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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantom Yacht, by Carol Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Phantom Yacht
+
+Author: Carol Norton
+
+Illustrator: D. Curley
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2013 [EBook #44401]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHANTOM YACHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     "_Look! Look!" he cried. "That's what I was wantin' to find._"
+                 (_Page 101_)    (_The Phantom Yacht_)
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+                             PHANTOM YACHT
+
+
+                           _By_ CAROL NORTON
+
+
+                               Author of
+       "Bobs, A Girl Detective," "The Seven Sleuths' Club," etc.
+
+
+                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
+                         Publishers    New York
+                          Printed in U. S. A.
+
+               MYSTERY _and_ ADVENTURE SERIES _for_ GIRLS
+                         12 TO 16 YEARS OF AGE
+
+  The Phantom Yacht, by Carol Norton.
+  Bobs, A Girl Detective, by Carol Norton.
+  The Seven Sleuths' Club, by Carol Norton.
+  The Phantom Treasure, by Harriet Pyne Grove.
+  The Secret of Steeple Rocks, by Harriet Pyne Grove.
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1928
+                         By A. L. BURT COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+  I. Friends Parted                                                    3
+  II. Banishing Ghosts                                                13
+  III. A Lost Mother                                                  21
+  IV. Seaward Bound                                                   30
+  V. A New Experience                                                 42
+  VI. A Light in the Dark                                             49
+  VII. The Phantom Yacht                                              56
+  VIII. What Happened                                                 64
+  IX. A Mysterious Message                                            73
+  X. Sounds in the Loft                                               82
+  XI. A Querulous Old Aunt                                            88
+  XII. A Bleached Skeleton                                            96
+  XIII. Belling the Ghost                                            106
+  XIV. A Punt Ride                                                   112
+  XV. A Gloomy Swamp                                                 117
+  XVI. Out in the Dark                                               121
+  XVII. More Mysteries                                               127
+  XVIII. An Airplane Sighted                                         133
+  XIX. Two Boys Investigate                                          139
+  XX. One Mystery Solved                                             149
+  XXI. A channel in the Swamp                                        160
+  XXII. The Old Ruin at Midnight                                     170
+  XXIII. Letters of Importance                                       183
+  XXIV. A Surprising Revelation                                      193
+  XXV. Puzzled Again                                                 205
+  XXVI. A Clue to the Old Ruin Mystery                               214
+  XXVII. Ransacking the Old Ruin                                     224
+  XXVIII. The Best Surprise of All                                   239
+
+
+
+
+                           THE PHANTOM YACHT
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                             FRIENDS PARTED
+
+
+The face of Dories Moore was as dismal as the day was bright. It was
+Indian summer and the maple trees under which she was hurrying were
+joyfully arrayed in red and gold, while crimson, yellow and purple
+flowers nodded at her from the gardens that she passed with unseeing
+eyes. She was almost blinded with tears; her scarlet tam was awry, as
+though she had put it on hurriedly, and her sweater coat, of the same
+cheerful hue, was unbuttoned and flapping as she fairly ran down the
+village street. In her hand was a note which had been the cause of the
+tears and the haste. On it were a few penciled words:
+
+
+"Dori dear, we are leaving sooner than we expected. I'm sending this to
+you by little Johnnie-next-door. Do come right over and say good-bye to
+someone who loves you best of all.
+
+                          "Your sister-friend,
+                                                                 "Nann."
+
+
+At a large old colonial house at the edge of the town, just where the
+meadows began, the girl turned in at a lilac-guarded gate and hurried up
+the neatly graveled walk. Her eyes were again brimming with tears as she
+glanced up at the curtainless windows that looked as dismal and deserted
+as she felt. Hurrying up the steps, she lifted the quaintly carved old
+iron knocker and shuddered as she heard the sound echoing uncannily
+through the big unfurnished rooms. Her sensitive mouth quivered when she
+heard the sound of running feet on bare floors and when the door was
+flung open by another girl of about the same age, Dori leaped in and,
+throwing her arms about her friend, she burst into tears.
+
+"Why, Dories! Dear, dear Dori, don't cry so hard." There were sudden
+tears in the warm brown eyes of Nann Sibbett, as for a moment she held
+her friend tenderly close.
+
+"One might think that I was going a million miles away." She tried to
+speak cheerfully. "Boston isn't so very far from Elmwood and some day,
+soon, I am sure that you will be coming to visit me."
+
+An April-like smile flickered tremulously on the lips of the younger girl
+as she stepped back and straightened her tam. "Well, that is something to
+look forward to," she confessed. "It will be a little strip of silver
+lining to as black a cloud as ever came into my life. Of course," Dories
+amended, "losing father was terrible, but I was too young to know the
+loneliness of it, and being poor when we should be rich is awfully hard.
+Sometimes I feel so rebellious, O, nobody knows how rebellious I feel.
+But losing one's money is nothing compared to losing one's only friend."
+
+The other girl, who was taller by half a head, actually laughed. "Why,
+Dories Moore, here you talk as though you would not have a single friend
+left when I have moved away. There isn't a girl at High who hasn't been
+green with envy because I have had the good fortune to be your best
+friend ever since we were in kindergarten, and just as soon as I'm out of
+town they'll be swarming around you, each one aspiring to be your pal."
+
+There was a scornful curl on the sensitive lips of the listener. "As
+though I would let anyone have your place, Nann Sibbett. Never, never,
+never, not if I live to be a thousand years old." Then with an appealing
+upward glance, "But you'll probably like some city girl heaps better than
+you ever did me. I suppose you'll forget all about me soon."
+
+"Silly!" Nann exclaimed brightly, giving her friend an impulsive hug.
+"Don't you remember when you were eleven and I was twelve, we had a
+ceremony out in the meadow under the twin elms and we vowed, just as
+solemnly as we knew how, that we would be adopted sisters and that real
+born sisters could not be closer."
+
+Dories nodded, smiling again at the pleasant recollection. "Do you know,
+Nann," she put in, "I sort of feel that we were intended to be sisters
+some way. It was such a strange coincidence that our birthdays happened
+to fall on the same day, the third of September."
+
+"Maybe if they hadn't," Nann chimed in, "you and I wouldn't have been
+best friends at all, for, don't you remember, way back in kindergarten
+days, you were so shy you didn't make friends with anyone, and when Miss
+Sally wanted to find a seat for you that very first morning, she chose me
+because it was our birthday. After that, since I was a year older, I felt
+that I ought to look out for you just as a big sister really should."
+
+Dories nodded, then as she glanced into the bare library, in the wide
+doorway of which they were standing, she said dismally, "O, Nann, what
+good times we've had in this room. I can almost see now when we were very
+little girls curled up on that window seat near the fireplace studying
+our first primer, and on and on until last June when we were cramming for
+our sophomore finals."
+
+"I know." Nann looked wistfully toward the corner which Dories had
+indicated. "I don't believe we will either of us know how to study
+alone." Then, fearing that tears would come again, she caught her
+friend's hand as she exclaimed, "Dories dear, this room is too full of
+ghosts of our past. Let's go out in the garden. Dad had to go to the bank
+to finish up some business, and I had to stay here to see that the last
+load of furniture got off safely. It left just before you came. We're
+going to store it for a time and live in a very fine hotel in Boston.
+Won't that be a lark for a change?"
+
+Dories spoke bitterly, "Well, for one thing I _am_ thankful, and that is
+that your father didn't lose his money the way my father did, though how
+it happened I never knew and mother never told me."
+
+"Maybe it will all come back some time in a manner just as mysterious,"
+her friend said cheerfully as she led her down the steps around the
+house. Neither of the girls spoke of Nann's dear mother, who had so
+recently died, and whose passing had made life in the old house
+unendurable to the daughter and her father, but they were both thinking
+of her as they wandered into the garden which she had so loved. Nann
+slipped an arm about her friend as she paused to look at the blossoms.
+
+"Autumn flowers are always so bright and cheerful, aren't they, Dori?"
+She was determined to change the younger girl's dismal trend of thought.
+"That bed of scarlet salvia over by the evergreen hedge seems to be just
+rejoicing about something, and the asters, of almost every color, look as
+though they were dressed for a party. They're happy, if we aren't."
+
+"Stupid things!" Dories said petulantly. "They don't know or care because
+you, who have tended and watered and loved them, are going away forever
+and ever."
+
+"Yes, they do know," Nann said, smiling a bit tremulously, "for last
+night when I came out to give them a drink, I told them all about it, but
+they're just trying to make the best of it. They know it's as hard for me
+to go away from my old home as it is for them to have me go, but they're
+trying to make it easier for me, I guess."
+
+Dories flashed a quick glance up at her companion. Then, impulsively,
+"Oh, Nann, how selfish I always am! Of course it's hard for you to leave
+your old home and go among strangers. Here all the time I've just been
+thinking how _hard_ it is for _me_ to have you go." Then, making a little
+bow toward the bed of radiant asters, the girl of many moods called to
+them: "You're setting a good example, you little plant folk in your
+bright blossom tams. From now on I'll be just as cheerful as ever I can."
+Smiling up at her companion, Dories exclaimed, "And all this time I've
+had some news that I haven't told you." Answering verbally her friend's
+questioning look, she hurried on, "I'm going away myself for the month of
+October. At least I suppose I am, and that's one of the things that has
+made me so dismally blue." Nann stopped in the garden path which they had
+been slowly circling and gazed into the pretty face of her friend, hardly
+knowing whether to congratulate or condole. Instead of doing either, she
+queried, "But why are you so dismal about it, Dori? I've often heard you
+say that you did wish you could see something of the world beyond
+Elmwood?"
+
+"I know it and I still should wish it if you were going with me, but this
+journey is anything but pleasant to anticipate."
+
+"Do tell me about it. I'm consumed with curiosity." Nann drew her friend
+to a garden seat and sat with an arm holding her close. "Now start at the
+beginning. _Who_ are you going with, where and why?" The question, simple
+as it seemed, brought tears with a rush to the violet-blue eyes of the
+younger girl, but remembering her recent resolve, she sat up
+ramrod-straight as she replied, making her mouth into as hard a line as
+she could. "The one I am going with is an old crab of a great-aunt whom I
+have never seen. I'm ever so sure she is a crab, although my angel mother
+always smooths over that part of her nature when she's telling me about
+her. She's rich as Croesus, if that fabled person really was rich. I'm
+never very sure about those things."
+
+Nann laughed. "He was! You're safe in your comparison. But he got much of
+his money by taking it away from other people with the cruel taxes he
+levied."
+
+"Oh, well, of course my Great Aunt Jane isn't so terribly rich," Dories
+modified, "but Mother said she had plenty for every comfort and luxury,
+and what's more, Mums _did_ agree with _me_ when I said that she must be
+queer. That is, Mother said that even my father, who was Great-Aunt
+Jane's own nephew, couldn't understand her ways." Then, with eyes
+solemn-wide, the narrator continued: "Nann Sibbett, as I've often told
+you, I don't understand in the least what became of our inheritance. If
+Mother knows, she won't tell, but I'm suspicious of that crabby old Aunt
+Jane. I think she has it. There now, that's what I think."
+
+Nann was interested and said so. "But, Dori dear, you've sidetracked. You
+began by saying that you were going somewhere. I take it that your
+Great-Aunt Jane has invited you to go somewhere with her. Is that right?"
+
+"It is!" the other girl said glumly. "But, believe me, I don't look
+forward to the excursion with any great pleasure." Then she hurried on.
+"Think of it, Nann, that awful old lady has actually requested that I
+spend the whole dismal month of October with her down on the beach at
+some lonely isolated place called Siquaw Point."
+
+But if Dories expected sympathy, she was disappointed. "Oh, Dori!" was
+the excited exclamation that she heard, "I know about Siquaw Point. An
+aunt of mine went there one summer, and she just raved about the rocky
+cliffs, the sand dunes and the sea. I'd love it, I know, even in the
+middle of winter, and, dear, sometimes October is a beautiful month. You
+may have a wonderful time."
+
+But Dories refused to see any hope of happiness ahead. "The Garden of
+Eden would be a dismal place to me if I had to be alone in it with my
+Great-Aunt Jane."
+
+Nann laughed, then hearing a siren calling from the front, she sprang up,
+held out both hands to her friend as she exclaimed, "There's my
+chauffeur-dad waiting to bear me stationward, but, dear, I've thought of
+one thing that will help some. To get to Siquaw Point you will have to go
+through Boston. If you'll let me know the day and the hour I'll be at the
+station to speed you on your way."
+
+How the younger girl's face brightened. "Nann, darling," she exclaimed,
+"will you truly? Then that will give me a chance to see you again in just
+a few weeks, maybe only two, for its nearly October now."
+
+"Righto!" was the cheerful reply. "There's that siren again. I must go.
+Will you come and say good-bye to Dad?"
+
+But the other girl shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. "I'd
+rather not now. You tell him for me. I'm going home across lots. I don't
+want anyone to see how near I am to crying." As she spoke two tears
+splashed down her cheeks. Nann caught her in a close embrace. "Dear, dear
+sister-friend," she said, "I'm going to be just as lonely as you are."
+Then, stooping, she picked an aster and held it out, saying brightly,
+"This golden aster wants to go with you to tell you that we're going to
+be as cheerful as we can, come what may. See you next month, Dori, sure
+as sure."
+
+Nann turned at the corner of the house to wave, and then Dories walked
+slowly across lots thinking over the conversation she had had with her
+dearly loved friend. She paused a moment under the twin elms where, in
+the long ago, they had vowed to be loyal as any two sisters could be.
+Then, with a deep sigh, she went on to the cosy brown house under other
+spreading elms that she called home.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                            BANISHING GHOSTS
+
+
+There was a cheerful bustle in the kitchen when Dories opened the side
+door. Her mother was preparing the noon meal with her customary wordless
+song, although now and then a merry message to the frail boy, who so
+often sat in a low chair near the stove, was sung to the melody. Just
+then the newcomer heard the lilted announcement: "Footsteps I hear, and
+now will appear my very dear little daughter."
+
+Dories was repentant. "Oh, Mother, if I haven't stayed out too late
+again, and you've had to stop your sewing to get lunch."
+
+Little Peter paused in his whittling long enough to remark, "Dori, you've
+been crying. What for?"
+
+But a tactful mother shook her head quickly at the small boy, saying
+brightly, "O, I was glad to stop sewing and stretch a bit. That brocade
+dress is hard to work on. I don't know how many machine needles it has
+broken. But since it belongs to a rich person she won't mind paying for
+them."
+
+After putting the golden aster in a vase, Dories snatched her apron from
+its hook in the closet and put it on with darkening looks. "Mother
+Moore," she threatened, "if you don't go and lie down on the lounge until
+lunch is ready, I'm not going to let you sew a single bit more today.
+It's just terribly wicked, and all wrong somehow, that you have to make
+dresses for other women to keep us alive when my very own father's very
+own Aunt Jane is simply rolling in wealth, and----"
+
+"Tut! Tut! Little firefly!" Her mother laughingly shook a stirring spoon
+in her direction. "If you had ever seen your stately old Aunt Jane, you
+just couldn't conceive of her rolling in anything. That would be much too
+undignified."
+
+"But, Mother, you know I meant that figuratively, not literally. She is
+rich and we are poor. Now I ask you what right has one member of a family
+to have all that his heart desires and another to have to sew for a
+living."
+
+Little Peter tittered: "It's _her_ heart, if it's Great-Aunt Jane you're
+talking about." A sharp retort was on the girl's lips when her mother
+said cheerily, "Now, kiddies, let's talk about something else. Mrs. Doran
+sent us over a whole pint of cream. Shall we have it whipped on those
+last blackberries that Peter found this morning out in Briary Meadow, or
+shall I make a little biscuit shortcake?"
+
+"Shortcake! Shortcake! I want shortcake!" Peter sang out.
+
+"But, Mother, you're too tired to make one," Dories protested.
+
+"Then you make it, Dori," Peter pleaded.
+
+"You know I couldn't make a biscuit shortcake, Peter Moore, not if my
+life depended on it." The girl was in a self-accusing mood. "I never
+learned how to do anything useful." Dories was putting the pretty lunch
+dishes on a small table in the kitchen corner breakfast-nook as she
+talked.
+
+The understanding mother, realizing the conflicting emotions that were
+making her young daughter so unhappy, brought out the flour and other
+ingredients as she said, "Never too late to learn, dear. Come and take
+your first lesson in biscuit-making."
+
+Half an hour later, as they sat around the lunch table, Dories told as
+much of her recent conversation with her best friend as she wished to
+share. Then they had the blackberry shortcake and real cream, and even
+Peter acknowledged that it was "most as good as Mother's."
+
+When the kitchen had been tidied and Peter had gone to his little upper
+room for the nap that was so necessary for the regaining of his health,
+Dories went into the small sewing room which formerly had been her
+father's den and stood looking discontentedly out of the window. Her
+mother had resumed sewing on the rich brocaded dress. When the hum of the
+machine was stilled, she glanced at the pensive girl and said: "Dori
+dear, this is the first afternoon that I can remember, almost, that you
+have been at home with me. You and Nann always went somewhere or did
+something. You are going to miss your best friend ever so much, I know,
+but--" there was a break in the voice which caused the girl to turn and
+look inquiringly at her mother, who was intently pressing a seam, and who
+finished her sentence a bit pathetically, "it's going to mean a good deal
+to me, daughter, to have your companionship once in a while."
+
+With a little cry the girl sprang across the room and knelt at her
+mother's side, her arms about her. "O, Mumsie, was there ever a more
+selfish girl? I don't see how you have kept on loving me all these
+years." Then her pretty face flushed and she hesitated before confessing:
+"I hate to say it, for it only shows how truly horrid I am, but I liked
+to be over at Nann's, where the furniture was so beautiful, not
+threadbare like ours." She was looking through the open door into the
+living-room, where she could see the old couch with its worn covering. "I
+ought to have stayed at home and helped you with your sewing, but I will
+from now on."
