Chapter IV: Part 4

“Very good,” said Ben. “Only the real treasure hasn’t been found, you see.”

“What!” exclaimed David.

“No,” said Ben, “that’s my humble opinion.” And then, as if he wanted to change the subject, he added, “I’m going to toast one large, juicy marshmallow, and then I’m going to turn in.”

Half-an-hour later the moon, riding up in the sky, looked down through the branches and saw that the four campers were sound asleep. There was the lap-lap of waves, the gentle purring noise as the water washed over pebbles, and in the tops of the pines a soft lullaby of the breeze.

Tom stirred, turned, opened his eyes. It seemed to him that something had waked him. He looked about; there was only the familiar scene. He gave a satisfied grunt and curled his head in the hollow of his arm. Then he looked around again to make sure that they had put out all the embers of the fire. And at some distance through the woods, in the direction of the pier, he saw a light that moved.

Immediately he remembered what Ben and Tuckerman had said about seeing a light in the house. Noiselessly he got up, pulled on his shoes and stuck his arms in his jacket. Through the woods he stole, stealthy as an Indian. The light had disappeared, but he thought he heard the sound of feet on the planks of the pier.

He came to the trees nearest to the clearing about Cotterell Hall. The house was dark; there was no sound or light in the neighborhood. But he was convinced that there had been someone there, and presently he darted forward and crossed the open space to the shelter of the porch.

After a few minutes he stole to the corner of the house, and now his search was rewarded. Someone was leaving by the kitchen door. In the moonlight he counted three figures. They were heading away from the shore, toward the grove at the back; he guessed that they intended to take the path that led down to the creek.

Tom followed them at a distance. They went through the woods, and now he saw the moonlight on the water. They had reached the head of the creek, but they didn’t stop there. They went on along the bank to the higher shore where the creek flowed into the ocean. Then for the first time Tom noticed the silver tip of a sail. Lying flat behind a bush, he watched the three men go to the rim of the shore, and, one after another, slide over the edge where the boat waited.

He wanted to see that boat, to get a closer view of the men; but there were no bushes between him and the shore. Now the tip of the sail was bobbing, now it was filling out; presently it was moving to the southward, a white wing, still as a floating gull.

He crept forward and watched. The boat was stealing away, soon she was only a dancing speck of white in the glittering moonpath. He had no way of identifying her or of making out her crew. He noted that she did not turn or tack when she came to the lower end of the island, but held on to a course that would bring her south along the main shore.

Tom stood up and eased his feelings by a long whistle. “What were they doing here? It must be something mighty important,” he said aloud.

No answer occurred to him, and after watching the sail until it disappeared in the distance he turned and walked back to the house.

He tried both the doors; they were locked. He looked at the lower windows; they were all closed. He went down to the pier; the _Argo_ was there and the _Red Rover_; there was nothing to tell him what these night-time prowlers had been doing.

He went back by the beach to the camp. As he stepped up on to the bank Ben opened his eyes and sat up. “Hello,” he said sleepily. “Why, Tom, what are you doing?”

“Sh-ssh,” murmured Tom.

Ben rubbed his eyes, crawled out of his bed, caught Tom’s arm, and pulled him down to the beach. “What were you doing?” he demanded in an insistent whisper.

“Well, I saw a light, and I went to find out what it was.”

“Yes? And you saw them, did you?”

“Saw whom, Benjie?”

“Saw the pirates, did you?”

“The pirates! You’re half-asleep. What are you talking about?”

Ben nodded his head. “Oh, I know something about them.”

“Well, I saw three men. They went away in a sailboat.”

“Who were they? What did they look like?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get very close.”

“I wish you’d taken me along with you. I’ll bet I’d have found out something.”

That nettled Tom, and he answered more loudly, “Oh, you would, would you? I thought you knew all about them.”

“Sh-ssh,” muttered Ben. But David had wakened now, and his voice boomed out, “What are you two lobsters quarreling over?”

“Nothing,” said Tom. “Keep quiet, or you’ll wake the Professor.”

Tuckerman sat up. “You don’t mean to say it’s morning!” he exclaimed.

“No, it’s not,” Tom answered. “Can’t a fellow take a stroll in the moonlight without rousing the whole town?”

“Stroll in the moonlight!” chuckled David.

“Go on with your beauty sleep, Professor. That’s what I’m going to do. Let the two lobsters fight it out.”

“All right,” said the sleepy Tuckerman, nestling down again.

Tom turned to Ben. “So you know something about these pirates, do you?” he asked. “What were they doing here?”

“That,” said Ben, “is going to take some thinking. You see what you can find out, and I’ll see what I can. They won’t be back here to-night. And I’m too doggone sleepy to argue anyhow.”

XI—THE MAN IN GREEN

Ben, having explained to the other three campers that he had important business to attend to in Barmouth, set out in the _Red Rover_ directly after breakfast the next morning. He paddled the canoe across the bay, landed at the town wharf, and went up the main street to Barmouth’s one good hotel. He knew the clerk, Mr. Pollock, and after saying “Good morning” very politely, he helped himself to a small folded automobile map from a pile that lay on the counter for anyone to take.

“Going motoring, Ben?” asked the clerk. “Seems to me I heard you were camping on Cotterell’s Island. How are things over there?”

“Fine,” said Ben; and in return he promptly asked a question. “Had many automobile parties for dinner the past few days?”

“Quite a lot. Yes, business is pretty good. They like our special broiled lobster dinners.”

