“I think I see ourselves calling at Steeple Rocks! You’d better go. You have been invited, you know.”
Dalton laughed and ran on, his bathrobe flapping about his ankles.
But like Peggy, Dalton was not feeling “so good.” He had fairly thought at the impact that his shoulder was broken or dislocated. Then he found, as they picked themselves out of the blackberry briars, that it was not. The cold sea water felt good to it and he gave himself a vigorous rubbing both in and out of the water, not trying to swim out far from shore, a sensible plan in any event, since they did not know the coast here. Now his shoulder ached.
When Leslie came into the little camp, shortly after his own arrival, he called to her. “Any of that liniment, Les, that I use?”
“Yes, Dal. Do you suppose that Beth would go anywhere with you along and no liniment?”
Dalton heard Sarita laugh at this.
“I didn’t know, Leslie,” Dalton returned. “I didn’t expect to play football up here, you know. Please hunt me up the bottle—that’s a good girl!”
Leslie made no reply, for she was already hunting the liniment. Handing it in through the flap of the tent, she said, “Let me rub your shoulder for you, Dal.”
“Thanks. I’ll do it this time, but it knocks out my going anywhere with my good clothes on. Did you ever see such luck!”
“Don’t worry, Dal. If Mr. Ives really is going to do anything mean, all he would have to do would be to telephone somebody to fix it up and that would get ahead of you anyhow. It is too late to go today, seems to me. Get up early to-morrow morning and start.”
“Perhaps I will, but I’ll go to the village and get some means of transportation arranged for.”
Shortly Dalton was out, arrayed in his camp outfit, an old shirt and a sweater covering the aching shoulder. But he looked more dogged than happy as he started down the trail again, and Sarita remarked to Leslie that Dalton was blue.
“I believe that he is more worried over what Mr. Ives said to us than he will say. But I’m not going to worry. Whatever is right will be found out, I hope, and anyhow we are in this lovely country. It wouldn’t cost much to put our things in a truck and go somewhere else, but not on any old land of Mr. Ives’! We could rent a spot near here. But what I’m wondering about is if he has any reason why he wouldn’t want us to stay around. There are other tourists, though, in cottages.”
“But none so near Steeple Rocks, Leslie, or on the bay. Maybe he just wants what he thinks is his own land.”
“Or wants to think it.”
As so often it happens, the day had turned out entirely different from their plans. Instead of target practice the girls chose other pursuits. Elizabeth was absorbed in her first successful sketches. Dalton brought back from the village some fine fish and reported that he had found out how to get to the county seat, where the deed would be recorded. He had found someone at the village who would drive him there.
Elizabeth was not admitted to this news, but after their delicious supper, she officiated as chief nurse in making Dalton comfortable. The other girls had given her the details of the accident.
“It will do no harm to wait a little in seeing about your building, Dalton,” consolingly said Beth, gently rubbing in the liniment. “By morning, though, this will feel better, I am sure.”
“Gee, your hands are soft, Beth. You are as good as Mother used to be!”
“That is about the nicest thing you could say to me, Dal,” returned his sister. “I’ve been a poor substitute, but I have wanted to take her place a little.”
“You are all right, Beth,” said Dalton, with boyish embarrassment over sentiment expressed. “You’ve had to do Father’s job too. Boy, that feels the best yet! Do you know what I’m going to do, Beth?”
“I am no mind-reader, Dal.”
“Well, I’ve decided to put off building or even cutting the trees for a week or two. I’ll fish and poke around in a boat, seeing the place. You and the girls will want to come along sometimes, too. We’ll go out and get you fine views of the shore and beach and all the rocks you want to sketch. And the next fish we eat may be what we have caught. How do you like lobster and shrimps, Beth?”
“I am perishing for some!”
“Here’s the boy that will get them for you!”
Thus Elizabeth accepted the change of plan without being troubled by a knowledge of the cause.
CHAPTER IV
“SNOOPERS”
The camping adventure developed rapidly and more pleasantly during the next few days. Elizabeth was enthusiastic, sleeping soundly, taking a daily dip or two with the other girls and adding to the really good sketches which she was making either in the woods or on the cliffs and shore.
