[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL SPRING NOSED HER WAY OUT OF HERRICK’S COVE.]
[Illustration: title page]
PARTNERS
THREE
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
ILLUSTRATED
BY CHARLES M. RELYEA
[Illustration]
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
PUBLISHERS CHICAGO.
[Illustration]
COPYRIGHT 1913
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I JACK HERRICK, SKIPPER 1
II A RESCUE 11
III A PAIR OF AMATEUR SALTS 23
IV BURIED TREASURE 41
V BEE COMPOSES AN “ODE TO THE SEA” 53
VI BEE PLANS AN EXPEDITION 65
VII ON NOBODY’S ISLAND 79
VIII HAL NAMES THE LAUNCH 91
IX THE EXPEDITION LANDS 109
X BEE DIGS FOR TREASURE 125
XI THE MAN WITH THE GLASS EYE 137
XII THE SUNKEN WRECK 149
XIII MAROONED! 161
XIV BILL GLASS TO THE RESCUE 175
XV A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 193
XVI THE HOUSE OF MANY CLOCKS 205
XVII THE INVADER’S RETREAT 215
XVIII BEE FINDS A NEW CLUE 223
XIX BILL RETURNS THE CALL 235
XX TRAINED CLAMS 245
XXI “SCHOONER ASHORE!” 257
XXII IN THE TEETH OF THE GALE 267
XXIII THE LIFE-BOAT WINS 277
XXIV OLD VERNY’S WHARF 287
XXV MR. FOLSOM MAKES AN OFFER 301
XXVI THE LETTER IN THE DORY 315
XXVII TREASURE TROVE! 321
Partners Three
CHAPTER I
Jack Herrick, Skipper
The _Crystal Spring_ nosed her way out of Herrick’s Cove, caught the
southeasterly breeze on her big sail and moved lazily along past the
end of Greenhaven Neck. The _Crystal Spring_ was not built for speed.
She was snub-nosed and square-sterned and wide in the beam. The mast
was stepped well forward and a short bowsprit made room for a jibsail
that was seldom used. Abaft the mast was a small hatch nearly flush
with the deck. Amidship was a second hatch, larger than the first.
Coiled over it, like a gray snake, was a length of two-inch hose
attached at one end to a rusty pump set into the deck. The _Crystal
Spring_ was not a beauty, no matter how you looked at her. She was
painted black, as to hull, and gray as to deck and hatches. Her mast
needed scraping and her patched mainsail was grayer than her deck. On
the stern was the inscription “Crystal Spring, Greenhaven.” She sat low
in the water and moved sluggishly. To be sure a three-mile breeze isn’t
conducive to speed, but even in a gale the _Crystal Spring_ wouldn’t
have shown her heels to anything that sailed out of Greenhaven.
With his feet in the shallow cockpit sat the skipper and crew of the
_Crystal Spring_, one arm draped over the long tiller. The skipper and
crew was sixteen years of age, had a good-looking weather-tanned face,
a sturdy body and was named John Herrick――and called Jack. He had a
pair of nice brown eyes, a straight nose well freckled, a fairly wide
mouth and a square and rather aggressive chin. Just at present his
mouth was puckered up, for Jack was whistling――I almost said a tune.
Let’s simply remark that he was whistling and let it go at that, for
the fact is that Jack could no more whistle a tune than he could sing
one; and if you ever heard him try to sing you’d understand. As he
whistled, his gaze roamed from the sail to the shore and thence out to
sea. Seaward there was little to look at――only a smudge of smoke like a
narrow cloud trailing above the horizon. Shoreward was the end of the
Neck and the squat white lighthouse agleam in the sunlight of a late
June morning. Behind the lighthouse was the keeper’s little cottage
with its weathered roof and green blinds, and its tiny garden of
sweet peas and nasturtiums, making a spot of bright color against the
yellow-green of beach-grass and the gray of boulders. The tiller moved
a little, the sail flapped for an instant and then filled again and
the sloop slowly turned to pass Popple Head and run along close to the
granite breakwater, seeking the harbor entrance.