Ben leaned on the counter, copying the familiar manner he had noted in hotel guests. “You had a party on Tuesday, didn’t you? A big red car, with a Massachusetts license, driven by a man in green-checked knickerbockers?”

“Expect me to remember that?” Nevertheless, Mr. Pollock scratched his chin and considered the question. “Yes, seems to me I do recall such a party. Somebody said those knickerbockers were loud enough to be heard all the way to Boston.” The clerk thumbed the pages of the hotel register and presently pointed out a name. “That’s the fellow, Joseph Hastings. He comes from Cleveland, Ohio. There were four in his party.”

“And he came in a big red car, with a silver eagle on the radiator cap?” Ben persisted.

“Well, now, I can’t say as to that.” But Mr. Pollock, being a good-natured man and having nothing else to do at the moment, scratched his chin again, and again considered. “I do think of something. He told me he’d punctured a tire and asked me the best place to go to buy a new one.”

Ben nodded. “I suppose you told him Hammond’s?”

“You’re right. I did. Frank Hammond is a good friend of mine.”

Then Ben changed the conversation to the subject of the big league pennant race, in which the clerk was very much interested, and after some further chat, departed from the hotel.

Frank Hammond knew Ben also, and was not too busy that morning to exchange a few words with him. After a number of questions about the state of the roads in the neighborhood of Barmouth, Ben said, “Mr. Pollock tells me you sold a tire to Joseph Hastings, of Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday of this week.”

“That’s so,” said Mr. Hammond, “I did. I sold him a couple of those big Vulcan tires for his rear wheels. Is he a friend of yours?”

“I don’t know him very well,” Ben evaded. “But I hear he’s a fine fellow. Is he touring along the coast?”

“No. He said he was staying at a place called the Gables, down on the Cape Ann Road. Wonderful car he’s got. He told me he’d had it built according to his own ideas.”

“Big red car, with a silver eagle on the radiator cap?”

“That’s the bird. Yes, sir, he must be a millionaire.”

When he left the dealer in automobile supplies Ben went to his uncle’s house and secured the loan of a small, ramshackle car he had often driven before. He made sure that the car had plenty of gasoline and oil, that the radiator was full of water, and he took a look at the tires. Then he drove south from Barmouth over the State Road.

It was a fine day, and many cars were out. Ben kept a watchful eye for such a car as that of Joseph Hastings, but none answering the description passed him. So he jogged along until he came to the fork of the Cape Ann Road and turned into it. There were fewer automobiles here, the road was not made for speeding, the little car bounced about a good deal going over ruts, and rattled like a load of tinware.

He met a boy on a bicycle and asked him if he knew a place called the Gables.

“Down the road a couple of miles,” the boy told him. “Big house with a ship for a weather-vane.”

Ben thanked him and drove on. Pretty soon he saw the weather-vane on a roof to the left of the road.

The Gables had a wide lawn, stretching down to a stone wall. The entrance to the drive was at the southern end, and the gateposts were flanked with larches. Ben drove to the gate, and stopped. So far his plan had been simple; now he was undecided what course to follow next.

He was musing over this when a voice hailed him.

“Give you greetings, sir. May I ask what you’re pondering over?”

The words were so peculiar that Ben looked around in surprise. A young man had stepped out from among the trees and was nodding at him.

“Why—good-morning,” said Ben.

“Has your car run out of juice?”

The man came up, a broad smile on his face. He himself looked very much like any sunburned fellow; but his costume was most peculiar. He wore a tight-fitting jacket of green, open at the throat, without any necktie. His knee-breeches were green, too, and so were his stockings, and on his low brown shoes were large brass buckles.

“No,” said Ben, with an answering smile, for there was a twinkle in the stranger’s eye as if he knew some joke, “I’ve gasoline enough to run this car all day. I’ll admit it isn’t the very latest model—not what you’d call a show car—but we do get wonderful mileage per gallon of gas.”

“Don’t make any apologies for your equipage,” said the gentleman in green. “Many a valiant knight has ridden on a steed that wouldn’t have taken the blue ribbon at the horse show. Don Quixote, for example. You remember him, of course? The Spanish cavalier who rode forth to tilt at windmills?”

“Yes,” said Ben with a laugh. And then, seeing that the man was friendly, he added, “That’s a wonderful suit of clothes you’re wearing.”

“You like it?” The owner looked down at his costume. “I designed it myself. It seems to me an improvement on the usual thing. And now, kind sir, since you tell me that your steed has plenty of fodder, may I ask how you happen to be sitting here on such a fine day?”

“This place is called the Gables, isn’t it?” asked Ben. “Mr. Joseph Hastings lives here?”

“Right you are,” answered the man. “But Mr. Hastings isn’t at home this morning. Did you have business with him?”

“In a way. I wanted to find out if he’d lost a silver snuff-box.”

“A snuff-box? That’s interesting. But I don’t think Joseph Hastings takes snuff.”

Ben drew the box from his pocket. The man in green looked at it. “Now where did you find this?” he asked.

“On an island in Barmouth Harbor,” said Ben. “Cotterell’s Island, it’s called.”

“Well!” exclaimed the man. “Well, well—you don’t say so!” He looked at the boy in the car with a new interest. “So that’s where you come from, is it?” He returned the snuff-box. “May I be so inquisitive as to ask your name?”

“Benjamin Sully.”