+
+The mother, knowing that tears were near, put a finger beneath the girl's
+chin and looked deep into the repentant violet blue eyes. Kissing her
+tenderly, she said merrily, "Very well, young lady, if you wish to punish
+yourself for past neglects, sit over there in my low rocker and take the
+bastings out of this skirt."
+
+Dories obeyed and was soon busy at the simple task. To change the
+subject, her mother spoke of the planned trip. "It will be your very
+first journey away from Elmwood, dear. At your age I would have been ever
+so excited."
+
+The girl looked up from her work, a cloud of doubt in her eyes. "Oh,
+Mother, do you really think that you would have been, if you were going
+to a summer resort where the cottages were all shut up tight as clams,
+boarded up, too, probably, and with such a queer, grumphy person as
+Great-Aunt Jane for company?" The girl shuddered. "Every time I think of
+it I feel the chills run down my back. I just know the place will be full
+of ghosts. I won't sleep a wink all the time I'm there. I'm convinced of
+that."
+
+Her mother's merry laugh was reassuring. "Ghosts, dearie?" she queried,
+glancing up. "Surely you aren't in earnest. You don't believe in ghosts,
+do you?"
+
+"Well, maybe not, exactly, but there are the queerest stories told about
+those lonely out-of-the-way places. You know that there are, Mother. I
+don't mean made-up stories in books. I mean real newspaper accounts."
+
+"But it doesn't matter what kind of paper they're printed on, Dori," her
+mother put in, more seriously, "nothing could make a ghost story true.
+The only ghosts that haunt us, really, are the memories of loving words
+left unsaid and loving deeds that were not done, and sometimes," she
+concluded sadly, "it is too late to ever banish those ghosts." Then, not
+wishing to depress her already heart-broken daughter, she said in a
+lighter tone, "After all, why worry about your visit to Siquaw Point,
+when, as yet, you haven't heard that your Great-Aunt Jane has really
+decided to go. I expected a letter every day last week, but none came, so
+she may have given up the plan for this year." Then, after glancing up at
+the clock, she added, "Three, and almost time for the postman. I believe
+I hear his whistle now."
+
+At that moment Peter bounded in, his face rosy from his nap. "Postman's
+coming," he sang out. "Come on, Dori, I'll beat you to the gate."
+
+The girl rose, saying gloomily, "This is probably the fatal day. I'm just
+sure there'll be a letter from Great-Aunt Jane. I don't see why she chose
+me when she's never even seen me."
+
+When Dories reached the front door, she saw that Peter was already out in
+the road, frantically beckoning to her. "Hurry along, Dori. The postman's
+just leaving Mrs. Doran's," he called; then as the mail wagon, drawn by a
+lean white horse, approached, the small boy ran out in the road and waved
+his arms.
+
+Mr. Higgins, who had stopped at their door ever since Peter had been a
+baby, beamed at him over his glasses. "Law sakes!" he exclaimed, "Do I
+see a bandit? Guess you've been reading stories about 'Dick Dead-shot'
+holding up mail coaches in the Rockies. Sorry, but there ain't nothin'
+for you." Then, smilingly, he addressed the girl. "Likely in a day or two
+I'll be fetchin' you a letter, Dori, from your old friend Nann Sibbett.
+It'll be powerfully lonesome around here for you, I reckon, now she's
+gone."
+
+The girl nodded. "Just awfully lonesome, Mr. Higgins, and please do bring
+me a letter soon." Just then Johnnie Doran called for Peter to come over
+and play, and the girl went slowly back to the house.
+
+Her mother looked up inquiringly. "No letter at all," Dories announced in
+so disappointed a tone that she laughingly confessed, "Mother, I do
+believe that I'm made up of the contrariest emotions. I do hate the
+thought of spending that dismal month of October with Great-Aunt Jane at
+Siquaw Point, but I hate even worse going back to High without Nann."
+
+"Dear girl," the mother's voice held a tenderly given rebuke, "you aren't
+thinking in the least of the pleasure your companionship might give your
+Great-Aunt Jane. She was very fond of your father when he was a boy, and
+he spent many a summer with her at Siquaw. That may be her reason for
+inviting you. Your father seemed to be the only person for whom she
+really cared." Then, before the rather surprised girl could reply, the
+mother continued, "I wish, dear, that you would hunt up your Aunt's last
+letter and answer it more fully. I was so busy when it came that I merely
+sent a few lines, thanking her for the invitation."
+
+Dories sighed as she rose to obey, but turned back to listen when her
+mother continued: "I know how hard it is going to be, dear girl, but I
+have a reason, which I cannot explain just now, for very much wishing you
+to go. Now write the letter and make it as interesting and newsy as you
+can."
+
+Dories, from the door, dropped a curtsy. "Very well, Mrs. Moore," she
+said, "to please you I'll write to the crabbedy old lady, but----" Her
+mother merrily shook her finger at her. "I want you to withhold judgment,
+daughter, until you have seen your Great-Aunt Jane."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                             A LOST MOTHER
+
+
+A week passed, and though Dories received several picture postcards from
+her best friend, not a line came from her Great-Aunt Jane.
+
+"She has probably changed her mind about going to Siquaw, dear, and so
+you would better prepare to start back to school on Monday. I had talked
+the matter over with the principal, Mr. Setherly, and he told me that you
+could easily make up October's work, but, if you are not going away, it
+will be better for you to begin the term with the others."
+
+They were at breakfast, and for a long, silent moment the girl sat gazing
+out of the window at a garden that was beginning to look dry and sear.
+When she turned back toward her mother, there were tears in her eyes.
+
+The woman placed a hand on the one near her as she tenderly inquired,
+"Are you disappointed because you're not going, daughter?"
+
+"No, no, not that, but you can't know how I dread returning to High
+without Nann. We had planned graduating together and after that going to
+college together if only we could find a way."
+
+Her mother glanced up quickly as though there was something that she
+wanted to say, then pressed her lips firmly as though to keep some secret
+from being uttered. Dories listlessly continued eating. There was a
+closer pressure of her mother's hand. "It is hard, dear, I know," the
+understanding voice was saying. "Life brings many disappointments, but
+there is always a compensation. You'll see!" Then, glancing toward the
+stair door, which was slowly opening, the mother called, "Hurry up, you
+lazy Peterkins. Come and have your breakfast. I want you and Dories to go
+to the village and match some silk for me as soon as you can."
+
+Then, when she served the little fellow, the loving woman returned to her
+daily task and left a half self-pitying, half rebellious and wholly
+dispirited girl to wash and put away the dishes. Then listlessly she
+donned her scarlet tam and sweater coat and went into the sewing room to
+get the samples that she was to match. Her mother smiled up into her
+dismal face. "Dori, daughter, don't gloom around so much," she pleaded.
+"I shall actually believe that you are disappointed because you are _not_
+going to Siquaw. Now, here's the silk to be matched and there's Peterkins
+waiting for you. Come back as soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+It was midmorning when Dories and the small boy returned from the
+shopping expedition. They went at once to the sewing room, but their
+mother was not there. They looked in the living room and in the kitchen.
+"Mother, where are you?" they both called, but there was no reply.
+
+"Maybe she's upstairs," Peter suggested.
+
+"Of course. How stupid for me to forget that we have an upstairs to our
+house." Dories felt strangely excited as she ran up the circling front
+stairway calling again and again, but still there was no reply. Down the
+long upper corridor they went, opening one door and another, beginning to
+feel almost frightened at the stillness.
+
+Then Dories exclaimed, "Oh, maybe she's gone over to Mrs. Doran's for a
+moment. I guess she couldn't do any sewing until we came back with the
+silk." They were about to descend the back stairs when they heard a noise
+in the garret overhead.
+
+The frail boy caught his sister's hand and held it tight. "Do you suppose
+it's ghosts," he whispered.
+
+"No, of course not," the girl replied. The attic was a low, dark,
+cobwebby place hardly high enough to stand in, and they never went there.
+"There are no ghosts. Mother said so."
+
+"Then maybe it's a rat scratching around," the boy suggested, "or that
+wild barn cat may have got in somehow. Do you dare open the door, Dori,
+and call up?"
+
+"Of course I do, but first I'll creep up a little way and look." Very
+quietly Dories opened the door and stealthily ascended the dark, short
+stairway. All was still in the dusky, musty attic. Then a light flashed
+for a moment in a far corner. Truly frightened, Dories turned and hurried
+down the stairs. Quick steps were heard above: then a familiar voice
+called, "Dories, is that you, dear? Why are you stealing about in that
+way? Come up a moment, daughter! I want you to help me drag this old
+trunk out of the corner."
+
+Then, when the girl, with Peter following, appeared on the top step, the
+mother explained: "I thought I'd be down before you could get back. I
+have news for you, Dori. Just after you left, a night letter was
+delivered. In it your Great-Aunt Jane said that she had entirely given up
+her plan to spend a month at Siquaw Point until she received your letter.
+She had decided that if you were so rude as to ignore her invitation, you
+were not the kind of a girl she wished to know, even if you are her
+niece, but your letter caused her to change her mind. She wishes you to
+meet her this afternoon in Boston and go directly from there to Siquaw
+Point."
+
+"O, Mother, how terrible!" Dories was truly dismayed. "I won't have time
+to let Nann know, and she was to meet me at the station. That was the one
+redeeming feature about the whole thing."
+
+"Well, you can see her when you return, and maybe you can plan to stay a
+day or two with her. Now help me with this little trunk, dear. We have
+only two hours to prepare your clothes and pack."
+
+They carried the small steamer trunk down to Dories' room and by noon it
+was packed and locked, and, soon after, the expressman came to take both
+the trunk and the girl to the station.
+
+Dories' face was flushed and tears were in her eyes when she said
+good-bye. "I feel so strange and excited, Mother," she confided, "going
+out into the world for the very first time, and O, Mumsie, no one knows
+how I dread being all alone in a boarded-up cottage at a deserted summer
+resort with such a dreadful old woman." Dories clung to her mother in
+little girl fashion as though she hoped at the very last moment she might
+be told that she need not go, but what she heard was: "Mr. Hanson is in a
+hurry, dear. He has the trunk on his cart and he's waiting to help you up
+on the seat."
+
+Dories caught her breath in an effort not to cry, kissed her mother and
+Peter hurriedly, picked up her hand-satchel and darted down the path.
+
+From the high seat she waved and smiled. Then she called in an effort at
+cheeriness. "Don't forget, Mrs. Moore, that you promised to take October
+for a real vacation and not sew a bit after you finish the silk dress."
+
+"I promise!" the mother called. "Peter and I will just play. Write to us
+often."
+
+Mr. Hanson, finding that it was late, drove rapidly to the station, and
+it was well that he did, for the train was just drawing in when they
+arrived. Dories quickly purchased a ticket and checked her trunk with the
+expressman's help, then, climbing aboard, chose a seat near a window.
+After all, she found herself quite pleasurably excited. It was such a new
+experience to be traveling alone. Few of the passengers noticed her and
+no one spoke. She was glad, as her mother had warned her not to enter
+into conversation with strangers.
+
+As she watched the flying landscape the girl thought of something her
+mother had said on the day that she had asked her to answer her
+Great-Aunt Jane's letter. "I have a reason, Dori, for really wishing you
+to go to Siquaw with your aunt," she had said. What could that reason be?
+Not until Boston was neared did her speculation cease; then she became
+conscious of but two emotions, curiosity about her Great-Aunt Jane and a
+crushing disappointment because she had not been able to let Nann Sibbett
+know when to meet her.
+
+When the train finally stopped, Dories, feeling very young and very much
+alone, followed the crowd of passengers into the huge station. She was to
+meet her aunt in the woman's waiting room, and she stopped a hurrying
+porter to inquire where she would find it. Almost timidly she entered the
+large, comfortably furnished room, then, seeing an elderly woman dressed
+in black, who was sitting stiffly erect, the girl went toward her as she
+said diffidently: "Pardon me, but are _you_ my Great-Aunt Jane?" The
+woman threw back a heavy black crepe veil and her sharp gray eyes gazed
+up at the girl penetratingly.
+
+"Humph!" was the ungracious reply. "Well, at least you've got your
+father's eyes. That's something to be thankful for, but I've no doubt
+that you look like your mother otherwise."
+
+There was something about the tone in which this was said that put the
+girl on the defensive.
+
+"I certainly hope I do look like my darling mother," she exclaimed, her
+diffidence vanishing. The elderly woman seemed not to hear.
+
+"Sit down, why don't you?" she said in a querulous tone. "The train
+doesn't go for an hour yet."
+
+The girl sank into a comfortable chair which faced the one occupied by
+her aunt; the back of which was toward the door.
+
+For a moment neither spoke, then remembering the coaching she had
+received, Dories said hesitatingly, "I want to thank you, Aunt Jane, for
+having invited me to go with you. I am pleased to----"
+
+A sniff preceded the remark that interrupted: "I know how pleased you are
+to go with a fussy old woman to a deserted summer resort. About as
+pleased as a cat is out in the rain." Then, as though her interest in
+Dories had ceased, the old woman drew the heavy crepe veil down over her
+face, but the girl was sure that she could see the sharp eyes peering
+through it as though she were intently watching some object over Dori's
+shoulder.
+
+The girl had expected her aunt to be queer, but this was far worse than
+her most dismal anticipations. At last the girl became so nervous that
+she glanced back of her to see what her aunt could be watching. She saw
+only the open door that led into the main waiting room of the station.
+Women were passing in and out, but that was nothing to stare at. Seeming,
+at last, to recall her companion's presence, the old woman addressed her:
+"Dories, you wrote me that you had a girl friend here in Boston who would
+come down to the train to see you off. Why doesn't she come?"
+
+"I didn't have time to let her know, Aunt Jane," was the dismal reply.
+"I'm just ever so disappointed."
+
+The old woman nodded her head toward the door. "Is that her?" she asked.
+"Is that your friend?"
+
+Dories sprang to her feet and turned. A tall girl, carrying a suitcase,
+was approaching them. With a cry of mingled amazement and joy, Dories ran
+toward her and held out both hands. "Why, Nann, darling, it _can't_ be
+you." The newcomer dropped her bag and they flew into each other's arms.
+Then, standing back, Dori asked, much mystified, "Why, are you going
+somewhere Nann?"
+
+It was the old woman who replied grimly: "She is! I invited her to go
+with us. There now! Don't try to thank me." She held up a protesting hand
+when Dori, flushed and happy, turned toward her. "I did it for myself, I
+can assure you. I knew having you moping around for a month wouldn't add
+any to _my_ pleasure."
+
+An embarrassing moment was saved by a stentorian voice in the doorway
+announcing: "All aboard for Siquaw Center and way stations." A colored
+porter appeared to carry the bags, and the old woman, leaning heavily on
+her cane, limped after him, followed by the girls, in whose hearts there
+were mingled emotions, but joy predominated, for, however terrible Dori's
+Great-Aunt Jane might be, at least they were to spend a whole long month
+together.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                             SEAWARD BOUND
+
+
+There were very few people on the seaward-bound train; indeed Miss Jane
+Moore, Nann and Dories were the only occupants of the chair car. After
+settling herself comfortably in the chair nearest the front, the old
+woman, with a sweep of her arm toward the back, said almost petulantly:
+"Sit as far away from me as you can. I may want to sleep, and I know
+girls. They chatter, chatter, chatter, titter, titter, titter all about
+nothing."
+
+Her companions were glad to obey, and when they were seated at the rear
+end of the car, they kept their heads close together while they visited
+that they might not disturb the elderly woman, who, to all appearances,
+fell at once into a light doze.
+
+As soon as the train was under way, Dories asked: "Now do tell me how
+this perfectly, unbelievably wonderful thing has happened?"
+
+Nann laughed happily. "Maybe your Great-Aunt Jane is a fairy godmother in
+disguise," she whispered. They both glanced at the far corner, but the
+black veiled figure was much more suggestive of a witch than a good
+fairy.
+
+"The disguise surely is a complete one," Dories said with a shudder. "My,
+it gives me the chilly shivers when I think how I might be going to spend
+a whole month alone with her. But now tell me, just what did happen?"
+
+"Can't you guess? You wrote your aunt a letter, didn't you, telling all
+about me and even giving the name of the hotel where Dad and I were
+staying?"
+
+Dories nodded, "Yes, that's true. Mother wanted me to write to Aunt Jane
+and I couldn't think of a thing to tell her about, and so I wrote about
+you."
+
+"Well," Nann continued to enlighten her friend, "she must have written me
+that very day inviting me to be her guest at Siquaw Point for the month
+of October, but she asked me not to let you know. I sent the last picture
+postcard, the one of our hotel, just after I had received her letter, and
+you can imagine how wild I was to tell you. I hadn't started going to the
+Boston High. Dear old Dad said a month later wouldn't matter, and so here
+I am." The girls clasped hands and beamed joyfully at each other.
+
+Dories' next glance toward the sleeping old woman was one of gratitude.
+"I'm going to try hard to love her, that is, if she'll let me." Then,
+after a thoughtful moment, Dories continued: "Great-Aunt Jane must have
+been very different when Dad was a boy, for he cared a lot for her,
+Mother said." Then with one of her quick changes she exclaimed in a low
+voice, "Nann Sibbett, I have lain awake nights dreading the dismal month
+I was to spend at that forsaken summer resort. I just knew there'd be
+ghosts in those boarded-up cottages, but now that you're going to be with
+me, I almost hope that something exciting will happen."
+
+"So do I!" Nann agreed.
+
+It was four o'clock when the train, which consisted of an engine, two
+coaches and a chair-car, stopped in what seemed at first to be but wide
+stretches of meadows and marsh lands, but, peering ahead, the girls saw a
+few wooden buildings and a platform. "Siquaw Center!" the brakeman opened
+a door to announce. Miss Jane Moore sat up so suddenly, and when she
+threw back her veil she seemed so very wide awake, the girls found
+themselves wondering if she had really been asleep at all. The brakeman
+assisted the old woman to alight and placed her bags on the platform,
+then, hardly pausing, the train again was under way. Meadows and marshes
+stretched in all directions, but about a mile to the east the girls could
+see a wide expanse of gray-blue ocean.
