HUNTING THE HOPPERGRASS
"Did you ever hear the like of that?" said Mr. Daddles, in a kind
of awed whisper; "don't move,--he's going to do it again!"
But Ed Mason, Jimmy Toppan, and I were not be to restrained.
"That's the 'Hoppergrass'!" we all burst out, at the same instant.
"What's the 'Hopper'--?" began Mr. Daddles, but his voice was
drowned out by the crier. Beginning with his "Hear what I have to
say!" he repeated the announcement word for word as he had given
it the first time. Then he rang his bell with four, slow,
deliberate motions, and started to hobble away.
We were after him in a second.
"Where is it?"
"When was it stolen?"
"Where's Captain Bannister?"
The crier looked down at us with some air of indignation, and
shifted his quid of tobacco.
"Apply at the Eagle House," said he, pointing his thumb over his
shoulder.
"Come on! come on!" we begged the other three, "let's go to the
Eagle House!"
"Why? What for?"
"That's the 'Hoppergrass' he said was stolen. Captain Bannister is
here,--at the Eagle House!"
"But he didn't say the 'Hoppergrass';--he said the Hannah
Billingsgate."
"Pettingell. That's the other name of the 'Hoppergrass'."
"The other name? Does she travel under an Elias, as Gregory the
Gauger calls it?"
"No, no! The captain doesn't like 'Hoppergrass' and he said he had
thought of changing the name. Come on,--let's go to the Eagle
House."
We made them understand at last, and then we started up the street
in the direction that the crier had pointed. On the way, Jimmy
Toppan was struck by doubts.
"I don't see how the Captain COULD change the name like this. You
have to register a new name for a boat, I think."
"You said that he was thinking of calling her the Hannah J. what
--is--it? Didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, it must be the same boat. There wouldn't be two
knocking about, with a name like that."
We found the hotel presently. There were two elderly men sitting
on the little piazza, and they hitched their chairs around and
watched us through the window as soon as we entered the office.
This room was empty, but after we had stamped and coughed a good
deal, a small man in shirt-sleeves came from some room in the
back.
"Is Captain Bannister here?"
"Bannister? Oh, no, Bannister aint here!"
This in a tone which was as much as to say: "I wouldn't have a man
like that on the premises."
"Well, he WAS here, wasn't he?"
"Was here? Oh, yes, he WAS here,--last night."
(As if to say: "He was here until we got on to him.")
"Has he gone away?"
"Gone away? Oh, yes, he's gone away."
This seemed to strike the two men on the piazza--whose ears were
almost stretching through the window--as a joke. They both laughed
uproariously. The hotel man was evidently unwilling to give up any
information until it was wrenched out of him, bit by bit. Mr.
Daddles continued the cross-examination.
"Do you know where he's gone?"
"Oh, he went away before six o'clock."
"Well, do you know WHERE he went?"
"Where? Oh, he told me--Joe, where'd he say he was goin'?"
One of the men on the piazza answered:
"Big Duck."
"Big Duck Island?"
"Yup. He--"
The other man broke in. "He says to me that he was goin' to
Rogerses'."
"Rogerses'? Where's that?"
"Rogerses' Island," said the hotel man, "'bout three miles t'other
side of Bailey's Harbor."
One of the men now came in from the piazza, and after much
questioning we found out all they knew. Captain Bannister had
arrived in Lanesport sometime the latter part of the afternoon. He
left the "Hoppergrass" at the wharf, and came up into the town.
When he returned, an hour later, his boat had disappeared. One or
two men had seen it sail down the river, but in the fog had not
noticed who was on board. The Captain "flew round like a coot shot
in the head," declared our informant. He went from one wharf to
another, started to hire a yacht and go in pursuit, but gave up
the plan. Then he went to the police-station.
"The police reckoned it was some of them burglars had took it. The
fellers that have been breakin' into houses on Little Duck."
"They've ketched them fellers," said the hotel man.
"Ketched 'em?"
"Yes. Got 'em last night, breakin' into a house in Bailey's
Harbor. Bert Janvrin was in here not more'n ten minutes ago, and
he heard 'bout it from a feller that was off Bailey's this
mornin', haulin' lobster-pots. They got the whole gang, and put
'em in jail, an' they all got out again, somehow, an' got away on
a boat, an' there's a man missin',--Mose Silloway,--you know
Mose, Joe--an' they think likely he's been murdered by 'em."
