Josh found his little plan was not hard of accomplishment. All he had to
do was to push the _Wireless_ around, after letting out all the cable
connected with the anchor, when he was able to jump ashore.
He took with him another rope that was fastened to the stern of the
motor boat, and this he fastened to the nearest tree. Now, when he
wanted to go aboard, all he had to do was to unfasten this latter
hawser, climb over the side, and draw the _Wireless_ back to her
original anchorage.
"Good boy!" cried Nick, who had been a close observer of this clever
little game. "You go up head. When it comes to dodges like that, you
take the cake."
It was not often that Josh heard a compliment from this source, and he
had to stop and wave his hand toward the cook of the _Comfort_, before
following after Jack.
He had not gone twenty feet before he discovered the object of his
concern, who appeared to be bending over something that seemed to
greatly interest him.
"Hello! there, what've you found, Jack? Signs of a diamond mine, or
traces of the ice age they tell us about?" Josh demanded, as he reached
the side of the other.
"Hello yourself, Josh," replied Jack, looking up with a smile, as though
pleased because he was to have some one to talk to, and possibly confer
with. "Well, no, I can't just say that either of your guesses comes
anywhere near the truth. I'm only examining a trail."
"What's that? Then this old island hasn't always been as deserted as it
looks right now, if people sometimes drop ashore here?" remarked Josh,
his interest at once aroused.
"Look here and tell me what you see," the other lad continued, as he
pointed to the ground near his feet.
"Say, as sure as you live, it is, for a fact," exclaimed Josh. "Looks
like they'd done a heap of passing up and down this way, too. D'ye know,
Jack, I wondered what those marks on the little beach meant, and now I
understand. Boats, that's what; boats that have been drawn up there when
the water was higher than it is now."
"Yes, I saw them," said Jack, quietly. "In fact, I looked to find such
marks on the sand. And this broad trail began there, too."
"Oh! I'm beginning to tumble to a few things. I guess that in the
season, this same tight little island may be a place for duck shooters
to hold out. Perhaps we might even find an old deserted shanty somewhere
back yonder in which they camp out during the blustery fall months."
"Hold on, Josh," remarked Jack. "Is that all you know about signs?"
"Why, whatever do you mean?" asked the other, puzzled.
"Take another squint at these marks, and then tell me what you think,
Josh."
"Say, I tumble to what you mean!" exclaimed Josh, after he had bent down
once more. "You expect me to say that if these marks had been made
months ago, with a winter's ice and snow, and a summer's heavy rains,
they'd have been washed out long ago. And so they would, Jack, so they
would. You're right about it. They've been made lately! They look fresh,
for a fact!"
"Now you're tumbling to facts, Josh. Remember, we had a big downpour
just three days ago, don't you?" Jack went on.
"Sure I do. And you're on to that, too. But I grab your meaning now, all
right. There are marks here that must have been made since that rain."
"Well, what do you say about it now?" continued the boy who could read
signs.
"Instead of duck shooters they're fishermen," observed Josh, calmly.
"Yes, and you remember how those three boats came along, and the men in
each stared so hard at us? Jack, I see it all now. We just happened in a
favorite place of theirs, and they didn't like it for a cent. Why, they
even tried to scare us off with that silly ghost business that gave poor
old Pudding such a fright."
Jack only smiled.
"Well," he said, "suppose we follow this trail for a bit. I have an idea
it will lead us to the very place where I thought I saw a moving light,
like a swinging lantern, last night."
Josh was eager to keep step with him; but there was no trouble
experienced in picking up the trail, so plainly marked were the tracks.
"There it is, Jack!" exclaimed Josh, suddenly; for he had been looking
ahead all the time his companion kept his eyes fixed on the ground.
"It is a shanty of some sort, isn't it?" remarked Jack, without much
emotion; for he had been absolutely positive as to what they would
discover, so that the announcement did not excite him.
"Why, yes, a tumbledown sort of a shack," observed Josh, with a trace of
disappointment about his manner. "I'd pity the fellows who spent a rainy
day in such a rookery. Why, the roof is falling in at one end; and the
door hangs on one rusty hinge."
