[Illustration: _Page 239_ THEIRS WAS A WICKIUP]
Smugglers’ Island
and the Devil Fires
of San Moros
By
Clarissa A. Kneeland
_With Illustrations by
Wallace Goldsmith_
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CLARISSA A. KNEELAND
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October 1915_
CONTENTS
I. A PICNIC TO THE ISLAND 1
II. FOR SHELTER IN A STORM 30
III. COMMISSARY MATTERS 57
IV. BONANZA COVE 86
V. THE EGG ISLANDS 113
VI. THE JAGUAR’S TRACK 149
VII. THE MUGGYWAH 181
VIII. THE BUILDING OF THE WICKIUP 212
IX. DAVIE’S PANAL HUNT: AND WHAT CAME OF IT 245
X. DELBERT’S BIG GAME 260
XI. WHEREWITHAL SHALL WE BE CLOTHED? 274
XII. DISASTER AND A NEW TASK 299
XIII. HOW THE LAUNCH CAME BACK TO SMUGGLERS’ 320
XIV. THE END OF THE PICNIC 344
SMUGGLERS’ ISLAND and the Devil Fires of San Moros
CHAPTER I
A PICNIC TO THE ISLAND
Marian Hadley stood in the doorway of her home in a small seaport town
of Mexico, watching her ten-year-old brother Delbert come stumbling up
the hill with his arms full of mail.
“We’re out early,” he shouted. “The teacher let us all out early. There
are the girls coming now, down by the office. Oh! and we’re not going
to have any more school this week. The teacher has got to go to the
dentist every day, and she isn’t going to feel like teaching; so we are
going to have vacation.”
“Dear me,” said Marian, smiling, “what in the wide world will you
children do, with so much spare time on your hands?”
“O Marian! Marian! Can’t we--it will be just the time to do it--can’t
we go to Smugglers’ Island?” Delbert’s body fairly quivered with
excitement, and his dark eyes were shining like stars. “Let me ask Mr.
Cunningham for the launch. We could go to-morrow. O Marian, do, please!”
Marian hesitated. “Smugglers’ Island! That is a long way off. We
couldn’t be ready by to-morrow; it is late now.”
“We don’t need anything but a lunch. I don’t mean to get up a party.
Just us go. We don’t need to go to a lot of fuss.”
If Marian had an especial weakness, it was her brother Delbert. She was
proud of that spirited, handsome little face, and rarely clouded it by
a refusal if a consent was possible. Besides the sister love she gave
him in common with the other children, there was a desire to make up to
him the loss of a companion brother who had died a few years before,
a brother a little older than Delbert, but of much the same cast of
features.
Now she thought, “Why not? Why think one must make elaborate
preparations for every little pleasure, when the children would enjoy
it as well, maybe better, without?”
She laughed. “Here come the girls,” she said. “We’ll put it to a vote.”
The little girls, Jennie and Esther, came up the path. Jennie was
eight, a puny, thin little shadow, with eyes that seemed much too big
because the face was so thin and colorless. She had been born a sickly
baby and had averaged at least one illness every year of her life
since, and had never known what actual health was. When Mrs. Hadley
had decided to accompany her husband on his business trip to Guaymas
she had thought seriously of taking Jennie with her, though she had
had never a moment’s uneasiness at leaving the other three in their
sister’s care. But it had seemed a pity to take the little girl out of
school, where she was doing well; and also there was a good American
doctor in town, whom Marian promised faithfully to send for at the
first symptom of anything wrong; so, as Jennie herself did not seem to
care about going, it was finally decided she should stay.
Esther, the six-year-old, stood in pleasing contrast to her sister.
Having never known sickness, she was a sturdy, robust little specimen,
as plump as the baby David, dimpled and rosy, with curly hair that was
forever getting into her bright eyes.
Delbert was dancing with delight. “Girls, girls,” he squealed, “listen,
quick. All in favor of going to Smugglers’ Island to-morrow, signify by
saying ‘Aye.’”
“Aye, aye, aye!” he yelled; and Esther, taking her cue, also launched a
myriad of “ayes,” but Jennie shook her head in grave disapproval.
“You are too ev’lastin’ noisy,” she said. “Marian, we are not going in
the launch, are we?”
The baby was calling “Aye” most lustily.
“There,” declared Delbert, “that’s a m’jority, Marian. Three out of
five’s a m’jority.”
