Part 10

“Roderick Fitzhugh! Marmaduke Midchester!” David repeated the names of some of the other people he had met at the Gables. “Stuff and nonsense, Benjie! They made them up.”

Ben said nothing, and after a few minutes David began again.

“Where’d they get those clothes?”

“Where do people usually get their clothes? Tailors and dressmakers made them, I suppose.”

“What are they? A crowd of actors?”

Ben smiled. “They’re not professional actors. They’re doing a play that Mr. Fitzhugh wrote for the moving-pictures, and they like their costumes so much they keep them on most of the time. I’m in the pictures,” he added in a tone of pride.

The car clattered loudly over a rough stretch of road. Then David resumed his questions. “How in thunder did you happen to get mixed up with them?”

“I was driving along this morning and I met Mr. Fitzhugh and he suggested that we go on a hunt for hooked-rugs.”

“Hooked-rugs!” exploded David.

“Yes. They don’t grow on trees. They’re to be found in the cottages around here. We caught some fine specimens.”

David put his hand on Ben’s knee. “It was time we rescued you from that fellow, my boy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about hooked-rugs, but I think your Mr. Fitzhugh has bats in his belfry.”

The car driven by Mr. Perkins had stopped, and Ben brought his own noisy equipage to a standstill at the side of the road. “We’re going to have another look at the cove,” said Tuckerman. “We can’t drive in through the woods.”

But the cove, when they reached it by the path through the woods, was as deserted as it had been when the boys from Camp Amoussock explored it earlier in the evening. Lanky and Tom pointed out the dory, still beached on the shingle, in which the three men had come ashore, and the shack in which they had kept the costumes. “I think the dory is pretty good proof that they didn’t come back here,” said Tom. “I guess they must have made off toward Gosport, to join the fishing-smack somewhere in that neighborhood.”

They returned to the two cars and drove on to Camp Amoussock. There Tom and John Tuckerman embarked in the _Argo_ to sail back to Cotterell’s Island, while Ben and David continued their clattering ride to Barmouth.

At Barmouth, Ben restored the car to his uncle, and the two boys went down to the harbor and launched the canoe. Over the placid water they paddled easily, for they were old hands at handling a canoe together. And presently they landed at the island, and found the other two sitting on the pier.

There was much to talk over, and none of them were sleepy. They sat on the bank above the beach and swapped adventures. “I’ve been wondering,” said Tom, “whether there was any connection between the men who stole those things at Mr. Fitzhugh’s house and the men I saw here on the island last night.”

“And the gigantic footprints,” said David. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. But how would you explain the lady’s handkerchief, with the initials A. S. L.?”

They argued about that for some time before they went to bed. Ben, however, took little part in the discussion. He was trying to find a reason for the discovery of the silver snuff-box that Joseph Hastings had bought in Barmouth in the chest hidden in the cliff.

Next morning Ben went with Tuckerman to Cotterell Hall. “What do you make of it, Ben?” said Tuckerman. “We don’t seem to be any nearer to finding the treasure than we were when we first came here. I know you’ve got some theory in that wise head of yours.”

Ben walked up and down the living-room. “Well,” he answered slowly, “I think somebody has mixed up the trails. Let’s see how the matter stands. We know that your Uncle Christopher thought there was a secret. We found that out from the note in the frame of the picture.”

“Uncle Christopher knew there was a secret,” agreed Tuckerman. “I think that’s very clear.”

Ben nodded. “What did we find next? Those jottings your uncle made in his notebook.” Ben stopped at the secretary, took out the notebook, turned to the marked page, and read aloud. “‘As regards the saying that the hiding-place is just beyond the three pines that stand between two rocks where the sun goes down, I have scoured and scoured the island, and come to the opinion that the extreme southwestern point must be the place intended, although to-day there are only two pines there. I have dug at this place, but found only sand.’ That’s what your uncle wrote. But he didn’t find the treasure at the southwestern point.”

Tuckerman smiled. “So far so good.”

Ben ran his eye down the page. “Now we come to this. ‘Find the mahogany-hued man with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket. That’s a saying my father handed down. What can it mean?’ Well, it seems to me that’s where the trails begin to get mixed.”

“Why, I thought we decided that referred to the mahogany secretary,” said Tuckerman.

