“Yes, they’ve hidden here, right enough,” agreed Sally. “It’s the best hiding place any one ever had, I should say. But the question is, what did they hide here for?”
“And also,” added Doris, “if they were hiding, how could they make such a room as this, all finished with wooden walls, without being seen doing it? Where did they get the planks?”
“Do you know what that timber is?” asked Sally.
“Why, of course not,” laughed Doris. “How should I?”
“Well, I do,” said her companion. “I know something about lumber because Dad builds boats and he’s shown me. I scratched the mold off one place—here it is—and I discovered that this planking is real seasoned cedar like they build the best boats of. And do you know where I think it was got? It came from some wrecked vessel down on the beach. There are plenty of them cast up, off and on, and always have been.”
“But gracious!” cried Doris, “how was it got here?”
“Don’t ask me!” declared Sally. “The beach is miles away.”
They stood for some moments in silence, each striving to piece together the story of this strange little retreat from the meagre facts they saw about them. At last Doris spoke.
“Sally,” she asked, “was this all you ever found here? Was there absolutely nothing else?” Sally started, as if surprised at the question and hesitated a moment.
“No,” she acknowledged finally. “There was something else. I wasn’t going to tell you right away, but I might as well now. I found this under the mattress of the bed.”
She went over to the straw pallet, lifted it, searched a moment and, turning, placed something in Doris’s hands.
CHAPTER V
MYSTERY
Doris received the object from Sally and stood looking at it as it lay in her hands. It was a small, square, very flat tin receptacle of some kind, rusted and moldy, and about six inches long and wide. Its thickness was probably not more than a quarter of an inch.
“What in the world is it?” she questioned wonderingly.
“Open it and see!” answered Sally. Doris pried it open with some difficulty. It contained only a scrap of paper which fitted exactly into its space. The paper was brown with age and stained beyond belief. But on its surface could be dimly discerned a strange and inexplicable design.
“Of all things!” breathed Doris in an awestruck voice. “This certainly is a mystery, Sally. What do you make of it?”
“I don’t make anything of it,” Sally averred. “That’s just the trouble. I can’t imagine what it means. I’ve studied and studied over it all winter, and it doesn’t seem to mean a single thing.”
It was indeed a curious thing, this scrap of stained, worn paper, hidden for who knew how many years in a tin box far underground. For the riddle on the paper was this:
“Well, I give it up!” declared Doris, after she had stared at it intently for several more silent moments. “It’s the strangest puzzle I ever saw. But, do you know, Sally, I’d like to take it home and study it out at my leisure. I always was crazy about puzzles, and I’d just enjoy working over this, even if I never made anything out of it. Do you think it would do any harm to remove it from here?”
“I don’t suppose it would,” Sally replied, “but somehow I don’t like to change anything here or take anything away even for a little while. But you can study it out all you wish, though, for I made a copy of it a good while ago, so’s I could study it myself. Here it is.” And Sally pulled from her pocket a duplicate of the strange design, made in her own handwriting.
At this point, Genevieve suddenly became restless and, clinging to Sally’s skirts, demanded to “go and play in the boat.”
“She doesn’t like to stay in here very long,” explained Sally.
“Well, I don’t wonder!” declared Doris. “It’s dark and dreary and weird. It makes me feel kind of curious and creepy myself. But, oh! it’s a glorious secret, Sally—the strangest and most wonderful I ever heard of. Why, it’s a regular adventure to have found such a thing as this. But let’s go out and sit in the boat and let Genevieve paddle. Then we can talk it all over and puzzle this out.”
Sally returned the tin box and its contents to the hiding-place under the mattress. Then she blew out the candle, remarking as she did so that she’d brought a lot of candles and matches and always kept them there. In the pall of darkness that fell on them, she groped for the entrance, pushed it open and they all scrambled out into the daylight. After that she padlocked the opening and buried the key in the sand nearby and announced herself ready to return to the boat.