Marian drew Jennie tenderly to her. “Delbert wants to go to Smugglers’
Island to-morrow. It is a long way, but perhaps you would not be
seasick in the launch. Do you want to go?”
The little girl’s shining eyes were answer enough. Marian laughed and
kissed her. “Delbert,” she said then, “take that bill that is in my
purse down to Mr. Cunningham now and refund him for the duties on these
packages and thank him for me,--don’t forget that,--and then see if he
can let us have the launch to-morrow. It may be let to some one else,
but if it isn’t, and if we can have it, why, pay him for that too, and
don’t forget that. But I warn you children there’s not a thing for
lunch but bread and butter. I haven’t so much as a cooky in the jar,
and it’s too late for me to bake now.”
Previously there had lived at the Port for some years an American boy
whose chief joy in life had been found on the water, and, having been
blest with a small sailboat of his own, he had been able to indulge his
sailor propensities to the utmost. Sometimes with other boys, often
alone, he had sailed up and down the coast for miles, exploring the
shallow bays and winding _esteros_,[1] and he knew all the sandbars and
islands.
[1] An _estero_ (pronounced _es-tāʹ-ro_) is an estuary, an arm
of the sea.
A few miles out from the Port was a group of islands known to the
Americans thereabouts as the Rosalie Group. The natives gave them
another name, unpronounceable, and certainly unspellable. They
consisted of quite an assortment of rocky knolls and stunted trees,
and little beaches, fine for bathing. Most people confined their
seaward excursions to trips of greater or less duration of time to
these islands, some half-dozen in number, but Clarence had ventured
much farther; he had even gone as far as San Moros, many miles down the
coast.
San Moros was a wide-mouthed, shallow bay, full of rocks and sandbars,
but at its farther extremity the young explorer had discovered
an island that gave unmistakable evidence of having once been
inhabited,--probably by smugglers, as in times past they had flourished
like the bay tree all up and down the west coast, as everybody knows.
Boy-like, Clarence had kept his discovery a secret, or at least had
revealed it only to a chosen few, Marian and Delbert being among the
elect. And when afterwards he had made a second trip to the place, Mrs.
Hadley had allowed Delbert to go with him. Clarence had been fond of
children and of Delbert in particular, and often took the little boy
with him on his all-day trips on the water. On this occasion they had
camped over and explored the Island and its surroundings.
It was long months now since Clarence’s family had moved from the Port,
but Delbert had always been anxious for a second trip to the Island in
San Moros, being eager to show it to Marian and his little sisters.
Before long Delbert came rushing back. “We can go! We can go!” he
called. “We--where’s Marian?--oh, there you are. Mr. Cunningham says
we can have the launch. The man he usually sends with it is sick or
something, but he got Mr. Pearson to take us instead. We can start
early in the morning. Goody! And say, Marian, can’t you fix some dough
for doughnuts and let me fry ’em for you?”
Marian looked severe. “Do you remember what happened the last time I
let you fry doughnuts?” she asked.
Delbert’s eyes twinkled. “Yes,” he said, “but that was learning; I
won’t do it that way now.”
“Shall we trust him, Jennie?” she asked.
“If you don’t, there won’t be any doughnuts to-morrow,” Delbert assured
her. “Marian has not got time to make ’em.”
“I guess we can this time,” decided Jennie.
“Me fry doughnuts, too,” said Esther.
“I am afraid me had better not,” said Marian; “but you and Jennie may
roll and cut them out for Delbert. And Davie, you sit up in your high
chair and watch sister stir up these doughnuts quickly, and then Davie
shall make a doughnut of his very own. Delbert, put the granite-ware
kettle on, and the lard is in that pail on the shelf there by you. I
think there is just enough; put it all in.”
She hurried the ingredients together, and, as soon as the dough was
ready for rolling out, turned it over to the apprentices and ran out of
the kitchen to the numerous other tasks that awaited her.
“You haven’t read us mamma’s letter yet,” called Jennie.
“Oh, I will read it while we eat supper,” Marian answered.
“What mamma say?” shrilled Esther.
“Says they will be back in two weeks,” came Marian’s muffled voice from
the far bedroom.
Presently she came back. “Jennie,” she said, “do you know what was done
with your and Esther’s bathing-suits when you came back from bathing
the other day?”
Jennie looked blank, but Esther answered promptly.
“Down to Bobbie’s.”
“Down at Bobbie’s? Whatever did you leave them there for?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Jennie, her face brightening, “I ’member now. We
stopped to play and hung ’em on Bobbie’s mother’s clothesline and
forgot ’em.”