+
+"I guess the name means the center of the marshes," Dori whispered,
+making a wry face while her aunt was talking to the station-master, a
+tall, lank, red-whiskered man in blue overalls who did not remove his cap
+nor stop chewing what seemed to be a rather large quid.
+
+"Yeah!" the girls heard his reply to the woman's question. "Gib'll fetch
+the stage right over. Quare time o' year for yo' to be comin' out, Mis'
+Moore, ain't it? Yeah! I got your letter this here mornin'. The supplies
+ar' all ready to tote over to yer cottage."
+
+The girls were wondering who Gib might be when they heard a rumbling
+beyond the wooden building and saw a very old stage coach drawn by a
+rather boney old white horse and driven by a tall, lank, red-headed boy.
+A small girl, with curls of the same color, sat on the high seat at his
+side. "Hurry up, thar, you Gib Strait!" the man, who was recognizable as
+the boy's father, called to him. "Come tote Mis' Moore's luggage." Then
+the man sauntered off, having not even glanced in the direction of the
+two girls, but the rather ungainly boy who was hurrying toward them was
+looking at them with but slightly concealed curiosity.
+
+Miss Moore greeted him with, "How do you do, Gibralter Strait." Upon
+hearing this astonishing name, the two girls found it hard not to laugh,
+but the lad, evidently understanding, smiled broadly and nodded awkwardly
+as Miss Moore solemnly proceeded to introduce him.
+
+To cover his embarrassment, the lad hastened to say. "Well, Miss Moore,
+sort o' surprisin' to see yo' hereabouts this time o' year. Be yo' goin'
+to the Pint?"
+
+The old woman looked at him scathingly. "Well, Gibralter, where in
+heaven's name would I be going? I'm not crazy enough yet to stay long in
+the Center. Here, you take my bags; the girls can carry their own."
+
+"Yessum, Miss Moore," the boy flushed up to the roots of his red hair. He
+knew that he wasn't making a very good impression on the young ladies. He
+glanced at them furtively as they all walked toward the stage; then, when
+he saw them smiling toward him, not critically but in a most friendly
+fashion, there was merry response in his warm red-brown eyes. What he
+said was: "If them bags are too hefty, set 'em down an' I'll come back
+for 'em."
+
+"O, we can carry them easily," Nann assured him.
+
+The small girl on the high seat was staring down at them with eyes and
+mouth open. She had on a nondescript dress which very evidently had been
+made over from a garment meant for someone older. When the girls glanced
+up, she smiled down at them, showing an open space where two front teeth
+were missing.
+
+"What's your name, little one?" Nann called up to her. The lad was inside
+the coach helping Miss Moore to settle among her bags.
+
+The child's grin grew wilder, but she did not reply. Nann turned toward
+her brother, who was just emerging: "What is your little sister's name?"
+she asked.
+
+The boy flushed. Nann and Dori decided that he was easily embarrassed or
+that he was unused to girls of his own age. But they better understood
+the flush when they heard the answer: "Her name's Behring." Then he
+hurried on to explain: "I know our names are queer. It was Pa's notion to
+give us geography names, being as our last is Strait. That's why mine's
+Gibralter. Yo' kin laugh if yo' want to," he added good-naturedly. "I
+would if 'twasn't my name." Then in a low voice, with a swift glance
+toward the station, he confided, "I mean to change my name when I come of
+age. I sure sartin do."
+
+The girls felt at once that they would like this boy whose sensitive face
+expressed his every emotion and who had so evident a sense of humor. They
+were about to climb inside of the coach with Miss Moore when a shrill,
+querulous voice from a general store across from the station attracted
+their attention. A tall, angular woman in a skimp calico dress stood
+there. "Howdy, Miss Moore," she called, then as though not expecting a
+reply to her salutation, she continued: "Behring Strait, you come here
+right this minute and mind the baby. What yo' gallavantin' off fer, and
+me with the supper gettin' to do?" Nann and Dori glanced at each other
+merrily, each wondering which strait the baby was named after.
+
+The small girl obeyed quickly. Mrs. Strait impressed the listeners as a
+woman who demanded instant obedience. As soon as the three passengers
+were settled inside, the coach started with a lurch. The sandy road wound
+through the wide, swampy meadows. It was rough and rutty. Miss Moore sat
+with closed eyes and, as she was wedged in between two heavy bags, she
+was not jounced about as much as were the girls. They took it
+good-naturedly, but Dories found it hard to imagine how she could have
+endured the journey if she had been alone with her queer Aunt Jane. Nann
+decided that the old woman feined sleep on all occasions to avoid the
+necessity of talking to them.
+
+At last, even above the rattle of the old coach, could be heard the
+crashing surf on rocks, and the girls peered eagerly ahead. What they saw
+was a wide strip of sand and a row of weather-beaten cottages, boarded
+up, as Dori had prophesied, and beyond them white-crested, huge gray
+breakers rushing and roaring up on the sand.
+
+The boney white horse came to a sudden stop at the edge of the beach, nor
+would it attempt to go any farther. The boy leaped over a wheel and threw
+open the back door. "Guess you'll have to walk a piece along the beach,
+Miss Moore. The coach gets stuck so often in the sand ol' Methuselah
+ain't takin' no chances at tryin' to haul it out," he informed the
+occupants.
+
+The girls were almost surprised to find that the horse hadn't been named
+after a strait. Miss Moore threw back her veil and opened her eyes at
+once. Upon hearing what the boy had to say, she leaned forward to gaze at
+the largest cottage in the middle of the row. She spoke sharply:
+"Gibralter, why didn't your father carry out my orders? I wrote him
+distinctly to open up the cottage and air it out. Why didn't he do that
+when he brought over the supplies, that's what I'd like to know? I
+declare to it, even if he is your father, I must say Simon Strait is a
+most shiftless man."
+
+The boy said at once, as though in an effort to apologize: "Pa's been
+real sick all summer, Miss Moore, and like 'twas he fergot it, but I kin
+open up easy, if I kin find suthin' to pry off the boards with. I think
+likely I'll find an axe, anyhow, out in the back shed whar I used to chop
+wood fer you. I'm most sure I will."
+
+Miss Moore sank back. "Well, hurry up about it, then. I'll stay in the
+coach till you get the windows uncovered." When the boy was gone, the
+woman turned toward her niece. "Open up that small black bag, Dories; the
+one near you, and get out the back-door key. There's a hammer just inside
+on the kitchen table, if it's where I left it." She continued her
+directions: "Give it to Gibralter and tell him, when he gets the boards
+off the windows, to carry in some wood and make a fire. A fog is coming
+in this minute and it's as wet as rain."
+
+The key having been found, the girls ran gleefully around the cabin in
+search of the boy. They found him emerging from a shed carrying a
+hatchet. He grinned at them as though they were old friends. "Some
+cheerful place, this!" he commented as he began ripping off the boards
+from one of the kitchen windows. "You girls must o' needed sea air a lot
+to come to this place out o' season like this with a--a--wall, with a old
+lady like Miss Moore is." Dories felt sure that the boy was thinking
+something quite different, but was not saying it because it was a
+relative of hers about whom he was talking. What she replied was: "I
+can't understand it myself. I mean why Great-Aunt Jane wanted to come to
+this dismal place after everyone else has gone."
+
+They were up on the back porch and, as she looked out across the swampy
+meadows over which a heavy fog was settling, then she continued, more to
+Nann than to the boy: "I promised Mother I wouldn't be afraid of ghosts,
+but honestly I never saw a spookier place."
+
+The boy had been making so much noise ripping off boards that he had only
+heard the last two words. "Spooks war yo' speakin' of?" he inquired.
+"Well, I guess yo'll think thar's spooks enough along about the middle of
+the night when the fog horn's a moanin' an' the surf's a crashin' out on
+the pint o' rocks, an' what's more, thar _is_ folks at Siquaw Center as
+says thar's a sure enough spook livin' over in the ruins that used to be
+ol' Colonel Wadbury's place."
+
+The girls shuddered and Dories cast a "Didn't I tell you so" glance at
+her friend, but Nann, less fearful by nature, was interested and curious,
+and after looking about in vain for the "ruin", she inquired its
+whereabouts.
+
+Gibralter enlightened them. "O, 'tisn't in sight," he said, "that is, not
+from here. It's over beyant the rocky pint. From the highest rock thar
+you kin see it plain."
+
+Then as he went on around the cottage taking off boards, the girls
+followed to hear more of the interesting subject. "Fine house it used to
+be when my Pa was a kid, but now thar's nothing but stone walls a
+standin'. A human bein' couldn't live in that ol' shell, nohow. But--"
+the boy could not resist the temptation to elaborate the theme when he
+saw the wide eyes of his listeners, "'long about midnight folks at the
+Center do say as how they've seen a light movin' about in the old ruin.
+Nobody's dared to go near 'nuf to find out what 'tis. The swamps all
+about are like quicksand. If you step in 'em, wall, golly gee, it's
+good-bye fer yo'. Leastwise that's what ol'-timers say, an' so the spook,
+if thar is one over thar, is safe 'nuf from introosion."
+
+While the boy had been talking, he had removed all of the wooden blinds,
+his listeners having followed him about the cabin. Dories had been so
+interested that she had quite forgotten about the huge key that she had
+been carrying. "O my!" she exclaimed, suddenly noticing it. "But then you
+didn't need the hammer after all. Now I'll skip around and open the back
+door, and, Gibralter, will you bring in some wood, Aunt Jane said, to
+build us a fire?"
+
+While the boy was gone, Nann confided merrily, "There now, Dories Moore,
+you've been wishing for an adventure, and here is one all ready made and
+waiting. Pray, what could be more thrilling than an old ruin surrounded
+by an uncrossable swamp and a mysterious light which appears at
+midnight?"
+
+The boy returned with an armful of logs left over from the supply of a
+previous summer. "Gib," Nann addressed him in her friendliest fashion,
+"may we call you that? Gibralter is _so_ long. I'd like to visit your
+ruin and inspect the ghost in his lair. Really and truly, isn't there any
+way to reach the place?"
+
+The boy looked as though he had a secret which he did not care to reveal.
+"Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn't," he said uncommittedly.
+Then, with a brightening expression in his red-brown eyes, "Anyway, I'll
+show you the old ruin if yo'll meet me at sun-up tomorrow mornin' out at
+the pint o' rocks."
+
+"I'm game," Nann said gleefully. "It sounds interesting to me all right.
+How about you, Dori?"
+
+"O, I'm quite willing to see the place from a distance," the other
+replied, "but nothing could induce me to go very near it." Neither of the
+girls thought of asking the advice of their elderly hostess, who, at that
+very moment, appeared around a corner of the cabin to inquire why it was
+taking such an endless time to open up the cottage. Luckily Gib had
+started a fire in the kitchen stove, which partly mollified the woman's
+wrath. After bringing in the bags and supplies, the boy took his
+departure, and they could hear him whistling as he drove away through the
+fog.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                            A NEW EXPERIENCE
+
+
+With the closing in of the fog, twilight settled about the cabin. The old
+woman, still in her black bonnet with the veil thrown back, drew a wooden
+armed chair close to the stove and held her hands out toward the warmth.
+"Open up the box of supplies, Dories," she commanded, "and get out some
+candles. Then you can fill a hot-water bottle for me and I'll go right to
+bed. No use making a fire in the front room until tomorrow. You girls are
+to sleep upstairs. You'll find bedding in a bureau up there. It may be
+damp, but you're young. It won't hurt you any."
+
+Dories, having opened up the box of supplies, removed each article,
+placing it on the table. At the very bottom she found a note scribbled on
+a piece of wrapping paper: "Out of candles. Send some tomorrer."
+
+Miss Moore sat up ramrod-straight, her sharp gray eyes narrowing angrily.
+"If that isn't just like that shiftless, good-for-nothing Simon Strait.
+How did he suppose we could get on without light? I wish now I had
+ordered kerosene, but I thought, just at first, that candles would do."
+In the dusk Nann had been looking about the kitchen. On a shelf she saw a
+lantern and two glass lamps. "O, Miss Moore!" she exclaimed, "Don't you
+think maybe there might be oil in one of those lamps?"
+
+"No, I don't," the old woman replied. "I always had my maid empty them
+the last thing for fear of fire." Nann, standing on a chair, had taken
+down the lantern. Her face brightened. "I hear a swish," she said
+hopefully, "and so it must be oil." With a piece of wrapping paper she
+wiped off the dust while Dories brought forth a box of matches.
+
+A dim, sputtering light rewarded them. "It won't last long," Nann said as
+she placed the lantern on the table, "So, Miss Moore, if you'll tell us
+what to do to make you comfortable, we'll hurry around and do it."
+
+"Comfortable? Humph! We won't any of us be very comfortable with such a
+wet fog penetrating even into our bones." The old woman complained so
+bitterly that Dories found herself wondering why her Great-Aunt Jane had
+come at all if she had known that she would be uncomfortable. But she had
+no time to give the matter further thought, for Miss Moore was issuing
+orders. "Dories, you work that pump-handle over there in the sink. If it
+needs priming, we won't get any water tonight. Well, thank goodness, it
+doesn't. That's one thing that went right. Nann, you rinse out the tea
+kettle, fill it and set it to boil. Now you girls take the lantern and go
+to my bedroom. It's just off the big front room, so you can't miss it;
+open up the bottom bureau drawer and fetch out my bedding. We'll hang it
+over chairs by the stove till the damp gets out of it."
+
+Nann took the sputtering lantern and, being the fearless one of the two,
+she led the way into the big front room of the cabin. The furniture could
+not be seen for the sheetlike coverings. In the dim light the girls could
+see a few pictures turned face to the wall. "Oh-oo!" Dories shuddered.
+"It's clammily damp in here. Think of it, Nann, can you conceive _what_
+it would have been like for _me_ if I had come all alone with Aunt Jane?
+Well, I know just as well as I know anything that I would never have
+lived through this first night."
+
+Nann laughed merrily. "O, Dori," she exclaimed as she held the lantern
+up, "Do look at this wonderful, huge stone fireplace. I'm sure we're
+going to enjoy it here when we get things straightened around and the sun
+is shining. You see if we don't." Nann was opening a door which she
+believed must lead into Miss Moore's bedroom, and she was right. The dim,
+flickering light revealed an old-fashioned hand-turned bed with four high
+posts. Near was an antique bureau, and Dori quickly opened the bottom
+drawer and took out the needed bedding. With her arms piled high, she
+followed the lantern-bearer back to the kitchen. Miss Moore had evidently
+not moved from her chair by the stove. "Put on another piece of wood,
+Dori," she commanded. "Now fetch all the chairs up and spread the bedding
+on it."
+
+When this had been done, the teakettle was singing, and Nann said
+brightly, "What a little optimist a teakettle is! It sings even when
+things are darkest."
+
+"You mean when things are hottest," Dori put in, actually laughing.
+
+The old woman was still giving orders. "The dishes are in that cupboard
+over the table," she nodded in that direction. "Fetch out a cup and
+saucer, Dories, wash them with some hot water and make me a cup of tea.
+Then, while I drink it, you can both spread up my bed."
+
+Fifteen minutes later all these things had been accomplished. The old
+woman acknowledged that she was as comfortable as possible in her warm
+bed. When they had said good-night, she called, "Dories, I forgot to tell
+you the stairway to your room leads up from the back porch." Then she
+added, as an afterthought, "You girls will want to eat something, but for
+mercy sake, do close the living-room door so I won't hear your clatter."
+
+Nann, whose enjoyment of the situation was real and not feined, placed
+the sputtering lantern on the kitchen table while Dories softly closed
+the door as she had been directed. Then they stood and gazed at the
+supplies still in boxes and bundles on the oilcloth-covered table. "I
+never was hungrier!" Dories announced. "But there isn't time to really
+cook anything before the light will go out. Oh-oo! Think how terrible it
+would be to have to climb up that cold, wet outside stairway to a room in
+the loft and get into cold, wet bedding, and all in the dark."
+
+Nann laughed. "Well, I'll confess it _is_ rather spooky," she agreed,
+"and if I believed in ghosts I might be scared." Then, as the lantern
+gave a warning flicker, the older girl suggested: "What say to turning
+out the light and make more fire in the stove? It really is quite bright
+over in that corner."
+
+"I guess it's the only thing to do," Dori acknowledged dolefully. "O
+goodie," she added more cheerfully as she held up a box of crackers.
+"These, with butter and some sardines, _ought_ to keep us from starving."
+
+"Great!" Nann seemed determined to be appreciative. "And for a drink
+let's have cambric tea with canned milk and sugar. Now the next thing,
+where is a can opener?"
+
+She opened a drawer in the kitchen table and squealed exultingly, "Dories
+Moore, see what I've found." She was holding something up. "It's a little
+candle end, but it will be just the thing if we need a light in the night
+when our oil is gone."
+
+"Goodness!" Dories shuddered. "I hope we'll sleep so tight we won't know
+it is night until after it's over."
+
+Nann had also found a can opener and they were soon hungrily eating the
+supper Dories had suggested. "I call this a great lark!" the older girl
+said brightly. They were sitting on straight wooden chairs, drawn close
+to the bright fire, and their viands were on another chair between them.
+
+"The kitchen is so nice and warm now that I hate plunging out into the
+fog to go upstairs," Dori shudderingly remarked. "I presume that is where
+Aunt Jane's maid used to sleep. Mumsie said she had one named Maggie who
+had been with her forever, almost. But she died last June. That must be
+why Aunt Jane didn't come here this summer."
+
+When the girls had eaten all of the sardines and crackers and had been
+refreshed with cambric tea, they rose and looked at each other almost
+tragically. Then Nann smiled. "Don't let's give ourselves time to think,"
+she suggested. "Let's take a box of matches. You get one while I relight
+the lantern. I have the candle end in my pocket. Now, bolster up your
+courage and open the door while I shelter our flickering flame from the
+cold night air that might blow it out."
+
+Dories had her hand on the knob of the door which led out upon the back
+porch, but before opening it, she whispered, "Nann, you don't suppose
+that ghost over in the ruin ever prowls around anywhere else, do you?"
