The Phantom Yacht

Dories and Nann looked at each other blankly. “Why, there is Magellan,” one said. “And Dover,” the other supplemented.

Mrs. Strait looked pleased. “Seems like that thar Dover one ought to do as wall as any. Please to write it down so’s Pa kin see it an’ tother un along side of it.”

The girls left the store as soon as they could, fearing that they would have to laugh, and they did not want to hurt the mother’s feelings, and so, after purchasing some chocolate bars, they darted away without having learned where Gib was.

“Not that it matters,” Nann said when they were nearing the beach. “He won’t come over, probably, until tomorrow morning with Dick.”

“But Dick said he would arrive on Friday,” Dories reminded her friend.

“Yes, I know, but if he leaves Boston after school is out in the afternoon, he won’t get there until evening.”

“They might come over then,” Dories insisted. A few moments later, as they were nearing the cabin, she added: “There is no appetizing aroma to greet us today. Aunt Jane is probably still in bed.” Then, turning toward Nann, the younger girl said earnestly: “Truly, I feel so sorry for her. She seems heartbroken to think that Mother and Peter and I will not need to share her home. I believe she fretted about it all night; she looked so hollow-eyed and sick this morning.”

Dories was right. The old woman was still in bed, and when her niece went in to see what she wanted, Miss Moore said: “Will you girls mind so very much if we go home on Monday. I am not feeling at all well, and, if I am in Boston I can send for a doctor. Here I might die before one could reach me.”

“Of course we want to go whenever you wish,” Dories declared. She did not mention what her mother had written. There would be time enough later.

Out in the kitchen Dories talked it over with Nann. “You’ll be sorry to go before you solve the mystery of the old ruin, won’t you?” the younger girl asked.

Nann whirled about, eyes laughing, stove poker upheld. “I’ll prophesy that the mystery will all be solved before our train leaves on Monday morning,” she said merrily.

After her lunch, which this time truly was of toast and tea, Miss Moore said that she felt as though she could sleep all the afternoon if she were left alone, and so Dories and Nann donned their bright-colored tams and sweater-coats, as there was a cool wind, and went out on the beach wondering where they would go and what they would do. “Let’s visit the punt and see that nothing has happened to it,” Dories suggested.

They soon reached the end of the sandy road. Nann glanced casually in the direction of Siquaw, then stopped and, narrowing her eyes, she gazed steadily into the distance for a long moment. “Don’t you see a moving object coming this way?” she inquired.

Dories nodded as she declared: “It’s old Spindly, of course, and I suppose Gib is on it. I wonder why he is coming over at this hour. It isn’t later than two, is it?”

“Not that even.” Dories glanced at her wrist-watch as she spoke. For another long moment they stood watching the object grow larger. Not until it was plain to them that it was the old white horse with two riders did they permit their delight to be expressed. “Dick has come! He must have arrived on the noon train. It must be a holiday!” Dories exclaimed, and Nann added, “Or at least Dick has proclaimed it one.” Then they both waved for the boys, having observed them from afar, were swinging their caps.

“Isn’t it great that I could come today?” was Dick’s first remark after the greetings had been exchanged. “Class having exams and I was exempt.”

Nann’s eyes glowed. “Isn’t that splendid, Dick? I know what that means. Your daily average was so high you were excused from the test.”

The city boy flushed. “Well, it wasn’t my fault. It’s an easy subject for me. I’m wild about history and I don’t seem able to forget anything that I read.” Then, smiling at the country boy, he added: “Gib, here, tells me that you haven’t visited the old ruin since I left. That was mighty nice of you. I’ve been thinking so much about that mysterious airplane chap this past week, it’s a wonder I could get any of my lessons right.”

“Isn’t it the queerest thing?” Nann said. “That airplane hasn’t been seen or heard since you left.”

“I ain’t so sure.” Gib had removed his cap and was scratching one ear as he did when puzzled. “Pa ’n’ me both thought we heard a hummin’ one night, but ’twas far off, sort o’. I reckon’d, like’s not, that pilot fellar lit his boat way out in the water and slid back in quiet-like.”