Dalton returned from his trip to the county seat with the news for Leslie and Sarita that the deed had been properly recorded. Someone at the courthouse had asked Dalton, in connection with some inquiry of his, whether he had an abstract of title or not. This Dalton did not know and he promptly wrote to their lawyer friend to inquire.
“If we have, Leslie, I’d like to see Mr. Ives get around that.”
“Perhaps he just wanted to frighten us and get us away. Could he be connected with rum-running, do you suppose?”
“Men apparently as honest as he are,” Dalton replied, “but unless it is on a large scale, I scarcely think so. I’ve put it up to Jim Lyon, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a vacation and came on. I offered him a bunk with me—you wouldn’t mind, would you, Les?”
“It wouldn’t do, especially as he likes Beth; but there would be some place that he could stay, or he could have a camp of his own.”
“He could bring his sister and the kiddies, too,” Sarita suggested.
“Of course! There is a lovely place for a camp right on our little lake. It would have been much more convenient for us, too, only we wanted to be nearer the ocean. Write again and suggest it, Dal. Mrs. Marsh looked sort of wistful when we were talking about going and wished that they could afford a trip. If Mr. Marsh can’t get away, why couldn’t they put the youngsters in the old Ford and drive through?”
“Write and suggest it, Leslie. Jim has a key to our deposit box, and I imagine that if we have an‘abstract’ or a ‘guarantee of title’ it’s in there. I don’t remember; but there were a lot of papers and things that I never looked at. Now I’m going to have a good time fishing. I found out who sold the place to Father, and I’ve written to him—so let nature take its course while we camp. I met a chap on the train that has a motor boat, a regular little yacht, he says, and he has invited me to go out with him. Then I’m getting a little boat of our own with an engine in it, Les, and it is big enough to sail the briny all right, except in a storm, perhaps.”
This was a great surprise to Leslie and Sarita, who greeted the news with enthusiasm, though Leslie remarked that she did not suppose he ought to have taken the money.
“Well, Leslie, it is my money, and I got this at a wonderful bargain—you will be surprised. It belongs to a man at the county seat and he is starting to leave the state altogether, after being accustomed to spend the summers here, you know. He almost gave the little boat away. I took a big chance, of course, for I haven’t seen it, but he said that if it wasn’t what he said it was, I needn’t finish paying for it. He took a chance on me, too, for I only gave him a small payment. But I’ll send him a check as soon as I see it. It’s in a boat house at the village.”
The girls could scarcely realize their good fortune, but Dalton rather dreaded telling Elizabeth. He spent some little time thinking how to approach the subject diplomatically and then gave it up when the time came. Elizabeth did look sober and warned Dalton that he was using money which should be saved for his further education; but she, too, was pleased with the thought of the trips that they would take together. Was the outdoor life making her think less of the “welfare of the children?”
The boat was in fairly good condition, Dalton found, though he had it carefull
y gone over, helping in this himself. At odd times, he and Leslie began to make a way down to the bay from the rocks, to a place which Dalton thought would be suitable for the boat. Nature had provided most of the steps, but there was one stretch where it was necessary to assist nature and make a safer footing. Then a rope, fastened above and below, would give confidence, for a fall would not be pleasant if it ended on the rocks on the edge, or in the water. On a ledge above the water, one then walked to a small cove.
There, at the most protected part of the bay, where the higher part of the cliff began to start out into the curving point or arm which formed a real breakwater, the new boat should lie. But Dalton spent only a part of his time on these preparations. In a rented boat he and the girls rowed out on the bay and examined its every cove. “Snoopers,” Sarita said they were, and Leslie remarked that so far their observations had been “healthy” for them, which reference Elizabeth did not understand. But then she did not always understand the jokes of the younger girls. She had her own thoughts and dreams and seldom inquired about apparently trivial matters.
Several times when they were on the bay they saw the rough man of Dalton’s first acquaintance. But he paid no attention to them and gave Dalton no opportunity to nod or speak, if he had wanted to do so.
