THE PILOT
Cloudy Island, so named because of the fog which usually held the island
in its grip and the group of clouds stationed above it like sentinels in
the sky, was but a two minute ride from the main shore. It was a brown
strip of land jutting up out of the blue Atlantic Ocean scarcely a mile
from the coast of Maine. It was covered with a thick growth of trees and
underbrush. About the only shelter of any kind was a fair sized log
cabin which the young people had built as a combination picnic lodge and
boat house.
Bruce’s motor boat covered the distance in record time, its owner at the
wheel and his companions crouched low, straining their eyes for a sight
of the airplane.
“It fell at the north end, didn’t it?” Phyllis murmured.
Bruce headed his boat for the sandy beach at the northern point. Bathing
suits and sunburned arms and legs flashed in the sun as they left the
boat and the boys brought it to a safe anchorage on the beach.
The girls led the dash from the sandy shore into the thick growth of
trees, but there the boys soon overtook them.
“Janet will be wild because they were left behind,” Phyllis declared
gaspingly as she ran along beside Gale.
Gale’s answer was lost in a cry as they burst suddenly upon the wreckage
of the red monoplane. One wing was crumpled beneath the heavy cabin of
the plane and the wheels were sticking grotesquely up into the air. The
propeller had snapped in half and the shining red surface of the plane
was scratched and blackened. The cockpit yawned black and empty.
“Where’s the pilot?” Peter demanded in amazement.
“Look!” Phyllis cried.
A man in the uniform of a flyer leaned weakly against a tree and
endeavored to grin at them. There was mud and grime on his clothes and
from a cut on his cheek blood was flowing. Bruce and David caught him as
he almost fell to the ground.
“Take him to the cabin,” Peter proposed.
The other boys nodded in agreement and the girls ran on ahead. Pillows
and blankets were whisked into position for a makeshift bed. A small
fire was started in the stone fireplace and water put on to heat.
David, who was studying to be a doctor, put his knowledge to good use by
examining the pilot.
“Is he badly hurt?” Gale asked when her friend straightened up.
David shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The pilot opened his eyes again and looked wordlessly from one to the
other, letting his gaze rest finally and longest on Gale. Slowly he sat
up and negotiated it successfully, but when he tried to stand his leg
gave way beneath him.
“Take it easy,” Peter encouraged.
“Sprained ankle,” was the answer.
“Shall we get you a doctor?” Phyllis inquired anxiously. “We can take
you back to the mainland in the boat.”
He shook his head and smiled. “Plane a wreck?”
“Smashed,” Gale supplied for him. She handed him a glass of cool spring
water brought in by Peter.
He drained it and handed the glass back to her with a wide smile.
“Thanks, feel a lot better now. Where am I anyway?” He looked curiously
about the cabin, at the woven rug in the center of the floor, at the
small radio set, at the furnishings and curtains at the window.
“We use this as a sort of camping lodge,” Bruce explained. “In a shelter
next to this we keep a small canoe. We often spend a whole day here on
picnics.”
“Cozy place,” the pilot declared.
“Don’t you think you should go to a doctor with that ankle?” Peter
interjected. “We can easily run you over to Marchton.”
The pilot looked at him thoughtfully. From Peter his gaze traveled in
turn to each of the others. He frowned at the fireplace before he spoke.
“I don’t know how to make you understand—I’d like to stay here in your
cabin—until my ankle mends. Will you rent it to me—say, for a few
weeks?”
“Of course,” Bruce said with a frown, “but——”
“There is no one here on the island, and you would be all alone,”
Phyllis said.
The pilot smiled. “I shan’t mind that. I want to be by myself—no one
must know I am here. Absolutely no one, do you understand?”
“No, sir, we don’t,” Bruce said promptly.
“Why shouldn’t anyone know you are here?” added David. “A lot of people
must have seen your plane fall.”
The pilot ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I realize that, but
look here, couldn’t you say I was unhurt and you took me to a railroad
station or an airport and I’ve gone away? It is so important that no one
knows I am here!”
The young people looked at him speculatively.