“Thank you. My own appellation is Roderick Fitzhugh. If you have no objection, Mr. Sully, I should greatly enjoy the pleasure of riding with you.”

Ben didn’t know what to say; and Mr. Fitzhugh evidently took his silence for consent, for he immediately hopped into the seat beside the driver.

“That’s all right,” said Ben; “but you see I wasn’t thinking of riding anywhere. I came to find out whether Mr. Hastings had lost a snuff-box on Cotterell’s Island.”

“Just so. But you can’t find that out, as he’s not at home at present. And meantime I suggest that we go on a little adventure. A fine day, a steed with plenty of gasoline, and two gentlemen looking for amusement.”

Ben was mystified. “What sort of adventure?” he asked.

“Well, what would you say to hunting for hooked-rugs?”

“Hooked-rugs?” Ben laughed; he was now so much amused at Roderick Fitzhugh’s company that he wanted to see more of him. “Do they grow on bushes?”

“No. They grow in these thrifty Yankee cottages. I’ll tell you where to go.”

Ben started the engine and drove on. At his companion’s direction he soon turned into a by-road that led westward.

Roderick Fitzhugh nodded toward a cottage, in the yard of which a woman was scattering grain to a flock of chickens. “There is a likely-looking hunting-ground,” he said. “Please stop when you come to the gate. I will exchange a few words with this respectable lady.”

The car stopped, making its customary noise of clattering tinware as Ben put on the brake. The woman looked round, and in the usual neighborly fashion of farmers walked over to the gate.

“Morning,” she said.

“Good morning to you, Madam,” responded Roderick Fitzhugh. “You have a fine flock of hens.”

“Yes,” she said, looking at the man in the green clothes as if she didn’t know exactly what to make of him.

“My friend and I,” continued Fitzhugh, “were just discussing the subject of hooked-rugs. As soon as I saw you I said, ‘There’s a woman who knows all about them.’” His tone was so deferential that anyone would have been pleased to be addressed in such a manner.

The woman smiled. “Well, now, I don’t know as how I know all about them; but I do have a few old rugs. Been in the family some time.”

“You see!” exclaimed Fitzhugh, turning to Ben. And to the woman he added, “Would it be possible for my friend and me to have a look at them?”

“Surely it would. But they’re not the new shiny kind you can buy at the stores in the city.”

Fitzhugh and Ben descended and followed the woman indoors. Presently they were viewing half-a-dozen antique rugs, all of the hooked variety, that the woman collected from the upstairs rooms.

Ben looked on with interest and amusement while his new friend discussed the rugs with their owner. And after listening to Fitzhugh’s admiration for these things that she evidently regarded as rather faded and only fit for service in bedrooms and attic, the woman said, “I’d be pleased to have you take one, if you care to.”

“Oh, madam, you are too generous,” Fitzhugh answered. “And yet I should like to have one. That medium-sized one, with the purple border. I’d be glad to pay five dollars for it.”

“Why, it’s not worth that much.”

“It is to me,” said Fitzhugh, and he brought out a five-dollar bill from his trouser pocket and laid it on the table.

With the rug they returned to the car. As they drove on again Fitzhugh said, “They used to tell me, when I was a small boy, that you could take one egg from a nest, and if there were several others left the mother bird wouldn’t know the difference. I don’t know whether that’s so. But I’m certain this good woman won’t miss that rug very much. So my conscience is easy, though I got that prize at a bargain. Now, Mr. Benjamin Sully, what do you say? Isn’t hunting for hooked-rugs exciting?”

It was fun to hunt them with this amusing companion. Fitzhugh collected three more at three other houses, paying five dollars for each. At the third house the farmer and his wife and children were just sitting down to dinner and the strangers were invited to join them. They had an excellent meal, during which the man in green did almost all the talking, and when they returned to the car and started on again he rubbed his hands gleefully and said, “Mr. Benjamin Sully, it isn’t so hard to find adventures if you look for them, is it?”

“Well,” Ben answered, “this is all very well; but I set out this morning to see Mr. Hastings and learn if he’d lost a snuff-box.”

“That’s so, you did. Joseph Hastings—a silver snuff-box—found on Cotterell’s Island. What makes you think that the snuff-box you found there belonged to Joseph Hastings?”

Ben considered how much to tell this Roderick Fitzhugh, and finally decided to supply him with more facts. “The snuff-box was bought by Mr. Hastings at a shop in Barmouth, and I found it yesterday in a chest hidden in a crevice in the rocks on the island. Why did he put it there?”

The man in green beamed with delight. “In a treasure chest? Why, that’s splendid!” He looked at Ben with new approval in his eyes. “So you’re mixed up in a real adventure, are you? Treasure hidden in the rocks—on an island! Why, that’s magnificent! No wonder you didn’t get excited over my tame hooked-rugs. Turn the car about, and drive back to the Gables. We must investigate this.”

Half-an-hour later the little car turned in between the gate-posts at the Gables. It clattered up the drive to the front of the house. On the wide porch were at least a dozen people, men and women; and when they saw the occupants of the car they gave a shout of welcome.

“Hello, here’s the lad in green!”

“We thought you’d been kidnapped!”

“Where’d you find the jitney?”

“Hope you’ve had some lunch!”

“We thought you’d been arrested as a suspicious character in those clothes!”

These were some of the exclamations.

