On Nobody’s Island
It was nearer half-past three than three, however, when the launch,
heralded by a dismal solo on the patent fog-horn by Bee, came into
Herrick’s Cove. Jack was all ready, sitting perched on the bow of the
sloop. He had taken off his Sunday clothes and felt more comfortable;
especially since he had changed those highly-polished shoes for a
pair of brown canvas “sneakers.” He tumbled into the launch as Hal
ran her alongside and a moment or two later they were chugging down
the coast, the rocky shore of The Front only a good stone-throw away.
(Bee declared he felt safer near land). Soon Fort Point was reached
and Hal and Jack showed Bee the old fortifications thrown up by the
citizens of Greenhaven in the War of 1812. A cluster of neat little
white houses surrounded the embankments and a few seats dotted the
green slopes. Then the Neck was left behind and the launch headed
across Eight-Fathom Cove, with Cove Village hugging the yellow beach
a half-mile away. Beyond the village Toller’s Sands began, a two-mile
stretch of slightly-curving beach backed by white sand-dunes bare
of vegetation save for a few patches of sedge and here and there a
stunted, grotesque tree.
“There used to be a farm there,” remarked Jack, who was steering. “But
the sand finally buried it up. They say that if you dig into that long
dune you’ll find the old house. A few years ago some of the fence posts
were still sticking up out of the sand, but they’ve gone, too, now.”
“Do you mean,” asked Bee with wide eyes, “that the sand covered up the
farm and the house and everything?”
“Yes, but I guess the farm wasn’t a very big one.”
“But――but how long did it take? Why didn’t they stop it?”
“You can’t stop that sand when it starts going. I don’t know how long
it took; probably two or three years, though. One day when I was over
there with my father he took a piece of wood we found on the beach and
laid it on the sand back there and watched. In twenty minutes it was
covered up and when we came back a couple of hours later there was
a regular mound there. That’s the way those dunes start. A bunch of
grass or something gets in the way and the sand blows into and makes a
little lump as big as your two hands, perhaps. Then the sand blows and
blows――it’s always moving, even on still days――and more of it lodges
there, and more and more, and finally there’s a hill as big as those
you see. They’re always changing, too. The sand blows from one to
another, and sometimes in the Fall or the Winter a big tide sweeps over
the beach and eats into them. You get a dandy view from that biggest
one. Ever been up there, Hal?”
“No, I guess not. I haven’t been over to the Dunes for years. It would
be fun to go some time, wouldn’t it?”
“I’d love to,” agreed Bee. “And we might take shovels and dig out that
house!”
“Yes, that would be a nice way to spend a month or two,” replied Hal
sarcastically. “Any time you want to amuse yourself that way, Bee, I’ll
furnish the shovel.”
“Is that Nobody’s Island there ahead?” asked Bee.
“No, that’s Toller’s Rock,” Jack explained. “The island is beyond it,
around the corner. That black reef dead ahead is The Clinker. We’ll
keep outside it today, although when the tide is full you can get in
between it and the shore.”
The dunes gave place to low grassy hills and Toller’s Rock sprang from
the latter, a great mass of weather-beaten granite, and jutted boldly
into the sea. Once around The Clinker their destination was in plain
sight. The shore receded for several hundred yards to the mouth of a
little river which wound its way inland through miles of salt marsh.
Beyond the river’s mouth a rounded hill arose from the marsh level.
It was well grassed on the landward side and a considerable grove of
small trees clothed the summit which was perhaps forty or fifty feet
above the beach. Here and there a ledge cropped out, suggesting that at
one time Nobody’s Island had been just what Toller’s Rock was now, a
bare mass of granite. But why Nature had clothed the one rock and left
the other bare was not evident. Bee looked somewhat disappointed as he
gazed at it.
“It isn’t very――very romantic looking, is it?” he asked. “It ought to
be more rugged and――and forbidding.”
“You’re hard to suit,” laughed Jack. “We’ll anchor in the river, Hal;
there used to be an old pier there.”
The pier hardly deserved the name any longer, for all that remained of
it were a few rotting spiles. But after the launch had negotiated the
sand-bar at the entrance to the little stream Jack worked it in between
the spiles and passed the line around one of them and over a rusty
spike. Then they pushed the stern of the launch to within a few feet
of the shore and managed to jump ashore. The place of disembarkation
was some fifty yards up the river and on the southwestern side of the
island. Bee declared, though, that it was poppycock to call the place
an island, since it was surrounded by water on but three sides. What
it really amounted to was a hill rising from a sandy floor that was
some six feet above high tide, with the ocean on two sides of it and
Clam River on the third. On the fourth side, inland, nothing remained
to show that at one time the river had flowed there too, although, as
Jack pointed out, only some two hundred feet of sand, sprinkled with
beach-grass, separated ocean and stream.
“Some day when there’s a good big northeaster and a high tide the ocean
will eat through there again, as like as not, and then it will be a
real island once more.”
“Let’s go to the top,” suggested Bee. “One of the first things to do is
to make a map of it.”
“What do you want a map for?” asked Hal.
“What for?” Bee viewed him with disgust. “Don’t you know you always
have to have a map of a place where you’re going to search for buried
treasure? Honestly, Hal, sometimes I look at you in wonder! Don’t you
know nothing, scarcely?”
They climbed the hill and reached the grove on top. The trees――oak,
maple, wild cherry and hemlock――were small, but vigorous. Bee pointed
to one disgustedly.