“Are you an escaped convict?” Phyllis asked outright.
The strange young man laughed heartily.
“Hardly!” he declared. “I am just a harmless flyer who desires a little
peace and quiet for a while. What do you say? Will you help me keep my
presence here a secret? You can tell people my plane fell into the sea
and was washed down the coast. There is no harm in keeping me hidden.”
The young people could think of no convincing reason why they should
tell anyone that the pilot desired to be alone on the island nor why he
should not stay here if he wished.
“I suppose it is all right,” David said dubiously.
“Of course it is!” the man assured him.
“We can bring you food from the mainland,” Gale suggested.
“Fine!” the pilot declared cheerfully.
After his ankle was bathed and bandaged and he declared his intention of
resting the young people had no choice but to take their leave.
“He seemed glad to be rid of us,” Phyllis said in an injured tone as
they climbed back into Bruce’s motor boat. “I wonder who he is?”
“We didn’t ask his name,” David murmured in surprise.
“There is something mysterious about him,” Bruce said with a frown. “I
wonder if we should have let him stay at the lodge?”
“Why not?” Gale wanted to know. “He can’t run away—not on his injured
ankle—there is no harm in it. I think he is rather nice,” she added,
with an afterthought for the pilot’s dark curly hair and handsome,
boyish face. “Well, I do!” she insisted defiantly when the boys laughed.
She remembered the way the pilot had looked at her and felt a pleasant
little thrill. He had such a nice smile!
“What happened? Was he killed?”
Such were the cries from the other four Adventure Girls who had been
left behind on the mainland.
The pilot’s presence couldn’t be kept a secret from these four girls so
the others told them everything that had happened, eliciting a strict
promise to keep confidential the man’s presence at the lodge.
Janet and Carol were beside themselves with excitement and ecstasy. To
think that a real, young, and handsome pilot should be plunged suddenly
into their midst! Things like that very seldom happened in the little
coastal town.
Marchton was a small but busy little town in Maine, bordering the rocky
coast, and with its share of the traditional Maine woods.
The Adventure Girls had been raised, each one, in this sheltered spot;
however, they were in no way behind the times. Readers of The Adventure
Girls at the K Bar O Ranch are already familiar with the girls’ desire
for adventure and love of the open road. All were in their last year at
the Marchton High School and looking forward eagerly to the day when
they would enter college.
One by one the young people went into their homes as they left the beach
and walked home in the glowing sunset until only Gale and Bruce were
left. The boy and girl lived across the street from one another and it
was not until they came to the swinging, whitewashed gate of Gale’s yard
that they parted.
Gale ran up the back stairs to her bedroom where she discarded the
bathing suit for a trim sports outfit. With her English text book under
one arm she descended to the porch to study until time for dinner.
English at any time was a problem upon which Gale found it hard to
concentrate, but this afternoon it was even more difficult than usual.
The brown, laughing face of the airplane pilot kept interfering with the
printed page.
All through dinner Gale kept thinking about him. She knew there was no
food to be had on the island and she decided to take him some. After
dinner, with the expressed opinion of going to the early show at the
movies, Gale left home, but her destination was the grocery store. Not
the one her Mother usually patronized because it might come to her
Mother’s ears what she was doing. It wasn’t that her parents would not
understand—nor forbid her to go, it wasn’t that—but the pilot had said
to tell no one. If he wanted to be a secret, so he should be. Her
parents would, perhaps, never say a word against what she was doing. On
the other hand they might not like it at all. Gale hated explanations
and questions. When she had an impulse she liked to carry it through. Of
course, she decided guiltily, she would tell her Mother tomorrow—then
her parents could share the secret with her, but for to-night the pilot
would be her own secret.
Her chosen foodstuffs secure in a big brown bag Gale went down to the
beach. She had often used Bruce’s motor boat and she knew he would not
object to her doing so now. She climbed aboard and deposited her bundle
on the cushioned seat while she started the motor.
The stretch of water was black with white-tipped gentle waves as she
headed the boat away from the shore toward Cloudy Island.