Part 2

As the clock which Jim had lost was a very valuable one, they wasted no time in reporting the circumstances to the police. Early in the morning the boys were up, and spent the time immediately after breakfast in loading last minute articles on the sloop. Don found that the lock on the companionway had been tampered with.

“Somebody tried to get in here,” he said, showing the others the lock, which was slightly twisted. “But I guess they found it too much of a job.”

After they had reported the entire matter to the chief of police, who promised to have the waterfront searched for the thieves, the boys ran down in Terry’s car to the local drugstore and bought a case of cokes. When they had loaded it on the boat, and final instructions had been half-jokingly given them by Mr. and Mrs. Mercer, the boys were prepared to go.

Don went below, bending over the engine, while Jim sat at the tiller, his fingers on the starting switch. Terry, feeling useless as a sailor, sat in the cockpit, watching the proceedings. Jim nodded to him.

“Cast off the painter, will you, Terry?”

Terry looked helplessly around. “When did a painter get aboard?” he asked.

Jim laughed. “The painter is that rope at the bow,” he explained. “Throw it to Dad.”

Terry took the painter and tossed it to Mr. Mercer, who caught it and placed it on the ground. Don turned the flywheel and the motor began to churn. Slowly, Jim advanced the spark, pushing the tiller from him. Like some graceful bird the _Lassie_ turned in the creek, her nose pointing toward the ocean.

The boys waved goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Mercer and Margy and the sloop headed out to the mouth of the creek. As it cleared the banks at the mouth of the channel it struck the small ocean waves, bounding and dipping like a thing alive. The little ship seemed glad to get out on its own element. The boys were fairly launched on their cruise.

“Well, we’re off,” exclaimed Don, coming up the ladder and stepping into the little cockpit.

“Off on a nice start,” Jim nodded, watching a buoy about half a mile ahead of him.

“This is swell,” Terry struck in, his eyes dancing.

The wind was blowing a lively little breeze, and the _Lassie_ rose and fell with the action of the waves. It was a bright, clear day, and they could see for miles over the tossing, tumbling Atlantic. On the port side they could see the long coast of Maine stretching along before them.

“Just think,” sighed Don. “Nothing to do but sail for a month or more.”

“It surely is great,” Terry agreed. “I hope in that month you’ll teach me something about sailing. I feel awfully ignorant.”

“You needn’t,” Jim told him. “We’re not any too good, ourselves. We’ve been used to sailing cat-boats around, but this is the first time we’ve had an opportunity to handle this boat in any kind of weather. I think we’ll all learn things together.”

After they had sailed down the coast for five miles Don said to Jim: “How about putting on sail?”

Jim considered the sky. “I guess we can. But we’ll have to take two reefs in it. With a small gale like this, we can’t risk putting on full canvas.”

“No, you’re right. Teach Terry how to hold the tiller, while I shut the motor off.”

“All you have to do,” Jim told Terry, while Don turned the motor off, “is simply to drive the bow straight toward that buoy. See the buoy? Now, hold the tiller loose in your hand. Just as soon as the bow moves away from pointing straight at the buoy, move the tiller the least little way in either direction. No, not so far over. That’s it, just a fraction. Now you have it.”

While Terry held the tiller somewhat gingerly, secretly as proud as a prince, the Mercer boys sprang to the sails, and began to untie the straps that held down the spread of canvas on the boom. When this was finished they jumped to the halyards and pulled the canvas up the mast, the wooden rings slipping with a clattering sound. While Don held the halyard ropes Jim tied the sail down at the second reef. Then, pulling up the jib sail, the boys walked back over the heaving cabin roof.

“All right, Terry my friend,” said Don. “You can let me have the tiller now. I have to guide the mainsail and jib from the tiller. Let down the centerboard, Jim.”

Terry surrendered the tiller. “Here you are,” he announced, with dignity. “Any time you want your boat tillered straight, call for Mr. Mackson!”

Under the spread of canvas the _Lassie_ sped along before the wind, the sails cracking with a stinging, invigorating sound, the mast creaking and the pulleys straining and squealing occasionally. The sloop was heeled far over on her port side, and the water boiled furiously over the rail, much to the wonder of Terry, who was perched far up on the starboard side.