+
+"Of course not, silly!" Nann's tone was reassuring. "There isn't a ghost
+in the old ruin, or anywhere else for that matter. Now open the door and
+let's ascend to our chamber."
+
+The fog on the back porch was so dense that it was difficult for the
+girls to find the entrance to their boarded-in stairway. As they started
+the ascent, Nann in the lead, they were both wondering what they would
+find when they reached their loft bedroom.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                          A LIGHT IN THE DARK
+
+
+The girls cautiously crept up the back stairway which was sheltered from
+fog and wind only by rough boards between which were often wide cracks.
+Time and again a puff of air threatened to put out the flickering flame
+in the lantern. With one hand Nann guarded it, lest it suddenly sputter
+out and leave them in darkness. There was a closed door at the top of the
+stairs, and of course, it was locked, but the key was in it.
+
+"Doesn't that seem sort of queer?" Dories asked as her friend unlocked
+the door, removed the key and placed it on the inside.
+
+"Well, it does, sort of," Nann had to acknowledge, "but I'm mighty glad
+it was there, or how else could we have entered?"
+
+Dories said nothing, but, deep in her heart, she was wishing that she and
+Nann were safely back in Elmwood, where there were electric lights and
+other comforts of civilization.
+
+Holding the lantern high, the girls stood in the middle of the loft room
+and looked around. It was unfinished after the fashion of attics, and
+though it was quite high at the peak, the sloping roof made a tent-like
+effect. There were two windows. One opened out toward the rocky point,
+above which a continuous inward rush of white breakers could be seen, and
+the other, at the opposite side, opened toward swampy meadows, a mile
+across which on clear nights could be seen the lights of Siquaw Center.
+
+A big, old-fashioned high posted bed, an equally old-fashioned mahogany
+bureau and two chairs were all of the furnishings.
+
+They found bedding in the bureau drawers, as Miss Moore had told them.
+Placing the lantern on the bureau, Nann said: "If we wish to have light
+on the subject, we'd better make the bed in a hurry. You take that side
+and I'll take this, and we'll have these quilts spread in a twinkling."
+
+Dories did as she was told and the bed was soon ready for occupancy. Then
+the girls scrambled out of their dresses, and, just as they leaped in
+between the quilts, the flame in the lantern sputtered and went out.
+
+Dories clutched her friend fearfully. "Oh, Nann," she said, "we never
+looked under the bed nor behind that curtained-off corner. I don't dare
+go to sleep unless I know what's there."
+
+Her companion laughed. "What do you 'spose is there?" she inquired.
+
+"How can I tell?" Dories retorted. "That's why I wish we had looked and
+then I would know."
+
+Her friend's voice, merry even in the darkness, was reassuring. "I can
+tell you just as well as if I had looked," she announced with confidence.
+"Back of these curtains, you would find nothing but a row of nails or
+hooks on which to hang our garments when we unpack our suitcases, and
+under the bed there is only dust in little rolled-up heaps--like as not.
+Now, dear, let's see who can go to sleep first, for you know we have an
+engagement with our friend, Gibralter Strait, at sunrise tomorrow
+morning."
+
+"You say that as though you were pleased with the prospect," Dories
+complained.
+
+"Pleased fails to express the joy with which I anticipate the----" Nann
+said no more, for Dories had clutched her, whispering excitedly, "Hark!
+What was that noise? It sounds far off, maybe where the haunted ruin is."
+
+Nann listened and then calmly replied: "More than likely it's the fog
+horn about which Gib told us, and that other noise is the muffled roar of
+the surf crashing over the rocks out on the point. If there are any more
+noises that you wish me to explain, please produce them now. If not, I'm
+going to sleep."
+
+After that Dories lay very still for a time, confident that she wouldn't
+sleep a wink. Nann, however, was soon deep in slumber and Dories soon
+followed her example. It was midnight when she awakened with a start, sat
+up and looked about her. She felt sure that a light had awakened her. At
+first she couldn't recall where she was. She turned toward the window.
+The fog had lifted and the night was clear. For a moment she sat watching
+the white, rushing line of the surf, then, farther along, she saw a dark
+looming object.
+
+Suddenly she clutched her companion. "Nann," she whispered dramatically,
+"there it is! There's a light moving over by the point. Do you suppose
+that's the ghost from the old ruin?"
+
+"The what?" Nann sat up, dazed from being so suddenly awakened. Then,
+when Dories repeated her remark, her companion gazed out of the window
+toward the point.
+
+"H'm-m!" she said, "It's a light all right. A lantern, I should say, and
+its moving slowly along as though it were being carried by someone who is
+searching for something among the rocks."
+
+Dori's hold on her friend's arm became tighter. "It's coming this way!
+I'm just ever so sure that it is. Oh, Nann, why did we come to this
+dreadful place? What if that light came right up to this cottage and saw
+that it wasn't boarded up and knew someone was here and----"
+
+Nann chuckled. "Aren't you getting rather mixed in your figures of
+speech?" she teased. "A lantern can't see or know, but of course I
+understand that you mean the-well-er-person carrying the lantern. I
+suppose you will agree that it is a person, for ghosts don't have to
+carry lanterns, you know."
+
+"How do you know so much about ghosts, since you say there are no such
+things?" Dori flared.
+
+"Well, nothing can't carry a lantern, can it?" was the unruffled reply.
+Then the two girls were silent, watching the light which seemed now and
+then to be held high as though whoever carried it paused at times to look
+about him and then continued to search on the rocks.
+
+Slowly, slowly the light approached the row of boarded-up cabins. The
+girls crept from bed and knelt at the window on the seaward side. Nann,
+because she was interested, and Dori because she did not want to be left
+alone.
+
+"Do you think it's coming this far?" came the anxious whisper. Nann shook
+her head. "No," she said, "it's going back toward the point and so I'm
+going back to bed. I'm chilled through as it is."
+
+They were soon under the covers and when they again glanced toward the
+window the light had disappeared. "Seems to have been swallowed up," Nann
+remarked.
+
+"Maybe it's fallen over the cliff. I almost hope that it has, and been
+swept out to sea."
+
+"Meaning the lantern, I suppose, or do you mean the carrier thereof?"
+
+"Nann Sibbett, I don't see how you can help being just as afraid of
+whatever it is, or, rather of whoever it is, as I am."
+
+"Because I am convinced that since it, or he, doesn't know of my
+existence, I am not the object of the search, so why should I be afraid?
+Now, Miss Dories Moore, if you wish to stay awake speculating as to what
+became of that light, you may, but I'm going to sleep, and, if this loft
+bedroom of ours is just swarming with ghosts and mysterious lights, don't
+you waken me to look at them until morning."
+
+So saying, Nann curled up and went to sleep. Dories, fearing that she
+would again be awakened by a light, drew the quilt up over her head so
+that she could not see it.
+
+Although she was nearly smothered, like an ostrich, she felt safer, and
+in time she too slept, but she dreamed of headless horsemen and
+hollow-eyed skeletons that walked out on the rocky point at midnight
+carrying lanterns.
+
+It was nearing dawn when a low whistle outside awakened the girls.
+
+"It's Gibralter Strait, I do believe," Nann declared, at once alert.
+Then, as she sprang up, she whispered, "Do hurry, Dori. I feel ever so
+sure that we are this day starting on a thrilling adventure."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                           THE PHANTOM YACHT
+
+
+The girls dressed hurriedly and silently, then crept down the boarded-in
+stairway and emerged upon the back porch of the cottage. It was not yet
+dawn, but a rosy glow in the east assured them that the day was near.
+
+The waiting lad knew that the girls had something to tell, nor was he
+wrong.
+
+"Oh, Gibralter, what do you think?" Dories began at once in an excited
+whisper that they might not disturb Great-Aunt Jane, who, without doubt,
+was still asleep.
+
+"I dunno. What?" the boy was frankly curious.
+
+"We saw it last night. We saw it with our very own eyes! Didn't we,
+Nann?" The other maiden agreed.
+
+"You saw what?" asked the mystified boy, looking from one to the other.
+Then, comprehendingly, he added: "Gee, you don' mean as you saw the spook
+from the old ruin, do you?"
+
+Dories nodded, but Nann modified: "Not that, Gibralter. Since there is no
+such thing as a ghost, how could we see it? But we did see the light you
+were telling about. Someone was walking along the rocks out on the point
+carrying a lighted lantern."
+
+"Wall," the boy announced triumphantly, "that proves 'twas a spook,
+'cause human beings couldn't get a foothold out there, the rocks are so
+jagged and irregular like. But come along, maybe we can find footprints
+or suthin'."
+
+The sun was just rising out of the sea when the three young people stole
+back of the boarded-up cottages that stood in a silent row, and emerged
+upon the wide stretch of sandy beach that led toward the point.
+
+The tide was low and the waves small and far out. The wet sand glistened
+with myriad colors as the sun rose higher. The air was tinglingly cold
+and, once out of hearing of the aunt, the girls, no longer fearful, ran
+along on the hard sand, laughing and shouting joyfully, while the boy, to
+express the exuberance of his feelings, occasionally turned a hand-spring
+just ahead of them.
+
+"Oh, what a wonderful morning!" Nann exclaimed, throwing out her arms
+toward the sea and taking a deep breath. "It's good just to be alive."
+
+Dories agreed. "It's hard to believe in ghosts on a day like this," she
+declared.
+
+"Then why try?" Nan merrily questioned.
+
+They had reached the high headland of jagged rocks that stretched out
+into the sea, and Gibralter, bounding ahead, climbed from one rock to
+another, sure-footed as a goat but the girls remained on the sand.
+
+When he turned, they called up to him: "Do you see anything suspicious
+looking?"
+
+"Nixy!" was the boy's reply. Then anxiously: "D'ye think yo' girls can
+climb on the tip-top rock?" Then, noting Dories' anxious expression as
+she viewed the jagged cliff-like mass ahead of her, he concluded with.
+"O, course yo' can't. Hold on, I'll give yo' a hand."
+
+Very carefully the boy selected crevices that made stairs on which to
+climb, and the girls, delighted with the adventure, soon arrived on the
+highest rock, which they were glad to find was so huge and flat that they
+could all stand there without fear of falling.
+
+"This is a dizzy height," Dories said, looking down at the waves that
+were lazily breaking on the lowest rocks. "But there's one thing that
+puzzles me and makes me think more than ever that what we saw last night
+was a ghost."
+
+"I know," Nann put in. "I believe I am thinking the same thing. _How_
+could a man walk back and forth on these jagged rocks carrying a
+lantern?"
+
+"Huh," their companion remarked, "Spooks kin walk anywhar's they choose."
+
+"Why, Gibralter Strait, I do believe that you think there is a ghost
+in--" She paused and turned to look in the direction that the boy was
+pointing. On the other side of the point, below them, was a swamp, dense
+with high rattling tullies and cat-tails. It looked dark and treacherous,
+for, as yet, the sunlight had not reached it. About two hundred feet back
+from the sea stood the forlorn ruin of what had once been, apparently, a
+fine stone mansion.
+
+Two stained white pillars, standing in front, were like ghostly sentinels
+telling where the spacious porch had been. Behind them were jagged heaps
+of crumbling rock, all that remained of the front and side walls. The
+wall in the rear was still standing, and from it the roof, having lost
+its support in front, pitched forward with great yawning gaps in it,
+where chimneys had been.
+
+Dories unconsciously clung to her friend as they stood gazing down at the
+old ruin. "Poor, poor thing," Nann said, "how sad and lonely it must be,
+for, I suppose, once upon a time it was very fine home filled with love
+and happiness. Wasn't it, Gibralter? If you know the story of the old
+house, please tell it to us?"
+
+The boy cast a quick glance at the timid Dories. "I dunno as I'd ought
+to. She scares so easy," he told them.
+
+"I'll promise not to scare this time," Dories hastened to say. "Honest,
+Gib, I am as eager to hear the story as Nann is, so please tell it."
+
+Thus urged, the boy began. He did not speak, however, in his usual merry,
+bantering voice, but in a hollow whisper which he believed better fitted
+to the tale he had to tell.
+
+"Wall," he said, as he seated himself on a rock, motioning the girls to
+do likewise, "I might as well start way back at the beginnin'. Pa says
+that this here house was built nigh thirty year ago by a fine upstandin'
+man as called himself Colonel Wadbury and gave out that he'd come from
+Virginia for his gal's health. Pa said the gal was a sad-lookin' creature
+as ever he'd set eyes on, an' bye an' bye 'twas rumored around Siquaw
+that she was in love an' wantin' to marry some furreigner, an' that the
+old Colonel had fetched her to this out-o'-the-way place so that he could
+keep watch on her. He sure sartin built her a fine mansion to live in.
+
+"Pa said 'twas filled with paintin's of ancestors, and books an' queer
+furreign rugs a hangin' on the walls, though thar was plenty beside on
+the floor. Pa'd been to a museum up to Boston onct, an' he said as 'twas
+purty much like that inside the place.
+
+"Wall, when 'twas all finished, the two tuk to livin' in it with a man
+servant an' an old woman to keep an eye on the gal, seemed like.
+
+"'Twan't swamp around here in those days, 'twas sand, and the Colonel had
+a plant put in that grew all over--sand verbeny he called it, but folks
+in Siquaw Center shook their heads, knowin' as how the day would come
+when the old sea would rise up an' claim its own, bein' as that had all
+been ocean onct on a time.
+
+"Pa says as how he tol' the Colonel that he was takin' big chances,
+buildin' a house as hefty as that thar one, on nothin' but sand, but that
+wan't all he built either. Furst off 'twas a high sea wall to keep the
+ocean back off his place, then 'twas a pier wi' lights along it, and then
+he fetched a yacht from somewhere.
+
+"Pa says he'd never seen a craft like it, an' he'd been a sea-farin' man
+ever since the North Star tuk to shinin', or a powerful long time,
+anyhow. That yacht, Pa says, was the whitest, mos' glistenin' thing he'd
+ever sot eyes on. An' graceful! When the sailors, as wore white clothes,
+tuk to sailin' it up and down, Pa says folks from Siquaw Center tuk a
+holiday just to come down to the shore to watch the craft. It slid along
+so silent and was so all-over white, Gus Pilsley, him as was school
+teacher days and kep' the poolhall nights, said it looked like a 'phantom
+yacht,' an' that's what folks got to callin' it.
+
+"Pa says it was well named, for, if ever a ghost rode on it, 'twas the
+gal who went out sailin' every day. Sometimes the Colonel was with her,
+but most times 'twas the old woman, but she never was let to go alone.
+The Colonel's orders was that the sailors shouldn't go beyond the three
+miles that was American. He wasn't goin' to have his gal sailin' in
+waters that was shared by no furreigners, him bein' that sot agin them,
+like as not because the gal wanted to marry one of 'em. So day arter day,
+early and late, Pa says, she sailed on her 'Phantom Yacht' up and down
+but keepin' well this side o' the island over yonder."
+
+Gibralter had risen and was pointing out to sea. The girls stood at his
+side shading their eyes. "That's it!" he told them. "That's the island.
+It's on the three-mile line, but Pa says it's the mos' treacherous island
+on this here coast, bein' as thar's hidden shoals fer half a mile all
+around it, an' thar's many a whitenin' skeleton out thar of fishin' boats
+that went too close." The lad reseated himself and the girls did
+likewise. Then he resumed the tale. "Wall, so it went on all summer long.
+Pa says if you'd look out at sunrise like's not thar'd be that yacht
+slidin' silent-like up and down. Pa says it got to hauntin' him. He'd
+even come down here on moonlit nights an', sure nuf, thar'd be that
+Phantom Yacht glidin' around, but one night suthin' happened as Pa says
+he'll never forget if he lives to be as old as Methusalah's grandfather."
+
+"W-what happened?" the girls leaned forward. "Did the yacht run on the
+shoals?" Nann asked eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                             WHAT HAPPENED
+
+
+Gibralter was thoroughly enjoying their suspense. "Wall," he drawled,
+making the moment as dramatic as possible, "'long about midnight, once,
+Pa heard a gallopin' horse comin' along the road from the sea. Pa knew
+thar wan't no one as rode horseback but the old Colonel himself, an',
+bein' as he'd been gettin' gouty, he hadn't been doin' much ridin' of
+late days, Pa said, but thar was somethin' about the way the horse was
+gallopin' that made Pa sit right up in bed. He an' Ma'd jest been married
+an' started keepin' house in the store right whar we live now. Pa woke up
+and they both listened. Then they heard someone hollerin' an' Pa knew
+'twas the old Colonel's voice, an' Ma said, 'Like's not someone's sick
+over to the mansion!' Pa got into his clothes fast as greased lightnin',
+took a lantern and went down to the porch, and thar was the ol' Colonel
+wi'out any hat on. His gray hair was all rumped up and his eyes was
+wild-like. Pa said the ol' Colonel was brown as leather most times, but
+that night he was white as sheets.
+
+"As soon as the Colonel saw Pa, he hollered, 'Whar kin I get a steam
+launch? I wanta foller my daughter. She an' the woman that takes keer o'
+her is plumb gone, an', what's more, my yacht's gone too. They've made
+off wi' it. That scalawag of a furriner that's been wantin' to marry her
+has kidnapped 'em all. She's only seventeen, my daughter is, an' I'll
+have the law on him.'
+
+"Pa said when he got up clost to the horse the Colonel was ridin', he
+could see the old man was shakin' like he had the palsy. Pa didn't know
+no place at all whar a steam launch could be had, leastwise not near enuf
+to Siquaw to help any, so the old Colonel said he'd take the train an' go
+up the coast to a town whar he could get a launch an' he'd chase arter
+that slow-sailin' yacht an' he'd have the law on whoever was kidnappin'
+his daughter.
+
+"The ol' Colonel was in an awful state, Pa said. He went into the store
+part o' our house and paced up an' down, an' up an' down, an' up an'
+down, till Pa thought he must be goin' crazy, an' every onct in a while
+he'd mutter, like 'twas just for himself to hear, 'She'll pay fer this,
+Darlina will!'"
+
+The boy looked up and smiled at his listeners. "Queer name, wasn't it?"
+he queried. "Most as funny as my name, but I guess likely 'taint quite."