The man got out of the car and threw his bundle of rugs on the steps of the porch. “My good friends,” he said, “Roderick Fitzhugh has been adventuring, and there’s his booty. Four beautiful hooked-rugs to add to the collection. And this is Mr. Benjamin Sully. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sully has found a silver snuff-box belonging to Joseph Hastings in a treasure chest on Cotterel’s Island. What do you think of that?”

There was another chorus of exclamations, expressive of great surprise.

“Mr. Sully,” the man in green continued, “if you’ll get down from your steed we will partake of a long glass of lemonade—two glasses to be exact.”

Ben climbed down and went up the steps. And then he noticed that all the people on the porch were dressed in quaint costumes, as milkmaids or archers or foresters. He looked at Fitzhugh, and the latter nodded. “Queer crowd, aren’t they?” said Fitzhugh. “However, they won’t bite.”

XII—THE ADVENTURE AT THE COVE

That same morning, while Ben had been hunting for the owner of the red automobile with the silver eagle on the radiator cap, Tom and David and John Tuckerman had sailed down to Camp Amoussock in the _Argo_. They found the boys at the camp in their bathing-suits, practicing for some water-sports that were to be held that week. A raft, with a spring-board, was moored off shore, and from this boys were diving and turning somersaults, backward and forward, like acrobats in a circus.

Other boys were swimming, practising for races, and still others were paddling round in tubs, trying to steer with their feet while they propelled the tubs forward by splashing the water with their hands.

“There,” said John Tuckerman, as he saw a fat youngster revolving round and round in a tub, “that’s the game for me. I believe, with my long arms and legs, that I’d make a hit at it.”

The fat boy splashed too hard, and the tub went over neatly. There was a shout of laughter as the boy bobbed up in the water and tried to turn the slippery tub rightside up again. This was hard work; the tub went round and round, continually evading his fingers; and finally he swam to shore, pushing the tub before him.

“No,” said Tuckerman, “that isn’t the game for me. I used to be pretty good at picking up a pea in a tablespoon, but that was on dry land. When it comes to wrestling with a tub in the water—” He gave an expressive shrug—“I’d rather let the fishes do it.”

The _Argo_ landed, and the three guests were provided with bathing-suits from the camp’s supply. For half-an-hour they swam and dived and perched on the raft, watching the boys in tubs. Then a bugle sounded on shore, telling them it was time to get ready for dinner.

The guests did full justice to dinner, sitting between Mr. Perkins, the Chief Counsellor, and Lanky Larry. Afterwards Mr. Perkins and John Tuckerman had a chat, while Lanky invited Tom and David to take a walk along the shore.

“There’s a queer sort of place a couple of miles to the south,” said Lanky. “It’s a cove with a lot of shanties. Fishermen used to go there; there are boats and nets lying around; but I think it must be deserted. I saw some men there one day last week, but they didn’t look like fishermen.”

“Lead us to it,” said David. “Deserted villages are right in our line.”

The path along the shore brought them to the cove. A little tidal river ran inland, wandering up into marshes. On each side of the river was a stony beach, and a rickety bridge, with a single handrail, connected the banks of the stream. Small weatherbeaten shacks, doors and shutters sagging outward, fishing-dories, rusty anchors, lobster-pots, a few nets with round black buoys, these cluttered up either shore.

“Nice place, if it wasn’t for the shanties,” said David, regarding the cove.

“I found a chap painting here one day,” said Lanky. “He told me it made a great picture; he liked the shanties first-rate.”

“Funny what things painters like,” chuckled David. “The more ramshackle a house is, the more they want to paint it.”

They went down a rocky path to the nearer beach, and sat on the bottom of an upturned scow. As they were chatting they heard the creak of a door, opening on rusty hinges. A man came out from one of the nearer shacks. His clothes were fairly new, he wore a brown slouch hat and tan shoes—evidently he was not a fisherman; neither was he a farmer nor a common loafer; he looked as if he came from a town. He was smoking a small briar pipe.

“What are you doing here?” The man’s tone was a little peremptory, though not exactly surly.

David enjoyed such a question. With a pleasant, friendly smile he answered, “Just sitting here and thinking.”

“That’s all you’re doing, eh?”

“It is at present,” David answered. “What are you doing yourself?”

The man frowned; looked up the creek, looked across at the opposite shore. “Nobody lives here now,” he stated after a minute. “Sometimes I come and fish from that bridge.”

“What’s happened to the place?” asked Lanky.

“I don’t know. Only nobody comes here now.”

“Well, we came this afternoon,” said David. “You see, we’re explorers.”

“You won’t find anything to explore.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

The man shot a glance at David, not a very amiable glance. And with that he walked to the bridge, crossed it, and went into the huddle of shacks on the other bank.

“Pleasant sort of customer,” said Lanky.

“He’d make a cow laugh,” said Tom.

“He didn’t like our being here,” observed David, “Now I wonder why.”

“He wants it all to himself,” said Lanky. “He must be some sort of hermit.”

“And just for that,” said David, “I feel like sitting right here on this scow till he gets more hospitable.”

As a matter of fact, however, sitting on the upturned boat and watching the waves surge gently up over the stony beach and then withdraw in a network of little rivulets that made the stones and pebbles glisten was not entertaining enough to keep the three boys there more than five minutes. Tom got up. “I’m going over the bridge,” he said. “If our friend the hermit doesn’t like it—well, he’ll just have to lump it.”