“Well, that’s a great way to do! Esther, you run down after them now.”
Esther was kneading doughnut dough industriously. “To-morrow,” she said.
Marian considered a moment, and then said: “No, you go now, it is two
days they have been there already, and they may have got into some
corner where Bobbie’s mother won’t know where they are, and we won’t
have any time to hunt for lost things in the morning. It is a long way
to Smugglers’ Island, and we must get off early or we shan’t have time
to explore it and get back by dark.”
Esther sighed, and began to clean the dough from her little fat hands.
“Tell where we going?” she asked.
“No; better not.”
“Why?”
“Oh, because if Bobbie knows we are going in the launch, he will want
to go, too, and I know positively his mamma wouldn’t let him.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you little interrogation-point!” expostulated Marian under her
breath. Aloud she answered patiently, “Because Bobbie was awfully
naughty and went in the fishing-boat without asking his mamma, and she
was so worried about him, and when he got back she told him he couldn’t
go anywhere except to school,--not anywhere, not even up here to play
with Delbert,--for two whole weeks.”
“Not two weeks yet?”
“No, it is not two weeks yet. Now, do go on, Esther. Just ask for the
bathing-suits and don’t make Bobbie feel bad by telling him about a
picnic he can’t go to.”
* * * * *
In the morning, before Marian had breakfast out of the way, Delbert
came in with a rush. “I have just seen Mr. Pearson. He is going to his
breakfast, and he says he is all ready, and he wants to know if there
is anything you want him to do.”
“Yes,” said Marian; “tell him to get a demijohn of water. Mr.
Cunningham has a demijohn he uses for that, but Mr. Pearson may not
think of it.”
“Oh, but there is water on the Island, plenty of it.”
“Yes, my dear, but it has not been filtered, and I don’t want you
children drinking anything and everything. Oh! and did you put plenty
of water for the chickens, Delbert?--and put a big stone in the pan so
they can’t tip it over?
“Bread and butter and doughnuts,” she continued, “and I must take milk
for Davie. Dear me! I haven’t enough to fill the jar either. Here,
Jennie, get a dime from my purse and take this pail and run down and
see if Bobbie’s mother can let me have a quart of milk. If she hasn’t
it to spare, you will have to go to Doña Luisa. Delbert, find the
hatchet. It will come in handy when we come to build a fire for noon.”
“Haven’t you got eggs, Marian? Take some raw eggs, and we can boil
them over a fire; it’s lots of fun.”
“I’ve only three, Delbert, but if you can, get some at Bobbie’s, or ask
Fanny’s mother if she can spare me some.”
“We can get crabs and clams, you know,” said Delbert. “There’s barrels
of ’em. Clarence and I had ’em. But take plenty of bread and butter,
Marian. Mr. Pearson can eat a lot, I know.”
“Yes. Run on now and see about the eggs, and then go down and tell Mr.
Pearson about the water. Let me see,” she continued,--“what else? Oh,
yes, if we go bathing, I shall have to comb my hair.”
She wrapped up her comb and brush in a clean towel, and then, on second
thought, tucked in a little pocket-mirror and a cake of tar soap and
two more towels.
“Marian, me got my spade and pail, but me can’t find baby’s,” called
Esther.
“His little pail is here,” answered Marian, “but I don’t know where his
spade is. Let him take the big dig-spoon instead.” A dig-spoon, be it
known, is a spoon so old and dilapidated that mother does not mind if
the children use it to dig in the dirt with. The big dig-spoon of the
Hadley children was a huge iron affair about a yard in length that had
doubtless been originally intended to stir soup in a hotel kitchen.
As they started down the hill on the way to the pier, Bobbie’s mother
ran out to her gate. “Marian,” she called, “are you taking plenty of
wraps with you? You know it gets cold toward evening.”
Marian held up a couple of light shoulder shawls. “Delbert has his
coat,” she said, “and Esther and I never want anything around us
anyway. There are always a couple of blankets on the launch seats.”
“Oh, you foolish child,” declared the lady; “you wait.” She ran back
into the house, and in a moment came back with a very large heavy
circular cape, “There, you take this,” she said. “It will cover you and
Esther and the baby too. Jennie will need both those flimsy shawls. You
know it won’t do to let her get chilled.”
Marian thanked her laughingly and accepted the cape.