Jack saw all these things as quickly as did his companion, even though
he failed to cry out and express himself as vehemently as Josh took
pains to do.
"Old dilapidated cabin as it is, note one thing, will you," he remarked.
"You mean that the tracks lead up to the door, is that it, Jack?"
"Well, yes," the other continued, "but just notice that there's a rusty
padlock on the door. Stop and think if that doesn't look queer,
considering that if anybody wanted to get in, all they'd have to do
would be to knock that one hinge, and the whole door would drop flat?"
"Say, that makes me laugh, for a fact," Josh chuckled. "But it's just
what you'd expect to run across up among these simple people of the
border. They make me think of the ostrich. Don't you know we read the
silly thing just sticks its head in a little bush, and thinks because it
can't see anything that it's got a bully hiding place."
"Yes, that sort of covers the bill," said Jack. "I guess this padlock is
only meant to tell people who have no business here that they are not
wanted inside this shack. It stands as a warning. To enter after that
would be a breach of the rights to property, as Lawyer George would
say."
"Looky here, would you!" cried Josh, presently, while his companion was
prowling around, and peeping through a hole in the wall, as though
curious to know what the interior of the cabin looked like.
"What have you found now?" asked Jack, who was himself wondering why
that new single trail had been made, coming out of the dense bushes at
the back of the hut, and showing signs of recent passage, which somehow
he could not help connecting with the flash of that lantern on the
preceding night.
"The bally old lock don't hold even a little bit," announced Josh, as
though that circumstance added to his hilarity. "See, I can lift it off
with one finger. It's a fake, that's what it is, Jack. But while it
might fool ordinary people, it can't a live Yankee. Now what d'ye say to
going in?"
Jack laughed as though amused at the reasoning of his chum, and
remarked:
"I see you think we wouldn't be breaking the law of possession if we
walked in when the lock was out of gear. That sounds nice, Josh, but
many a chicken thief has found that such a plea didn't save him. But all
the same, I'm going to step in and look around a bit."
"Seems to me it smells fishy around here?" observed Josh, sniffing
eagerly.
"Oh! that's easy enough to explain," and Jack pointed to several heads
of black bass that lay near by. "Somebody has had a fish dinner, for
there is the ash bed of a fire. It may have been passing sportsmen from
one of the big hotels; then again, perhaps the people who made the trail
also cooked a meal or two here!"
Once inside the cabin he looked around. There was virtually nothing to
see. The place had not a sign of furniture of any description. Some
straw lay on the hard earthen floor, as though it might be made useful
in case one wished to pass the night there.
Josh almost doubled up with laughter.
"This is sure the greatest joke ever," he remarked. "To think of trying
to keep trespassers out of this old trap, just like it held all a
squatter's possessions. Jack, what d'ye think the silly donkey meant by
that padlock? Did he keep his stuff here once, and locked the door? I'm
all in a fog."
Jack said nothing, only "browsed" around, as he expressed it, kicking
the straw aside in places, only to replace it as he had found it, as
though not wishing to leave any signs that trespassers had invaded the
cabin of the mysterious island.
But all the while he was thinking deeply.
And once, after the laughing and scoffing Josh had stepped outside to
look about him again, Jack stooped down and picked some object up off
the earthen floor, which he seemed to examine with considerable
curiosity before stowing away in one of his many pockets.
"Seen all you want to of the strange palace of the Thousand Islands?"
asked the merry Josh, when his companion again appeared.
"Oh! yes, and I'll put the lock back just as we found it," replied the
other.
Then he started to follow the plain trail that led through the dense
thicket to the rear of the cabin. It took him nearly twenty minutes to
zigzag through the intricate growth, for all manner of obstacles caused
him to turn aside, even as they had the one who had come and gone this
way on the preceding night.
When he finally reached the shore it was far around the point that
jutted out above the cove where the motor boats were anchored. And after
Jack had stooped down to examine the sandy beach, he arose with a
peculiar smile, and a knowing shake of the head; but the only words he
used as he walked along the sandy stretch near the water's edge were:
"I thought I'd find where the keel of a boat landed on this beach!"