+
+"I suppose they wanted to call her something that meant darling," Dories
+began, but Nann put in eagerly with, "Oh, Gib, do go on. What happened
+next? Did the old Colonel go somewhere and get a fast boat and overtake
+the yacht. I do hope that he didn't."
+
+"Wall, than yo' get what yer hopin' fer, all right. About a week arter
+he'd took the early mornin' train along back came the ol' Colonel, Pa
+said, an' he looked ten year older. He didn't s'plain nothin', but gave
+Pa some money fer takin' keer o' his horse while he'd been gone, an' then
+back he came here to his house an' lived shut in all by himself an' his
+man-servant for nigh ten year, Pa said. Nobody ever set eyes on him; his
+man-servant bein' the only one who came to the store for mail an'
+supplies, an' he never said nuthin', tho Pa said now an' then he'd ask if
+Darlina'd been heard from. He knew when he'd ask, Pa said, as how he
+wouldn't get any answer, but he couldn't help askin'; he was that
+interested. But arter a time folks around here began to think morne'n
+like the Phantom Yacht, as Pa'd called it, had gone to the bottom before
+it reached wherever 'twas they'd been headin' fer, when all of a sudden
+somethin' happened. Gee, but Pa said he'd never been so excited before in
+all his days as he was the day that somethin' happened. It was ten year
+ago an' Pa'd jest had a letter from yer aunt--" the boy leaned over to
+nod at Dori, "askin' him to go to the Point an' open up her cottage as
+she'd built the summer before. Thar was only two cottages on the shore
+then; hers an' the Burtons', that's nearest the point. Pa said as how he
+thought he'd get down thar before sun up, so's he could get back in time
+to open up the store, bein' as Ma wan't well, an' so he set off to walk
+to the beach.
+
+"Pa said he was up on the roof of the front porch takin' the blind off
+thet little front window in the loft whar yo' girls sleep when the gray
+dawn over to the east sort o' got pink. Pa said 'twas such a purty sight
+he turned 'round to watch it a spell when, all of a sudden sailin' right
+around that long, rocky island out thar, _what_ should he see but the
+Phantom Yacht, her white sails glistening as the sun rose up out o' the
+water. Pa said he had to hold on, he was so sure it was a spook boat. He
+couldn't no-how believe 'twas real, but thar came up a spry wind wi' the
+sun an' that yacht sailed as purty as could be right up to the long dock
+whar the sailors tied it. Wall, Pa said he was so flabbergasted that he
+fergot all about the blind he was to take off an' slid right down the
+roof and made fer a place as near the long dock as he could an' hid
+behind some rocks an' waited. Pa said nothin' happened fer two hours, or
+seemed that long to him; then out of that yacht stepped the mos'
+beautiful young woman as Pa'd ever set eyes on. He knew at onct 'twas the
+ol' Colonel's daughter growed up. She was dressed all in white jest like
+she'd used to be, but what was different was the two kids she had holdin'
+on to her hands. One was a boy, Pa said, about nine year old, dressed in
+black velvet wi' a white lace color. Pa said he was a handsome little
+fellar, but 'twas the wee girl, Pa said, that looked like a gold and
+white angel wi' long yellow curls. She was younger'n the boy by nigh two
+year, Pa reckoned. Their ma's face was pale and looked like sufferin', Pa
+said, as she an' her children walked up to the sea wall and went up over
+the stone steps thar was then to climb over it. Pa knew they was goin' on
+up to the house, but from whar he hid he couldn't see no more, an' so
+bein' as he had to go on back to open up the store, he didn't see what
+the meetin' between the ol' Colonel an' his daughter was like.
+How-some-ever it couldn't o' been very pleasant, fer along about noon, Pa
+said he recollected as how he had fergot to take off the blind on yer
+aunt's cottage, an' knowin' how mad she'd be, he locked up the store an'
+went back down to the beach, an' the first thing he saw was that
+glistenin' white yacht a-sailin' away. The wind had been gettin' stiffer
+all the mornin' an' Pa said as he watched the yacht roundin' the island,
+it looked to him like it was bound to go on the shoals an' be wrecked on
+the rocks. Whoever was steerin' Pa said, didn't seem to know nothin'
+about the reefs. Pa stood starin' till the yacht was out of sight, an'
+then he heard a hollerin' an' yellin' down the beach, an' thar come the
+ol' man-servant runnin' an' stumblin' an' shoutin' to Pa to come quick.
+
+"'Colonel Wadbury's took a stroke!' was what he was hollerin', an' so Pa
+follered arter him as fast as he could an' when they got into the big
+library-room, whar all the books an' pictures was, Pa saw the ol' Colonel
+on the floor an' his face was all drawed up somethin' awful. Pa helped
+the man-servant get him to bed, and fer onct the man-servant was willin'
+to talk. He told Pa all that had happened. He said how Darlina's furrin
+husband had died an' how she wanted to come back to America to live. She
+didn't ask to live wi' her Pa, but she did want him to give her the deed
+to a country place near Boston. It 'pears her ma had left it for her to
+have when she got to be eighteen, but the ol' Colonel wouldn't give her
+the papers, though they was hers by rights, an' he wouldn't even look at
+the two children; he jest turned 'em all right out, and then as soon as
+they was gone, he tuk a stroke. 'Twan't likely, so Pa said, he'd ever be
+able to speak again. The man-servant said as the last words the ol'
+Colonel spoke was to call a curse down on his daughter's head.
+
+"Wall, the curse come all right," Gibralter nodded in the direction of
+the crumbling ruin, "but 'twas himself as it hit.
+
+"You'll recollect awhile back I was mentionin' that folks in Siquaw
+Center had warned ol' Colonel Wadbury not to build a hefty house on
+shiftin' sand that was lower'n the sea. Thar was nothin' keepin' the
+water back but a wall o' rocks. But the Colonel sort o' dared Fate to do
+its worst, and Fate tuk the dare.
+
+"When November set in, Pa says, folks in town began to take in reefs, so
+to speak; shuttin' the blinds over their windows and boltin' 'em on to
+the inside. Gettin' ready for the nor'easter that usually came at that
+time o' year, sort o' headin' the procession o' winter storms. Wall, it
+came all right; an' though 'twas allays purty lively, Pa says that one
+beat all former records, and was a howlin' hurricane. Folks didn't put
+their heads out o' doors, day or night, while it lasted, an' some of 'em
+camped in their cellars. That thar storm had all the accompaniments. Thar
+was hail beatin' down as big and hard as marbles, but the windows, havin'
+blinds on 'em, didn't get smashed. Then it warmed up some, and how it
+rained! Pa says Noah's flood was a dribble beside it, he's sure sartin.
+Then the wind tuk a turn, and how it howled and blustered. All the
+outbuildin's toppled right over; but the houses in Siquaw Center was
+built to stand, and they stood. Then on the third night, Pa says, 'long
+about midnight, thar was a roarin' noise, louder'n wind or rain. It was
+kinder far off at first, but seemed like 'twas comin' nearer. 'That thar
+stone wall's broke down,' Pa told Ma, 'an' the sea's coverin' the
+lowland.'
+
+"Wall, Pa was right. The tide had never risen so high in the memory of
+Ol' Timer as had been around these parts nigh a hundred years. The waves
+had banged agin that wall till it went down; then they swirled around the
+house till they dug the sand out an' the walls fell jest like yo' see 'em
+now.
+
+"The next mornin' the sky was clear an' smilin', as though nothin' had
+happened, or else as though 'twas pleased with its work. Pa and Gus
+Pilsley an' some other Siquaw men made for the coast to see what the
+damage had been, but they couldn't get within half a mile, bein' as the
+road was under water. How-some-ever, 'bout a week later, the road, bein'
+higher, dried; but the water never left the lowlands, an' that's how the
+swamp come all about the old ruin--reeds and things grew up, just like
+'tis today.
+
+"Pa and Gus come up to this here point an' looked down at what was left
+of the fine stone house. ''Pears like it served him right,' was what the
+two of 'em said. Then they went away, and the ol' place was left alone.
+Folks never tried to get to the ruin, sayin' as the marsh around it was
+oozy, and would draw a body right in."
+
+"But what became of old Colonel Wadbury and the man-servant?" Dories
+inquired.
+
+"Dunno," the boy replied, laconically. "Some thar be as guess one thing,
+and some another. Ol' Timer said as how he'd seen two men board the train
+that passes through Siquaw Center 'long 'bout two in the mornin', but Pa
+says the storm was fiercest then, and no trains went through for three
+days; and who'd be out to see, if it had? Pa thinks they tried to get
+away an' was washed out to sea an' drowned, an' I guess likely that's
+what happened, all right."
+
+Dories rose. "We ought to be getting back." She glanced at the sun as she
+spoke. "Aunt Jane may be needing us." The other two stood up and for a
+moment Nann gazed down at the ruin; then she called to it: "Some day I am
+coming to visit you, old house, and find out the secret that you hold."
+
+Dories shuddered and seemed glad to climb down on the side of the rocks
+where the sun was shining so brightly and from where one could not see
+the dismal swamp and the crumbling old ruin.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                          A MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE
+
+
+As they walked along the hard, glistening beach, Nann glanced over the
+shimmering water at the gray, forbidding-looking island in the distance,
+almost as though she thought that the Phantom Yacht might again be seen
+sailing toward the place where the dock had been. "Poor Darlina," she
+said turning toward the others, "how I do hope that she is happy now."
+
+"Cain't no one tell as to that, I reckon," Gib commented, when Dories
+asked: "Gibralter, how long ago did all this happen? How old would that
+girl and boy be now?"
+
+"Pa was speakin' o' that 'long about last week," was the reply. "He
+reckoned 'twas ten year since the Phantom Yacht sailed off agin with the
+mother and the two little uns. That'd make the boy, Pa said, about
+nineteen year old he cal'lated, an' the wee girl about fifteen."
+
+"Then little Darlina would be about our age," Dories commented.
+
+"Why do you think that her name would be the same as her mother's?" Nann
+queried.
+
+"O, just because it is odd and pretty," was Dories' reason. Then,
+stepping more spryly, she said: "I do hope Aunt Jane has not been awake
+long, fretting for her breakfast. We've been gone over two hours I do
+believe."
+
+"Gee!" Gib exclaimed, looking around for his horse. "I'll have ter gallop
+as fast as the ol' colonel did that thar night I was tellin' yo' about or
+Pa'll be in my wool. I'd ought to've had the milkin' done this hour past.
+So long!" he added, bolting suddenly between two of the boarded-up
+cottages they were passing. "Thar's my ol' steed out by the marsh," he
+called back to them.
+
+The girls entered the kitchen very quietly and tiptoed through the
+living-room hoping that their elderly hostess had not yet awakened, but a
+querulous voice was calling: "Dories, is that you? Why can't you be more
+quiet? I've heard you prowling around this house for the past hour. Going
+up and down those outside stairs. I should think you would know that I
+want quiet. I came here to rest my nerves. Bring my coffee at once."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Jane," the girl meekly replied. Then, darting back to the
+kitchen, she whispered, her eyes wide and startled, "Nann, somebody has
+been in this house while we've been away. I do believe it was that--that
+person we saw at midnight carrying a lantern. Aunt Jane has heard
+footsteps creaking up and down the stairs to our room."
+
+Nann's expression was very strange. Instead of replying she held out a
+small piece of crumpled paper. "I just ran up to the loft to get my
+apron," she said, "and I found this lying in the middle of our bed."
+
+On the paper was written in small red letters: "In thirteen days you
+shall know all."
+
+"I have nine minds to tell Aunt Jane that the cabin must be haunted and
+that we ought to leave for Boston this very day," Dories said, but her
+companion detained her.
+
+"Don't, Dori," she implored. "I'm sure that there is nothing that will
+harm us, for pray, why should anyone want to? And I'm simply wild to
+know, well, just ever so many things. Who prowls about at midnight
+carrying a lighted lantern, what he is hunting for, who left this
+crumpled paper on our bed, and what we are to know in thirteen days; but,
+first of all, I want to find a way to enter that old ruin."
+
+Dories sank down on a kitchen chair. "Nann Sibbett," she gasped, "I
+believe that you are absolutely the only girl in this whole world who is
+without fear. Well," more resignedly, "if you aren't afraid, I'll try not
+to be." Then, springing up, she added, for the querulous voice had again
+called: "Yes, Aunt Jane, I'll bring your coffee soon." Turning to Nann,
+she added: "We ought to have a calendar so that we could count the days."
+
+"I guess we won't need to." Nann was making a fire in the stove as she
+spoke. "More than likely the spook will count them for us. There, isn't
+that a jolly fire? Polly, put the kettle on, and we'll soon have coffee."
+
+Dories, being the "Polly" her friend was addressing, announced that she
+was ravenously hungry after their long walk and climb and that she was
+going to have bacon and eggs. Nann said merrily, "Double the order."
+Then, while Dories was preparing the menu, she said softly: "Nann,
+doesn't it seem queer to you that Great-Aunt Jane can live on nothing but
+toast and tea? Of course," she amended, "this morning she wishes toast
+and coffee, but she surely ought to eat more than that, shouldn't you
+think?"
+
+"She would if she got out in this bracing sea air, but lying abed is
+different. One doesn't get so hungry." Nann was setting the kitchen table
+for two as she talked. After the old woman's tray had been carried to her
+bedside, Dories and Nann ate ravenously of the plain, but tempting, fare
+which they had cooked for themselves. Nann laughed merrily. "This
+certainly is a lark," she exclaimed. "I never before had such a good
+time. I've always been crazy to read mystery stories and here we are
+living one."
+
+Dories shrugged. "I'm inclined to think that I'd rather read about spooks
+than meet them," she remarked as she rose and prepared to wash the
+dishes.
+
+When the kitchen had been tidied, the two girls went into the sun-flooded
+living-room, and began to make it look more homelike. The dust covers
+were removed from the comfortable wicker chairs and the pictures, that
+had been turned to face the walls while the cabin was unoccupied, were
+dusted and straightened.
+
+"Now, let's take a run along the beach and gather a nice lot of drift
+wood," Nann suggested. "You know Gibralter told us that this is the time
+of year when the first winter storm is likely to arrive."
+
+Dories shuddered. "I hope it won't be like the one that wrecked Colonel
+Wadbury's house eight years ago. If it were, it might undermine all of
+these cabins, and, how pray, could we escape if the road was under
+water?"
+
+"Oh, that isn't likely to happen," Nann said comfortingly. "Our beach is
+higher than that lowland. It it does, we'd find a way out, but, Dories,
+please don't be imagining things. We have enough mystery to puzzle us
+without conjuring up frightful catastrophes that probably never will
+happen."
+
+Dories stopped at her aunt's door to tell her their plans, but the old
+woman was either asleep or feined slumber, and so, tiptoeing that she
+might not disturb her, the girl went out on the beach, where Nann awaited
+her. They were hatless, and as the sun had mounted higher, even the
+bright colored sweater-coats had been discarded.
+
+"It's such a perfect Indian summer day," Nann said. "I don't even see a
+tiny, misty cloud." As she spoke, she shaded her eyes with one hand and
+scanned the horizon.
+
+"Isn't the island clear? Even that fog bank that we saw early this
+morning has melted away." Then, whirling about, Dories inquired, "Nann,
+if we should see something white coming around that bleak gray island,
+what do you think it would be?"
+
+"Why, the Phantom Yacht, of course."
+
+"What would you do, if it were?"
+
+"I don't know, Dori. I hadn't even thought of the coming of that boat as
+a possibility, and yet--" Nann turned a glowing face, "I don't know why
+it might not happen. That little woman, for the sake of her children,
+might try a second time to win her father's forgiveness. If she came,
+what a desolate homecoming it would be; the old house in ruin and the
+fate of her father unknown."
+
+For a moment the two girls stood silent. A gentle sea breeze blew their
+sport skirts about them. They watched the island with shaded eyes as
+though they really expected the yacht to appear. Then Nann laughed, and
+leaping along the beach, she confessed: "I know that I'll keep watching
+for the return of the Phantom Yacht just all of the while. The first
+thing in the morning and the last thing at night." Then, as she picked up
+a piece of whitening driftwood, she asked, "Dori, would you rather have
+the glistening white yacht appear in the sunrise or in the moonlight?"
+
+Dories had darted for another piece of wood higher up the warm beach,
+but, on returning, she replied: "Oh, I don't know; either way would make
+a beautiful picture, I should think." Then, after picking up another
+piece, she added: "I'd like to meet that pretty gold and white girl,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+"Maybe we will," Nann commented, then sang out: "Do look, Dori, over by
+the point of rocks, there is ever so much driftwood. I believe that will
+be enough to fill our wood shed if we carry it all in. I've always heard
+that there are such pretty colors in the flames when driftwood burns."
+
+The girls worked for a while carrying the wood to the shed; then they
+climbed up on the rocks to rest, but not high enough to see the old ruin.
+When at length the sun was at the zenith, they went indoors to prepare
+lunch, and again the old woman asked only for toast and tea.
+
+After a leisurely noon hour, the girls returned to their task; there
+really being nothing else that they wanted to do, and, as Nann suggested,
+if the rains came they would be well prepared. For a time they rested,
+lying full length on the warm sand, and so it was not until late
+afternoon that they had carried in all of the driftwood they could find.
+
+"Goodness!" Dories exclaimed, shudderingly, as she looked down at her
+last armful. "Doesn't it make you feel queer to know that this wood is
+probably the broken-up skeleton of a ship that has been wrecked at sea?"
+
+"I suppose that is true," was the thoughtful response. They had started
+for the cabin, and a late afternoon fog was drifting in.
+
+Suddenly Nann paused and stared at the one window in the loft that faced
+the sea. Her expression was more puzzled than fearful. For one brief
+second she had seen a white object pass that window. Dories turned to ask
+why her friend had delayed. Nann, not wishing to frighten the more timid
+girl, stooped to pick up a piece of driftwood that had slipped from her
+arms.
+
+"I'm coming, dear," she said.