The bridge shook as the three of them stepped upon it. “For goodness sake, don’t lean against that railing,” Lanky warned. “Stop bouncing up and down as you walk, Dave, or you’ll have us all in the water.”

David went on bouncing; but in spite of that they reached the other shore safely. No one was to be seen here; somewhere in the clutter of shanties the man had disappeared.

“I’d like to know what that precious hermit is up to,” said David, and he walked toward the shacks that were furthest from the bridge.

Lanky and Tom investigated in the other direction, where a clump of oaks came close down to the stream. At the edge of the trees was a shack a little larger and better built than the others. The door was open, and the two boys looked in. “Hello!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s that on the bench? It looks like jewelry.”

A brown cloak, a brown hat with a red feather stuck at one side, and a chain of gold links with a large green stone as a pendant, were piled on the bench.

Tom picked up the ornament. “It’s imitation,” he said. He looked around the room. “Why, there’s a whole wardrobe of queer hats and cloaks and things here!”

“So there is,” said Lanky. “What do you suppose they are? Actors’ things?”

“Actors’ things?” Tom glanced at the outfit of costumes that hung on pegs on one wall. “They’re certainly not fishermen’s things. But what would actors be doing in this cove?”

“I don’t know,” Lanky admitted. “It is funny, isn’t it?”

They looked at the costumes more closely, and then went out of the shack. “I wonder if that man knows something about them,” Lanky suggested. “He might have been keeping guard.”

“Let’s see what Dave’s doing,” said Tom, and started along the bank.

He had only taken a few steps, however, when he stopped. “Here comes a boat around the point. Let’s beat it, and see what they do.”

The two slipped back of a cabin, then to a shelter of bushes. Crouching there, they watched the boat nose its bow into the cove.

The boat was a dory. One man was rowing, two others sat in the stern. They looked no more like the usual type of fishermen than had the man whom the boys had first encountered.

With considerable splashing the boat was rowed up to the bridge. The tide was low, and there was hardly enough water at that point to float the dory. The rower shipped his oars and tied the boat to the railing of the bridge. Meantime the other two men stepped over the side and came up on to the beach.

All three headed toward the shack that the boys had just left and went in at the door.

“They seem to know their way about,” whispered Lanky. “I wonder why Dave’s friend didn’t come down to meet them.”

In a few minutes the three men came out again, and now they had some of the cloaks and hats in their hands. Each put on a cloak and a hat and strutted about; they laughed and joked at each other.

“What in the world——” muttered Lanky. “Actors. I told you,” Tom whispered. “They look like highwaymen.”

The men now seemed satisfied with their costumes. Hats pulled well down on their heads and cloaks thrown over their shoulders, they took the path toward the clump of oaks.

“I say,” muttered Lanky, “what do you suppose they’re going to do? Hold up some farmer’s wagon? Come on, I want to find out what’s their game.”

“I’d better get Dave,” said Tom. “You follow them. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

“All right.”

Lanky went one way, and Tom the other.

Tom ran over the stones between the shanties, and looked in at the open doors; but he did not see David nor the man they had met first. He gave the whistle he used to call David in Barmouth. There was no answer. The shacks on this side of the stream all appeared deserted.

David was not to be found, and Tom supposed he must have gone further along the shore. Meantime he would be losing the chance of finding Lanky, so after whistling several times more Tom turned and ran toward the oaks.

The path along the cove was well marked, it traversed the high ground at the edge of the marshes and turned into fairly thick woods. At a dog-trot Tom soon came up with Lanky. “I couldn’t find Dave,” he grunted. “I guess he found the hermit so fascinating he went for a stroll with him.”

“I’ve kept my eye on the three highwaymen,” said Lanky. “This seems to be the only path around here, marshes on one side and the forest primeval on the other.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “I ought to be getting back to camp; but I can’t leave an adventure like this. It wouldn’t be decent, would it?”

“It would not,” Tom assented. “If they try to blame you, you refer them to me. I’ll say that we thought those fellows were up to some kind of mischief, and that it seemed to be our duty to investigate them. And that’s telling the truth; they’re what Benjie would call ‘suspicious characters.’”

Every once in a while the boys would catch a glimpse of one or other of the cloaked men through the vista of the trees. Then the boys would stop and let the others get well ahead of them. And presently they reached a dusty road and saw the men tramping along to the south.

Tom and Lanky had to come out in the open then, but, as Lanky pointed out, there was no reason why the men, if they saw them, should think the two boys were at all interested in what they were doing. They walked a half-mile without encountering anyone, and then the boys saw an automobile coming toward the three in front.

“Now,” said Tom, “we’ll see if they’re highwaymen. This is a nice quiet place to hold up a car.”

But the men disappeared by jumping over a fence that ran along the woods on the left. The automobile, a man and a woman in it, dashed by the boys, leaving a cloud of dust.

“So ho!” exclaimed Lanky, “our friends don’t want to be seen! Suppose we make ourselves scarce till they come back to the road.”

The boys hid in the woods, and presently the three men reappeared on the road. Tom and Lanky followed suit, and the march was resumed.

A mile more, and the men came to a crossroad. They turned toward the west. When the boys reached the crossroad Lanky stopped. “This is a private lane,” he said. “See, it leads up to that barn and stable. And there’s a big house. Our friends are going in the back way.”

There was a screen of trees at the corner. The boys went along the lane until the screen gave way to a close-cropped hedge. Here they had a view of a wide, velvety lawn and the large house, red-striped awnings at the windows, on a gently-rising slope.