“So we did,” answered Ben. “But were we right? Let’s see. We looked in the secretary and found a piece of parchment with half a message on it. We couldn’t make out much from that. Then I read this in the notebook.” He turned again to the page, “‘I’ve heard that the old clipper ship got some of the cargo that the mahogany man carried. But if she did, what use is that to us now? She sailed out of Barmouth Harbor during the Revolution.’”

“I’ve always thought you were mighty clever in finding that model of the clipper ship up in the attic,” said Tuckerman.

“Well,” agreed Ben, “I’m not denying that I was pretty well pleased with that myself. But what did we learn? That James Sampson took a box to the north cliff, meaning to put it on a boat, but found that there were some people off shore in another boat and so hid the box in the rocks, and that the rocks were marked like a cross. Very good. We found the place and we found a box there. But there wasn’t anything very valuable in the box when we found it.”

“That’s so,” Tuckerman assented. “But I don’t see any other clue to the treasure.”

Ben was staring through the window at the trees glistening in the sunlight. “I think that box was hidden in the cliff since we’ve been on the island,” he said reflectively, “and I don’t believe that any of the things in it ever came from Cotterell Hall.”

“You don’t!” exclaimed Tuckerman.

“And that means,” continued Ben, who was following the line of his own thoughts, “that somebody was trying to set us on a wrong trail by hiding those two pieces of parchment in this house.”

“But what object would anyone have in doing that?” Tuckerman asked. “I can’t see any good reason for their taking so much trouble.” He considered this idea for several minutes, while Ben continued his study of the trees and the glimpse of blue water that was to be seen from the window.

“And we thought we’d kept the problem of the Cotterell treasure pretty much a secret,” Tuckerman said presently.

“Gigantic footprints, lady’s handkerchief, men prowling about the house in the dark.” Ben chuckled softly. “That doesn’t look as if we had the island much to ourselves, does it?”

“No,” Tuckerman admitted. “We haven’t kept up the Cotterell tradition for exclusiveness.”

“Well,” said Ben, “if somebody has been trying to set us on a wrong trail, the question is was it the giant, the lady, or the night-prowlers? Or did the three belong to one party.”

“The lady is a stumbling-block,” nodded Tuckerman.

“If there were two parties,” said Ben, turning around, “my own opinion is that it’s the giant and the lady who’ve been making game of us.”

“Benjamin, what are you driving at?”

For answer Ben laughed. “Never mind, Professor. If I should tell you what’s in my mind, and it shouldn’t prove to be true, think how flat I’d feel. And now I think it’s time we went back to camp if we’re going in swimming before dinner.”

Just before sunset that afternoon the chug of a motor-boat broke the stillness of the water around the island. The boat stole up to the landing-stage and two men got out. They went up the walk toward Cotterell Hall. “A beautiful mansion, Marmaduke,” said the man in the white flannel suit to the one in brown jacket and knickerbockers.

“I agree with you, Roderick,” said the other. “I suppose you would like to pick it up and carry it off to the Gables.”

“Not at all. But what is to prevent us from making use of it here? Sir Peter Cotterell defying the people of Barmouth.” Roderick Fitzhugh pointed in this direction and that, talking eagerly, until his companion interrupted him with a whispered, “They’re coming up in their sailboat.”

The _Argo_ touched the landing-stage, and Fitzhugh and his friend went out on the pier. “Hello, lads,” cried Fitzhugh. “We came out to take a look at the famous island Ben told us about.”

“Did you learn anything about the thieves?” Tom called from the _Argo_.

“No, not yet. But we’ve got the local police scouring the country. I don’t expect much from them,” added Fitzhugh. “What I hope is that the rascals will make us another call.”

“We’ve been fishing,” said Ben. “Hope you’ll stay to supper.”

“Well,” said Fitzhugh, “I’ve got my guests at the Gables.”

“You wouldn’t take any excuse from me yesterday,” Ben retorted. “Turn about’s fair play. You’ve never tasted Dave’s fried flounder.”

“That’s so, we haven’t,” said Marmaduke Midchester. “I vote to stay.”

They had supper on the beach, and afterwards Ben urged Midchester to sing the song he had written.

“Oh, Master Ben,” Fitzhugh protested, “why break in on the evening calm?”

“Go ahead,” said Tom. “We’d all like some music.”

“Music?” echoed Fitzhugh. “Who said anything about music? Well, if you’re determined to have him commit the crime, on your own heads be it!”