+
+On reaching the cabin, Nann went at once to the room of the elderly
+woman, who had told them in the morning that she intended to remain in
+bed for one week and be waited on. There she was, her deeply-set dark
+eyes watching the door when Nann opened it and instantly she began to
+complain: "I do wish you girls wouldn't go up and down those outside
+stairs any oftener than you have to. They creaked so about ten minutes
+ago, they woke me right up." Then she added, "Please tell Dories to bring
+me my tea at once."
+
+Nann returned to the kitchen truly puzzled. It was always when they were
+away from the cabin that the aunt heard someone going up and down the
+outside stairway. What could it mean? To Dories she said, in so calm a
+voice that suspicion was not aroused in the heart of her friend, "While
+you prepare the tea for your aunt, I'll go up to the loft room and make
+our bed before dark."
+
+Dories had said truly, Nann Sibbett seemed to be a girl without fear.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                           SOUNDS IN THE LOFT
+
+
+Nann half believed that the white object she had seen at the loft window
+was but a flashing ray of the setting sun reflected from the opposite
+window which faced the west, and yet, curiosity prompted her to go to the
+loft and be sure that it was unoccupied. This resolution was strengthened
+when, upon reaching the cabin, she heard Miss Moore's querulous voice
+complaining that the outer stairs leading to the room above had been
+creaking constantly, and she requested the girls not to go up and down so
+often while she was trying to sleep. Nann, knowing that they had not been
+to their bedroom since morning, was a little puzzled by this, and so,
+bidding Dories prepare tea for her great-aunt, she went out on the back
+porch and started to ascend the stairway. When the top was reached, she
+discovered that the door was locked. For a puzzled moment the girl
+believed that the key was on the inside, but, stopping, she found that
+she could see through the keyhole. Although it was dusk, the window in
+the loft room, which opened toward the sea, was opposite and showed a
+faint reflection of the setting sun. Nann was relieved but still puzzled,
+when a whispered voice at the foot of the stairway called to her.
+Turning, Nann saw Dories standing in the dim light below, holding up the
+key. "Did you forget that we brought it down?" she inquired.
+
+As Nann hurriedly descended, she noticed that the stairs did not creak,
+nor indeed could they, for each step was one solid board firmly wedged in
+grooves at the sides.
+
+"I believe that we are all of us allowing our imaginations to run away
+with us, Miss Moore included," Nann said as she returned to the kitchen.
+Then added, "Instead of making our bed now, I will clean the glass lamps
+and fill them with the oil that Gibralter brought while it is still
+twilighty."
+
+This she did, setting briskly to work and humming a gay little tune.
+
+It never would do for Nann Sibbett, the fearless, to allow her
+imagination to run riot.
+
+Before the lamps were ready to be lighted, the fog, which stole in every
+night from the sea, had settled about the cabin and the fog horn out
+beyond the rocky point had started its constantly recurring, long
+drawn-out wail.
+
+"Goodness!" Dories said, shudderingly, "listen to that!"
+
+"I'm listening!" Nann replied briskly. "I rather like it. It's so sort of
+appropriate. You know, at the movies, when the Indians come on, the weird
+Indian music always begins. Now, that's the way with the fog."
+
+She paused to scratch a match, applied the flame to the oil-saturated
+wick of a small glass lamp and stood back admiringly. "There, friend o'
+mine," she exclaimed, "isn't that cheerful?"
+
+Dories, instead of looking at the circle of light about the lamp, looked
+at the wavering shadows in the corners, then at the heavy gray fog which
+hung like curtains at the windows. She huddled closer to the stove. "If
+this place spells cheerfulness to you," she remarked, "I'd like to know
+what would be dismal."
+
+Nann whirled about and faced her friend and for a moment she was serious.
+
+"I'm going to preach," she threatened, "so be prepared. I haven't the
+least bit of use in this world for people who are mercurial. What right
+have we to mope about and create a dismal atmosphere in our homes, just
+because we can't see the sunshine. We know positively that it is shining
+somewhere, and we also know that the clouds never last long. I call it
+superlative selfishness to be variable in disposition. Pray, why should
+we impose our doleful moods on our friends?"
+
+Then, noting the downcast expression of her friend, Nann put her arms
+about her as she said penitently, "Forgive me, dear, if I hurt your
+feelings. Of course it is dismal here and we could be just miserable if
+we wanted to be, but isn't it far better to think of it all as an
+adventure, a merry lark? We know perfectly well that there is no such
+thing as a ghost, but the setting for one is so perfect we just can't
+resist the temptation to pretend that----"
+
+Nann said no more for something had suddenly banged in the loft room over
+their heads.
+
+Dories sat up with a start, but Nann laughed gleefully. "You see, even
+the ghost knows his cue," she declared. "He came into the story just at
+the right moment. He can't scare me, however," Nann continued, "for I
+know exactly what made the bang. When I was upstairs I noticed that the
+blind to the front window had come unfastened, and now that the night
+wind is rising, the two conspired to make us think a ghost had invaded
+our chamber." Then, having placed a lighted lamp on the kitchen table and
+another on a shelf near the stove, the optimistic girl whirled and with
+arms akimbo she exclaimed, "Mistress Dori, what will we have for supper?
+You forage in the supply cupboard and bring forth your choice. I vote for
+hot chocolate!"
+
+"How would asparagus tips do on toast?" This doubtfully from the girl
+peering into a closet where stood row after row of bags and cans.
+
+"Great!" was the merry reply. "And we'll have canned raspberries and
+wafers for desert."
+
+It was seven when the meal was finished and nearly eight when the kitchen
+was tidied. Nann noticed that Dories seemed intentionally slow and that
+every now and then she seemed to be listening for sounds from above.
+Ignoring it, however, Nann put out the light in one lamp and, taking the
+other, she exclaimed, "The earlier we go to bed, the earlier we can get
+up, and I'm heaps more interested in being awake by day than by night,
+aren't you, Dori? Are you all ready?"
+
+Dories nodded, preparing to follow her friend out into the fog that hung
+like a damp, dense mantle on the back porch. But, as soon as the door was
+opened, a cold, penetrating wind blew out the flame. "How stupid of me!"
+Nann exclaimed, backing into the kitchen and closing the door. "I should
+have lighted the lantern. Now stand still where you are, Dori, and I'll
+grope around and find where I left it after I filled it. Didn't you think
+I hung it on the nail in the corner? Well, if I did, it isn't there. Get
+the matches, dear, will you, and strike one so that I can see."
+
+But that did not prove to be necessary, as a sudden flaming-up of the
+dying fire in the stove revealed the lantern standing on the floor near
+the oil can. Nann pounced on it, found a match before the glow was gone,
+and then, when the lantern sent forth its rather faint illumination, they
+again ventured out into the fog.
+
+All the way up the back stairway Dories expected to hear a bang in the
+room overhead, but there was no sound. She peered over Nann's shoulder
+when the door was opened and the faint light penetrated the darkness.
+"See, I was right!" Nann whispered triumphantly. "The blind blew shut and
+the hook caught it. That's why we didn't hear it again."
+
+"Let's leave it shut," Dories suggested, "then we won't be able to see
+the lantern out on the point of rocks if it moves about at midnight."
+
+Nann, realizing that her companion really was excitedly fearful, thought
+best to comply with her request, and, as there was plenty of air entering
+the loft room through innumerable cracks, she knew they would not
+smother.
+
+Too, Dories wanted the lantern left burning, but as soon as Nann was sure
+that her companion was asleep, she stealthily rose and blew out the
+flickering flame.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                          A QUERULOUS OLD AUNT
+
+
+It was daylight when the girls awakened and the sun was streaming into
+their bedroom. Nann leaped to her feet. "It must be late," she declared
+as she felt under her pillow for her wristwatch. She drew it forth, but
+with it came a piece of crumpled yellow paper on which in small red
+letters was written, "In twelve days you shall know all."
+
+Dories luckily had not as yet opened her eyes and Nann was sitting on the
+edge of the bed with her back toward her companion. For a moment she
+looked into space meditatively. Should she keep all knowledge of that bit
+of paper to herself? She decided that she would, and slipping it into the
+pocket of her sweater-coat, which hung on a chair, she rose and walked
+across the room to gaze at the door. She remembered distinctly that she
+had locked it. How could anyone have entered? Not for one moment did the
+girl believe that their visitor had been a ghostly apparition that could
+pass through walls and locked doors.
+
+"Hmm! I see," she concluded after a second's scrutiny. "I did lock the
+door, but I removed the key and put it on the table. A pass-key evidently
+admitted our visitor." Then, while dressing, Nann continued to
+soliloquize. "I wonder if the person who walks the cliff carrying the
+lantern was our visitor. Perhaps it's the old Colonel himself or his
+man-servant who hides during the day under the leaning part of the roof,
+but who walks forth at night for exercise and air, although surely there
+must be air enough in a house that has only one wall."
+
+Having completed her toilet, she shook her friend. "If you don't wake up
+soon, you won't be downstairs in time for breakfast," she exclaimed.
+
+Dories sat up with a startled cry. "Oh, Nann," she pleaded. "Don't go
+down and leave me up here alone, please don't! I'll be dressed before you
+can say Jack Robinson, if only you will wait."
+
+"Well, I'll be opening this window. I want to see the ocean." As Nann
+spoke, she lifted the hook and swung out the blind, then exclaimed:
+
+"How wonderfully blue the water is! Oho, someone is out in the cove with
+a flat-bottomed boat. Why, I do believe it is our friend Gibralter. Come
+to think of it, he did say that he had been saving his money for ever so
+long to buy what he calls a sailing punt."
+
+Nann leaned out of the open window and waved her handkerchief. Then she
+turned back to smile at her friend. "It is Gib and he's sailing toward
+shore. Do hurry, Dori, let's run down to the beach and call to him."
+
+Tiptoeing down the flight of stairs, the two girls, taking hands,
+scrambled over the bank to the hard sand that was glistening in the sun.
+
+The boy, having seen them, turned his boat toward shore, and, as there
+was very little wind, he let the sail flap and began rowing.
+
+The tide was low and there was almost no surf.
+
+"Want to come out?" he called as soon as he was within hailing distance.
+
+"Oh, how I wish we could," Nann, the fearless, replied, "but we have
+duties to attend to first. Come back in about an hour and maybe we'll be
+ready to go."
+
+"All right-ho!" the sea breeze brought to them, then the lad turned into
+the rising wind, pulled in the sheet and scudded away from the shore.
+
+"That surely looks like jolly sport," Nann declared as, with arms locked,
+the two girls stood on a boulder, watching for a moment. Then, "We ought
+to go in, for Great-Aunt Jane may have awakened," Dories said.
+
+When the girls tiptoed to the chamber on the lower floor, they found Miss
+Moore unusually fretful. "What a noisy night it was," she declared,
+peevishly. "I came to this place for a complete rest and I just couldn't
+sleep a wink. I don't see why you girls have to walk around in the night.
+Don't you know that you are right over my head and every noise you make
+sounds as though it were right in this very room?"
+
+"I'm sorry you were disturbed, Aunt Jane," Dories said, but she was
+indeed puzzled. Neither she nor Nann had awakened from the hour that they
+retired until sunrise.
+
+When the girls were in the kitchen preparing breakfast, Dories asked,
+"Nann, do you think that Great-Aunt Jane may be--I don't like to say it,
+but you know how elderly people do, sometimes, wander mentally."
+
+"No, dear," the other replied, "I do not think that is true of your
+aunt." Then chancing to put her hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat,
+and feeling there the crumpled paper, Nann drew it out and handed it to
+Dories.
+
+"Why, where did you find it?" that astonished maiden inquired when she
+had read the finely written words, "In twelve days you shall know all."
+
+"Under my pillow," was the reply, "and so you see who ever leaves these
+messages has no desire to harm us, hence there is no reason for us to be
+afraid. At first I thought that I would not tell you, but I want you to
+understand that your Great Aunt Jane may have heard footsteps over her
+head last night, even though we did not awaken."
+
+"Well, if you are not afraid, I'll try not to be," Dories assured her
+friend, but in her heart she knew that she would be glad indeed when the
+twelve days were over.
+
+Later when Dories went into her aunt's room to remove the breakfast tray,
+she bent over the bed to arrange the pillows more comfortably. Then she
+tripped about, tidying the room. Chancing to turn, she found the dark,
+deeply sunken eyes of the elderly woman watching her with an expression
+that was hard to define. Jane Moore smiled faintly at the girl, and there
+was a tone of wistfulness in her voice as she said, "I suppose you and
+Nann will be away all day again."
+
+"Why, Aunt Jane," Dories heard herself saying as she went to the bedside,
+"were you lonely? Would you like to have me stay for a while this morning
+and read to you?"
+
+Even as she spoke she seemed to see her mother's smiling face and hear
+her say, "The only ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving deeds
+left undone and kind words that might have been spoken." As yet Dories
+had not even thought of trying to do anything to add to her aunt's
+pleasure. She was gratified to see the brightening expression. "Well,
+that would be nice! If you will read to me until I fall asleep, I shall
+indeed be glad."
+
+Nann, who had come to the door, had heard, and, as the girls left the
+room, she slipped an arm about her friend, saying, "That was mighty nice
+of you, Dori, for I know how much pleasanter it would be for you to go
+for a boat ride with Gibralter. I'll stay with you if you wish."
+
+"No, indeed, Nann. You go and see if you can't find another clue to the
+mystery."
+
+"I feel in my bones that we will," that maiden replied as she poured hot
+water over the few breakfast dishes. "It would be rather a good joke
+on--well--on the ghost, if we solved the mystery sooner than twelve days.
+Don't you think so?"
+
+"But there are so many things that puzzle us," Dories protested. "I wish
+we might catch whoever it is leaving those messages. That, at least,
+would be one mystery solved."
+
+"I'll tell you what," Nann said brightly. "Let's put on our thinking caps
+and try to find some way to trap the ghost tonight. Well, good-bye for
+now! Gib and I will be back soon, I am sure. I'm just wild to go for a
+little sail with him in his queer punt boat."
+
+Dories stood in the open front door watching as her friend ran lightly
+across the hard sand, climbed to a boulder and beckoned to the boy who
+was not far away.
+
+With a half sigh Dories went into her aunt's room. Catching a glimpse of
+her own reflection in a mirror she was surprised to behold a fretful
+expression which plainly told that she was doing something that she did
+not want to do in the least. She smiled, and then turning toward the bed,
+she asked, "What shall I read, Aunt Jane?"
+
+"Are there any books in the living room?" the elderly woman inquired. The
+girl shook her head. "There are shelves, but the books have been
+removed."
+
+There was a sudden brightening of the deeply sunken eyes. "I recall now,"
+the older woman said, "the books were packed in a box and taken up to the
+loft. Suppose you go up there and select any book that you would like to
+read."
+
+For one panicky moment Dories felt that she must refuse to go alone to
+that loft room which she believed was haunted. She had never been up
+there without Nann.
+
+"Well, are you going?" The inquiry was not impatient, but it was puzzled.
+"Yes, Aunt Jane, I'll go at once." There was nothing for the girl to do
+but go. Taking the key from its place in the kitchen, she began to ascend
+the outdoor stairway. How she did wish that she were as fearless as Nann.
+
+The door opened when the key turned, and Dories stood looking about her
+as though she half believed that someone would appear, either from under
+the bed or from behind the curtains that sheltered one corner.
+
+There was no sound, and, moreover, the loft room was flooded with
+sunlight. The box, holding the books, was readily found. Dories
+approached it, lifted the cover and was about to search for an
+interesting title when a mouse leaped out, scattering gnawed bits of
+paper. Seizing the book on top, Dories fled.
+
+"What is the matter?" her aunt inquired when, almost breathless, the girl
+entered her room.
+
+"Oh--I--I thought it was--but it wasn't--it was only a mouse."
+
+"Of course it was only a mouse," Miss Moore said. "I sincerely hope that
+a niece of mine is not a coward."
+
+"I hope not, Aunt Jane." Then the girl for the first time glanced at the
+book she held. The title was "Famous Ghost Stories of England and
+Ireland."
+
+"Very entertaining, indeed," the elderly woman remarked, as she settled
+back among the pillows, and there was nothing for Dories to do but read
+one hair-raising tale after another. Often she glanced at her
+wrist-watch. It was almost noon. Why didn't Nann come?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                          A BLEACHED SKELETON
+
+
+When Gibralter saw Nann crossing the wide beach that was shimmering in
+the light of the early morning sun, he turned the punt boat and sailed as
+close to the point of rocks as he dared go. Then, letting the sail flap,
+he took the oars and was soon alongside a large flat boulder which, at
+low tide, was uncovered, although an occasional wave did wash over it.
+
+"Quick! Watch whar ye step," he cautioned. "Thar now. Here's yer chance.
+Heave ho." Then he added admiringly as the girl stepped into the middle
+of the punt without losing her balance, "Bully fer you. That's as steady
+as a boy could have done it. Whar's the other gal? Was she skeered to
+come?"
+
+Nann seated herself on the wide stern seat of the flat-bottomed boat
+before she replied. "Dori wanted to come just ever so much, but she
+thought that she ought to stay at home this morning and read to her
+Great-Aunt Jane."
+
+"Wall, I don't envy her none," the lad said as he stood up to push the
+boat away from the rocks. "That ol' Miss Moore is sure sartin the
+crabbiest sort o' a person seems like to me." Then as he sat on the
+gunnel and pulled on the sheet, he added, beaming at the girl, "Say, Miss
+Nann, are ye game to sail over clost to the island yonder? Like's not
+we'd find the skeleton o' The Phantom Yacht if it got wrecked thar, as Pa
+thinks mabbe it did."
+
+"Oh, Gib," the girl's voice expressed real concern, "I do hope that
+beautiful snow-white yacht was not wrecked. I don't believe that it was.
+I feel sure that those sailors took it safely back across the sea with
+that poor heart-broken mother and the boy who was such a handsome little
+chap, and the wee gold and white girl whom your daddy said looked like a
+lily. Honestly, Gib, I'd almost rather not sail over to that cruel island
+where so many boats have gone down. If the Phantom Yacht is there, I'd
+rather not know it. I'd heaps rather believe that it is still sailing,
+perhaps on the blue, blue waters of the Mediterranean."
