

“Then you don’t think he ever saw Old Verny or ever dug here?”

“He may have,” said Jack. “I didn’t see the date on the shilling, but he probably thought he’d have a joke on us. Anyhow, he didn’t seem to remember where the cabin stood, and if he knew Old Verny—Big Verny, he called him—you’d think he’d remember where the old pirate lived.”

“He’s a fakir,” said Hal with decision. “And I’m going to sleep with my revolver under my head tonight. Gee, he may come around here and murder us for our clothes! He wouldn’t get much else, I guess.”

“Oh, I guess he’s a harmless old duffer,” rejoined Jack carelessly. “And I dare say we shan’t see him again. Now, what about going out to The Tombstones? Recovered from those flap-jacks yet?”

“Sure,” said Hal. “Let’s go. Want to, Bee?”

Bee looked undecidedly at the excavations and then at his hand. Finally he nodded. “Yes, I guess so. When we get back I’ll have another spell with the shovel, I think. It’ll be cooler then.”

CHAPTER XII
The Sunken Wreck

The surface of the water was almost like a mirror as they chugged out of the river in the Corsair, Jack at the wheel and Hal industriously slopping oil over the engine. But once around the end of the island they began to meet cat’s-paws. Jack guided the launch in between the two black rocks which shoved their heads, draped with seaweed, a few feet above the surface. The anchor was dropped and the line payed out for nearly sixty feet before a hold was found. By that time the launch was just to the north of the channel between the two ledges. The surface was ripply, but Bee, who was given the first chance, reported that he could see quite a ways down. He lay sprawled out on the stern deck, with Jack and Hal holding his legs and his face a few inches above the water.

“See any timbers?” asked Jack.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Now and then—Hi, yes, I do, fellows! There’s a long curving thing down there. I thought at first it was a rock, but it can’t be.”

“Get up and let someone else have a look,” said Hal.

“Just a minute,” replied Bee in a smothered voice. “There’s something further down—Gee, if the water would only keep still a minute!”

Finally he consented to being pulled back on deck and Hal took his place. Hal couldn’t see a thing, he declared, and scoffed at Bee when he was pulled back. But Jack verified Bee’s story. He got them to lower him until he could put his face under the water. At intervals he lifted his head for a breath and then put it under again. When he finally told them to pull him back he was drenched to his shoulders.

“Bee was right, though,” he said. “You can see three or four ribs and something square that might be a deck-house; only I don’t see why a deck-house wouldn’t have floated away. The ribs are covered with barnacles and mussels and seaweed. It looks as though the boat had gone clean over the ledge and broken her back. Probably she was trying to round the island and thought she had lots of room. I wonder who she was.”

“Has she been there a long time?” asked Bee awedly.

“Years and years. My father used to tell about seeing her when I was just a tiny tot. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been there fifty years or even more!”

“Why couldn’t I see anything?” grumbled Hal. “I’m coming back here some day when it’s calmer.”

“You won’t ever find it much calmer,” said Jack. “And, anyway, there’s a sort of current between the rocks here that keeps the surface blurred. Better have another look now, Hal.”

So Hal tried again, with Jack telling him where to look and what to look for, and had better luck. “She must have been a big old ship,” he said as he wiped the water from his face. “Why, those rib things seem to go down for twenty or thirty feet!”

“Wish I were a diver,” said Bee. “I’d go down and see what’s there. Maybe I’d find a treasure chest or a skeleton or something.”

“What I like about you, Bee,” Jack laughed, “is that you aren’t at all hard to please. Most anything suits you. If you can’t find a lot of gold and jewels you’ll take a skeleton and be satisfied. Say we go for a little trip up the shore, fellows?”

Bee, still fascinated by his glimpses of the sunken ship, readily agreed, to the surprise of the others, and Jack pulled up the anchor and headed the Corsair’s nose straight up the coast. Bee demanded the wheel presently and Jack relinquished it to him, and he and Hal settled themselves comfortably on the seats abaft the engine and proceeded to enjoy the cruise. There was enough air stirring to mitigate the heat of the sun and the radiation from the engine and it was very pleasant there in the launch. Hal, keeping one ear open, so to speak, for sounds of trouble from the engine, closed his eyes and relapsed into condition of half-slumber in which he was vaguely conscious of the rhythmic rise and fall of the boat, the steady jar and click of the engine and the pop, pop, pop of the exhaust. Also he was vaguely conscious of some disturbing factor which eventually resolved itself into a monotonous chant from the bow. It was Bee, again pouring out his soul to the ocean.