Bay and sea were often dotted with fishing boats that either remained or went out to a greater distance or to other points along the coast. The girls began to talk learnedly about codfish and mackerel, lobster, haddock and halibut. They did not tire of the sea food and Elizabeth came back to earth enough to discover how to cook most effectively the fish which Dalton, Leslie and Sarita caught.
At last the day came when the new boat was ready. Launched at the village, it contained its young owner at the wheel and a boy of about Dalton’s age, who was fussing about the engine to see that it was working properly. Leslie and Sarita were in the bow, uttering mild squeals of delight at the way the little vessel cut the water, as they went some distance out into the ocean, preparatory to entering the broad mouth of the bay.
When they were ready to turn and enter the bay, the young mechanic, Tom Carey by name, took the wheel and showed Dalton what part of the bay to avoid, though the entrance was large enough and without any rocks in its deep waters. “But keep away from the little bay or cove under Steeple Rocks,” said Tom. “The buoys, of course, warn you.”
“It is safe enough with a flat boat, isn’t it?” Dalton inquired. “I came very near rowing in there the other day, but there was that buoy with ‘Danger’ on it and I put off my going till I should ask what is the matter.”
“Matter enough. I suppose that it is years since anyone has tried to go into the bay from this side. Around the other side of the headland, though, there are the boats that belong to the Ives’ place and they get out into the bay here by that rocky channel you see. It’s wide enough, and luckily there is that sort of a long bar of broken rocks that separates their dock from Pirates’ Cove. That is what the smaller bay is called. There is a terrible current or undertow, they say, and the last person that ever went in over there never came back. Folks saw the boat drift in under the rocks and not a scrap of the boat was ever seen again, and the man seemed to be knocked over by the rocks. Nobody ever saw him again, either. He was some sort of a foreigner. It’s funny how many foreigners we get here.”
“Where do they come from?” asked Leslie, who had come to watch the proceedings when the bay was entered.
“I guess that some of them come over from Canada,” replied Tom. “They don’t stay very long, as a rule, though there is one family of Russians that has been here for several years. They seem to have a lot of relatives that visit them, especially in the summer. Bill Ritter, too, always has a lot working for him that can’t speak good English or don’t speak English at all. They may come from the fisheries down the coast. Bill’s Swiss, they say.”
“What does he do?” idly asked Leslie, watching the waves.
“He fishes; and I think that he supplies the Steeple Rocks folks with fish and lobster. He’s always going there. You’ve probably seen him. There he is now in a rowboat.”
Dalton looked in the direction to which Tom nodded and saw the darkly red, sunburned features of the man who had spoken to him in his own woods. “Yes, I’ve seen him before. And that is the boat from which somebody waved to me, when I was over by Pirates’ Cove. It was probably Bill that pointed out the buoy with the danger sign. When he saw me row to it and read it, he rowed away. He must have been rowing towards me before. I’m much obliged to Bill. Look at him, Leslie. That is the man I was telling you about.”
Leslie, with a quick, understanding look at her brother, gazed in the direction of the rowboat to which they were now nearer. But its occupant, after a glance in their direction, rowed farther away and seemed to be making preparations to cast his line.
Sarita now came from where she had been leaning over to look at the depths and asked what Tom thought of Dalton’s boat and its engine.
“They’re all right. That engine is almost new. Keep her oiled and you can go to Europe with her.”
“We’ll go to Europe in a larger boat, I think,” laughed Leslie. “Honestly, though, could we put out to sea in this boat?”
“It would be less rough out farther than here about the coast and these rocks, except inside the bay, of course. But I wouldn’t advise you to get out there in stormy weather. You are going to keep your launch inside the bay, aren’t you?”
“Yes, just as soon as we get the place fixed for it. Dal wants you to see the place, don’t you Dal?”
“Yes. I can’t imagine the boat’s getting beaten on the rocks badly there, even in a gale; but I want you to look at the cove and see what you think.”