Mr. Cunningham was down on the pier. He was a dapper young man,
pleasant and good-looking and well liked by everybody at the Port,
and he held the most lucrative and responsible position of all the
Americans there.
[Illustration: MARIAN LAUGHINGLY ACCEPTED THE CAPE]
He smiled as the Hadley party trailed down the hill and out on the
pier, the sturdy baby well in the lead.
“Here comes King David and his train,” he called. “By Jove,” he
added, observing the huge dig-spoon, “he has his scepter with him
too.--Good-morning, Miss Marian; do you mean to tell me that basket is
full of lunch?”
“Not quite,” laughed Marian. “There is a hatchet and my workbag and a
few other things as well.”
“Workbag!” exclaimed Delbert in disgust. “What did you bring that for?”
“Oh, I may hemstitch a little while you children dig in the sand. I
shan’t ask you to do any sewing, Delbert.”
As the big basket was being stowed away in the launch, Mr. Cunningham
said laughingly, “If you find you have not enough, Miss Marian, there
is some canned stuff in the locker you are welcome to.”
“Thank you,” said Marian, “I think we have plenty. I have been on trips
like this before; I know how children eat. Delbert, I forgot to put in
anything to cook the eggs in. You wanted to boil them, and we haven’t a
thing.”
“Use Esther’s pail,” he suggested.
“It leaks too badly, and baby’s pail is wooden. No, if you want those
eggs cooked, you will have to go back and get something.”
“There will be the clams, too,” said Delbert, starting back across the
pier on a trot.
“Oh, and, Delbert--”
“What?”
“You might bring Jennie’s cape, too, while you are there; and, Delbert,
Delbert! Be sure and lock the door again when you come out.”
“We ought to have something to bring home clams in, too,” she said
after a moment, “but he is too far gone now to call back.”
“There is a big pail here in the boat-house,” said Mr. Cunningham,
going to get it.
“I shan’t be here when you get back,” he said, coming back with the
pail, “but the launch can be turned over to Manuel. I am going up the
river for a couple of days. I must be getting ready now, so I will bid
you good-bye and wish you a pleasant trip.”
He shook hands with Marian, pulled Esther’s curls, smiled at Jennie,
stood the baby on his head a moment, and strode off across the pier.
Soon Delbert came running down the hill again, his arms full.
“Morning, Mr. Faston,” he called to an old gentleman who, with a basket
on his arm, was starting toward the plaza for his breakfast steak.
“Good-morning, Delbert. Where you all going so bright and early?”
“Going to Smugglers’ Island.”
Delbert ran down to the launch and scrambled in. “I brought baby’s
jacket, too,” he said, dumping the wraps, the granite-ware kettle, and
a little bright new dishpan in a heap at Marian’s feet.
“I see you did, but whatever did you bring that dishpan for?”
“Why, it was sitting out there on the table, so I s’posed you forgot
it, and I wasn’t going to be sent back again.”
Marian laughed. “I had no notion of bringing it,” she said. “Well, Mr.
Pearson, I guess we are all ready. You’d better start off before we
think of something else we might like to take.”
“Just think, Marian,” said Delbert; “Mr. Pearson has not been outside
the harbor since he has been here.”
“No? Never been to the Rosalie Group, Mr. Pearson?”
Pearson cleared his throat. “No; when a man is busy he don’t get much
time for picnics,” he said.
“I am to show him the way,” continued Delbert, “and he is to make the
launch go there.”
It was a lovely day. The children were fairly bubbling over with the
glee of it, and Marian herself felt unusually gay and light-hearted.
Mr. Pearson was rather silent. He was a newcomer to the Port, and
Marian had had hitherto but a bare speaking acquaintance with him. She
had an instinctive feeling, however, that he considered children as
necessary nuisances; so she tried to keep them from annoying him too
much with their chatter. However, though he volunteered no remarks,
he answered good-naturedly what was said especially to him, followed
minutely Delbert’s instructions as to their direction, and listened
with apparent interest when the little fellow told of trips taken with
Clarence in the sailboat.
Outside the shelter of the harbor they encountered the high waves of
the Gulf, and Davie was so frightened that Marian had much ado to
keep him quiet. Jennie, too, began to feel a few qualms of her old
enemy, seasickness, so that with them both Marian had little chance to
exchange sociabilities with Mr. Pearson.
Leaving the Rosalie Group on their right, they turned down the coast
bound for San Moros.
