PERPLEXED
A shout of laughter went up from the group of fellows gathered in the
cook shack. There was a regular cook attached to the camp, but every
other evening supper was prepared by the boys themselves as a means of
perfecting themselves in the culinary art. Usually these occasions were
marked by an earnest seriousness, for there was great rivalry between
the various tents; but to-night a spirit of levity undoubtedly
prevailed.
“But why shouldn’t he have been in the dory, you old lobster?” asked
Billy McBride, from where he bent over the frying pan.
Steve Haddon shrugged his bulky shoulders and ran his fingers through an
already much towsled mop of brown hair. “Well,” he said hesitatingly,
“because he wasn’t—he wasn’t—”
“Wasn’t what?” demanded three or four voices, as the big fellow paused.
“Well, he wasn’t the sort of person who’d be in—in that sort of a boat.”
Another shout of laughter rang out. Jim Cavanaugh, still chuckling,
thumped Haddon on the back.
“You’re certainly lucid, Steve,” he exclaimed. “Just what do you mean by
that? What sort of a person was he, anyhow? One of those swell city guys
who came down to fish, all dolled up in dinky knickerbockers and that
sort of thing?”
Steve was grinning good naturedly, but the color had deepened faintly
under his tan; he shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t dolled up at all,”
he told them. “He had on—well, just ordinary old things; I didn’t notice
his clothes much. He might have had a rod, though he wasn’t fishing when
I saw him.”
“What was he doing, then?” asked Ted Hinckley rather sharply. “He must
have been doing something out of the way to set you against him like
this.”
Again Haddon shook his head. The smile had faded and his lips
straightened into a firm line. “He wasn’t doing anything except just
running the dory past that big island—Loon Island, I think they call
it,” he returned. “You wouldn’t understand, Ted. It—it was his face—”
Hinckley laughed again, but not so uproariously this time. During their
ten days at camp together, he as well as most of the others, had
discovered that while they could usually josh “good old Steve” to the
limit, a curious, stubborn tightening of jaw and chin was a sign that
this limit had been reached. And because, for all their banter, they
liked him so well, they were generally quick to notice and respect that
sign as Hinckley did now. His laughter trailed off into a comfortable
chuckle and he turned to assist the cook. Cavanaugh flung one arm across
Haddon’s shoulder.
“So you didn’t like his face, eh?” he smiled. “It must have been _some_
face to work you up like this, old man. What the dickens takes you so
long with those eggs, Micky? I’m starved.”
“They were mislaid, that’s the trouble,” returned McBride without
batting an eyelash.
A groan went up and one or two made as if to lay violent hands upon the
cook. But the responsibility of his position saved him, and ten minutes
later the meal had been served up and was being consumed with an
appetite and dispatch characteristic in a crowd of healthy, active boys
whose afternoon has been spent more or less strenuously in the open. And
as they ate they kept up a running fire of josh and fun and banter which
flowed from most of them with the ease and fluency of second nature.
One of the exceptions was Steve Haddon. He did not often joke, and when
he assayed a pun it had much the effect of an elephant trying to dance.
It wasn’t that he lacked a sense of humor. He thoroughly enjoyed the
badinage which went on about him, even when he himself, as was often the
case, became the butt for another’s humor. But he had never acquired the
trick of answering back in kind, and appeared always more or less
deliberate in thought and speech.
To-night, both at supper and later when they had gathered around the
camp fire, he was even quieter than usual, for he was thinking about the
man he had seen that afternoon in the dory. He realized that, with
characteristic clumsiness of expression, he had given the fellows an
idea that something about the man’s face had prejudiced him. As a matter
of fact it wasn’t so at all, though he made no effort to correct
himself. He had had but a single good look at the stranger, but that
look was enough to rouse in the boy a strong conviction that he had seen
the man before—seen him, too, under conditions and surroundings so
totally different that the stranger’s mere presence on this out of the
way stretch of New England coast seemed at once incongruous and
puzzling.
What those conditions had been he could not, unfortunately, remember.
Though he had tried his best all the way back to camp to drag out of his
brain some further details of that former meeting, Steve had failed
utterly. That there had been one he was quite certain. But how or where
or when it had taken place remained a mystery. He felt, however, that it
must have been of the most casual sort, and also that it could scarcely
have taken place very recently, else surely he would have remembered.
“Very likely it was at home in Washington some time,” he thought, after
they had settled down lazily around the fire. “Though it might have been
when I visited Uncle Joe in New York last fall. Oh, hang it all. I’m not
going to bother my head about it any more.”
But this was a resolution more easily made than kept. For a short space
Steve did succeed in detaching his thoughts from the annoying puzzle.
Lying there on the sand with Cavvy’s head pillowed on his stomach, he
grinned in silent appreciation of Micky’s airy monologue, and presently
began to hum under his breath the air Champ Ferris was laboriously
coaxing from a much harassed guitar. Then, unconsciously, his glance
swept past the lounging figures of his friends and out across the wide
stretches of shadowy water vaguely luminous under the stars. Back of
those shadows Loon Island lay, with all the other rocky little islets
that crowded the entrance to Shelbourne harbor. And, perhaps, on Loon
Island—
Suddenly Steve awoke to a realization of where his thoughts had carried
him, and moved abruptly with an impatient squirm.
“Easy, boy, easy,” murmured Cavvy drowsily.
Grinning shame-facedly, Steve reached down and ruffled the other’s hair.
A perfunctory scrimmage followed. But Cavanaugh was too drowsy to carry
this far. And very shortly Mr. Wendell’s orders sent the crowd
staggering sleepily tentwards.
A little later, crawling into his blankets, Steve reached a sudden,
abrupt decision. Since he could not seem to rid his mind of the problem
which had been raised there, why not make an effort to solve it? Very
likely the answer would be a simple one not worth his trouble, but at
least it would be an answer. Suppose he got another look at the
perplexing stranger? If he saw him again that stubborn memory might
awake.
“I’ll take a trip to Loon Island to-morrow,” he said to himself. Then he
turned over and went to sleep.