Mr. Daddles looked at me very gravely, and rubbed his upper lip,
hard.
"Dear me!" he said, "why, that's terrible! I hope it will turn out
all right. Well, we want to find Captain Bannister and his boat.
How do you get to Rogers's Island?"
"Jes' go over to Bailey's Harbor, an' keep on to the far end of
the island,--you can row across to Rogerses' from there."
"I don't think he has gone to Rogerses', young feller," said one
of the men, "I heard him say he was goin' to try Big Duck, fust."
"I guess we'll have to try them both,--thank you, all."
We said good-bye, and left the hotel. As we walked down the street
again Sprague said that we would do well to get away from
Lanesport, soon.
"If any more of these Bill Janvrins, or whatever his name was,
come here with news about the burglars, we may find the constable
after us again."
"It seems to me," said Pete, "that you fellows are getting in
deeper all the time. When you had lost your boat and your Captain
it was bad enough. But now the Captain has lost the boat, and one
is in one place, and the other in another."
"Some of us will have to go to Big Duck Island, and some of us to
Rogers's," said Ed Mason.
"By way of Bailey's Harbor?" asked Pete, with a sarcastic smile.
"We won't have to go there," said Jimmy; "at least, I don't think
so. I noticed Rogers's Island on the chart. I don't believe we'd
have to land on Little Duck at all."
We talked it over on our way back to the boat. In one or two
shops, where Sprague bought some food, we found out that the
horse-cars would take us to Squid Cove. Beyond that ran the car on
which we had travelled yesterday. Then there was a walk of less
than two miles to a point on the shore from which a row-boat could
take us to Rogers's Island. It was a long way to go, but it was
necessary in order to avoid Bailey's Harbor. Moreover, since
Sprague and Pete decided to take their boat to Big Duck Island,
the trip to Rogers's must be made by land.
"It will be safer for just one of us to go to Rogers's Island,"
said Mr. Daddles, "and he can look around after the Captain and
the 'Hoppergrass.' If he finds them, they can all sail over to Big
Duck Island tonight or to-morrow morning and join us there. If he
doesn't see anything of them, he can come back here to Lanesport,
and spend the night in the Eagle House. Then the rest of us will
join him tomorrow afternoon, with or without Captain Bannister, as
the case may be. But we'll wait at Big Duck till noon."
When we got back to the yacht, there was the Chief, peacefully
reading a last year's magazine. We routed him up, and cooked the
dinner. While we were eating, the question arose: who was to go to
Rogers's Island?
"We'll draw lots," said someone. We did so,--with slips of paper,
and I was more than pleased when I saw that I had,--well, I was
going to say: won. I thought I had won at the time, and I was
tickled at the idea of going on this expedition by myself.
As we were separated from our boat, clothes, and all our
belongings, Sprague fitted me out with some money, and I left
Lanesport on the horse-car. At Squid Cove I looked anxiously to
see if the car-driver would remember me, and I was glad to see a
boy, about my own age, driving the old horse.
"Gran'father's gone over to Bailey's Harbor," said he, "to see if
the burglars have come back. Gee! I'd like to see a burglar,
wouldn't you? Gee! they say these had black masks, an' six-
shooters, an' bottles of chloro-chlory--of that stuff they put
folks to sleep with. An' brass knuckles. Say, did you ever see any
brass knuckles? I did. I know a feller that has got a pair. He
keeps 'em in the hay in the barn, so's his father won't get onto
him. Gee! They put the burglars into the new jail, but they all
got out, an' no one knows how they did it. Nate Bradley come back
on his milk-cart from Bailey's and he says he went into the jail,
an' the cells was all locked up, so they must have clumb out
through the bars somehow. Gee! No one can find old Mose Silloway,
an' they think the burglars drownded him, outer revenge. Giddap!"
He leaned over the front of the car and hit the horse a loud slap,
with the ends of his reins.
"Gee! You bet Eb Flanders is madder than a settin' hen!"
"Who is he?" said I. Which was guile on my part.
"He's constable. He caught the burglars, y'know, right in the face
'n eyes of two policemen from Lanesport. An' when they got away,
Eb pretty near bust his biler. He got his possy together again,
an' he says he'll have 'em back if it takes a leg, an' when he
gets 'em he'll set over 'em night an' day, with a shot-gun. Gee!"