Delbert was entirely unafraid. The higher the wave the better it suited
him, and he was constantly declaring he only wished they were going to
stay a week. Esther echoed him, as was her wont, and Jennie feebly put
in a few remarks of the same tenor, her feeling in the matter, however,
being born of a desire to put off the nausea-beset homeward trip rather
than to prolong the picnic joy.
[Illustration: FOLLOWED MINUTELY DELBERT’S INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THEIR
DIRECTION]
Finally they rounded the point and entered San Moros. Delbert
remembered just how Clarence had made his way in among the many rocks
and sandbars, most of which were covered at high tide. The Island lay
some miles back, a crescent in shape, high and rocky at one end and
running out to a narrow sandy point at the other. No one approaching it
would have mistrusted it was other than the mainland, for the formation
was such as to blend it perfectly with the mainland back of it, and it
showed no sign of the strip of water between till one was close upon it.
“We landed first by that point of rock,” declared Delbert, pointing,
“and then afterwards we took the boat in back of the Island and tied
her to the pier till we were ready to go home.”
“I guess that is a good enough programme to follow now,” said Mr.
Pearson. “Didn’t you say this side was best for crabs? That’s a
nice-looking beach along there, fine for you kids to bathe on. We will
tie up to those rocks till after dinner.”
“Well, all right,” agreed the boy. “There is a path up to the top of
the hill, Marian, but it doesn’t come down on this side. Clarence said
the smugglers wore it going up to peek over the hill to see if any one
was coming for ’em.”
The little point of rock on the seaward side of the Island made a very
good substitute for a pier. They landed there and were able to reach
the sand without getting their feet wet. Jennie declared she felt
better as soon as she touched shore.
Delbert was anxious to lead the expedition over to the other side of
the Island, where remained the signs of former habitation.
“You can go on over now,” said Pearson good-naturedly; “I’ll unload the
launch and take a swim, and if you say there is anything there worth
looking at I can go over afterwards.”
Delbert hesitated; he was counting on expatiating on the extent and
glory of the ruins and preferred a large audience.
“Why, of course, Delbert,” said Marian; “Mr. Pearson can take the
launch around after dinner. This is the best side for bathing. I am not
sure,” she added, as the children started off, “but after dinner would
be soon enough for the rest of us, but--”
Pearson laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “There is no wait in that
kid,” he said.
“I see there isn’t,” said Marian, as she started after her eager
brother.
The hill was decidedly rocky and steep, with a goodly strip of sandy
beach at its base. The crabs scurried away as the children ran across
this.
“See, Marian!” called Delbert; “see all those crabs? We’ll have them
for dinner. Don’t they look fat?”
“Fat and luscious,” laughed Marian. “You are fat and luscious, too,
baby darling,” she continued, catching Davie as he stumbled over a
stone, “but those qualities alone will never make a mountaineer of you.”
Delbert forged ahead, scrambling over rocks and skirting thorny bushes,
and the others followed as best they could.
“I suppose when you get there you will stop and wait for us,” called
Marian.
“Oh, yes,” he answered; but he did not take the hint and slacken his
pace then.
His bump of locality was good, and although it was almost a year since
he had been there, he made his way directly to the spot on the apex of
the hill where a faint path led down on the other side. Here he paused,
and, letting out a series of triumphant whoops, announced his arrival
to his upward-toiling sisters.
One by one they joined him where he sat on a big gray rock, swinging
his lariat, his most treasured possession, a new hair rope given him by
an old Mexican a few weeks before.
“Dear me,” said Marian, all out of breath, as she set down the baby,
whom she had been carrying the last part of the way; “whatever did you
expect to lasso here, Delbert? Crabs?”
“No,” he replied, “burros! Didn’t you know there were burros here?
There’s a herd of ’em. Clarence said probably the smugglers had to
leave in a hurry and couldn’t stop to round up everything they had.
Anyway, there’s burros here. Yes, and pigs, too. We saw their tracks;
we didn’t see them, but Clarence said when he was here the first time
he heard ’em grunting in the bushes.”
Marian was examining the surroundings. “I believe Clarence was right,”
she said. “That is a real path certainly, but there is not a sign of it
on the seaward side of the hill. Whoever lived down there used to come
up here to this rock. You can see away out into the gulf from here,
ever so many miles, but it is so bushy that no one here would ever be
seen.”
“Yes,” assented Delbert; “Clarence called this Lookout Rock. Farther
back this hill spreads out into a _mesa_.[2] It’s several miles long.