“O Sea! O Sea! O Sea!

O beautiful, beautiful Sea!

You’re calm enough just now, all right,

You’re blue and tum-ti-tum—ti bright,

But you can’t fool me, O Sea, O Sea;

You can be just as mean as mean can be

And toss little boats all over the shop,

And no one knows when you’re going to stop.

O cruel Sea! O cruel Sea!

Don’t you ever go and get fresh with me.

I think you’re fine when you don’t act funny,

But I hate you, Sea, when I’m sick in my tummy——”

“That’s a punk rhyme,” laughed Jack.

“Hello! I thought you were asleep,” replied Bee, looking around. “That’s my ‘Ode to the Sea.’ There are seventeen other verses, but I haven’t composed them yet. Some ode, isn’t it? Is old Hal asleep?”

“Not quite, I guess. He’s trying to make himself think he is.”

“How can anyone sleep when you’re making a disturbance like that?” growled Hal. “If he starts again, Jack, heave him overboard, will you?”

“Aye, aye, sir! I’ll keel-haul him if you say so.”

“No, string him to the yard-arm,” murmured Hal.

“Someone’s stolen the yard-arm,” said Bee. “I shall now compose an ‘Ode to the Coarse Hair.’”

“Oh, brave Coarse Hair! O, gallant craft

As graceful as a lumber raft!

How blithely doth thou skim along!

How—how like—how like——”

“Oh, shut up!” yelled Hal. “For the love of mud, Jack, throw something at him!”

“Ah! Ingratitude! I shall now chant an ‘Ode on Ingratitude.’”

“You do and I’ll come up there and kill you,” said Hal earnestly. “Where are we, Jack?”

“About four miles from the island and a mile or so off Tuckersville. That’s Brig Reef off there. I guess we’d better swing around, Bee, and head her back. Want me to take her?”

“I do not. I am quite capable of swinging her around. In fact, shipmates, I think I’m getting to be something of a navigator. Hereafter I shall sign my name ‘Beaman Mansfield, A. B.,’ meaning able seaman.”

“You’d better sign it ‘B. A.,’ meaning blooming ass,” replied Hal. “Here! What are you doing? Trying to upset us?”

“No, sir, I was swinging her around. She—er—swung a trifle abruptly, so to speak.”

“She certainly did,” grumbled Hal. “That wave went all the way down my back. Ugh!”

“I’m sorry, old Hal, but the Coarse Hair is inclined to be a bit kittenish today. She’s feeling her oats—I mean her gasoline.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Hal. “I wonder—”

“What?” asked Jack as the other paused.

“How much she’s got.”

“How much what? Gasoline?”

“Yes. She didn’t have very much yesterday. I—I guess I’d better look and see.”

He made for the bow, but Bee was already unscrewing the cap in the deck. “Find the stick underneath there, Hal.”

Hal got the measuring stick out of the locker and Bee dropped one end of it through the opening. It produced a very empty sound as it struck the bottom of the tank and when Bee pulled it out only a quarter of an inch was wet. The boys looked at each other in dismay. Then Bee laughed.

“Aren’t we a nice little bunch of launchers?” he asked. “How far will that take us, Jack?”

Jack shook his head. “Hard to tell. It may take us all the way back and it may not. Haven’t any more aboard, have you?”

“Gasoline? Not a bit,” replied Hal.

“Couldn’t use oil, could we?” Bee questioned. “We’ve got quite a supply of that, unless Hal’s slopped it all on the engine.”

“Well, we’ll keep her going,” said Jack. “After the gas gives out we’ll use the oars. Luckily it’s nice and smooth.”

“And I just love to row,” murmured Bee. “It—it’s so poetic. ‘Merrily we row along, row along, row along!’ Say, how would it do to imitate the Irishman who was painting the fence? You know he hurried to get through before the paint gave out. Maybe if we put her at full speed we can get home before the gasoline’s all gone!”