During the remainder of that sunny morning they sat together in the stern of the boat, golden head and auburn one bent in consultation over the strange combination of letters and figures, while Genevieve, barefooted, paddled in silent ecstasy in the shallow water rippling over the bar.
“Sally,” exclaimed Doris, at length, suddenly straightening and looking her companion in the eyes, “I believe you have some idea about all this that you haven’t told me yet! Several remarks you’ve dropped make me think so. Now, honestly, haven’t you? What do you believe is the secret of this cave and this queer jumble of letters and things, anyway?”
Sally, thus faced, could no longer deny the truth. “Yes,” she acknowledged, “there is something I’ve thought of, and the more I think of it, the surer I am. And something that’s happened since I knew you, has made me even surer yet.” She paused, and Doris, wild with impatience, demanded, “Well?”
“It’s pirates!” announced Sally, slowly and distinctly.
“What?” cried Doris, jumping to her feet. “Impossible! There’s no such thing, nowadays.”
“I didn’t say ‘nowadays,’” remarked Sally, calmly. “I think it was pirates, then, if that suits you better.”
Doris sank down in her seat again in amazed silence. “A pirate cave!” she breathed at last. “I do believe you’re right, Sally. What else could it be? But where’s the treasure, then? Pirates always had some around, didn’t they? And that cave would be the best kind of a place to keep it.”
“That’s what this tells,” answered Sally, pointing to the scrap of paper. “I believe it’s buried somewhere, and this is the secret plan that tells where it is. If we could only puzzle it out, we’d find the treasure.”
A great light suddenly dawned on Doris. “Now I know,” she cried, “why you were so crazy over ‘Treasure Island.’ It was all about pirates, and there was a secret map in it. You thought it might help you to puzzle out this. Wasn’t that it?”
“Yes,” said Sally, “that was it, of course. I was wondering if you’d guess it. I’ve got the book under the bow seat of the boat now. Let’s compare the things.” She lifted the seat, found the book, which fell open of its own accord, Doris noticed, at the well-known chart of that well-loved book. They laid their own riddle beside it.
“But this is entirely different,” declared Doris. “That one of Treasure Island is a map or chart, with the hills and trees and everything written plainly on it. This is nothing but a jumble of letters and figures in little squares, and doesn’t make the slightest sense, no matter how you turn or twist it.”
“I don’t care,” insisted Sally. “I suppose all secret charts aren’t alike. I believe if we only knew how to work this one, it would certainly direct us straight to the place where that treasure is buried.”
So positive was she, that Doris could not help but be impressed. “But pirates lived a long time ago,” she objected, “and I don’t believe there were ever any pirates around this place, anyway. I thought they were mostly down around Cuba and the southern parts of this country.”
“Don’t you believe it!” cried Sally. “I’ve heard lots of the old fishermen about here tell how there used to be pirates right along this coast, and how they used to come in these little rivers once in a while and bury their stuff a
nd then go out for more. Why there was one famous one they call ‘Captain Kidd,’ and they say he buried things all about here, but mostly on the ocean beach. My father says there used to be an old man (he’s dead now) right in our village, and he was just sure he could find some buried treasure, and he was always digging around on the beach and in the woods near the ocean. Folks thought he was just kind of crazy. But once he really did find something, way down deep, that looked like it might have been the bones of a skeleton, and a few queer coins and things all mixed up with them. And then every one went wild and began digging for dear life, too, for a while, but they never found anything more, so gradually they left off and forgot it.”
Doris was visibly stirred by this curious story. After all, why should it not be so? Why, perhaps could not they be on the right track of the buried treasure of pirate legend? The more she thought it over, the more possible it became. And the fascination of such a possibility held her spellbound.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I do believe you’re right, Sally. And now that I look it over, these letters and numbers might easily be the key to it all, if we can only work it out. Oh, I never heard of anything so wonderful happening to two girls like ourselves before! Thank you, a million times, Sally, for sharing this perfectly marvelous secret with me.”