Leslie thought that gales seemed almost impossible on a day like that. The sky was serene, with gently floating masses of white clouds against the blue. The sea was almost calm, except where a line of breakers came in close to the shore. In the bay there were only ripples, with the salt water gently bathing the rocks of the cliffs and washing them with a light spray. “Cathedral Rocks” towered at the northern end of the bay and their own smaller cliff made a low headland at its southern side.
As they carefully approached the lower end, they could see Elizabeth up on the rocks with her big umbrella and her easel. She was too deeply engaged to see them at first, but when she heard their hail, she came to look over and wave joyfully.
CHAPTER V
PEGGY SAYS “THANK YOU”
This was only the beginning of trips. Leslie, Sarita, Dalton, and very often Elizabeth, went about bay and sea in the new launch, which Leslie named at once the “Sea Crest Yacht,” only a variation of their own name, she said. Sarita thought it delightful that their name was so appropriate to these circumstances and declared that their prospective cabin ought to be called Sea Crest instead of the Eyrie. But Leslie reminded her that their father had suggested an “Eyrie.”
“We’ll have an ‘eagles’ nest’ on the rocks, perhaps, unless it does seem very much better to build in the woods,” said Dalton bareheaded, keeping the wheel steady as the little yacht cut the waves.
“Perhaps Dalton would prefer some other name for his boat, Leslie,” suggested Elizabeth, by way of reminding her sister not to be too possessive.
“He told me that I might name it,” Leslie replied, “didn’t you, Dal?”
Dalton nodded. “It’s the Secrest yacht,” said he. “I like Leslie’s idea. I’m teaching her to be at the wheel, Beth, and all about the engine, too. I hope that you have no objections.”
“It will probably be too late if I have, but do use judgment, children!”
“We will, dear old emergency brake!”
“Poor old Beth! She didn’t want to be so grown up and careful, but had to be!” As she spoke, Leslie put her arm around Elizabeth, who was standing beside her.
“I’m letting you all share the responsibility now,” laughed Elizabeth. “I hope that I’ll not regret it!
”
“If we get reckless, Beth, we’ve learned that we have to take the consequences,” Sarita inserted.
“Yes, but we don’t like consequences, Sarita.”
“Hear, hear!” came from Dalton, “but Les can run the launch if she keeps away from the rocks. Luckily the entrance to the bay is broad enough, and the bay itself is remarkably free from rocks that we can’t see. Tom has given me full instructions, and he even drew a little chart for me.”
In two weeks time the “yacht” and a newly painted rowboat were safely tied or anchored within the little cove below the Eyrie, as they had decided to call their rocks, whether a cabin or lookout were ever built there or not. It was Dalton who suggested a “lookout,” a small shelter among the rocks, where Elizabeth could paint, and from which all of them could watch the changing sea, or be protected from a storm. As Dalton told Leslie and Sarita, perhaps it was a good thing that they were hindered in their first plans and work. “We’ll have a much better idea of what we want to do, for being around the place a while.”
Although Dalton occasionally felt uneasy about matters, his materials had not arrived for the cabin, and the man whom he had expected to help him was delayed with other work. They heard nothing from the young lawyer at home about an abstract of title. Indeed, he had not replied to their letter at all, which seemed strange, considering his previous devotion to Elizabeth.
Mr. Ives had not appeared again, nor had they seen anything of Peggy. She, very likely, was more hurt with her fall than she had been willing to admit. Dalton wrote another letter to the lawyer and after learning that one of Bill’s sons had charge of the little village post office, he hired a horse and rode himself to the town at the railroad station, to see it safely on its way. Just why he should be so suspicious of Mr. Ives, he did not quite know, but it was instinctive.
Fishing trips in the rowboat were successful. They were managing to have good meals at slight expense. It was the other part of their undertaking that took the money, Dalton’s boat and the prospective building. But they had no regrets. There would be enough to do it and Dalton told Beth that with her attaining fame from some picture of Steeple Rocks, and his learning to fish and handle a boat, they would be “fixed for life.” It was a great adventure and the lure of Pirates’ Cove brought much speculation to Leslie and Sarita.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 294