THE LITTLE BLACK TRAMP
It was evening of the following day. The fire on that big flat rock
burned brightly. Florence and Greta sat sipping hot chocolate from paper
cups. For a full half hour, while twilight faded into night, neither
spoke.
It was Greta who broke the silence. “Florence,” she said soberly, “life
is strange.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed.
“Here we are on Greenstone Ridge,” the dark-eyed girl went on. “We came
here to explore and to—to search out the secrets of the phantom. We found
the phantom. We solved the mystery. And yet—”
“The phantom is more mysterious than before.” Florence smiled a dreamy
smile.
“Yes,” Greta replied quickly, “he is! And perhaps we shall never delve
more deeply into this mystery. We have not seen him since that night
when, like knights of old, we marched down upon that mysterious cabin by
the lake.”
“We have heard his music but have not seen him, your strange Percy
O’Hara,” Florence said quietly.
This was exactly true. When the strange little doctor had suggested that
they assist him in his marvelous cure of that boy afflicted with mental
terror, Percy O’Hara had agreed at once, but had suggested that Greta
should furnish the music close at hand and that his should be little more
than an echo. This arranged, he had slipped away into the night. Since
then they had heard him twice, had seen him not at all.
“Why?” Greta whispered to herself. “Why?” There came no answer.
“Florence,” she said, springing to her feet, “our work here is done.
Doctor Prince has told us that our assistance is no longer needed. As for
the phan—phantom, Percy O’Hara, we have no right to pry into his affairs.
I—I’d like to go down to the camping ground by Duncan’s Bay.” She seemed
ready to weep.
“Tonight?” Florence rose slowly to her feet.
“Tonight.”
“All right.” The big girl began stuffing things into her bag. “We’ll be
away in a jiffy.”
A half hour later two dark figures, guided only by a flashlight, made
their way over the long moose trail leading along the ridge, thence down
to the shores of a dark and silent bay. And all the time Greta was
thinking of Percy O’Hara, who had charmed thousands upon thousands with
his matchless music, hiding away there on the ridge. Once she whispered,
“Green eyes, a hundred pairs of green eyes.”
As they neared the shores of the bay, however, her thoughts returned to
her good friend Jeanne and their home, the wreck of the old _Pilgrim_.
Once she whispered low, “A barrel of gold.”
Had you chanced to look down upon that narrow stretch of level land on
the shores of Duncan’s Bay later that night, you might have spied, hidden
away in a shadowy corner, a small tent. Beneath that tent two girls
slept, Florence and Greta. For them Greenstone Ridge had become a memory.
They were up at dawn. Their boat, hidden deep among some scrub spruce
trees, awaited them. So did a bright and shimmering lake. And beyond
this, dark and silent, was their home, the wreck.
“Perhaps Jeanne has come back,” said Florence. “We will row over at
once.”
They had covered half the distance to the wreck and were watching eagerly
for some sign of life on its sloping decks, when Greta, whose gaze had
strayed away to the left, cried out quite suddenly, “Look, Florence! What
is that over there?”
Shading her eyes, Florence followed the younger girl’s gaze, then said
with a slow tone of assurance, “It’s a boat, a small black boat adrift.
Some ship, or perhaps only a schooner, has lost her lifeboat. We’ll take
it in tow, tie it up over at the wreck.”
The small black boat was soon tied behind their own. Florence’s strong
arms did double duty as she covered the remaining distance to the wreck.
Greta had climbed on board the wreck, Florence had finished tying up her
own boat and was giving her attention to the small black tramp, when she
noted something of mild interest. In the bottom of that boat was water
two or three inches deep, from a rain, perhaps. Floating on the surface
of that water was a small square of paper.
“Might give some clue,” she thought as she put out a hand.
Once she had spread the paper on the boat’s seat, her lips parted in
surprise.
“Greta!” she cried, “Greta! Come here. See what I have found!”
When Greta arrived all she saw was a sheet of water-soaked paper. In the
center of that paper, done with a purple pencil, badly blurred but still
quite easily read, were four words:
“A BARREL OF GOLD.”
“Isn’t that strange!” Florence exclaimed. “Here we’ve been dreaming in a
silly sort of way about a barrel of gold. And now, here it is, all
written out by a stranger!”
“Perhaps Jeanne wrote it,” Greta suggested.
“She can’t have. It’s not her writing. And look!” Florence studied the
paper more closely. “There are two lines drawn under those words as if
some other words had been crossed out and these inserted. And that—” she
straightened up, “that is exactly what happened. There are faint traces
of pencil marks all over the paper. The water has about washed them away.
Perhaps when the paper is dry we can read the entire message.”
Placing the paper carefully on her outspread hand, she carried it to the
deck, then smoothed it out on a board in the sun.
“Jeanne is not here,” Greta said quietly. “She’s not been here.
Everything is just as we left it, except—” she hesitated.
“Except what?” Florence stared.
“I can’t be sure, but I think there are fresh marks of a black schooner
that has been tied up alongside this wreck. Come and see.”
“Can’t be any doubt of it,” Florence agreed a few moments later. “The
black schooner, it’s been here again, Greta! Greta!” She gripped the
slender girl’s arm. “Do you suppose there could have been a barrel of
gold hidden on this wreck? And have they carried it away?
“Of course not!” she exploded, answering her own question. “There are
three or four barrels of oil in the hold. That was all they left. Swen
told us that, and he should know.”