He hit the horse another slap with the reins, and then turned to
grin at me through a gap where four front teeth were missing. He
was a jolly looking boy, with a round, red face like the rising
moon.
"I wouldn't like to be them burglars, when Eb ketches hold of 'em
again," he continued. "No, sir. Why, Eb arrested two fellers last
summer for haulin' Levi Sanborn's lobster-pots,--he took an' tied
'em back to back an' carried 'em over to Lanesport in his boat,
an' turned 'em over to the police. One feller got six months in
the House of C'rrection. Gee! You're goin' to Bailey's, aint yer?"
"No, I'm going to Rogers's Island."
"You be? Why, the excursion aint till tomorrow!"
I said "What excursion?" before I thought.
"Why, the Comp'ny. Aint you heard 'bout the Comp'ny? Gran'father's
goin'. Everbody's goin'. Don't you live in Lanesport?"
"No, I don't know anything about it. What is it,--a picnic? How
many people live there,--on Rogers's Island?"
"Didn't no one live there--till 'bout a month ago. Then those two
gen'lemen came,--the P'fessor an' Mr. Snider. The house had been
empty for a year an' a half,--ever since old man Rogers died. He
was the last of the fam'ly, an' his folks have owned the island
an' lived in the house ever since the first one of 'em come over
in the 'Mayflower' or with Christopher C'lumbus, or somebody. When
Gran'father was a boy there was twenty-seven of 'em livin' there,
an' nineteen of 'em was children. Gee! there must have been a
mob,--all in one house! But they've been dyin' off, or movin' away
or somethin', an' when old man Rogers died there wasn't no one for
him to leave the prop'ty to but a hospittle or somethin'. An' the
hospittle aint never come to live there, or nothin', an' it's
stayed empty. I went over there once last summer, an' peeked into
the winders. ... But Mr. Snider an' the P'fessor are there now,--
they hired the whole island to 'stablish the Comp'ny on."
He stopped the car for some passengers,--two women and two little
girls who had been picking flowers beside the road. One of the
women commenced to ask questions and I did not get much chance to
talk with him again until we came to the end of the line, at the
causeway leading to Bailey's Harbor.
I decided not to linger at this point, but merely stopped to ask
the boy if I would be able to get a boat to row to Rogers's
Island.
"You won't want one," said he, "there's a bridge. You'll find it
all dry walkin'."
I learned what this meant, when, after about half an hour's walk,
I came to a turn in the road, and a post with a metal sign:
"Rogers's I.--1/2m." Here was another causeway across a marsh, not
as well kept, nor as much used, as that from Bailey's Harbor, but
quite passable. The island was in plain sight at the end of the
road,--a rocky hummock of land, with two patches of trees. At the
edge of one of these groups of trees I could see a chimney and one
corner of a house. A big, pink poster, stuck up on the sign-post,
had caught my eye. It was like several others which I remembered
having seen on trees and fences as I came along the road. Now, for
the first time, I stopped to read one of them. This is what it
said:
GOLD
FROM THE VASTY DEEP
OLD OCEAN
GIVES UP HIS WEALTH
AT LAST
SUCCUMBS TO THE MODERN WIZARD
EASE AND COMFORT PLACED WITHIN
THE REACH OF ALL BY THE
METROPOLITAN MARINE GOLD
COMPANY
COME TO THE GRAND DEMONSTRATIONS
AT THE COMPANY'S PLANT,
ROGERS'S ISLAND
TWO EXCURSIONS--MORNING &
AFTERNOON
JULY 30
I read that poster, and wondered what it was all about. July
30th,--that was to-morrow. Then I remembered what the boy on the
horse-car had said about "the Company" and the excursion. This was
the thing he had meant. Well, it was nothing to me,--I had only
to find out if Captain Bannister and the "Hoppergrass" were there,
and if not, to go back to Lanesport. "Gold from the vasty deep,"--
I wondered what that was. The buried treasure on Fishback Island,
--had it anything to do with that?
Half way across the causeway was a wooden bridge, painted white.
It spanned a narrow stream, not much more than a creek, running
through the marsh. This was the only water which divided Rogers's
Island from the mainland.