Clarence said there were deer here, too; he saw ’em.”
[2] Pronounced _mā-sȧ_; a small tableland.
“An’ wil’ cats?” queried Esther.
“No,” said Delbert. “I remember when we camped here it was awful quiet
at night, and I asked Clarence if he s’posed there were any panthers
here, and he said no, he hadn’t seen a sign of any such thing here, and
he guessed if there ever had been, the smugglers had killed them all
off.”
“That is not unlikely,” said Marian; “but the burros and pigs must have
come from what they had; perhaps the deer, too,--they might have had
some for pets. But, come, if we have our breath now, children, we’d
better go down; for see, Mr. Pearson has the launch unloaded already,
and there is dinner to get when we get back.”
So they followed the twisting trail downward. It was very faint, in
some places entirely obliterated, yet taken as a whole was distinct.
Between the Island and the mainland lay a strait that was deep enough
for even large steamers, though there was little of San Moros that
a big steamer could have ridden safely over. A little rough rock
pier had been built here. “And Clarence said the fellow that built it
understood his business, too,” declared Delbert, emphatically. “He said
it was a good job; but come and look at the bananas,” he continued,
leading the way.
The Island, which elsewhere presented such rough, not to say
precipitous, sides, here was level or nearly so. A house had once stood
there. The mound of its ruins was unmistakable. In one place a forked
timber stuck up; on one side was a pile of other timbers overgrown with
weeds and shrubbery. There was a spring, too, that had had some sort of
masonry cover, broken now, but with a tiny pool of water at the bottom
of the rocks. There were the remains of an old stone wall that had once
surrounded a garden, of which only a thick, matted banana-patch was
left.
A banana plant grows to maturity, produces one bunch of bananas, and
then dies. During the time it is doing this a number of young plants
spring up about the parent stalk, and each of these produces its one
bunch of fruit and group of little ones, which in turn go through the
same process. It will be readily seen, therefore, that, with no one
to trim out the old stalks and superfluous young ones, a banana-patch
would in the course of time become a very crowded place, indeed.
This was just what had happened to the Smugglers’ Island patch. How
long it had been left uncared-for no one could tell, but it was now an
impenetrable jungle.
Marian and the children walked all round it, looking for bananas, but
except for several bunches from which the birds had eaten the fruit,
leaving the blackened skins dangling, they saw only one, and that was
too high up for them to reach. It did not look very tempting, anyway.
A little beyond were a few fan palms, but this kind of palm bears no
fruit.
Marian sat near the site of the old house, while the children rummaged
about and explored. This was certainly an ideal place in which to
hide from the world, a sunny little spot, sheltered and secluded, for
the hill hid the place from the seaward view, and across the narrow
strait lay only the rocky, thorny tangle of the uninhabited hill of the
mainland, with not even an Indian ranch for miles and miles, Clarence
had said. Marian wondered what chance or incident had caused the
abandonment of the place.
Presently she rose.
“Come, children,” she called, “we were going to catch crabs for dinner,
you know. We must be going back.”
So they went back up the dim little path to Lookout Rock and began to
pick their way down from there as best they could.
“Why, Marian,” called Delbert, “Mr. Pearson has moved the launch. It is
not by the rocks now. Where’s he gone?”
Marian glanced up.
“I guess he thought we were pretty long in coming and has gone
exploring on his own hook,” she said.
“I’ll see,” said Delbert, and he went out to where he could see the
water all around the end of the Island and in to the little pier.
“No,” he said, as he came back, “he has not gone round there.”
They went on down the hill.
“I don’t see why he should move it,” persisted Delbert. “That is the
best place for it on this side of the Island, and this is the best
beach for bathing.”
They went over to where the things were piled up. Pearson had dumped
them all together and thrown one of the launch blankets over them; and
on top of this a note was pinned with two wooden splinters.
[Illustration: MARIAN TOOK IT OFF AND READ IT, AND THEN STOOD LOOKING
AT IT FOR SEVERAL SECONDS]
Marian took it off and read it, and then stood looking at it for
several seconds.
“Delbert,” she said quietly, “did you know of any trouble between Mr.
Pearson and Mr. Cunningham?”
“Trouble?” repeated the boy, startled,--“trouble? Why--why,
no,--not--not trouble. Why?”
“Because,” said Marian, still quietly, “Mr. Pearson has stolen the
launch and gone away and left us here.”