“Hello!” exclaimed Tom. “Look there!”

There was no heed of his telling Lanky to look. Lanky was staring at that part of the lawn that was shielded by the trees at the corner. There was a small, one-story house that looked as if it were made of cardboard, a very picturesque building, brightly painted to resemble cross-timbers, with two little lattice windows. And grouped about the grass in front of the house were a dozen or so men and women, all of them dressed in fancy costumes, looking as if they had just stepped out of a picture book or down from the stage of a theatre.

“My eye!” said Tom. “What is it? A fancy dress party?”

“Looks like a Robin Hood scene,” said Lanky. “Some of them have bows and arrows. See that girl in pink working that churn.” He watched for a moment; then added, “So that’s why our friends the highwaymen came along this way.”

“They don’t seem to have joined the crowd,” said Tom. “Why didn’t they jump over the hedge?”

The people on the lawn were too busy to notice the boys in the lane. Lanky nodded. “That’s so. And it seems to me, Tom, that that crowd are a different type from our three friends. These people belong here; but I don’t think the others do.”

The boys looked up the lane. The three men had entered at a gate that led to the rear of the big house.

“Let’s see what they’re doing,” said Tom.

Along the lane went the two boys, and turned in at the gate.

The men had disappeared. Lanky shook his head. “It’s queer, mighty queer. Of course those fellows may belong here. But why should they come all the way from that cove? And bring those hats and cloaks with them?” He scratched his ear, as he did when he was puzzled.

“Come along,” said Tom. “Nobody’ll throw us out.”

They crossed the lawn to the steps of the porch. A man came out from the front door, a man in livery, apparently the butler. He held himself very straight, he was an angular person, with a fishy eye.

“Yes?” he said; and though the word was a short one he managed to express in it a cold sense of disapproval.

“Er—” began Tom, “we would like to know if three men, wearing brown cloaks and big slouch hats, just came into this house.”

The butler shrugged his shoulders. “There are gentlemen and ladies wearing every kind of costume coming in and going out all the time,” he answered stiffly.

That seemed to put an end to further questions; but Lanky, after considering the matter for a moment, inquired, “Whose place is this?”

“It belongs to Mr. Hastings,” said the butler, eyeing the boys most disapprovingly. “He is not at home at present. But I can answer any questions for him.”

Neither Lanky nor Tom, however, could think of any questions to ask. It seemed absurd to tell this fishy-eyed servant that they had followed the three men from the cove. And after all the men might have a perfect right to have entered the house.

“Very well,” said Tom, and turned on his heel, followed by Lanky.

But when they were out in the lane again, Lanky said, “I’m going to wait around here a little longer. That servant’s a fool. Anybody could put anything over on him.”

So they climbed up on the stone wall on the other side of the lane and sat there like two sentries.

XIII—ON THE FISHING-SMACK

When Tom and Lanky had turned to the right and investigated the fishermen’s shanties that were nearest to the marshes, David had turned to the left, in the direction of the ocean. He had no particular object in view, except to see what the man they had met on the other bank of the cove was doing and exchange a few more words with him, if the opportunity offered.

He looked through the clutter of small, weatherbeaten sheds without seeing the man, and came to the beach on the ocean side. A short distance to the south was a spit of sand, and there, seated on a log, was the fellow with the straw hat.

David enjoyed an argument. He was not by nature so curious about other people as Ben was, but he liked to tease. So, with his hands stuck in his pockets and a little swagger in his walk, he went toward the man.

“Looking for a boat to come along and take you for a sail?” he said. “It’s a long walk to town.”

“You’d better be on your way then,” the man retorted. His tone was not very civil, and it made David flush.

“I can look out for myself.”

“Oh, you can, can you?” The man turned round and glared at the young fellow. “Well, my advice to you is to make yourself scarce pretty quick.”

David squared his shoulders. “You don’t want me and my friends round here, do you? A person might think you owned the beach.”

“No,” said the man, “I don’t want you round here.” He looked at the boy fixedly for a minute. “That’s plain enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s plain enough,” David admitted. “But I don’t see that it’s any reason why we should go.”

“I’ve business here, and you haven’t.”

“Business? You don’t seem very busy.”

The man got up from the log and walked away, down the beach toward a ledge of rock that shut off the southern end.

What was the man’s business? David, rather amused at the other’s surliness, followed after, walking jauntily.

He climbed the ledge of rock. There was another scallop of beach, with bushes close down to the sand. The man was not in sight. But there was a small fishing-smack at anchor not far from the shore, and a dory was just pulling away from her.

David stepped down on the beach, and the first thing he knew something had knocked him flat. He lay sprawling on the sand, a heavy weight on his back. Someone had caught his two hands and held them like a vise.

“Holler if you want to,” said the man with the straw hat.

David had no wish to shout. The breath was knocked out of him.

The man pinned him down, and after kicking a little, David decided the wisest course was to lie still.

After a few minutes there was a grating sound on the sand. David twisted his head enough to see that the dory had landed and that two men were coming ashore.

“Hello, Sam, what you got there?” exclaimed one of the strangers.

“A fresh guy, who wouldn’t mind his own business,” was the answer. “Now I’m going to teach him not to meddle:”

“Good for you, old sport! Give him a good licking.”

“Pity we left the cat-o’-nine-tails out on the boat,” said the second man.