Dick, much interested, nodded. “He could have done that, you know. He may realize that there are people on the point and he may not wish to have his movements observed.” Then eagerly: “Can you girls go right now? The tide is just right and we wanted to give that old dining-room a thorough overhauling, you know.”

“Yes, we can go. Aunt Jane is going to sleep all of the afternoon.” Then impulsively Dories turned toward the red-headed boy. “Gib,” she exclaimed contritely, “I’m just ever so sorry that I called Aunt Jane queer or cross. Something happened this week which has proved that she is very different in her heart from what we supposed her to be. She has just been achingly lonely for years, and some family affairs which, of course, would interest no one but ourselves, have made her shut herself away from everyone. I’m ever so sorry for her, and I know that from now on I’m going to love her just dearly.”

“So am I,” Nann said very quietly. “I wish we had realized that all this time Miss Moore has been hungering for us to love and be kind to her. We girls sometimes forget that elderly people have much the same feelings that we have.”

“I know,” Dick agreed as they walked four abreast toward the creek where the punt was hid, “I have an old grandmother who is always so happy when we youngsters include her in our good times.” Then he added in a changed tone: “Hurray! There’s the old punt! Now, all aboard!” Ever chivalrous, Dick held out a hand to each girl, but it was to Nann that he said with conviction: “This is the day that we are to solve the mystery.”

CHAPTER XXVI

A CLUE TO THE OLD RUIN MYSTERY

The voyage up the narrow channel in the marsh was uneventful and at last the four young people reached the opening near the old ruin. They stopped before entering to look around that they might be sure the place was unoccupied. Then Dick crept through the opening in the crumbling wall to reconnoiter. “All’s well!” he called to them a moment later, and in the same order as before the others followed. Everything was just as it had been on their former visit.

Dick flashed his light in the corner where they had seen the picture of old Colonel Wadbury, and the sharp eyes, under heavy brows, seemed to glare at them. Dories, with a shudder, was secretly glad that they were only pictured eyes.

“Sh! Hark!” It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had broken a panel the week before.

“What is it? What do you hear?” Nann asked.

“A sort of a scurrying noise,” Dick told her. “Nothing but rats, I guess, but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have looked around in there. Perhaps you’d better go back to the opening,” he added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories’ pale, frightened face. The younger girl was clutching her friend’s arm as though she never meant to let go. “I’m just as afraid of rats,” she confessed, “as I am of ghosts.”

“We’ll wait here,” Nann said calmly. “Rats won’t hurt us. They would be more afraid of us than even Dori is of them.”

Dick climbed through the hole in the door, followed closely by Gib. Nann, holding a lighted lantern, smiled at her friend reassuringly. Although only a few moments passed, they seemed like an eternity to the younger girl; then Dick’s beaming face appeared in the opening. It was very evident that he had found something which interested him and which was not of a frightening nature. The boys assisted the girls over the heap of debris which held the door shut and then flashed the light around what had once been a handsomely furnished dining-room. Dories’ first glance was toward the sideboard where they had left the painting of the beautiful girl. It was not there.

The boys also had made the discovery. “Which proves,” Dick declared, “that Gib was right about that airplane chap having been here. He must have taken the picture, but why do you suppose he would want it?”

“I guess you’re right,” Dick had been looking behind the heavy piece of mahogany furniture as he spoke, “and, whoever was here has left something. The rats we heard scurrying about were trying to drag it away, to make into a nest, I suppose.”

Arising from a stooping posture, the boy revealed a note book which he had picked up from behind the sideboard.

He opened it to the first page and turned his flashlight full upon it. “Those plaguity little rats have torn half of this page nearly off,” he complained, “but I guess we can fit it together and read the writing on it.”

“October fifteen,” Dick read aloud. Then paused while he tried to fit the torn pieces. “There, now I have it,” he said, and continued reading: “At Mother’s request, I came to her father’s old home, but found it in a ruined state. The natives in the village tell me there is no way to reach the place, as it is in a dangerous swamp, sort of a ‘quick-mud’, all about it, and what’s more, one garrulous chap tells me that the place is haunted. Well, I don’t care a continental for the ghost, but I’m not hankering to find an early grave in oozy mud.”