“She’s sputtering now,” said Hal sadly. They listened. Yes, she was already “missing.”

“She’ll go a long time yet, though,” said Jack. “Probably we won’t have to row more than a couple of miles.”

“Oh, I’m so disappointed,” said Bee. “I hoped we’d have the pleasure of rowing all the way! ‘Gasoline! Gasoline! First you put it in the tank; then you turn—’”

“Oh, cut out the funny-business!” begged Hal. “It’s a wonder you wouldn’t have reminded me that the tank was low.”

“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t have reminded me to remind you,” replied Bee imperturbably. “Anyhow, why be tragic? Rather let us eat, drink and be merry, for presently we row! And speaking of drinking, fellows, a nice cold glass of lemonade wouldn’t go badly. Or even a chocolate ice-cream soda.”

Hal had walked disgustedly back to the engine and now, with oil-can in hand, was anxiously watching its dying efforts. Whenever the carbureter gasped he slathered oil right and left. The Corsair’s speed diminished little by little until finally Jack was called on to decide whether she was actually progressing at all. She was still pushing forward, however, and Nobody’s Island looked very near, although Jack dashed Bee’s elation by declaring that distances across water were deceptive and that a good mile and a half still separated them from home.

“We can make it before supper time, though,” he added.

“Before supper time!” ejaculated Hal. “What time is it now, then?”

“Ten minutes to four. Rowing a launch is mighty slow work, and we’ll have the tide against us, too. What locker are the oars in?”

“Over here. I’ll get them.” Hal pulled up the lid after some exertion. “No, they must be on the other side. Look here, I thought we put—yank that lid off, Jack!”

“No oars here,” said Jack quietly as he looked in.

“And no boat-hook! And no—no nothing! Somebody’s swiped them! Bee, do you hear? Somebody’s stolen the oars and the boat-hook and that new rope and—”

“Yes, and the compass and the lanterns, and the fog-horn,” replied Bee, who had hurriedly peered into a forward locker. “That’s a fine note!”

“I’ll bet you anything it was that glass-eyed pirate!” exclaimed Hal wildly. “Honest Bill Glass! I hope—I hope he drowns!”

“You’re sure you had them when we came to the island?” asked Jack thoughtfully.

“Positive! It’s a wonder he left the anchor, the old scoundrel!”

“Maybe he’s coming back for that tonight,” suggested Bee.

“If he does I’ll be waiting for him,” answered Hal grimly. “What shall we do, Jack?”

And, as though echoing the question, at that moment the engine came to a final stop.

CHAPTER XIII
[Marooned!]

Bee, leaning against the wheel, whistled softly. Hal looked from the idle engine to the green slopes of the island in deep disgust. Jack swept his gaze up and down the shore. An hour ago there had been a half-dozen sails in sight; now, save for a tug and a line of barges afar out, and a four-masted schooner some five miles southward, not a craft was in sight. Hal broke the silence first.

“This is a nice mess!” he exclaimed. “What shall we do?”

“I don’t believe there’s much we can do,” responded Jack. “I guess if we wait long enough somebody’ll come along and give us a tow, but until then about the only thing is sit down and be comfortable.” He acted on his own suggestion. Hal looked for rescuers and found none.

“Who do you suppose stole our oars?” he growled.

“I’m inclined to suspect Honest Bill Glass,” replied Jack, with a smile. “When a man begins by assuring you he’s honest it’s a good plan to look out for him. I suppose we ought to have been more careful, but nobody ever steals things around here—except some of the Portuguese now and then. I wonder if Bill went aboard the sloop. If he did he didn’t find much. He might take my slicker and the bedding in the cabin and a few cooking things, though.”

“When we get back I mean to take a trip up the river and pay Bill Glass a visit,” declared Hal. “Even if we don’t find the things I’ll have the satisfaction of telling him what I think of him, the old pirate!”

“We might find out when he’s away and then go up there and make a search,” suggested Bee. “Bill looks like a bad man to tackle.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” declared Hal. “We—we’ve got the law on our side, too.”

“Well, we ought to have some proof first,” said Jack. “Guess we’d better snoop around a bit before we say too much.”