“Three of them came to the cove,” said the man on David’s back. “The other two went away; but this fellow had to go nosing around into other people’s business. I told him to make himself scarce. But not he! Oh no, he had to find out what I was doing. And now I’m going to take him out on the boat and watch me do some fishing.”

There was a laugh at this. “You’ll let him bait your hook, won’t you, Sam?” asked one.

“I’ll let him take the fish off,” Sam retorted. “You fellows row us out, will you?”

The others agreed. The man on David’s back eased his position. “Now,” said he, “you can come along without any fuss or trouble, or you can come with a black eye. Suit yourself; it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Three to one was greater odds than David cared to tackle. “I’ll go along,” he grunted.

The man got up. David followed. Assuming a care-free manner he walked to the boat and climbed over the high side. A man sat at the oars, and Sam and the two others took seats on the thwarts. The oars dipped in the water, and the dory was rowed out to the smack.

David and Sam went aboard, and the dory with her crew of three rowed away again in the direction of the cove.

“Now,” said Sam, “make yourself comfortable. You’ve found out my business. I’m going to fish for flounders.” And he walked aft and down into the cabin.

David was puzzled. He could understand that this man might have had a grudge against him, even that he might have lost his temper and attacked him as he had; but why should he carry a grudge so far as to make him a prisoner on his fishing-boat?

He stared at the shore some time, then walked up toward the bow. Sam had reappeared from the cabin with fishing-tackle and was angling over the side. There was a line for David, and so, there being nothing better to do, David also set to fishing.

Fish were not biting on that particular afternoon, however. Presently Sam hauled in his line. “The pesky things never come when you want them,” he said morosely. “I suppose there are lots of them swimming around everywhere except where _I_ cast my hook.”

“You’re not a real fisherman,” said David. “There’s a knack to catching fish.”

“No, I’m not; and I don’t want to be,” was the man’s answer. “Of all the stupid jobs, I think fishing takes the cake.”

David was about to argue this point when another man came out from the cabin and joined them. At once David, wise in the look of sailormen from his acquaintance with them on the docks of Barmouth, decided that this was the skipper. The new arrival stretched his arms and yawned prodigiously. “Golly, I’m only half-awake yet,” he declared. “Sam, where’d you pick up this fellow?”

“He wanted to have a look at the boat,” said Sam. “In fact he was so set on having a look at her that I just had to invite him aboard.”

He said this with a sly glance at David, but if he had expected to get an angry denial he was disappointed, for David, leaning his arms on the rail, appeared to be in such a deep study of the shore as to allow for no interruption.

“The others gone ashore?” asked the skipper, evidently regarding the reason for David’s presence on the boat as a matter of small importance.

“Yes,” said Sam. He pulled a large watch from the upper pocket of his coat and looked at it. “And it’s about time they were coming back.”

There was no sign of them, however; and the sun began to slant toward the west, and then to dip behind the trees, and still there was no boat to be seen coming out from the cove. David, strolling up and down the deck, noticed that Sam was becoming impatient. After a while there was a fragrant odor of cooking, and David, putting his head in at the cabin door, saw that the skipper was getting supper in the galley.

The sun had set when the skipper’s voice announced that food was ready. “Come along,” Sam said to David, and though the invitation was not very cordial David went down to the cabin and ate his fair share of the meal.

Afterwards the three, on deck, watched the shore for a boat. And when the beach was quite dark and Sam had looked at his watch a dozen times, he said, almost angrily, “Well, Captain, I think it’s about time to beat it. They must have changed their plans. We don’t want to stay here all night.”

The skipper glanced at David. “How about him?” he asked, with a jerk of the head.

“He can help you sail the boat down to Gosport. That’ll pay for his supper.”

David was tired of inaction. To sail to Gosport attracted him much more than staying here at anchor any longer. He spoke up quickly:

“Yes, Captain. I know something about handling sails.”

“Good enough. That’s more than Sam does,” remarked the skipper. “He’s about as useful in handling this boat as a belaying-pin.”

Shortly the anchor was up and the fishing-smack under way. David carried out the skipper’s orders with proper efficiency. With a gentle breeze the boat stole southward along the shore, and in half-an-hour the lights of the little settlement of Gosport were glimmering over the water.

The smack came up to a wharf. “Now,” said Sam to David, “you can go ashore if you like. The captain and I may do a little cruising, but we don’t need you any longer.”

“Thanks,” said David. He had a retort on the tip of his tongue, but wisely forbore to utter it. He jumped ashore. “If you come to Barmouth, look me up,” he called back. “I’ll be glad to show you the town.”

There was a laugh from the skipper, but none from Sam. Immediately the fishing-smack pushed out again.

Gosport was a small place, and David knew no one there. He felt in his pocket, and found he had no money to pay his fare to Barmouth. He walked along the waterfront, considering what he should do, and presently came upon a young man, who was starting the engine of a small motor-boat.

“You’re not going anywhere in the neighborhood of Camp Amoussock, are you?” David asked the man in the boat.

The other looked around and surveyed the fellow who had asked the question. “Are you one of the boys from the camp?”

“I was there at dinner.” And in a few words David told the story of what had happened to him during the afternoon.

“Well,” said the man, “that’s a queer yarn. I was just going out for a moonlight spin, and I might as well go up to the camp as anywhere. Jump aboard.”

David accepted with alacrity. The motor-boat chugged out from the landing-stage, and leaving a smooth silver ripple, darted north.