With the breeze behind him Jack found the canvas cap he wore
uncomfortable and dropped it into the cockpit, revealing a somewhat
touselled head of brown hair. I call Jack’s hair brown for want of a
better word. As a matter of fact it was of some indescribable shade
between brown and the color of oakum, and, at that, it had lighter
streaks in it. I think that nature had intended him to have quite
respectable and commonplace brown hair, but as his cap was usually just
where it was now――that is, off his head――the sun and the winds and salt
spray and the fogs had worked their wills. On the whole, the result,
especially when the sun was on it, was rather pleasing. The rest of
Jack’s attire was quite simple. A white canvas blouse, clean if not
altogether guiltless of stains, covered the upper part of his body
and a pair of old gray trousers did for the rest. He wore no shoes,
although two brown canvas “sneakers,” in each of which a brown cotton
stocking was tucked, reposed in the cockpit.
A man in khaki overalls and a red flannel shirt emerged from the
door of the lighthouse and waved a hand. Jack waved back. The man
was Captain Horace Tucker, the lighthouse keeper. Captain Horace was
a distant relation of Jack’s on his mother’s side, and Jack called
him uncle, although the relationship was not really as close as that
term implied. The lighthouse fell astern and the long, gray wall of
the breakwater stretched away beside him. Jack scrambled to his feet,
placed one bare foot on the tiller and craned his head. As the tide was
almost at flood he could just see over the top of the breakwater. For a
minute he scanned the harbor. Then, with a shake of his head, he jumped
back into the cockpit.
“Not much doing today, I guess,” he muttered.
Half-way along the breakwater a man was fishing for perch. Jack headed
the sloop further away so as not to interfere with him. As the _Crystal
Spring_ drew abreast, however, the fisherman called across.
“Much obliged, but there wa’n’t no call to do it. I ain’t had nary
nibble so far. I cal’ate Friday’s storm’s driv all the fish out to sea.”
“Try down by the beacon,” called Jack. “The water’s deeper there.”
He pointed ahead of him and the fisherman nodded and pulled up his pole
and line. Down the shore, beyond the little rocky island called The
Lump, a hand-liner was coming in with all sails set.
“That’s Desco Benton,” murmured Jack. “I guess I can sell to him if
that plaguey chug-boat don’t get to him first.” He eyed his sail
anxiously, eased the sheet a bit and watched for the end of the
breakwater with its red beacon light set up on a tripod of timbers,
for all the world like a little fat man with three legs. The sunlight
shone dazzlingly on the ruby glass as Jack swung the sloop around the
end of the granite barrier and across the bar. Before him lay the big
round harbor, with Gull Island almost in the center, and innumerable
boats lining the fish wharves or anchored in the channels. At the left
the old town of Greenhaven ambled away up the hill, its white houses
and crooked streets elbowing and jostling each other at every turn.
Straight ahead, at the end of the mile-long basin, across what is known
as the Neck Marsh, a second cluster of roofs showed where Cove Village
lay along the edge of Lobster Cove.
It was a busy scene even at nine o’clock in the morning. Over at the
Eastern Halibut Company’s wharves two schooners were unloading; Jack
could see the sunlight glinting on the white bellies of the big fish
as they were pitched from deck to wharf; on Gull Island, a short
distance ahead, Abner Lacy’s _Esmeralda_, which had been in collision
with a steamer trawler off White Face Bar a few days before, was being
winched up the railway for repairs; the ring of the mallets on the
blocks and the clicking of the windlass came loudly across the quiet
water. Half-way between island and Neck the ferryboat was churning
its way; Jack could see Captain Trufitt edging along the narrow deck
taking fares. On the town side of the harbor a whale-back was unloading
coal and the rattle and hum of the hoisting engine beat incessantly
across. An Italian salt bark, her battered red hull deep in the water,
had berthed in the broad channel and a lighter was sidling up to her.