“I don’t recollect any sech fellow,” Gib put in, but Dick was continuing to read from the note book:

“I didn’t let on who I was. Didn’t want to arouse curiosity, so I took the next train back to Boston. I simply can’t give up. I must reach that old house and give it a real ransacking. Mother is sure her papers are there, and if they are, she must have them.”

The next page revealed a rapidly scrawled entry: “October 16th. Lay awake nearly all night trying to think out a way to visit that old ruin. Had an inspiration. Shall sail over it in an airplane and get at least a bird’s-eye view. Glad I belong to the Boston Aviation Club.

“October 18. Did the deed! Sailed over Siquaw in an aircraft and saw, when I flew low, that there was a narrow channel leading through the marsh and directly up to the old ruin.

“I’ll come in a seaplane next time, with a small boat on board. Mother’s coming soon and I want to find the deed to the Wetherby place before she arrives. It is her right to have it since her own mother left it to her, but her father, I just can’t call the old skinflint my grandfather, had it hidden in the house that he built by the sea. When Mother went back, she asked for that deed, but he wouldn’t give it to her. She told him that her husband was dead and that she wanted to live in her mother’s old home near Boston, but he said that she never should have it, that he had destroyed the deed. He was mean enough to do it, without doubt, but I don’t believe he did it, somehow. I have a hunch that the papers are still there.

“October 20. Well, I went in a seaplane, made my way up that crooked little channel in the swamp. Found more in the ruin than I had supposed I would. First of all, I hunted for an old chest, or writing desk, the usual place for papers to be kept. Located a heavy walnut desk in what had once been a library, but though there were papers enough, nothing like a deed. Had a mishap. Had left the seaplane anchored in a quiet cove. It broke loose and washed ashore. Wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get it off until change of tide, along about midnight. Being curious about a rocky point, I took my flashlight and prowled around a bit. Saw eight boarded-up cottages in a row, and to pass away the time I looked them over. Was rather startled by two occurrences. First was a noise regularly repeated, but that proved to be only a blind on an upper window banging in the wind. That was the cottage nearest the point. Then later I was sure I saw two white faces in an upper window of a cottage farther along. Sort of surprising when you suppose you’re the only living person for a mile around. O well, ghosts can’t turn me from my purpose. Got back to the plane just as it was floating and made off by daybreak. Haven’t made much headway yet, but shall return next week.”

Dick looked up elated. “There, that proves that Mother did forget to fasten that blind,” he exclaimed. Dories was laughing gleefully. “Nann,” she chuckled, “to think that we scared him as much as he scared us. You know we thought the person carrying a light on the rocks was a ghost, and he, seeing us peer out at him, thought we were ghosts.”

Nann smiled at her friend, then urged Dick continue reading, but Dick shook his head. “Can’t,” he replied, “for there is no more.”

“But he came again,” Nann said. “We know that he did, because he left this little note book.”

“And what is more, he took away with him the painting of his lovely girl-mother,” Dories put in.

Dick nodded. “Don’t you see,” he was addressing Nann, “can’t you guess what happened? When he came and found a panel had been broken in this door and the painting on the sideboard, he realized that he was not the only person visiting the old ruin.”

“Even so, that wouldn’t have frightened him away. He evidently is a courageous chap, shouldn’t you say?” Nann inquired, and Dick agreed, adding: “Well then, what do you think happened?”

It was Gib who replied: “I reckon that pilot fellar found them papers he was lookin’ fer an’ ain’t comin’ back no more.”

“But perhaps he hasn’t,” Nann declared. “Suppose we hunt around a little. We might just stumble on that old deed, but even if we did, would we know how to send it to him?”

Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. “Yes, we would,” he answered her. “Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to the Boston Tech, I judge.”

“O, what is his name?” Dories asked eagerly.

“Wouldn’t you love to meet him?” the younger girl continued.

“I intend to look him up when I get back to town,” Dick assured them, “and wouldn’t it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course, if he hasn’t.”