“Gosh, this boat leans far over,” he observed. “Doesn’t it ever go all the way over?”

Jim winked at Don. “Well, once in a while. I think the most times it ever capsized was three times.”

“Three times!” repeated Terry, aghast. “In how many cruises?”

“Oh, all in one cruise,” Jim replied.

Terry’s eyes narrowed. “Look here! If the boat went over a good-sized derrick would have to come out here and right it. And if I remember correctly, this is the first time you have ever been out for any length of time in this boat.”

Jim opened his eyes in surprise. “That’s so! It must have been some other boat!”

“I think you mean you fell out of bed three times on one cruise,” Terry retorted.

Jim was the cook, and on the little galley stove he prepared an excellent meal at noontime. Rather than bother with the sails while eating, the boys had taken the canvas in, and were at present simply drifting idly with the tide. A few miles down the coast they could see the Midland Amusement beach, and Don proposed that they go there for a swim in the afternoon.

After the meal was over they cruised under motor power to the beach and, locking the companionway door, went ashore in the dinghy. They hired a bathhouse and soon emerged onto the beach in their trunks. From a long dock they dived into the water, amusing themselves for fully an hour in the sparkling water. Then, as the afternoon sun showed signs of going down rapidly, they dressed and climbed into the dinghy, pushing out from the shore.

“Hey, look!” exclaimed Terry. “There is someone on our boat.”

The boys stopped rowing and looked toward the sloop. A small rowboat was tied to the stern, and two men were walking around in the cockpit, peering down into the cabin through the portholes in the companionway.

“Wonder what they have in mind?” Jim said.

“Let’s get out there and see,” advised Don. Accordingly, they rowed with all their strength, until they were alongside.

The men had seen them coming, and one of them, a stocky individual with an unpleasant face, stepped to the side and smiled at them. Although the boys did not like the looks of either of them, they were polite and open in their manner.

“How d’you do?” the stocky individual hailed. “This your boat?”

“Yes, it is,” said Don, stepping on deck. The others followed, and Jim tied the dinghy to the stern.

“Thought likely it was,” the leader of the two went on. “Nice boat.”

“It surely is,” Don agreed, waiting. He felt sure that the man wanted him to open the companionway slide, and he had no intention of doing so. The shorter of the two men was standing back of him, evidently waiting.

“You—you don’t want to sell it, do you?” the leader asked.

Don shook his head. “No, it isn’t for sale. I don’t think you would have any trouble in having one like it built, though.”

“I couldn’t wait for one to be built,” the heavy man murmured. He turned to his companion. “Come on, Frank, time we were getting along. Thanks for letting us look it over, boys.”

“You are welcome,” Don replied. The men entered their boat and pulled rapidly for the shore.

“I don’t know that we could help letting them look at it,” Jim remarked.

“We couldn’t,” Don agreed, sliding back the hatch. “I wonder who those guys were? They must have come aboard while we were getting dressed.”

“Maybe they belong to the marine gang, and were looking us over,” Terry suggested.

“You may be right,” Don replied. “We’ll have to keep our eyes open for them in the future.”

After supper the boys continued the cruise, sailing for a time and then, as darkness came down, using the motor. Jim put on the lights and Terry asked concerning them.

“The green one is the starboard light,” Jim said. “The port is the red one. The danger side of a ship is the port side; the watch has to be keenest there. The easiest way to remember which is which is to think that port wine is red, and then you can always remember that the port light is the red one.”

Two miles off shore, on a lonely section of the coast, the boys lowered the anchor and prepared to spend the night. Terry, who had looked forward eagerly to his first night on the water and his first sleep in a bunk, was disappointed to find that they intended to sleep on deck.

“You can sleep inside, if you want to,” Don told him. “Only, I think you’ll like it better sleeping out on deck, under the stars. If we have stormy weather—and I think we are going to, because the barometer is going down—you’ll sleep indoors quite enough. But suit yourself.”

Terry decided that he would sleep on deck, and they accordingly carried the blankets out on deck and spread them out. As it was too early to go to sleep yet, they talked for a time of general subjects.

“Suppose a storm, like a fog, comes up in the night?” Terry asked.