“That’s a nice thing to find on a treasure island,” he said. “A lot
of names and initials cut in a tree trunk! It’s almost enough to
discourage a fellow right at the start! I dare say as soon as we get
nicely settled and begin to dig for that gold a lot of folks will come
here and have a picnic!”
“Well, you needn’t be surprised if someone comes here to camp,” said
Jack. “There’s usually a camp or so here every summer, although since
the bridge across the river up there fell down it isn’t quite so handy
to get to.”
“Oh, they’ll probably build a new bridge or start a ferry,” replied Bee
pessimistically. “Let’s sit down here and meditate.”
A flat rock, sprinkled with half-rotted needles from a hemlock tree
that grew beside it, afforded an excellent seat. Behind them was the
grove; in front the slope of the hill, more abrupt here than elsewhere
and covered with coarse grass and bay-berry bushes. Wherever a rock
cropped out a little colony of Christmas ferns grew precariously. Just
above the beach ran a tangle of sedge and low bushes; wild cherry,
sweet fern, sheep laurel; interspersed with weeds and blackberry
briars. To the left, half-way down the slope, one lone tree, dwarfed
and misshapen, rustled a few leaves in the soft breeze.
“We’ll name this Lookout Rock,” said Bee. “You get a dandy view from
here, don’t you?”
Before them lay mile on mile of blue ocean, asparkle in the afternoon
sunlight, dotted here and there with a white sail or a trail of smoke.
“Old Verny picked out a pretty good place to build his house, didn’t
he?” asked Hal. “Do you know where it stood, Jack?”
“No, I don’t. Somewhere on the ocean side, probably. Perhaps right
below where we’re sitting.”
“Was it pulled down or what happened to it?”
“They say the sheriffs or revenue men or whoever they were burned it
down when they arrested the old chap. I suppose that explains why there
isn’t any of it left. I’ve never seen even a timber of it.”
“I suppose those rocks out there,” said Bee, pointing to the right,
“are The Tombstones.”
“Yes, and many a schooner has piled up there, too,” answered Jack.
“Father used to say that on a very calm day you could look down between
Big Tombstone and Little Tombstone and see the ribs of a ship. I never
saw them, though. Usually it’s too rough.”
“You say they used to carry a lantern to attract the boats,” mused Bee.
“Where did they do it?”
“Why, right along the beach down there, I guess. On the other side,
too, probably; that would catch the boats coming down the shore. They’d
think the lantern was a light on another ship and first thing they’d
know they were piled up on the rocks or the sands. I never heard what
happened to Old Verny. Some say they put him in prison for life,
though. They should have hung him!”
“Maybe they did,” said Bee. “Maybe his ghost haunts the island on dark
and stormy nights. Wouldn’t that be corking?”
Hal shivered. “If I ever see his ghost around here I’ll take the
shortest and quickest route home!”
“Well, I’m going to walk around and make a map of the place,” said Bee,
arising energetically. “Want to come?”
Both Jack and Hal, however, declared that they were quite comfortable
and that they would wait for him where they were.
“Don’t get lost,” laughed Hal. “And if you come across Old Verny ask
him where he buried his treasure.”
Bee produced a pencil and a small tablet of paper and strode off. Jack
and Hal exchanged amused glances.
“He’s daffy on the subject,” said Hal. “Doesn’t talk about anything
else.”
“Does he really mean to come here and dig?” asked Jack.
“Oh, yes, he’s absolutely serious about it. We’re to bring a tent here
and camp out. I don’t mind. I rather like camping out, don’t you? And
he insists that you must come with us. He thinks you’re pretty fine,
Jack, and says we can’t get along without you. I hope you’ll come.”
“Why, I’d like to. I don’t want to make him pay me for it, Hal, but――I
don’t think I could afford to do it unless he did. Has he a lot of
money?”
“Bee? Oh, yes; his father’s terribly rich, I believe; he’s a coal
operator, whatever that is; owns mines, I guess. Bee gets money
whenever he asks for it, pretty near. Still, he doesn’t usually waste
it like this. I don’t mean that he’s mean, because he isn’t; he gives a
lot to the school funds, like football and baseball and such; but he’s
always careful to get his money’s worth.”
“Well, it would be rather good fun to have a camp here for a week or
so; especially if we struck good weather, and we’re likely to at this
time of year. There’s good fishing all around here, and good shooting,
too, in season; lots of ducks on the marsh back there in the Fall. I
don’t quite see why he wants the _Crystal Spring_ here, though.”
Hal laughed. “Oh, he just wants to do the thing right, I guess. Thinks
it would look more like the stories he’s read. He’s always getting hold
of some book about buried treasure; doesn’t read any other kind if he
can help it. We might as well humor him. Of course, the hunting for the
treasure part of it is just nonsense, but he likes to make believe that
he’s going to find it.”
“There’s a whole lot of ground to dig up,” said Jack with a smile. “Of
course, if we knew just where Old Verny had his house we might have a
go at it, but as we don’t it would be pretty hopeless.”
“Seems as though some of the old fellows in town ought to know where
the cabin stood,” reflected Hal. “It wasn’t much more than thirty or
forty years ago, was it, that it was burned?”
“About forty-one or two, I suppose.”
“Bee talks to every old chap he runs across on the water-front,” said
Hal, “and maybe he’s got a clue. Hello!”
Hal had been digging with his heel in the brown loam at the foot of the
rock and now he leaned over and picked something up.
“What do you suppose this is?” he asked, as he bent over it.
“Looks like a buckle,” said Jack. “It’s a funny one, though. Is it
iron?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Hal scraped a corner of it on the rock. “By
jove, it’s gold, Jack!”