The owner of the motor-boat—he had told David that his name was Henry Payson—said that, although he had only been a month at Gosport, he knew that part of the coast quite well, and had never happened to see any fishermen in the cove that David described. “That fellow Sam was a vindictive chap,” he added musingly. “But you know, it almost seems as if he had some other object than merely showing his spitefulness when he took you off in his boat.”

“That’s what I thought,” agreed David. “But Tom and Lanky were still at the cove. He didn’t lay hands on them.”

“Well,” said Payson, “the cove’s around that next point of land. No use stopping there now, I suppose. Your friends will surely have gone back to camp.”

When the motor-boat rounded the point, however, Payson changed his mind. On shore there were a score of lanterns; both banks of the cove fairly bristled with them. “Hello,” exclaimed Payson, “there’s something doing there all right!” And he altered his course so as to bring his craft into the mouth of the river.

As the boat ran up to the bridge boys came down from both sides, apparently all the boys of Camp Amoussock.

“Why, it’s Dave!” cried John Tuckerman. And immediately the two in the boat were the target of a volley of questions.

“Hold on!” cried David. “Wait a minute.” He swung himself out of the boat and up to the bridge.

“Where are Lanky and Tom?” someone asked.

“Aren’t they here?” said David. And as Tuckerman and Mr. Perkins and the boys from the camp crowded around he told them briefly his adventures since dinner.

“We’ve been hunting for you ever since supper,” said Mr. Perkins. “I can’t imagine where Larry and Tom can have gone.”

“Those three men rowed in here in the dory,” said David. “Perhaps they carried Larry and Tom off somewhere.”

“We’ve hunted through every shack,” said Bill Crawford. “And we’ve been down the coast a couple of miles.”

The chorus of voices explaining where they had hunted started in again, interrupted by Mr. Perkins giving the order to his troop to take the road back to camp.

David thanked Henry Payson, and the motor-boat chugged away. By the path along the shore the searchers regained Camp Amoussock. And there Mr. Perkins and John Tuckerman and David held a council as to what to do next.

The upshot was that Mr. Perkins got out a small car, and with Tuckerman and David set out to see if they could learn any news of the missing boys.

XIV—BEN AT THE GABLES

Ben that afternoon had a long, cool glass of lemonade on the porch of the Gables while his friend Roderick Fitzhugh introduced him to the men and women who were sitting in wicker easy chairs. It seemed to Ben that their names were somewhat fantastic, but then so were their clothes, and the names did appear to suit the costumes.

“This lady,” said Fitzhugh, nodding to a rosy-cheeked girl, who wore her brown hair in two long plaits down her back and whose dress was of primrose yellow, “is the fair Maid Rosalind. She can sing like a nightingale and dance like a wave of the sea, and when she churns butter it comes out pure gold.”

The girl stood up and made a curtsy. “Thanks, kind Master Roderick,” she said. “But perhaps your friend Master Ben doesn’t care for gold on his bread.”

“The more fool he,” answered Fitzhugh.

“However, he can eat plumcake.” And Ben’s host pushed a plate of delicious-looking cake toward his guest.

“Yonder man in the high boots, with the fierce mustaches,” Fitzhugh continued, “bears the high-sounding name of Sir Marmaduke Midchester. He looks like a sword swallower, but he is really as gentle as a lamb. He has been known to eat crumbs out of Maid Rosalind’s hand.”

“Glad to meet Master Sully,” said Sir Marmaduke. “I wrote a song this morning—words and music both—perhaps he would like to hear me sing it.”

Fitzhugh held up his hand. “Not just now, Marmaduke, please. Let my guest digest his plumcake in quiet.”

So the introductions went on, with all sorts of jokes and banter. It was a jolly crowd, and Ben was enjoying it hugely. He began to find his tongue and make retorts of his own. But when he had finished the lemonade and the cake he turned to his host. “I’d like to stay, but I think I had better be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to go out to Cotterell’s Island.”

“No, no, Master Ben. If you’d like to stay, you shall stay. Cotterell’s Island can wait. We need you here at present.”

“Well, but——” began Ben.

“There are no ‘buts’ about it,” answered Fitzhugh. “List to me, my lad. This place is a green oasis in a desert of modern things. Here we do as we please. And it pleases us now to be ladies and gentlemen of good Sherwood Forest and Nottingham.” Fitzhugh stood up. “Come with me. I’ll find you more fitting clothes than those simple togs you have on.”

Ben grinned. He was fond of dressing up and had often acted in school theatricals in Barmouth. He didn’t know what Fitzhugh and his friends were planning, but he thought he would like to take part in the game. After all, his car would take him quickly back to town and he could paddle out to the island by moonlight, if necessary. So he followed Fitzhugh indoors and up a wide staircase to the second floor.

When he came down again he wore brown doublet and hose, with a brown cloak slung from his shoulders and a broad-brimmed brown hat on his head. There was a chorus of approval from the group on the porch.

“Master Ben, apprentice to an armorer,” Fitzhugh introduced him. “And now, my lads and lasses, let us hie us out to the greenwood tree.”

There was nothing formal about Roderick Fitzhugh’s friends. The crowd had hardly more than descended the steps of the porch when the girl called Maid Rosalind and the man called Sir Marmaduke Midchester each took one of Ben’s hands and raced across the lawn. Luckily Ben had pulled his broad-brimmed hat on tight. His cloak flew back from his shoulders. And he heard shouts and laughs from the rest of the party as they followed pell mell.