Midchester, who was a big man, stood up and sang in a deep bass, a song about a knight who loved a lady but who rode off to the wars. It had a spirited chorus, with many gestures, such as drawing a sword, waving a hand, and shaking a knight’s banner. By the time that Midchester sang the second chorus all the others were up, singing loudly and imitating his motions. It ended in a final loud cheer that could be heard at least a mile away.

“That’s better than I expected,” said Fitzhugh. “See, it scared the geese.”

He pointed to the western sky, across which a distant triangle of wild geese were flying.

“Now,” said Tuckerman, “I will give you a song of the sea as sung in the prairie schooners of the west.”

He had a good voice, and his song was so popular that he had to give an encore. Afterwards Fitzhugh said that he must take Midchester away or he would break out again.

Good-nights were exchanged on the pier and the motor-boat headed south.

“Well,” said Tuckerman, “they’re a good pair of scouts. I don’t suppose this island has heard so much noise since old Sir Peter’s day. I like guests myself. And as there doesn’t seem any likelihood of finding the Cotterell treasure, I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep open house.”

“Oh, we haven’t given up hope of finding it, have we?” asked Tom.

“Benjie hasn’t,” said David.

They all looked at the black-haired boy.

“Why, of course, I haven’t,” he answered calmly. “And the more people who come out here to look for it, the more chance we have of finding it, I think. You don’t suppose Fitzhugh and Midchester came here just to see us, do you?”

“I bet they did,” said Tom.

“I bet they didn’t,” said Ben. “They took us in as a side-show on their way to the big tent.”

XVI—THE CAMPERS CALL AT BARMOUTH

The _Argo_ was scudding along in a good breeze to Barmouth. Ben was carving a small piece of wood into what he fancied was a resemblance to a mermaid. David, his hands clasped behind his head, lounged in a comfortable corner. Tuckerman was at the tiller, and Tom surveyed his pupil through approving eyes.

“Professor, I think we’re ready to give you your diploma,” Tom said, as he noticed the easy manner in which Tuckerman handled the sailboat. “You’re an able seaman. I’ll give you an honor mark as a navigator.”

“And I’ll pass you as a first-rate cook,” said David, turning and nodding his head. “You fried those eggs this morning just as well as I could have, and praise can’t be higher than that.”

“You coax the fish right out of the sea,” said Ben, looking up from his carving. “There was a time when I didn’t believe you’d ever learn to bait a hook so the fish couldn’t nibble it off; but you can do it now. I’ll graduate you as a competent fisherman.”

“And my swimming?” asked Tuckerman, his eye on the water curling over the bow.

“Well, as to that,” said David, “you’re not exactly a merman, but you can paddle along at a decent pace. Yes, we’ll call you a swimmer. I should say you were a pretty good all-around fellow now, Professor.”

Tuckerman looked pleased. Praise from these three boys was very satisfying. And he knew that what they said was not mere idle banter. He had learned a great deal since he had been camping with them.

“Thanks,” he said. “To be able to sail a boat, to cook, to fish, to swim—why, that’s more than I ever expected to learn when I came here from the west. I tell you what! It was a great thing for me when I decided to take a look at my Uncle Christopher’s island.”

“And what are you going to do with it now that you’ve seen it?” asked Tom.

“I don’t know. I’ve got to go back to my home. I don’t suppose anyone would want to live way out in the harbor nowadays. There’s not enough to do there. But I hate to take all those fine old furnishings out of the house. They belong there, and they don’t belong anywhere else.”

“There’s an old house out on the Boston road,” said Ben, “that the owner keeps up as a sort of a museum. He has all the old furniture that was used in colonial days. There’s a great deal of travel on that road in summer, and he charges a quarter for every person that goes over the house. There’s a care-taker, of course. I think she serves tea for a quarter extra.”

“That’s an idea,” said Tuckerman. “Only my house isn’t on a main road. It’s a rather hard place to reach.”

“All the better,” put in Tom. “People like excursions. We could put up signs in Barmouth and all along the road. ‘Be sure to take the boat to famous Cotterell Hall on Cotterell’s Island and hunt for the treasure!’ That would get them all right. You could charge as much as you like.”

“And Tom could run a ferry, and Ben be the care-taker and serve ginger-ale at a dollar a glass,” suggested David.