“Well, we can go close to shore, or anchor out, but if we anchor out, we’ll have to toll the bell all night. If anyone feels particularly like sitting up all night and pulling on the rope, they are perfectly welcome to do so.”

“Count me out,” Terry decided. “We might use Jim, however.”

“How is that?” Jim asked, suspiciously.

“When you give that little imitation of a snore that you do, your mouth half opens and shuts,” Terry explained. “I was just thinking that we might hitch the rope up to your front tooth and have it tolled all night without anyone having to sit up or keep awake!”

“I see. Well, look here. When you are lying under the bell, don’t you ever yawn!”

“And why not?”

“Because we’ll never find it again, and we’ll have to hang you to the mast and shake you back and forth every time we have a fog,” said Jim, soberly.

“Meaning that I’ll swallow the bell, I suppose?”

“Something like that.”

The boys turned in around ten o’clock, thoroughly tired out. Before Don put out the light he looked at the barometer.

“Going down,” he muttered. “Doesn’t look any too good for the morning.”

The last thing that Terry remembered was lying on the gently heaving deck, looking up at a multitude of soft glowing stars. Then a deep sleep fell upon him.

_4. Stormy Weather_

Terry Mackson was dreaming. He dreamed that he was sitting on a bench and that Jim was hurling buckets of water over him. The bench was heaving up and down and the water continued to pour over him. The part that made him angry was the fact that he couldn’t seem to get up. And now, to make matters much worse, someone, he couldn’t see who it was, was shaking him.

He woke up with a start, to find Jim bent over him shaking him roughly, and shouting something in his ear. Jim was saying, “Get up, it’s raining,” and Terry, struggling to his feet, found that Jim was putting things mildly. The rain was coming down in sheets, and Don was heaving the bedding down the companionway. Terry took a brief look before going below.

The millions of stars that he had looked at earlier in the evening had all disappeared, and only a dense, heavy gray sky hovered over the sloop now. The waves, which had been so gentle, now reared angry heads alongside the little craft, and the deck was soaked with the spray. The world had turned completely upside down in the farm boy’s eyes.

“Go on down,” Don shouted. Terry obeyed, but Don ran forward and examined the anchor cable. When he came back downstairs, he was wringing wet. He slipped the companionway shut and Jim closed and bolted the portholes.

“The anchor is holding all right,” Don reported. “I think we can weather it.” He slipped out of his pajamas and vigorously rubbed himself down with a rough towel. “Well, we’ll sleep indoors, like Terry wanted us to, sooner than we expected.”

“I never saw a storm come up so fast,” declared Terry.

“I’ll bet you didn’t see it at all,” Jim retorted, rubbing down. “Judging by the way I had to shake you, you didn’t see much of anything.”

In the light of the electric lamp the boys changed into dry night clothes, and sat on the edge of the bunks talking. The experience was slightly weird to Terry, but the Mercer boys did not seem to mind it. The sloop tossed madly, causing dishes to clatter inside the cupboard and other things to rattle and clink all over the boat. The fog bell clashed and clanged with each roll of the boat, and the electric lamp oscillated continually. Each time the sloop slid down a wave it pulled with a jerk on the anchor cable. To Terry, as he looked around, it seemed like being boxed in a trunk, at the mercy of the waves that slapped overhead.

“Well,” yawned Don, at last. “No use sitting up any longer, I suppose. We’ll see how things look in the morning. Do you feel all right, Terry?”

“Sure I do. Why?”

“I was just thinking that if you are going to get seasick at all, you’ll get that way tonight,” grinned Don, as he put out the lamp.

“Thanks for your cheerful thoughts,” grumbled Terry, as Jim snickered.

Terry was the first to awake in the morning, and he lay for a moment looking around the interior of the _Lassie_. The storm had evidently not subsided, for the floor continued to heave and sink, and the continual clinking and bumping went on. The portholes were still wet and a faint trickle of water ran out from the bottom of the engine. Outside, he could hear the whistle of the wind and the slap of the waves, and now and then a particularly big one ran across the deck. The brothers were still asleep.