After that silence fell over the Corsair for a while. Then Bee hazarded the theory that the Corsair was drifting away from shore and Jack untroubledly confirmed it. “Breeze and tide both against us,” he said. “But somebody’s bound to be along pretty soon.”

“I hope so,” said Hal. “I’m getting hungry.”

Bee looked at his watch. “Most time for afternoon tea,” he agreed. “Look here, Jack, how would it do if we took turns swimming and pulling the launch after us?”

“We might do that if we had a quarter of a mile or so, to go,” answered Jack, “but we’re a good two miles off shore now. We couldn’t do it, Bee. If she keeps on in the direction she’s going she may go aground on Hog Island after awhile.”

“Hog Island!” exclaimed Hal, glancing across the blue waters to where a long, low stretch of brown rocks scantily crested with green showed to the south. “Why, that’s three miles from here, isn’t it?”

“About that. But we’re drifting pretty fast. We ought to do it in a couple of hours, unless someone gives us a tow first.”

“I don’t see that we’d be much better off there,” said Bee. “There’s nothing to eat on Hog Island, is there?”

“Well, you might find some of those gull eggs you wanted to sample,” replied Jack with a smile. “Anyhow, it would be better than drifting around all night in this craft.”

Hal shuddered. “It’s getting rougher, too,” he said.

“Yes, the breeze is freshening a little. Maybe, though, it’ll work around to the eastward toward sunset. If it does we stand a show to drift on shore farther down the coast. Kind of funny there are no boats around today.”

“I suppose if we didn’t want one the place would be full of them,” said Hal disgustedly. “We’re opposite the island now, Jack.”

“Yes, this breeze is sending us along fairly well. Ever think of having a small mast, Hal, so you could sail her if you had to?”

“No, but I believe I will—if I ever get back. I’ve seen them on launches.”

“They’re handy at times,” agreed Jack.

The conversation dwindled again. Presently Jack went to the wheel and turned the rudder hard aport, as he did so looking ahead at Hog Island, which was already perceptibly nearer.

“If we had that boat-hook,” he remarked, “we might set up a distress signal. As it is, I don’t see how we can. I guess the best thing is to try and make Hog Island. That’s land, anyway. And there used to be a little stone hut there, although I believe the roof was gone when I saw it last. Years ago they used to go out to the island and gather kelp and some of the men built a hut to sleep in in case a blow came up.”

“You don’t happen to know of an island around here that has a hotel on it, do you?” asked Bee plaintively. “I’d just dearly love a thick steak and a baked potato and—”

“Cut it out!” groaned Hal. “If you can’t talk sense, Bee, keep still. You evidently think this is a joke!”

“There’s a schooner,” exclaimed Jack, “but I guess she’s headed down the coast. See her? She’s just come around the Head.”

The others looked in the direction of Jack’s finger and saw her. But when she had caught the breeze she pointed her nose to the southwest and grew smaller. The sun was nearing the hills to the west and the long beams fell across the water dazzlingly. The breeze strengthened and the surface became more choppy, the Corsair dipping and tossing as she drifted seaward.

“Do you think we’ll make Hog Island?” asked Hal anxiously after awhile.

“Looks now as though we’d either bump into it or go by just inside,” answered Jack. “If we get within a hundred yards or so I guess we can make it. How are you at swimming, Hal?”

“I once swam sixty strokes,” replied Hal with a smile, “but it nearly did me up!”

“And lived right on the ocean all your life!” marvelled Bee. “Thunder! Why, I never saw anything bigger than a mill-pond when I was a kid and I’ve swam—swum—swimmed—say, which is it, anyway?—swammed a half a mile lots of times.”

“Then,” said Jack, “as it looks now as if we’d pass the island if the Corsair’s let alone, you and I may have to go overboard and try towing, suppose we get our clothes off, Bee.”