“And you could cork your face and be the famous mahogany man from the Barbadoes,” retorted Ben. “He’s a wonder in a minstrel show, Professor.”

“It sounds good,” Tuckerman agreed. “It’s certainly up-to-date. But somehow I don’t feel that it’s quite dignified enough for Cotterell Hall.”

“You can make it dignified enough,” said Tom, “by charging enormous prices.”

Tuckerman laughed. “You’re right. You fellows are Yankees sure enough. You make me feel like a greenhorn.”

“And think of the business it would bring to Barmouth,” said Ben, putting the attempt at a mermaid into his pocket and sitting up straight. “People who went to the island would probably have to spend the night at the hotel. Why, you ought to be able to make a deal with the proprietor to share his profits.”

“Ben’s started now,” exclaimed David. “Stop him somebody quick, or he’ll be spending the money we’re making from the concern.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Ben proceeded, as usual paying no attention to David’s jibe. “It’ll put Barmouth on the map. ‘Cotterell Hall, the most famous treasure house on the Atlantic Coast!’”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that word ‘treasure,’” Tom protested. “It has a hoodoo sound.”

“And speaking of putting things on the map,” said Tuckerman, “here’s the wharf ahead. Don’t get me all excited while I bring her up to the dock.”

The _Argo_ made a perfect landing. “Good enough,” said Tom. “That couldn’t have been done better. Professor, you’re a dandy.”

They went up the main street and turned off to the elm-shaded lane where the Halletts lived. They were going to call on Milly Hallett.

Milly was at home. She was, in fact, enjoying an afternoon nap in the Nantucket hammock on the side porch when Tom spied her from the lane.

The sound of footsteps woke her, and seeing who was coming in at the gate she swung her feet down from the hammock, smoothed her rumpled skirt, and patted her fluffy hair. And because she still felt a trifle piqued that Tom was having all the fun of camping on Cotterell’s Island, she decided on the spur of the moment to be a little standoffish with the callers.

“Hello, Milly,” said her brother, in the offhand way brothers have, “we thought we’d come over to see how you were getting along.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Tuckerman,” said Milly, standing up and giving that gentleman the tips of her fingers. “I hope the boys are looking after you all right on your island.”

“I can’t complain,” smiled Tuckerman. “We do as well as we can, without any ladies to help us.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Milly invited politely.

Tuckerman took a chair, and the three boys, impressed in spite of themselves by Milly’s society manner, perched on the rail of the porch.

“We were wondering,” said Tuckerman, “whether we could induce you to come out to supper on the island. We hoped the simplicity of the meal would be atoned for by the beauty of the scenery. I can promise you a fine sunset.”

“Thank you for the invitation.” Milly swung gently back and forth. “Let me see—what did I have on hand for this evening?”

“Oh, chuck it, Milly!” said Tom. “Of course you want to come along.”

“I remember now,” said Milly suavely. “I have a date with my friend Sarah Hooper. There’s a new movie in town.”

“Well, of course,” said Tuckerman in a regretful tone, “we can’t compete with a new moving-picture show.”

Milly smiled. “The boys are still giving you plenty of good food, are they? And keeping you amused?”

David moved impatiently on his perch. “The Professor never got better food anywhere. He says so himself.”

“I thought perhaps the menu might get a little tiresome,” Milly suggested sweetly. “Boys are so apt to stick to one or two of the same things when they have to cook for themselves.”

“We don’t,” grunted David.

“She knows we don’t,” said Tom. “I say, Milly, what’s your game?”

“Game?” Milly wrinkled her pretty nose. “I don’t know what you mean!” She glanced again at Tuckerman. “Boys are funny creatures, aren’t they?”

The boys came down from the rail with one accord. Indignant replies were on the tongues of each; but Milly pointed beyond them at the lane. “Here comes Sarah Hooper now,” she said. “It’s just possible I can get her to change our date.”

Up the path came the black-eyed girl, a yellow sweater on her arm. “Hello, everybody!” she sang out, as she reached the porch. “What is it? An experience meeting?”

“They want me to go to supper with them on Mr. Tuckerman’s island,” said Milly. “I told them I had a date with you.”

“Perhaps Miss Sarah Hooper will join the party,” Tuckerman added promptly. “We’d like her to.”

“Fine!” exclaimed Sarah. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t.”

“Milly said,” put in Tom, “that you and she were going to a new movie.”