They would unload until she drew less water and then take her over to
one of the wharves. At the Folsom Company’s docks a dozen schooners
were fitting for their summer trips to the Banks. Small sailboats and
rowboats dotted the blue expanse and just beyond the inner end of Gull
Island a neat steam-yacht, resplendent in white paint and mahogany and
brass, awaited her turn on the marine railway.
Over on the Neck side they were launching a sloop at Davis’s boat-yard
where, hauled up on the shore and covered from the weather with canvas
or boards, half a dozen sailing craft of various descriptions awaited
their owners’ orders. There was a distinct odor of drying fish in the
air――in almost any direction you could catch a glimpse of the “flakes”
behind the fish houses――which, mingling with the odors of lumber and
pitch and paint from the yards, of seaweed from the shallow beach and
of the soft, salty breeze from the ocean, constituted a fragrance that
was as much a part of Greenhaven as the granite hill on which it was
built. Jack knew that odor well and loved it. He breathed it gratefully
now as, guiding the _Crystal Spring_ toward the broad channel, he saw
Desco Benton’s _Hetty and Grace_ rush past him near shore, shortening
sail as she went. Jack cast an anxious gaze up the harbor.
“I guess that chug-boat will beat me again,” he muttered, “though I
don’t see her anywhere yet. Likely she’s at the landing. Get on, you
old sea-crab!”
The latter command was addressed to the _Crystal Spring_, which, now in
the lee of the breakwater, was moving more leisurely than ever. Down
the harbor the _Hetty and Grace_ came about into the wind and Jack saw
the anchor splash. It would take him ten minutes, maybe, to reach her,
for he would have to tack in a moment and stand over toward the shore.
And then what he feared and expected happened. Out of the press of
boats around the town landing a cat-rigged boat driven by a gasoline
motor chugged its way. It was painted buff, with a black strip, and to
the bare mast was fixed a white placard with the word “Water” on it in
black letters. Straight across to the _Hetty and Grace_ it went and
Jack sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Either I’ll have to rig up an engine or go out of business,” he
muttered. “Well, I’ll try the steam-yacht.”
But when, five minutes later, the sloop wallowed up to within hailing
distance of the handsome _Sea Mist_, a man in blue coat and brass
buttons informed him shortly that her tanks were full.
“I’ve got the best water around these parts,” persisted Jack, as the
_Crystal Spring_ drifted by. “It’s spring water right out of the ground
this morning.”
The man grinned. “That’s what they all say,” he jeered. “And it all
tastes like bilge, too.”
“Mine don’t. Better try some. Let me fill up a tank for you, sir.”
“All full, I tell you.” The man turned away, Jack swung the helm over
and the _Crystal Spring_ began her day’s cruise in and out of the
shipping. It was almost eleven before Jack made his first sale. A
Portuguese fisherman bargained a good ten minutes. Then the _Crystal
Spring_ was made fast, the hose was lifted to the schooner’s deck and
pulled down a forward hatchway and Jack, attaching the long handle to
the pump, began his labor. It wasn’t easy work, but Jack’s muscles
were used to it, and, as the fisherman had only one butt to fill, it
was soon done. Then Jack took his pay, recoiled his hose, cast loose
and went on again. What breeze there had been earlier in the day had
almost died away and the sloop’s progress was slower than ever. Now
and then Jack caught sight of the _Morning Star_, as the rival water
boat was poetically named, chugging its way about the harbor. But even
the _Morning Star_ wasn’t doing much business today. At noon Jack made
fast to the stern of a lumber schooner near the coal wharf and ate his
lunch. It was pleasant enough there in the sun with so much to watch,
and the lunch that Aunt Mercy had put up tasted awfully nice, just as
it always did, but Jack wished that trade was brisker in his line of
business. And just when he was thinking that there was a hail across
the basin.
“Water boat, ahoy!” came a voice.