Nann glanced about the dining-room. “There’s a door at the other end. It’s so dark down there I hadn’t noticed it before.”

The boys went in that direction. “Perhaps it leads to the room where the desk is. We haven’t seen that yet.” Dories and Nann followed closely.

Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made him pause. “Like’s not all this time that pilot fellar’s been in there waitin’ fer us to clear out.” Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.

One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. “In all the stories I have ever read,” Dories told them, “there were secret drawers, or sliding panels, or – ”

“A removable stone in a chimney,” Nann merrily added. “But I believe that old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different,” she concluded.

While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. “There is the pilot chap’s entrance to the ruin.” He pointed toward a fireplace. Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough for a person to creep through.

“Perhaps he had never been in the front room, then,” Nann remarked.

“I hate to suggest it,” Dories said hesitatingly, “but I think we ought to be going. It’s getting late.”

“I’ll say we ought!” Dick glanced at his time-piece. “Tides have a way of turning whether there is a mystery to ferret out or not. We have all day tomorrow to spend here, or at least part of it,” he modified.

At Gib’s suggestion they went out through the hole in the back of the fireplace. The narrow channel was easily navigated and again they left the punt, as on a former occasion, anchored in the calm waters on the marsh side of the point. Then they climbed over the rocks, and walked along the beach four abreast. They talked excitedly of one phase of what had occurred and then of another.

“You were right, Dick, when you said that the mystery about the pilot of the airplane would be solved today.” Nann smiled at the boy who was always at her side. Then she glanced over toward the island, misty in the distance. “And to think that that girl-mother and her daughter are really coming back to America.”

“Do you suppose they will come in the Phantom Yacht?” Dories turned toward Gib to inquire.

“I don’t reckon so,” that boy replied. “I cal’late we-uns saw the skeleton of the Phantom Yacht over to the island that day we was thar, Miss Nann. A storm came up, Pa said, an’ he allays thought that thar yacht was wrecked.”

“If that’s true, then everyone on board must have been saved,” Nann said. “Of that much, at least, we’re sure.”

The boys left the girls in front of their home-cabin, promising to be back early the next day. On entering the cottage, Dories went at once to her aunt’s room and was pleased to see that she looked rested. A wrinkled old hand was held out to the girl, and, when Dories had taken it, she was surprised to hear her aunt say, “I’m trying to be resigned to my big disappointment, Dories; but even if I do have to live alone all the rest of my days, I’m going to make you and Peter my heirs. Your mother can’t refuse me that.” Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She tried to speak, but could not.

Her aunt understood, and, as sentimentality was, on the whole, foreign to her nature, she said, with a return of her brusque manner, “There! That’s all there is to that. Please fetch me a poached egg with my toast and tea.”

CHAPTER XXVII

RANSACKING THE OLD RUIN

It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron, smiling brightly at her friend. “Good, there are the boys!” she exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed with their tams and sweater-coats.

“We’ve put up a lunch,” Nann told the newcomers. “Miss Moore said that we might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested.” They were walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.

Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. “Say, Miss Dori,” he exclaimed, “Miss Moore’s been here sech a long time, like’s not she knew ol’ Colonel Wadbury, didn’t she now?”

“No, she didn’t know him,” Dories replied. “He was such an old hermit he didn’t want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter’s return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn’t here the year of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she really doesn’t know any more than we do.”

“We didn’t start coming here until after it had all happened,” Dick put in.

“I’m so excited.” Nann gave a little eager skip. “I almost hope the pilot of the seaplane has not found the deed and that we may find it and give it to him.”

“So do I!” Dick seconded. Over the rugged point they went, each time becoming more agile, and into the punt they climbed when Gib, barefooted as usual, had waded out and rowed close to a flat-rock platform. The tide was in and with its aid they floated rapidly up the channel in the marsh. “Shall we enter by the front or the back?” Nann asked of Dick.

“The front is nearer our landing place,” was the reply. “Let’s give the old salon a thorough ransacking. I feel in my bones that we are going to make some interesting discovery today, don’t you, Gib?”