On the railing of the bridge was tacked another pink poster. This
one said:
RICHES
FROM NEPTUNE'S HOARD
TREASURE
FROM THE BOUNDLESS MAIN
WHY TOIL AND SLAVE ALL YOUR LIVES
WITH THE MEANS FOR LUXURY AT YOUR
DOORS?
GRAND EXCURSIONS TO ROGERS'S
ISLAND, JULY 30. STEAMER "MAY
QUEEN" LEAVES LANESPORT AT
8.30 A. M., AND 2 P. M.
THE METROPOLITAN
MARINE GOLD COMPANY
IS ENDORSED BY THE LEADING FINANCIERS
AND SCIENTISTS OF THE WORLD
AND BY
HON. J. HARVEY BOWDITCH &
DEACON ENOCH CHICK
LANESPORT
There were some hand-bills blowing around on the bridge, and I
picked up one or two of them. They were like the posters,--about
the Metropolitan Marine Gold Company, and the excursions to
Rogers's Island. At the end of the causeway, where the road went
up a little grade, there was a big sign, painted on white cloth,
and fixed to some boards:
THE METROPOLITAN MARINE GOLD COMPANY (Limited)
The road wound up the slope, and I followed it and turned the
corner. There was a great house, three stories high and as square
as a child's block. If it had ever been painted, the paint had
worn off, and the wood was almost black. For a hundred years or
more the wind and rain and snow had beaten against it,--storms
from the ocean, storms from the land, winds from all quarters, for
except at one corner it was unprotected by trees. It stood on high
ground, and faced the open water of the bay. Grass had grown rank
all around, and there was no sign of anybody either indoors or
out. There was an enormous barn behind the house, as well as
woodsheds, and hen-houses.
I stood still for a few moments, and then walked up the weed-grown
path, and hammered on the front door with the brass knocker. The
knocking echoed all over the house, and the door swung slowly
open. It was my knocks which had opened it, however,--there was
no one inside, so far as I could see. I looked into an empty hall,
dusty and neglected. A broad staircase led upstairs, but the only
thing in the hall was a pile of pink hand-bills lying on the
floor. I thumped again with my knuckles on one of the panels of
the door, and called out: "Anybody here?" There was no answer, and
after hesitating a moment I decided to try the rear of the house.
The driveway at the side was in the same neglected condition as
the front path. The only thing about the place which looked at all
new was a sort of wooden stand, built out of boards and packing
boxes. This was decorated with flags and colored bunting, as if
for a band-concert. It stood at one side of the driveway in what
had once been a little garden. The barn and other buildings at the
rear were shabby and ill-kept.
I pounded at a side-door, and at a door in the back, but there was
no answer at either. Then I began to wonder what to do. Evidently
Captain Bannister was not here, but why had he said he was coming
to such a place? What had made him think he would find the
"Hoppergrass" here? Where were the men about whom the boy on the
horse-car had told me?
I strolled to the front of the house again, crossed the road, and
looked down the hill toward the bay. There was a little wharf at
the foot of the hill, and at the end of it was another of the
white cloth signs. It faced out over the water, so I could not
read what it said. Some planks, boards, and shavings lay about, as
if someone had been working there recently. I thought I would go
down and investigate.
As I still had on rubber-soled shoes, I suppose I walked
noiselessly. I had not stepped upon the woodwork before I noticed
a trap-door near the end of the wharf. I walked over to it and
looked down.
It was rather dark below, but I could make out a platform about a
foot above the water. Kneeling on this were two men, with a
lantern beside them. They were both in their shirt-sleeves, and
they seemed to be working over a little, square box. Four or five
other boxes like it were lying on the platform in front of them.
I did not know exactly how to begin, but at last I gave a kind of
cough, and said: "Can you tell me--"
But I got no farther than that. Both men looked up as if their
heads had been pulled back on wires. One of them sprang to the
ladder and came up it like a flash.
"Hullo!" he said, as soon as he reached the top; "who are you, and
what do you want?"
He was a small man, with a clean-shaven face,--a very pale face it
was, too. His hat was off, and I noticed that his hair was rather
short. As for his age, I could not have told about that,--it might
have been twenty-five or fifty, or any age between. He was quick
in his movements, but his manner of speaking was pleasant enough.
"I'm looking for a boat," I said; "someone told me that it was
here,--this is Rogers's Island, isn't it?"