A glance passed from Sarah to Milly, and Sarah nodded her head. “That’s so,” she agreed. “I do remember we were.”

“However,” said Milly, “if Sally would really like to accept your invitation, we can go to the movies some other time.”

There was a pause, for Sarah was not sure what her friend wanted her to say; and then Ben broke the silence by pounding the porch-rail with his fist. “By jiminy, girls are funny creatures, aren’t they? They’re crazy to come, but they don’t want to admit it.”

“Oh!” began Milly. But Tuckerman interposed.

“The funnier people are, the pleasanter it is to be with them. We do need the company of ladies on our island. We’ve only been seeing each other, and sandpipers and gulls. It would be doing us a great favor if these two ladies would come and freshen us up.”

“Well,” said Sarah, charmed by this gallant speech, “I’d be glad to come. It’ll be a perfect evening.”

Milly got up from the hammock. “I’ll contribute a box of fudge.”

“That’s all that’s needed to make it complete,” said Tuckerman.

The girls went indoors, Milly to tell her mother about the party, and Sarah to telephone to her house.

“Now,” said Tuckerman, on the porch, “we’ve got to give them as good a time as they’d have had at the movies.”

“Milly wanted to come all along,” said Tom. “Why didn’t she say so?”

“I think,” answered Ben, “that she wanted to show us that she was having just as good a time here at home as we were having in camp; and she knew she wasn’t.”

Tuckerman smiled and nodded. “Ben’s hit it on the head. And that’s all the more reason why we should see that they enjoy themselves this evening.”

They all agreed to that line of reasoning, and the first result of it was that they suggested to Milly that she should sail the _Argo_ back to the island. She was very much pleased, and Milly, on her mettle, handled the craft as skillfully as Tom could have done himself.

They landed, and Sarah said that she would like to see the island, since all she had seen of it on her first visit had been Cotterell Hall and the shore about the camp. So the boys and Tuckerman took their guests on a regular tour, through the woods, where the russet-green pine-needles made a clean and fragrant carpet, dappled with patches of sunlight; along the little beaches, curves of yellow sand, where sandpipers played and strutted, or flew in silver bands; up on the ramparts of cliffs, against which the waves rolled in and slipped and slid in white cascades over the low-lying ledges, and so to the southern point, where they watched the sun setting in all its glory, tinting the sky and the sea in wonderful combinations of shifting colors.

Then they went to the camp, where David made a marvelous fish chowder of cunners and cod that Ben had caught that morning. And for dessert they had apple fritters and Milly’s home-made fudge.

When it was time to take their guests back to Barmouth, Tom suggested that they sail around the island. As they cruised up the ocean side they saw a sail to the east. And after watching the distant boat intently for some minutes David exclaimed, “I think that’s the fishing-smack that took me from the cove to Gosport!”

Tom shifted the tiller, and the _Argo_ took a course toward the larger boat. As they sailed, David, in answer to Milly’s questions, told of his adventure with the crew of the smack.

To the northeast lay a small island, and the larger boat sailed around its southern point. The _Argo_ kept up its chase, and presently came on the fishing-smack at anchor off a half-moon beach.

The big boat stood silhouetted against the violet sky of the summer night. It was too dark to distinguish figures on her deck. Apparently she had come to anchor there for the night.

“How about it, Dave?” asked Ben. “Is that the craft that kidnapped you?”

“Looks like her picture,” was the answer.

“Want to hail your good friend Sam?” inquired Tom.

“No, I don’t,” said David. “He might throw something out here that the girls wouldn’t like.”

“Oh, don’t mind us,” exclaimed Milly and Sarah in chorus.

“I don’t know what the smack—if it is Dave’s boat—is doing around here,” said Tuckerman. “There can’t be much to steal from that island.”

For a time the _Argo_ bobbed about, but there came no hail from the boat, no light appeared, she might have been a ship without a crew.

“Let sleeping hornets lie,” Tuckerman advised. And at the suggestion Tom sheered away. The _Argo_ sailed up the shore of the island and pointed her bow toward the twinkling lights of the town.

They were all enjoying the breeze, the star-sprinkled sky, the soft swish of the water against the side of the boat when Ben, from a brown study, spoke. “If the men on that smack are the thieves who broke into Mr. Fitzhugh’s house, might they be hunting around here for the Cotterell treasure?”

“Well, I wish them luck at finding it,” said David.