“Dunno,” was that lad’s laconic reply. “Mabbe so.”

A few moments later they were standing under the twisted chandelier listening to the faint rattle of its many crystal pendants. Nann made a suggestion: “Let’s each take a turn in selecting some place to look for the deed, shall we?”

“Oh, yes, let’s,” Dories seconded. “That will make sort of a game of it all.”

Dick held the flashlight out to the older girl. “You make the first selection,” he said.

Nann took the light and, standing still with the others under the chandelier, she flashed the bright beam around the room. “There’s a broken door almost crushed under the sagging roof.” She indicated the front corner opposite the one by which they had entered. “There must have been a room beyond that. I suggest that we try to get through there.”

But Dick demurred. “I’m not sure that it would be wise,” he told her. “The roof might sag more if that door were pulled away.” They heard a noise back of them and turned to see Gib making for the entrance. “I’ll be back,” was all that he told them. When, a moment later, he did return, he beckoned. “Come along out,” he said. “There’s a way into that thar room from the outside.”

He led them to a window, the pane of which had been broken, leaving only the frame. They peered in and beheld what had been a large bedroom. A heavy oak bed and other pieces of furniture to match were pitched at all angles as the rotting floor had given way. Dick stepped back and looked critically at the sagging roof, then he beckoned Gib and together they talked in low tones. Seeming satisfied with their decision, they returned to the spot where the girls were waiting. “We don’t want you to run any risk of being hurt while you are with us,” Dick explained. “We want to take just as good care of you as if you were our sisters.” Then he assured them: “We think it is safe. Gib showed me how stout the cross-beam is which has kept the roof from sagging farther.”

And so they entered the room through the window. For an hour they ransacked. There was no evidence that anyone had been in that room since the storm so long ago. “Queer, sort of, ain’t it?” Gib speculated, scratching his ear. “Yo’d think that pilot fellar’d a been all over the place, wouldn’t yo’ now?”

“Let’s go back to the front room again and let Dori choose next for a place to search,” the ever chivalrous Dick suggested.

A few seconds later they again were under the chandelier. Dories, as interested and excited now as any of them, took the light and flashed it about the room, letting the round glow rest at last on the huge fireplace. “That’s where I’ll look,” she told the others. “Let’s see if there is a loose rock that will come out and behind which we may find a box with the deed in it.”

Nann laughed. “Like the story we read when we were twelve or thirteen years old,” she told the boys. But though they all rapped on the stones and even tried to pry them out, so well had the masonry been made, each rock remained firmly in place and not one of them was movable.

“Now, Dick, you have a turn.” Dories held the flashlight toward him, but he shook his head. “No, Gib first.”

The red-headed boy grinned gleefully. “I’ll choose a hard place. I reckon ol’ Colonel Wadbury hid that thar deed somewhar’s up in the attic under the roof.” Dories looked dismayed. “O, Gib, don’t choose there, for we girls couldn’t climb up among the rafters.” But Nann put in: “Of course, dear, Gib may choose the loft if he wishes. But how would you get there?”

Gib had been flashing the light along the cracked, tipped ceiling of the room. Suddenly his freckled face brightened. “Come on out agin.” He sprang for the low opening as he spoke. Then, when they were outside, he pointed to the spot where the roof was lowest. “Yo’ gals stay here whar the punt is,” he advised, “while me ’n’ Dick shinny up to whar the chimney’s broke off. Bet yo’ we kin git into the garrit from thar. Bet yo’ we kin.”

Dick was gazing at the roof appraisingly. “O, I guess it’s safe enough,” he answered the anxious expression he saw in the face of the older girl. “If our weight is too much, the roof will sag more and close up our entrance perhaps, but we can slide down without being hurt, I am sure of that.”

The girls sat in the punt to await the return of the boys, who, after a few moments’ scrambling up the sloping roof, actually disappeared into what must have once been an attic.

“I never was so interested or excited in all my life,” Nann told her friend. “I do hope we will find that deed today, for tomorrow will be Sunday, and I feel that we ought to remain with your Aunt Jane and put things in readiness for our departure on Monday.”