+
+The boy looked his disappointment. "I say, Miss Nann," he pleaded, "come
+on, say you'll go, just this onct. I'm powerful curious to see what the
+shoals look like. I've been savin' and savin' for ever so long to buy
+this here punt boat jest so's I could cruise around over thar. Miss Nann,
+won't you go?"
+
+The girl laughed. "Gibralter, you look the picture of distress. I just
+can't be hard-hearted enough to disappoint you. If you'll promise not to
+wreck me, I'll consent to go at least near enough to see just what the
+island looks like."
+
+With that promise the boy had to be content. A brisk breeze was blowing
+from the land and so, before very long, the two and a half miles that lay
+between the shore and the outer shoals were covered and the long gaunt
+island of jagged gray rocks loomed large before them.
+
+"The shoals'll come up, sudden-like, clost to the top of the water, most
+any time now," Gib said, "so keep watchin' ahead. If you see a place whar
+the color's different, sort o' shallow lookin', jest sing out an' I'll
+pull away."
+
+Nann, thrilling with the excitement of a new adventure, looked over the
+side of the punt and into water so deep and dark green that it seemed
+bottomless, but all at once they sailed right over a sharp-pointed rock.
+Then another appeared, and another.
+
+"Gib!" the girl's cry was startled, "you'd better stop sailing now and
+take the oars, slowly, for if we hit a rock, way out here, and capsize,
+pray, who would there be to save us?"
+
+Nann shuddered as she gazed ahead at the gray, grim island. A flock of
+long-legged, long-beaked and altogether ungainly looking seabirds arose
+from the rocks with shrill, unearthly screams, and, after circling
+overhead for a moment they landed a safe distance away. There was no
+other sign of life.
+
+Gibralter let the sail flap at the girl's suggestion and began to row
+slowly along on the sheltered side of the island.
+
+"Hark!" Nann said, lifting one hand. "Just hear how the surf is pounding
+on the outer coast. Don't go too far, Gib; see how the water swirls
+around the rocks where they jut out into the sea."
+
+As he rowed slowly along, the boy kept a keen-eyed watch along the shore.
+"Thar'd ought to be a place whar a body could land safely," he said at
+last. Then added excitedly as he pointed: "Look'et; thar's a big flat
+shoal that goes way up to the island, an' I'm sure as anything this here
+punt could slide right up over it an' never touch bottom. Are ye game to
+try it, Miss Nann? Say, are ye?"
+
+The girl looked at the wide, flat shoal that was about two feet under
+water and which was evidently connected with the island. Then she looked
+at the eager face of the boy. "I dare, if you dare," she said with a
+bright smile.
+
+Gibralter managed to row the punt boat within a length of the island over
+the submerged shoal, and then it stuck.
+
+"Well," Nann remarked, "I suppose we will have to stay here until the
+rising tide lifts us off."
+
+"Nary a bit of it," the boy replied as he stripped off his shoes and
+stockings. This done he stepped over the side of the boat, which,
+lightened of his weight, again floated.
+
+Taking the rope at the bow, the lad pulled and tugged until the punt was
+high and dry, then Nann leaped out. Standing on a rock, she shaded her
+eyes and gazed back across the three miles of sparkling blue waters. She
+could see the eight cottages in a row on the sandy shore. How strange it
+seemed to be looking at them from the island.
+
+"We mustn't stay long, Gib," she said to the lad who was examining the
+rocks with interest. "When the tide rises the waves will be higher and
+that punt boat of yours may not be very seaworthy."
+
+"Thar's nothin' onusual on this here side," the boy soon reported.
+"'Twon't take long to climb up top and see what's on the other side." As
+he spoke, he began to climb over the rocks, holding out his hand to
+assist the sure-footed girl in the ascent.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be a green thing growing anywhere," Nann remarked
+as she looked about curiously, "even in the crevices there is nothing but
+a silvery gray moss." Then she inquired, "Are there any serpents on this
+island, Gib?"
+
+The boy shook his head. "Never heard tell of anything hereabouts, 'cept
+just an octopus. Pa says onct a fisherman's boat was pulled under by one
+of them critters with a lot of arms sort o' like snakes."
+
+Nann stood still and stared at the boy. "Gibralter Strait," she cried,
+"if I thought there was one of those terrible sea-serpents about here,
+I'd go right home this very instant. Why, I'd rather meet a dozen ghosts
+than one octopus."
+
+"I guess 'twant nothin' but a story," the boy said, sorry that he had
+happened to mention it. "Guess likely that was all." Then, as they had
+reached the top of the rocks that were piled high, they stood for a
+moment side by side gazing down to the rugged shore far below.
+
+The boy suddenly caught the girl's arm. "Look! Look!" he cried. "That's
+what I was wantin' to find." He pointed toward a whitening skeleton of a
+boat that was high on the rocks well out of reach of the surf and about
+two hundred feet to the left of where they were standing. "Like as not
+that wreck's been thar nigh unto ten year, shouldn't you say? An' if so,
+why mightn't it be 'The Phantom Yacht' as well as any other? I should
+think it might, shouldn't you, Miss Nann?"
+
+"I suppose so," the girl faltered. "But oh, how I do hope that it isn't.
+I want to believe that the mother with her boy and girl are safe,
+somewhere." Then pleadingly, "Don't you think we'd better start for home
+now, Gib? I do want to get away before the tide turns, and even if that
+old skeleton should be 'The Phantom Yacht,' there would be no way for us
+to prove it. You never did know the real name of the boat, did you?"
+
+"No." the boy confessed, "I never did. Sort o' got to thinkin' 'Phantom
+Yacht' was its name, but like's not 'twasn't."
+
+The bleached skeleton of the boat was soon reached and the lad, leaving
+Nann standing on a broad flat rock, scrambled down nearer and began
+searching for something that might identify it as the craft which, many
+years before, had sailed, white and graceful, to and fro in the sheltered
+waters of the bay, and which had been called "The Phantom Yacht."
+
+Half an hour passed, but search as he might, the disappointed boy found
+nothing that could identify the boat. The storms of many winters had
+stripped it, leaving but a whitened skeleton and, before long, even that
+would be broken up and washed on the shore where the cottages were, to be
+gathered and burned as driftwood.
+
+It was with real regret that Gibralter at last left the wrecked boat and
+returned to the side of the girl. He found her gazing into the swirling
+green waters beyond the rocks as though she were fascinated.
+
+"What ye lookin' at, Miss Nann?" he inquired.
+
+She turned toward him, wide-eyed. "Gib," she said, "I thought I saw that
+octopus you were telling about. Look, there it is again! See it
+stretching out a long brown arm."
+
+The boy laughed heartily. "That thar's sea weeds, Miss Nann," he
+chuckled, "one o' the long streamer kind." Then he added, more seriously,
+"We'd better scud 'long. 'Pears like the tide is turnin'." Then his
+optimistic self once again, "All the better if it has turned. It'll take
+us to Siquaw Point a scootin'."
+
+When they reached the ridge of the island, the boy looked regretfully
+back at the grim skeleton. "D'ye know, Miss Nann," he remarked, "I'm sure
+sartin that we're leavin' without findin' a clue that's hidin' thar
+waitin' to be found. I'm sure sartin we are."
+
+It was a habit with the boy to repeat, perhaps for the sake of emphasis.
+
+"Wall," Nann declared, "to be real honest, Gib, I'd heaps rather be
+standing on that sandy stretch of beach over there where the cottages are
+than I would to find any clue that the old skeleton may be concealing."
+Then she laughed, as she accepted his proffered assistance to descend the
+rocks. "I don't know why, but I feel as though something skeery is about
+to happen. Maybe I'm more imaginative on water than I am on land."
+
+They slid and scrambled down the rocks and were nearing the bottom when
+an ejaculation of mingled astonishment and dismay escaped from the boy.
+
+"What is it, Gib?" the girl asked anxiously. "Has the skeery something
+happened already?"
+
+"The punt. 'Taint thar. The tide rose sooner'n I was countin' on and
+like's not that boat o' mine is sailin' out to sea."
+
+For one panicky moment the girl stood very still, her hand pressed on her
+heart. Then she recalled something that her father once had said: "When
+danger threatens, keep a clear head. That will do more than anything else
+to avert trouble."
+
+The boy, shading his eyes, was searching for the escaped punt far out on
+the shining waters, but Nann, looking about her, made a discovery. Then
+she laughed gleefully. The boy turned toward her in astonishment. Then,
+being very quick witted, he too understood. "You don' need to tell me,"
+he said, "I'm on! We changed our location, so to speak, when we went to
+look at the wreck, and that fetched us down at a different place on this
+here side."
+
+Nann nodded. "I do believe that we'll find the punt beyond the rocks
+yonder," she hazarded. And they did. Ten minutes later the boy had pushed
+the boat safely over the submerged shoal. The rising tide carried them
+swiftly out of danger of the hidden rocks. Although Nann said nothing,
+she kept intently gazing into the dark green water. She would far rather
+meet any number of ghosts on land, she assured herself, than even catch a
+glimpse of one of those dreadful sea monsters.
+
+It was nearly one o'clock when Dories, who was standing on the porch of
+the cabin, saw the flat-bottomed boat returning, and she ran down to the
+shore to meet her friend.
+
+"Did you find a clue?" she called as Nan leaped ashore.
+
+"I don't believe so," was the merry response. "We found an old whitening
+skeleton of some ill-fated boat, but I'm not going to believe it is the
+Phantom Yacht. Not yet, anyway." Then Nann turned to call to the boy who
+was pushing his punt away from the rocks, "See you tomorrow, Gib, if you
+come this way. Thank you for taking me sailing."
+
+As soon as the girls had turned back toward the cottage, Dories
+exclaimed, "Nann, I believe that I have thought of a splendid way to trap
+the ghost tonight, but I'm not going to tell you until just before we go
+to bed."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                           BELLING THE GHOST
+
+
+There was a sharp, cold wind that afternoon and so Nann suggested that
+they make a big fire on the hearth in the living room and write letters.
+Miss Moore had told them that she wished to be left alone.
+
+"We have used up nearly all of the wood in the shed," Nann said as she
+brought in an armful.
+
+"There's lots of driftwood on the shore. Let's gather some tomorrow,"
+Dories suggested as she made herself comfortable in a deep, easy willow
+chair near the jolly blaze which Nann had started. "Now I'm going to
+write the newsiest kind of a letter to mother and brother. I suppose
+you'll write to your father."
+
+Nann nodded as she seated herself on the other side of the fireplace,
+pencil and pad in readiness. For a few moments they scribbled, then
+Dories glanced up to remark with a half shudder, "Do hear that mournful
+wind whistling down the chimney, and here comes the fog drifting in so
+early. If it weren't for the fire, this would be a gloomy afternoon."
+
+Again they wrote for a time, then Dories glanced up to find Nann gazing
+thoughtfully into the fire. "A penny for your thoughts," she called.
+
+Nann smiled brightly. "They were rather a jumble. I was wondering if, by
+any chance, you and I would ever meet the wee girl and the handsome
+little boy who sailed away on the Phantom Yacht; then, too, I was
+wondering who was playing a practical joke on us."
+
+"Meaning what?"
+
+"Why the notes, of course." Nann folded her finished letter, addressed
+the envelope and after stamping it, she glanced up to ask, "Why not tell
+me now, how you intend to trap the joker."
+
+"You mean the spook. Well this is it. I found a little bell today. One
+that Aunt Jane used, I suppose, to call her maid in former years."
+
+Nann's merry laughter rang out. "I've heard of belling a cat," she said,
+"but never before did I hear of belling a ghost."
+
+Dories smiled. "Oh, I didn't mean that we were to catch the--well,
+whoever it is that leaves the messages, first, and then hang a bell on
+him. That, of course, would be impossible."
+
+"Well, then, what is your plan?"
+
+But before Dories could explain, a querulous voice from the adjoining
+room called, "Girls, its five o'clock! I do wish you would bring me my
+toast and tea. The air is so chilly, I need it to warm me up."
+
+Contritely Dories sprang to the door. She had entirely forgotten her
+aunt's existence all of the afternoon. "Wouldn't you like to have part of
+the supper that Nann and I will prepare for ourselves?" she asked. "We'll
+have anything that you would like."
+
+"Toast and tea are all I wish, and I want them at once," was the rather
+ungracious reply. And so the girls went to the kitchen, made a fire in
+the stove and set the kettle on to boil.
+
+"Goodness, I'd hate to have nothing to eat but tea and toast day in and
+day out," was Dories' comment. Then to her companion, "It's your turn to
+choose from the cupboard tonight and plan the supper."
+
+"All right, and I'll get it, too, while you wait on Miss Moore."
+
+An hour later the girls had finished the really excellent meal which Nann
+had prepared, and, for a while, they sat close to the kitchen stove to
+keep warm. The wind, which had been moaning all of the afternoon about
+the cabin, had risen in velocity and Dories remarked with a shudder that
+it might be the start of one of those dismal three-day storms about which
+Gib had told them.
+
+"It may be as terrible as that hurricane that swept the sea up over the
+wall and undermined old Colonel Wadbury's house," she continued, bent, it
+would seem, on having the picture as dark as she could.
+
+"Won't it be great?" Nann smiled provokingly. "You ought to be glad, for
+surely the spook that carries the lantern down on the point will be blown
+away." Then, chancing to recall something, she asked, "But you haven't
+told me your plan yet. How are you going to bell the ghost?"
+
+"My plan is to hang a little bell on the knob after we have locked our
+door. Then, of course, if we have a midnight visitor, he won't be able to
+enter without ringing the bell," Dories explained.
+
+"Poor Aunt Jane, if it does ring," Nann remarked. "How frightened she
+will be."
+
+Dories drew her knees up and folded her arms about them. "Well, I do
+believe that we would be most scared of all," she said.
+
+"Then why do it?" This merrily from Nann. "And, what's more, if it is a
+ghost, it will be able to slip into our room without awakening us.
+Whoever heard of a ghost having to stop to unlock a door?"
+
+"Maybe not," Dories agreed, "but if we are going to have any real
+enjoyment during our stay in this cabin, we must frighten away the ghost
+that seems to haunt it. I think my plan is an excellent one and, at
+least, I'd like to try it."
+
+"Very well, maiden fair." Nann rose as she spoke. "On your head be the
+result. Now, shall we ascend to our chamber?"
+
+Taking the lantern, she led the way, and Dories followed, carrying a
+small bell. When the loft room was reached the lantern was placed on a
+table. Nann carefully locked the door and, removing the key, she placed
+it by the lamp.
+
+Then she held the small bell while Dories tied it to the knob. This done,
+they hastily undressed and hopped into bed.
+
+"Let's leave the light burning all night so that we may watch the bell,"
+the more timid maiden suggested.
+
+How her companion laughed. "Why watch it?" she inquired. "We surely will
+be able to hear it in the dark if it rings. There is very little oil left
+in the lantern, so we'd better put the light out now, and then, if along
+about midnight we hear the bell ringing, we can relight it and see who
+our visitor may be."
+
+"Nann Sibbett, I'm almost inclined to think that you write those messages
+yourself, just to tease me, for you don't seem to be the least bit
+afraid." This accusingly.
+
+"Honest, Injun, I don't write them!" Nann said with sudden seriousness.
+"I haven't the slightest idea where the messages come from, but I do know
+that whoever leaves them does not mean harm to us, so why be afraid? Now
+cuddle down, for I'm going to blow out the light."
+
+Dories ducked under the quilt and, a moment later, when she ventured to
+peer out, she found the room in complete darkness, for, as usual, a heavy
+fog shut out the light of the stars.
+
+"How long do you suppose it will be before the bell rings?" she
+whispered.
+
+"Well, I'm not going to stay awake to listen," Nann replied, but she had
+not slept long when she was suddenly awakened by her companion, who was
+clutching her arm. "Did you hear that noise? What was it? Didn't it sound
+like a faint tinkle?"
+
+The two girls sat up in bed and stared at the door.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                              A PUNT RIDE
+
+
+The faint tinkle sounded again. Nann sprang up and lighted the lantern.
+To her amazement the bell was gone. Surprised as she was, she had
+sufficient presence of mind not to tell her timid companion what had
+happened. Very softly she turned the knob. The door was still locked. She
+glanced at the window; the blind was still hooked. Then, blowing out the
+light, she said in a tone meant to express unconcern, "All is serene on
+the Potomac as far as I can see." After returning to bed, however, Nann
+remained awake, long after her companion's even breathing told that she
+was asleep, wondering what it could all mean. Toward morning Nann fell
+into a light slumber, from which she was awakened by the sun streaming
+into the room. Sitting up, she saw that Dories was dressed and had opened
+the blinds. For a moment she sat in a dazed puzzling. What was it that
+she had been pondering about in the night? Remembering suddenly, she
+glanced quickly at the door. There hung the little bell as quietly as
+though it had never disappeared. Dories, hearing a movement, turned from
+the window where she had been gazing out at the sparkling sea.
+
+"Good morning to you, Nancy dear," she said gaily. "O, such a lovely day
+this is! How I hope that I may go sailing with you and Gib." Then, as she
+saw her friend continuing to stare at the bell as though fascinated,
+Dories remarked, "Well, I guess the ghost took warning all right and
+stayed away. We won't find a little paper in our room this morning, I'll
+wager." As she talked, she was crossing the room to the door. Lifting the
+little bell, she dropped it again with a clang.
+
+Nann sprang out of bed, all excited interest. "Dories, what happened? Why
+did you drop the bell?"
+
+Dories pointed to the floor where it lay. Nann bent to pick it up. Tied
+to the clapper was a bit of paper and on it was written in the familiar
+penmanship and with the same red ink, "In eleven days you will know all."
+
+Instead of acting frightened, Dories' look was one of triumph. "There
+now, Mistress Nann," she exclaimed, "you are always saying that it is not
+a being supernatural that is leaving these notes. What have you to say
+about it this morning?"
+
+"That I am truly puzzled," was the confession Nann was forced to make;
+"that the joker is much too clever for us, but we'll catch him yet, if
+I'm a prophet." She was dressing as she talked.
