Читать книгу The Black Schooner - Roy J. Snell - Страница 9

Table of Contents

In the meantime, Pant had not been idle. By taking a winding trail across the point and down the beach, he could reach the little harbor and the abandoned salmon fishery where the Dust Eater had been stored. After an early lunch he took this trail and, two hours later, found himself before the door of the fish-house. This door opened out upon the dock. The padlock was turned with the keyhole against the wall. He was about to flop it over when he suddenly uttered a low whistle of surprise.

“Somebody’s been foolin’ with that lock,” he muttered. “Had it off, too. Must have a key. I left it with the keyhole side out and now it’s just the opposite.”

Hastily unlocking the door, he peered within. Everything was apparently just as he had left it. The Dust Eater was rising and falling with the gentle wash of water; the place was as fishy and as silent as ever.

“It’ll pay me to look it over carefully,” he told himself.

He did look it over carefully, but found nothing disturbed or missing.

After stuffing his pockets with lenses, small batteries and wires, he stepped once more into the sunlight, closed the door gently and snapped on the lock.

“Wonder if that fellow was a land-prowler, or did he come from the sea.” He walked to the land end of the dock. There he examined the soft earth for footprints.

“Nothing here,” he told himself. Then he retraced his steps. Coming once more to the seaward end of the dock, he began walking along its edge, examining every plank and pile as he went.

“Ah-ha!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I thought as much. Some sort of schooner or tug. No row boat.”

What he had discovered was a whitish circle about one of the age-browned piles. He began a careful examination.

“She’s been tied up here,” he told himself. “Ought to find something more.”

Presently he did. Stooping down, he examined the edge of the dock. At first he discovered nothing, but at length his search was rewarded. Scraping the edge of a plank with his knife he brought away a dark substance which was not decay.

“Paint,” he murmured. “Rubbed it off as she chafed the side of the dock. Real paint it is too, a sort of hard and crusty enamel, not the coal tar stuff used on tug-boats. This one’s a real schooner. And by the Great Horn Spoon I’ll wager she was no less a craft than our old friend the Black Schooner.

“So that chap’s doing a little detective work of his own,” he murmured thoughtfully. “All right, old chap, welcome to our city. We’ll see who’ll be the first to get something on the other.”

With this challenge thrown to the wind, he turned and hurried toward his cabin.

That night as Johnny Thompson lay in his patch of ferns by the river’s high bank, he saw the black streak once more emerge from the river.

“Here she comes,” he murmured. “I only wish Pant had that ‘see-by-night’ affair of his rigged up. But what’s this?” he exclaimed suddenly. “She’s slowing down, going to stop. I may get a good look at her yet.

“No such luck,” he whispered a moment later; “she’s going to anchor up the stream, just about where my big spotted beauty is waving his fins and smiling a fishy smile over the way he fooled me a few hours ago.”

As he watched the mysterious craft, he saw her circle about as if seeking a safe landing place.

“Going ashore for something,” he told himself.

Much to his surprise, the schooner, after making six complete circles, did not put her prow upon the shore. Instead she came to rest several yards from the bank.

“Probably doesn’t care to risk a landing. May have a dory,” he told himself.

At that point he resolved upon a bold stroke; he would leave his point of watching. By skulking along up the river bank he would be able to come quite close to the schooner. He would be able to form a better idea of what sort of craft this was which traveled like a mad racer and without either smoke or noise.

The brush and fallen timber was thick along the shore. He was obliged to move with utmost caution. Here he trusted his weight to a fallen tree-trunk, only to have it cave in with him like a huge mushroom. Here he attempted to bend a limb aside and found it firm as steel. Here a twig snapped like a gun, leaving him to listen breathlessly.

“If I’m lucky,” he told himself, “I might even get a glimpse of the person who runs that wild craft.”

Coming at length to a series of rugged boulders he began moving forward with a series of short scrambles upward and slides downward.

“Not more than a hundred rods,” he told himself hopefully.

Fifty yards more he fought his way forward. Then of a sudden a loose rock rattled down before him.

“Rotten luck,” he mumbled, then resolved to make a dash for it.

Still he had heard no sound. Making a straight break for the bank, he at last put out a trembling hand to part the aspens which lined the shore. The schooner had surely not had time to escape. He would at least catch a close-up glimpse of her.

“Well, I’ll be—” he murmured as his gaze swept the river.

The schooner had vanished! Not even at the remotest corners of the river was she to be sighted.

“Well!” he breathed, seating himself and mopping his brow. “Must be a submarine!”

“And,” he said slowly, after a moment’s thought, “why not?”

Five minutes later he rose and, having drawn a small flashlight from his pocket, examined every inch of the bank for a distance of a hundred yards.

“No dory’s been beached anywhere here,” he told himself. “I wonder what they wanted? What could they have been circling for if not for a safe landing? Looks mighty queer to me.”

With that he made his way back to his mossy-seated watching post, to sit and speculate upon the events of the day and of the night.

“Enough excitement to keep the moss from gathering above your ears,” he told himself. “Wonder what’s next.”