At seven-thirty they woke up together and the three boys got dressed. Getting breakfast was no easy job, and Jim was hard put to it, especially in the matter of making coffee. Don, clad in oilskins, went on deck and examined the anchor cable, which he found to be bearing the strain very well. It was decided that they would cruise along with the storm during the morning and see what they thought best to do later in the day.

On the side of the centerboard casing, which came up from the floor of the cabin, dividing it somewhat, a board on hinges served as a table. This board, when raised, made a good substitute for a regular table, and on this Jim placed the eggs, bacon and coffee. The meal was a gay one because the food slipped back and forth with the rolling of the sloop. On one occasion, just as Terry was about to spear a piece of egg, his plate slipped downhill to the other side of the board, where Don was eating.

“Would you mind giving me back my plate?” Terry asked.

A particularly violent roll dumped the remaining egg from his plate and spread it dismally all over the board. Don pushed the plate back to him gravely.

“How about my breakfast, too?” Terry asked.

“Oh, do you want that too? You only asked for your plate, you know.”

All three boys pitched into the job of washing plates and then they pulled in the anchor and continued the cruise. Terry, outfitted in a coat of oilskins, enjoyed the rough sailing much more than the smooth. The little ship dipped joyously down into the troughs, plunging its nose beneath the waves and flinging them right and left in a smother of foam. Then, riding magnificently up the side of a gray green monster, it rushed with speed down the watery hill, to bury its nose in another small mountain. Quantities of water rushed across the deck, soaking them in spite of their oilskins, but as the weather was warm, the boys did not mind it. At times Terry was allowed to hold on to the tiller, a job that amounted to something, and he found it vastly different from the easy job it had been on the day before, when the water had been smooth.

They brought a portable radio on deck and listened to it throughout most of the morning, but the static was very bad and they finally gave up. After several unsuccessful attempts at playing a losing game of gin rummy against the wind, the boys decided it was easier just to watch the sea and the dark clouds as they scudded across the sky.

Another meal was eaten under conditions similar to those of the breakfast, and the sail continued. The day was dark and the sky threatening, and Don thought seriously of running inshore and tying up at a dock until the blow was over. Late in the afternoon they decided to swim.

“Want to go in for a real swim?” Jim asked Terry.

Terry looked toward the shore. “Where is a beach?” he asked.

“Jim doesn’t mean at a beach,” Don supplied. “He means to go swimming from the boat. Like to try it?”

“With the waves running like that?” Terry demanded.

“Sure thing. It will be the best swim you ever had.”

Terry was not sure, but as the Mercer boys got into their trunks he slowly followed, secretly appalled at the size of the waves that broke against the side of the sloop. Don was first to go over. Poised for an instant on the cabin roof, he suddenly launched out into a splendid curving dive. Right into the heart of a wave he went, to reappear some yards away, puffing.

“Oh, boy!” he called. “Get in, it’s great.”

Jim followed his brother, and Terry, whose swimming had been confined to quiet water all his life, hesitated for a few minutes before he made his plunge. Then, standing on the stern, he shot himself forward into a smother of gray-green water, instantly shooting below a small, churning mountain. An instant later he came to the surface, bobbing up and down on the waves.

Don swam to him. “How do you like it, kid?”

“It’s great stuff,” Terry gasped. “There certainly is plenty of room to swim in!”

Under these conditions the boys only swam for fifteen minutes, keeping close to the sloop. When they were once more clad in dry clothes they felt invigorated and healthy as they never had before. Supper, consisting of beans and potatoes and some peaches, tasted very good to them.

As evening came on the sea became rougher and rougher, and the brothers agreed to anchor somewhere in port for the night. They were now out of sight of the mainland, and Jim proposed that they run back to the coast. But Don, who was looking intently across the starboard bow, called his attention to a long low black mass just visible above the waves.

“Isn’t that Mystery Island?” Don asked.

Jim looked and then went down the companionway steps, to unfold the marine map and look at it closely. Presently his head appeared above the combing.

“That’s it, all right. Not thinking of anchoring near there, are you?”

Don nodded. “Yes, I am. It is a whole lot nearer the boat than the main shore is. I don’t see why we can’t run in and heave to.”

“The place hasn’t got a very good reputation, Don!”