“I do believe I’m enjoying it a great deal better myself, now that I’ve told you,” answered Sally. “I didn’t think it could be so before I did. And if we ever discover what it all means—”
“Why, precious!” interrupted Doris, turning to Genevieve, who all unnoticed had come to lean disconsolately against the side of the boat, her thumb tucked pathetically in her mouth, her eyes half tearful. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m hung’y and s’eepy!” moaned Genevieve. With a guilty start, Doris gazed at her wrist watch. It was nearly one o’clock.
“Merciful goodness! Mother will be frantic!” she exclaimed. “It’s lunch-time now, and we’re way up here. And just see the way I look!” She was indeed a scratched, grimy and tattered object. “Whatever will I tell her?” They scrambled to their oars and were out in the river before Sally answered this question.
“Can’t you tell her you were exploring up on Slipper Point?”
“Yes,” agreed Doris. “That is the real truth. And she never minds if I get mussed and dirty, as long as I’ve enjoyed myself in some way that’s all right. But I hope I haven’t worried her by being so late.”
They rowed on in mad, breathless haste, passed the wagon-bridge, and came at last in sight of the hotel. But as they beached the boat, and Doris scrambled out, she said in parting:
“I’ve been thinking, all the way down, about that secret map, or whatever it is, and I have a new idea about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow morning. This afternoon I’ve promised to go for a drive with Mother.”
CHAPTER VI
WORKING AT THE RIDDLE
But Doris did not have an opportunity to communicate her idea on the following morning, nor for several days after that. A violent three or four days’ northeaster had set in, and for forty-eight hours after their expedition to Slipper Point, the river was swept by terrific gales and downpouring sheets of rain. Doris called up Sally by telephone from the hotel, on the second day, for she knew that Sally would very likely be at the Landing, where there was a telephone connection.
“Can’t you get well wrapped up and come up here to see me a while?” she begged. “I’d go to you, but Mother won’t let me stir out in this awful downpour.”
“I could, I s’pose, but, honestly, I’d rather not,” replied Sally, doubtfully. “I don’t much like to come up to the hotel. I guess you know why.” Doris did know.
“But you can come up to my room, and we’ll be alone there,” she suggested. “I’ve so much I want to talk to you about. I’ve thought of something else—a dandy scheme.” The plan sorely tempted Sally, but a new thought caused her to refuse once more.
“I’d have to bring Genevieve,” she reminded Doris, “and she mightn’t behave, and—well, I really guess I’d better not.”
“Perhaps tomorrow will be nice again,” ended Doris, hopefully, as she hung up the receiver.
But the morrow was not at all “nice.” On the contrary, it was, if anything, worse than ever. After the morning mail had come, however, Doris excitedly called up Sally again.
“You simply must come up here, if it’s only for a few minutes!” she told her. “I’ve something awfully important that I just must talk to you about and show you.” The “show you” was what convinced Sally.
“All right,” she replied. “I’ll come up for half an hour. I’ll leave Genevieve with Mother. But I can’t stay any longer.”
She came, not very long after, and Doris rushed to meet her from the back porch, for she had walked up the road. Removing her dripping umbrella and mackintosh, Doris led her up to her room, whispering excitedly:
“I don’t know what you’ll think of what I’ve done, Sally, but one thing I’m certain of. It can’t do any harm and it may do some good.”
“What in the world is it?” questioned Sally, wonderingly.
Doris drew her into her own room and shut the door. The communicating door to her mother’s room was also shut, so they were quite alone. When Sally was seated, Doris laid a bulky bundle in her lap.
“What is it?” queried Sally, wide-eyed, wondering what all this could have to do with their mystery.
“I’ll tell you,” said Doris. “If it hadn’t been for this awful storm, I’d have told you and asked you about it next morning, but I didn’t want to over the ’phone. So I just took things in my own hands, and here’s the result.” Sally was more bewildered than ever.