Twenty minutes later it was certain that the launch, left to her own devices, would pass inside Hog Island and continue out to sea. Jack watched the end of the rock draw abreast some seventy or eighty yards away. About midway of its length a small promontory jutted out on the shoreward side, and just before the Corsair drew even with this Jack gave the word and plunged overboard, slicing down into the green water in a beautiful dive and reappearing at the nose of the launch, shaking the drops from his eyes. Bee tried to emulate that dive, but his disappearance was more of a splash, and when he came up he was sputtering wildly. However, Bee could swim if he wasn’t a master of the art of diving, and when he laid hold of one side of the rope and Jack took a grip farther ahead and they struck out the Corsair, obediently, if slowly, swung her nose toward the island. Once started she seemed glad to seek port, and in a few minutes Jack was carefully seeking foothold on the ledge.

“You’d better stay in the water, Bee, until I find a place to land. These rocks are terribly sharp. Pull on the line some more. That’s enough. Heave your anchor over, Hal. Does she hold? Good enough. Now, Bee, we’ll pull her in over this way so Hal can step ashore.”

Five minutes later the Corsair was anchored in the protection of the little promontory, with the line from the bow tied to a rock on shore, and Bee and Jack, dried by the breeze, were getting into their clothes again. Hal waited for them, gazing the while disconsolately across two miles of water to where Greenhaven Neck stretched itself against the coppery glow of the sunset. As he looked, the light on Popple Head began its vigil and a weak white gleam reached him as the revolving rays pointed eastward. Hal heartily wished himself on the mainland just then.

“Now,” said Jack, buttoning his jacket across his chest and shivering a little, “we’ll see if that hut is still here.”

Hog Island was only a long and narrow reef, the highest point of which lay at high tide scarcely ten or twelve feet above the water. The broadest place was at the northern end, and here, under the lee of a ledge, the boys found the stone hut. It was a rough structure at the best, the builders having possessed, it seemed, but little skill in masonry, but the walls were rain-proof and, perhaps, wind-proof, and had there been a roof overhead it would have made a very acceptable shelter. A few loose planks, heavy enough to have withstood the gales, still rested across the top of the four walls, and these the boys shifted until they were side by side at the back. Other planks, of oak and apparently at one time parts of a ship’s hull, were scattered nearby, and it took the three but a few minutes to lift them back to their places. Smaller pieces of driftwood, gathered from between the ledges, were laid over the interstices and the shipwrecked mariners viewed the result with elation.

“Now it may rain if it wants to,” said Hal.

“It won’t rain,” said Jack, “but it’s going to blow some harder before morning.” He held his hand up and wriggled his fingers, finally rubbing them together.

“Blessed if he isn’t feeling of the weather, Hal!” laughed Bee. “Can you tell what it’s going to do that way, Jack?”

Jack smiled. “I don’t suppose I can,” he replied. “Not really, that is. But sometimes I think I can. It’s a trick I caught from my father. He could tell what the weather was going to be two days ahead. Now we’d better hustle around and build a fire; two fires, in fact. We’ll build one about the middle of the island, on the highest point, as a signal, and we’ll have one here near the door of our castle to keep us warm. I hope there’s plenty of driftwood. If there isn’t we may have to burn our roof up.”

By this time it was twilight and Popple Head Light glared across at them at intervals as though trying to make out what they were up to. There was plenty of small wood above high-water line, left there by the winter gales, and soon a good-sized beacon was blazing.

“I don’t know whether anyone will see that or know what it means if they do see it,” said Jack, “but it’s worth trying. Now we’ll pile some more wood here so we can keep it going until bedtime and then we’ll carry some back to the hut.”

By the time the second fire was lighted the boys were ready to sit down and rest. The flames threw a ruddy light into the little hut and the three seated themselves just inside the doorway, out of the wind, which was now blowing sharply from the northeast, and discussed their chances of being rescued.

[Marooned.]

“If Captain Horace sees that,” said Jack, “he may send out to see what’s up. The trouble is, though, that in the summer campers come out here sometimes, and he might think we were campers.”

“Who’s Captain Horace?” asked Hal.

“Captain Horace Tucker. He keeps the light. He’s a sort of uncle of mine.”

“I wouldn’t care a bit if I only had something to eat,” sighed Bee. “I think it’s rather jolly out here; this hut and the fire and—and all; but I surely would like to see a large, juicy sirloin steak walk around the corner!”

“How about gull eggs, Jack?” asked Hal. “Would they be any good?”