“Nonsense, Jim. Most of the tales you hear about Mystery Island are false to begin with, and besides, I’m not afraid of a lot of old legends. I guess we can find a good cove there to anchor in until this storm blows over. Spin the motor, will you?”

Jim spun the flywheel and the _Lassie_, under Don’s guiding hand at the tiller, turned her nose to the low island in the distance. Terry turned to Don.

“What is all this business about Mystery Island, skipper?”

“Oh, just a collection of idle stories, mostly. It was supposed to have been the hiding place for pirates once, and for smugglers later on. I guess most of it is all foolishness, but people around this part of the country have a habit of saying, ‘Keep away from Mystery Island.’ Personally, I don’t believe there is a thing the matter with the place at all.”

It took them less than an hour to reach Mystery Island, and they found a fine cove to anchor in. It was now too dark to see the island clearly or to make out any details of it. After sitting around and talking over old school days for some time, the boys turned in and went to sleep.

A loose pan rattled around the top of the sink, annoying Jim as he tried to sleep. Finally, completely disgusted, he got up and captured the utensil, placing it firmly in a small closet.

“Should have done that in the first place,” he murmured, moving about in the darkness.

The rolling of the sea had abated somewhat, and Jim looked out of an open porthole. Close to them lay the black island, and Jim wondered idly what secrets it did contain. Then, uttering an exclamation, he looked intently out of the porthole.

Don stirred uneasily in his bunk. “Coming to bed, Jim?” he inquired.

“Sometime, yes. But come here, Don.”

Terry, awakened by the whispering, joined Don and Jim at the porthole and looked toward the island. On a sort of bluff, fronting the cove, a lantern was flickering in the breeze. Although they could not see clearly, they could nevertheless make out the outline of a man back of the lantern.

“Somebody standing there and looking us over,” Jim whispered.

“Wonder who he is?” Don asked.

“Mighty strange that he should come out on the shore on a night like this to look at the sloop,” muttered Terry.

For two or three minutes longer the man stood perfectly still, evidently looking toward the sloop, although the boys could not make out his face. Then, swinging the light as he walked, the mysterious watcher passed along the bluff and out of sight.

“There goes our reception committee,” chuckled Don.

“All I hope is that it is the right kind of a reception committee,” grumbled Jim. Don sought his blankets. “I guess it’s OK. Maybe they don’t have many boats stop here, and the sight is a novelty. Well, we won’t worry over it. I’m dead tired.”

_5. Mystery Island_

When the boys woke up in the morning they found that most of the storm had subsided, but the day was anything but fair. The sky was gray and overcast, and the sea rose and fell in short, choppy billows. The wind, however, had gone down altogether, and that made a big difference.

Before dressing the three boys stepped out on deck and dove overboard into the stinging water that tumbled alongside the sloop. After this invigorating swim they enjoyed a wholesome breakfast, eaten out on the deck under the leaden sky.

“Sure does seem good to eat without having your plate run up and down hill every second,” Terry affirmed.

“It seems good to get out of the heat of the cabin,” Don said.

Jim showed a perspiring face above the companionway. “That goes for everybody but the cook,” he observed. “I will admit, though, that getting breakfast today has been easier than it was before.”

They ate slowly, not being pressed in any way for time. “Looks like an idle day,” Don ventured.

“I agree with you there,” his brother answered. “Until it clears up we won’t want to sail on, and so it looks as though today might be a trifle dull. But we’ll get through it somehow.”

“There will be plenty to do.” Don looked off toward the island, to where the top of a long house showed through the trees. “I know what I’m going to do. See that house?”

“I see it,” Terry replied. “Thinking of renting it for the summer?”

“No,” Don retorted. “But I saw smoke coming from a chimney on it this morning, and I’m going up there. They may have some fresh eggs, and if so, we want them. I’ll row over in the dinghy and take a trip to the house.”

“How about that man we saw last night with the lantern?” asked Jim.

“What about him?”

“I just didn’t like the looks of things, that is all. I’m wondering why anyone should take the trouble to come out on a bluff at three o’clock or thereabouts in the morning and look at us so long. It doesn’t look right to me.”

“Maybe it was someone that couldn’t sleep, and decided to go out for a morning stroll,” grinned Terry.

“With a lantern in his hand?”