"This is Rogers's Island, all right," he answered,--"what kind of
a boat is it you are looking for?"
"She's a white cat-boat,--the 'Hoppergrass',--or the 'Hannah J.
Pettingell',--it's more likely that's her name."
He looked at me inquiringly with his quick little eyes. The other
man came up through the trap-door. He had put on his coat,--a
long, black, "swallow-tail" coat. He was tall and thin, and
dressed all in black, with a white neck-tie. His hair was sandy,
and he had reddish side-whiskers,--the kind called "side-boards."
I never saw a man with such a solemn face,--nor one with so long a
nose. But he smiled as he walked over to me, a kind of painful
smile as if he had the face-ache. He leaned over, took one of my
hands, and held it in his damp grasp, while he patted me on the
shoulder with his other hand.
"Well, my little man," he said, "what is your name, and what can I
do for you?"
I did not like being called "my little man," and I tried to drop
his clammy hand. But he held mine still, and smiled his tooth-achy
smile.
"What is it we can do for you?" he repeated. He had a smooth voice
that somehow made me feel as if I was having warm butter poured
over me.
"I'm looking for a boat," I said, trying again to snatch away my
hand.
"A boat?" he queried, in mild surprise, "and what is your name,--
my little man?"
I started to tell him, and then it struck me, that we had given
our real names to the constable at Bailey's Harbor, and that I
might get into trouble if I told mine again, here. I tried to
think of another name to give, but as I hadn't made up one in
advance, it seemed to stick. Of course, I had often read of
various kinds of criminals and desperadoes who went under false
names, and also of people who were no more criminals than we, who
had to give names other than their own. There were spies in war-
time, for instance. These people in books all seemed to do it
easily enough, and so I could have done, if I had had one ready.
As it was I stammered over it.
"Sam-er-er-Jim-er-James B-B-Brown," I said at last.
"Sam Jim James Brown!" he said, in his buttery tones, "well, Sam
Jim James Brown, what is it you want here?"
I told him again about the boat, and how they told us at Lanesport
that Captain Bannister was coming to Rogers's Island to look for
her.
"What kind of a boat is it?" said the other man. I had succeeded
at last in getting the tall man to let go of my hand, and I backed
a little away from him. I described the "Hoppergrass" as well as I
could, and told about the Captain's notion for changing the name.
"A white cat-boat, hey?" said the little man, "and Captain
Bannister,--oh, yes! of Lanesport? Captain Bannister of
Lanesport?"
"No, he comes--"
"No? Are you sure? He's been in Lanesport lately, hasn't he?"
"Oh, yes. That's where he lost the 'Hoppergrass.'"
"That's the man!" said he, "that's the man. Now, I tell you what.
He isn't here now, but I expect he will be here tomorrow. You've
heard about the excursion, of course?"
"Yes,--I read the hand-bills."
"Well, I understand he is coming here tomorrow. Now, have you got
to go back to Lanesport tonight?"
"Just a second,--excuse me just a second, Professor," put in the
tall man, "I'd like a word with you just for a second. You'll
excuse me, young man, if I confer with the Professor for a second.
An important matter of business, you know."
He drew the Professor, as he called him, some little distance up
the wharf, where they whispered together for three or four
minutes. The tall man kept his hand on the Professor's shoulder
and seemed very earnest in what he was saying.
Then they came back to me.
"Were you going back to Lanesport tonight?" asked the Professor.
"Yes," I replied, "if I didn't find Captain Bannister."
"I don't believe you can now," said he, looking at his watch.
"It's half past four, and the last car leaves the Cove at four.
Besides, your surest way to find this Captain Bannister is to stay
right here. He'll be here tomorrow, sure. Then you can go back on
the steamboat at noon, if you want to. We'll fix you up for
tonight, and make you comfortable. What do you say?"
There didn't seem to be any way out of it. If it had been the tall
man alone I would have walked all the way back to Lanesport rather
than stay. I never saw anyone whom I disliked so much, from the
very first instant. But the Professor seemed perfectly
straightforward. The cars had stopped, and I was left here on
Rogers's Island, and might as well make the best of it. Besides if
Captain Bannister were coming in the morning it was foolish to
lose this chance of finding him.
I decided to stay, and told them that I would do so.