“What’s the result?”
“Why, just this,” went on Doris. “That night, after we’d been to Slipper Point, I lay awake again the longest time, thinking and thinking. And suddenly a bright idea occurred to me. You know, whenever I’m worried or troubled or puzzled, I always go to Father and ask his advice. I can go to Mother too, but she’s so often ill and miserable, and I’ve got into the habit of not bothering her with things. But Father’s always ready, and he’s never failed me yet. So I got to wondering how I could get some help from him in this affair without, of course, his suspecting anything about the secret part of it. And then, all of a sudden, I thought of—books! There must be some books that would help us—books that would give us some kind of information that might lead to a clue.
“So next morning, very first thing, I sent a special delivery letter to Father asking him to send me down at once any books he could find about pirates and such things. And, bless his heart, he sent me down a whole bundle of them that just got here this morning!”
Sally eyed them in a sort of daze. “But—but won’t your father guess just what we’re up to?” she ventured, dubiously. “He will ask you what you want them for, won’t he?”
“No, indeed,” cried Doris. “That’s just the beauty of Father. He’d never ask me why I want them in a hundred years. If I choose to explain to him, all right, and if I don’t he knows that’s all right too, for he trusts me absolutely, not to do anything wrong. So, when he comes down, as I expect he will in a week or so, he’ll probably say, ‘Pirates all right, daughter?’ and that’s all there’ll be to it.” Sally was at last convinced, though she marvelled inwardly at this quite wonderful species of father.
“But now, let’s look at the books,” went on Doris. “I’m perfectly certain we’ll find something in them that’s going to give us a lift.” She unwrapped the bundle and produced three volumes. One, a very large one, was called “The Book of Buried Treasure.” Another, “Pirates and Buccaneers of Our Own Coasts,” and, last but not least, “The Life of Captain Kidd.” Sally’s eyes fairly sparkled, especially at the last, and they hurriedly consulted together as to who should take which books first. At length it was decided that Sally take the
“Buried Treasure Book,” as it was very bulky, and Doris would go over the other two. Then they would exchange. This ought to keep them fully occupied till fair weather set in again, after which, armed with so much valuable information, they would again tackle their problem on its own ground—at Slipper Point.
It was two days later when they met again. There had not been an opportunity to exchange the books, but on the first fair morning Sally and Genevieve rowed up in “45,” and Doris leaped in exclaiming:
“Let’s go right up to Slipper Point. I believe I’ve got on the track of something—at last! What have you discovered, Sally?”
“Nothing at all—just nothing,” declared Sally rather discouragingly. “It was an awfully interesting book, though. I just devoured it. But it didn’t tell a thing that would help us out. And I’ve made up my mind, since reading it, that we might as well give up any idea of Captain Kidd having buried anything around here. That book said he never buried a thing, except one place on Long Island, and that was all raked up long ago. All the rest about him is just silly nonsense and talk. He never was much of a pirate, anyway!”
“Yes, I discovered the same thing in the book I had about him,” agreed Doris. “We’ll have to give up Captain Kidd, but there were some pirates who did bury somewhere, and one I discovered about did a lot of work right around these shores.”
“He did?” cried Sally, almost losing her oars in her excitement. “Who was he? Tell me—quick!”
“His name was Richard Worley,” answered Doris. “He was a pirate about the year 1718, the same time that Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were ‘pirating’ too.”
“Yes, I know about them,” commented Sally. “I read of them in that book. But it didn’t say anything about Worley.”
“Well, he was only a pirate for six weeks before he was captured,” went on Doris, “but in that time he managed to do a lot, and it was all along the coast of New Jersey here. Now why isn’t it quite possible that he sailed in here with his loot and made that nice little cave and buried his treasure, intending to come back some time. He was captured finally down off the coast of the Carolinas, but he might easily have disposed of his booty here before that.”
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