+
+Dories, standing near the window, was examining the paper. "It seems to
+be the sort that packages are wrapped in," she speculated. Then, after a
+silent moment and a closer scrutiny, "Nann, do you suppose that it is
+written with blood?"
+
+"Good gracious, no!" the denial was emphatic. "Why do you ask such an
+absurd question?"
+
+"Well, that was what the red ink was made of in one of the ghost stories
+that I read to Aunt Jane yesterday morning."
+
+Nann, having completed her toilet, went to the window to look out.
+"Good!" she exclaimed. "There is Gibralter Strait in his little punt
+boat. He seems to have plenty of time to go sailing. Oh, I remember now.
+He did tell me that their country school does not open until after
+Christmas. So many boys are needed to help their fathers on the farms and
+with the cranberries until snow falls."
+
+"I suppose I ought to stay at home again this morning and read to Aunt
+Jane." Dories' voice sounded so doleful that her friend whirled about,
+and, putting loving arms about her, she exclaimed: "Not a bit of it! You
+may sail with Gibralter this morning and I will stay here and read to
+your Great-Aunt Jane."
+
+But when the two girls visited the room of the elderly woman, she told
+them that she wished to be left quite alone.
+
+Dories went to the bedside and, almost timidly, she touched the wrinkled
+head. "Don't you feel well today, Aunt Jane!" she asked, feeling in her
+heart a sudden pity for the old woman. "Isn't there something I could do
+for you?"
+
+For one fleeting moment there was that strange expression in the dark,
+deeply-sunken eyes. It might have been a hungry yearning for love and
+affection. Impulsively the girl kissed the sallow cheek, but the elderly
+woman had closed her eyes and she did not open them again, and so Nann
+and Dories tiptoed out to the kitchen.
+
+"Poor Aunt Jane!" the latter began. "She hasn't had much love in her
+life. I don't remember just how it was. She was engaged to marry somebody
+once. Then something happened and she didn't. After that, Mother says she
+just shut herself up in that fine home of hers outside of Boston and
+grieved."
+
+"Poor Aunt Jane, indeed!" Nann commented as she began to prepare the
+breakfast. "She must be haunted by many of the ghosts that your mother
+told about, memories of loving deeds that she might have done. With her
+money and her home, she could have made many people happy, but instead
+she has spent her life just being sorry for herself." Then more brightly,
+"I'm glad we can both go sailing with Gib."
+
+Half an hour later, the girls in their bright colored sweater-coats and
+tams raced across the beach. The red-headed boy was on the watch for them
+and he soon had the punt alongside the broad rock which served as a dock.
+"Do you want passengers this morning?" Nann called gaily.
+
+"Sure sartin!" was the prompt reply. Then, when the two girls were seated
+on the broad seat in the stem the lad hauled in the sheet and away they
+went scudding. "Where are you going, Gib?" Nann inquired curiously.
+
+"We'll cruise 'long the water side o' the ol' ruin," he told them. "Pa
+says he's sure sartin he saw a light burnin' thar agin late las' night,
+an' like's not, we'll see suthin'."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                             A GLOOMY SWAMP
+
+
+The girls were as eager as the boy to view the old ruin from the water,
+and the breeze being brisk, they were quickly blown down the coast and
+into the quiet sheltered water beyond the point. "O, Gib," Dories cried
+fearfully, "do be careful! There are logs under the water along here that
+come nearly to the top. Is it a wreck?"
+
+"No, 'taint. It's all that's left of the long dock I was tellin' yo'
+about whar the Phantom Yacht used to tie up. Pa said ol' Colonel Wadbury
+had lights clear to the end of it and that, when 'twas lit up, 'twas a
+purty sight."
+
+"It must have been," Nann agreed. Then Dories inquired: "Doesn't it make
+you feel strange to realize that you are on the very spot where the
+Phantom Yacht once sailed?"
+
+"And where some day it may sail again," Nann completed.
+
+The high rocky point cut off the wind and so Gib let the sail flap as
+they slowly drifted toward the swamp.
+
+"Thar's all that's left of that sea wall I was tellin' about," the boy
+nodded at huge rocks half sunken in mire.
+
+"The reeds are higher than our heads," Dories commented; then she asked,
+"Is there a path through the marsh, do you think, Gib?"
+
+"No, I'm _sure_ thar ain't one," the boy declared. "Me'n Dick Burton
+would have found it if thar had been. We've looked times enough from the
+land side. We never could get here by water, bein' as we didn't have a
+boat. That's why I've been savin' to get a punt. Dick, he put in some
+toward it, an' so its half his'n."
+
+"Who is Dick Burton?" Nann inquired.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" Gib seemed surprised. "Sort o' thought o' course you
+knew 'bout the Burtons. Dick's folks own the cabin that's nearest the
+rocks. He's a city feller 'bout my age, or a leetle older, I reckon. He's
+been comin' to these parts ever since we was shavers. You'd ought to know
+him," this to Nann, "he lives in Boston, whar you come from."
+
+The girl addressed laughed good-naturedly. "Gib," she queried, "have you
+ever been up to Boston?"
+
+The boy reluctantly confessed that he had not. Then the girl explained
+that since it was much larger than Siquaw Center, two people might live
+there forever and not become acquainted.
+
+"Yeah." Gib had evidently not been listening to the last part of Nann's
+remark. "I do wish Dick was here now that we've got the punt," he said.
+"I sure sartin wish he was."
+
+"Why?" Dories inquired as she let one hand drift in the cool water.
+
+"Wall, me'n he allays thought maybe thar was a channel through the swamp
+up toward the old ruin. If he was here we'd set out to find it."
+
+"But why can't Dori and I help you as much as he could?" Nann queried. "I
+believe you are right, Gib," she continued before the boy had time to
+reply. "I've seen swamps before, and there was always a narrow channel
+through them where the tide washed when it was high. See ahead there,
+where the swamp comes down to the water's edge, I wish you'd take the
+sail down, Gib, and row as close to it as you can."
+
+The boy looked his amazement.
+
+"But, I say, Miss Nann, like's not we'd hit a snag, like's not we would."
+
+"Who's skeered now?" the girl taunted. The boy flushed. "Not me!" he
+protested, and taking down the sail he rowed along the water side of the
+dense reedy growths. "Yo' see thar's nothin'," he began when Nann,
+leaning forward, pointed as she cried excitedly, "There it is! There's an
+opening in the swamp leading right up to that haunted house."
+
+Nann was right. A narrow channel of clear water appeared among the reeds
+that were higher than their heads. It led toward the middle of the marsh
+and was wide enough for a larger boat than theirs to pass through.
+
+"Now, the next question is, do we dare go in?" Nann was gleeful over her
+find and how she wished that Gib's friend, Dick Burton, were there to
+share with them that exciting moment.
+
+"Well, that question is easy to answer," Dories hastened to say. "We most
+certainly do not dare."
+
+The boy, having removed his nondescript cap, was scratching his ear in a
+way that he always did when puzzled. Then there was a sudden eager light
+in his red-brown eyes. Replacing his hat, he seized the oars and began to
+row rapidly back up the shore and toward the row of eight cottages.
+
+Nann was puzzled and voiced her curiosity. "Got to get back to Siquaw in
+time for the ten-ten train," was all the information she received.
+
+Since he had said nothing of this when they started out, and had seemed
+to be in no hurry whatever, Nann naturally wondered about it.
+
+Some light might have been thrown on his action had she seen him, one
+hour later, as he sat on the high stool at his father's desk in the
+general store. He was painstakingly writing, and, when the ten-ten train
+arrived, Gibralter Strait was on the platform waiting to send to the
+nearby city of Boston the very first letter that he had ever written.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                            OUT IN THE DARK
+
+
+All the next day the girls waited and watched, but Gibralter Strait
+appeared neither on land nor on sea to explain his queer actions. Their
+hostess asked Dories to read to her and so the morning was passed in that
+way. Nann, busy at a piece of fancy work she was making for a Christmas
+present, sat listening. In the afternoon the girls were told to amuse
+themselves. This they did by climbing to the "tip-top rock," sitting
+there in the balmy sun and speculating about the old ruin; about the
+reason for Gib's sudden departure for his home the day before, and about
+the boy and girl who had sailed away on the Phantom Yacht. It was not
+until a fog, filmy at first, but rapidly increasing in density, began to
+hide the sun that they thought of returning homewards. As they passed the
+cabin nearest the rocks, Dories said, "This is the Burton cottage, I
+suppose. I wonder if Dick is our kind of boy?"
+
+"Meaning what?" Nann wondered.
+
+"O, you know as well as I do. I like Gib, of course. He's a splendid boy,
+but he hasn't had a chance. I merely meant a boy from families like our
+own."
+
+"I rather think so," Nann replied, as she gazed at the boarded-up cabin.
+Then suddenly she stopped and stared at one of the upper windows. The
+blind had opened ever so slightly and then had closed again, but of this
+Nann said nothing. She was afraid that she was becoming almost as
+imaginative as Dories. Then suddenly she recalled something. Gib had said
+that his father had seen a light in the old ruin the night before. And
+what was more, she and Dories _knew_ there had been someone carrying a
+lantern on the beach near the rocks at least twice since they had been
+there. What if the lantern-carrier hid in the Burton cottage during the
+day? He couldn't live in the old ruin, since it had only one wall
+standing.
+
+Luckily, Dories had been interested in watching the waves breaking at her
+feet. Turning, she called, "O, but it's getting cold and damp. Let's run
+the rest of the way."
+
+When they reached their home cabin, Nann went at once to inquire if Miss
+Moore wished her supper. The girl was sure that she heard a scurrying
+noise in the old woman's room. The door was closed and there was silence
+for a brief moment before she was told to enter. Puzzled, Nann glanced
+quickly at the bed and noted that the old woman's cap was awry. She also
+saw something else that puzzled her, but she merely said, "What would you
+like tonight with your tea, Miss Moore?"
+
+"Nothing at all but toast, and tell Dories to be sure it doesn't burn. I
+don't relish it when it has been scraped." The tone in which this was
+said was impatient and fretful. It was evident that the old woman was not
+in as pleasant a mood as she had seemed to be in the morning.
+
+Returning to the kitchen, where the kettle was already boiling, Nann made
+the tea and toasted the bread as well as she could over the blaze; then
+Dories arranged her aunt's tray attractively and took it in to her. While
+she was gone, Nann stood staring out of the window at the gathering dusk.
+She believed she had a clue to one of the mysteries surrounding them, but
+decided not to tell her friend until she was a little more certain about
+it herself.
+
+When Dories returned to the kitchen she said, "Day-dreaming, Nann?"
+
+"No, dusk-dreaming," was the smiling reply; then, "Now let's get our
+evening repast. What shall it be?"
+
+Together they looked in the closet, each selecting a canned vegetable and
+something for desert. "This is a lazy way to live," Nann began, when
+Dories exclaimed: "Do you realize that we haven't had one of those notes
+today? I believe my bell scared away the ghost after all."
+
+Nann laughed merrily. "Nary a bit of it, my friend. Didn't his spooky
+highness tie his last note to the bell clapper? I suppose that is why we
+didn't hear it tinkle again."
+
+"But we haven't found a note today--O dear!" Dories broke off to exclaim:
+"The fire must be going out, Nann," she called; "you're the magician when
+it comes to stirring up a blaze. What do you suppose is the matter?"
+
+A quick glance within brought the amused answer: "Wood needed, my dear,
+that's all! Which reminds me of Dad's wondering why the car won't go when
+it's out of gas." As she spoke she turned toward the wood box and found
+it empty. "Hmm!" she ejaculated, "that means one of us will have to hie
+out to the shed after more wood if we want a hot supper."
+
+Dories, after a swift glance at the black fog-hung window, suggested,
+"Let's change our menu and have a cold spread."
+
+"Nixy, my dear," Nann said brightly. "I'll be wood-carrier. I'll sally
+forth with a lighted lantern, like that mysterious midnight prowler. I
+won't be able to bring in much wood, but I believe a piece or two will
+provide all the heat we'll need to warm up canned things." She was
+lighting the lantern as she talked. The lamp was burning on the kitchen
+table, and, while her friend was gone, Dories laid out the dishes and
+silver.
+
+Nann, having reached the shed, groped about for the leather thong. To her
+surprise the door was not fastened, and, as she stood peering into the
+dense blackness, she was sure that she heard a scrambling noise inside.
+Then all was still. Nann scratched one of the matches that she had
+brought with her. In the far corner stood an empty barrel and in front of
+it was piled the wood that she and Dories had gathered on the beach. Not
+another thing was to be seen, and although she stood listening intently
+for several seconds, not another sound was heard.
+
+"A rat probably," the girl thought as she placed her lantern on the floor
+and picked up several pieces of wood.
+
+Returning to the kitchen, Nann threw her armful of wood into the box near
+the stove, when Dories suddenly leaped forward, exclaiming excitedly,
+"There it is. There's the note we have been wondering about."
+
+"Why--why, so it is!" Nann stared as though she could hardly believe her
+eyes. Then, springing up, she cried joyfully: "Dories Moore, we've caught
+the ghost. He was leaving this paper when I went out. He must still be in
+the woodshed somewhere, for I bolted the door on the outside. He must
+have been hiding in that old empty barrel when I looked in. Light the
+lantern again and let's go out this minute and see who is there."
+
+Although Dories was not enthusiastic over the prospect of capturing a
+ghost in a woodshed on so dark a fog-damp night, yet, since her companion
+was ready to start, she couldn't refuse to accompany her, and so, after
+closing the kitchen door, they stole along the path leading from the
+porch to the shed that was nearer the swamp. Suddenly Dories clutched her
+friend's arm, whispering, "Hark. What's that?"
+
+"It's the ghost. He's still in there." This triumphantly from Nann, the
+fearless. "That's the same scrambling noise that I heard before. Come on.
+Don't be afraid. I'll throw open the door and at least we'll see who it
+is."
+
+Leaping forward, Nann unbolted the door and held up the lantern. The shed
+was as empty as it had been before, and there was nothing at all in the
+barrel.
+
+Dories' sigh was one of relief, and she fairly darted back to the warm
+kitchen, nor did she breathe naturally until the outer door was bolted.
+Then Nann inquired, "What did the note say. We forgot to read it?"
+Stooping, she took it from under a splinter of wood and, opening it,
+read: "In ten days you will know all."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                             MORE MYSTERIES
+
+
+Long after Dories slept that night Nann lay awake thinking of the several
+mysteries surrounding them. Who was leaving the notes in places where the
+girls could not help finding them; who was carrying a lantern on the
+rocky point at night; was it the same light that was seen in the old ruin
+by people living in Siquaw Center, and why had the blind in the Burton
+cottage opened ever so little and then closed again as though someone had
+peered out at them for a brief moment? It was indeed puzzling. Could it
+possibly have anything to do with the Phantom Yacht? Nann decided that
+was impossible. At last she fell asleep. When she awakened it was nearly
+dawn. The fog had drifted away, the stars shone out and the full moon
+made it as light as day.
+
+Nann, the fearless, decided to dress and go out on the sand and look at
+the Burton cottage. She was nearly dressed before she realized that if
+Dories woke and found her gone, she might scream out in her fright and
+waken the old woman, and so she shook her gently, whispering her plan.
+Dories' eyes showed her terror at being left alone. She got up at once.
+"I simply will not stay in this haunted loft," she declared vehemently.
+"I'm going with you." As it was still dark they took the lighted lantern
+with them, but when they reached the back porch, Nann whispered that they
+would have to put out the light as they would be seen if, indeed, there
+was anyone to see them. "We'll take it, though. I have matches in my
+pocket. We'll light it if we need it."
+
+Dories clung to her friend's hand as Nann led the way back of the row of
+boarded-up cottages. When they reached the seventh, Dories suddenly drew
+back and whispered, "Nann, why are we doing this? What are you expecting
+to see? I'm simply scared to death." Her companion realized that this was
+true, since Dories' teeth were chattering. Self-rebukingly, she said, "O,
+I ought not have brought you. In fact, I probably shouldn't have come
+myself, but I am so eager to solve at least one of the mysteries that
+surround us." Then she told how she had been sure that she had seen a
+blind open ever so slightly and close late the afternoon before as though
+someone had been watching them. "I thought if someone goes every night to
+the old ruin and returns to the Burton cottage to hide during the day, he
+probably comes just about this hour, and that if we were watching, we
+might at least see what the--the--well--whoever it is--looks like." They
+had crouched down in the shadow of the seventh cottage as Nann made this
+explanation.
+
+Slowly the darkness lightened, the stars and moon dimmed and the east
+became gray; then rosy, but still there had been no sign of anyone
+entering the Burton cabin. Nann had been sure that an entrance could not
+be made in the front of the cottage as the lower windows and door on that
+side were securely boarded up. The back door was not boarded, and so that
+was where she was watching.
+
+An hour dragged slowly by. The sun rose and was well on its apparent
+upward way, and still no one appeared.
+
+"Don't you think that maybe you imagined it all?" Dories inquired at
+length as she tried to change her position, having become stiffened from
+crouching so long.
+
+"Why, no, I am sure that I didn't." Then, fearless as usual, Nann
+announced, "I'm going up to the back porch and try the door."
+
+This she did, and to her surprise it opened, creaking noisily as it swung
+on rusty hinges.
+
+Dories leaped to her side. "Gracious, Nann, are you going in?" she
+whispered tragically. "If anyone is in there, he might lock us in or
+something."
+
+Nann turned to reply, but instead she exclaimed: "Why, Dories Moore,
+you're whiter than any sheet I ever saw. If you're that scared, we'd
+better go right home."
+
+"I am!" Dories nodded miserably. "I wouldn't any more dare go into this
+cottage than--than----"
+
+"Then we won't." Nann took her friend by the hand and together they went
+down the back steps, and Dories said: "I'd rather go home by the front
+beach if you don't mind. It's more open. There's something so uncanny
+about the swamps at the back."
+
+"Anything to please," was the laughing reply. As they rounded the
+cottage, Nann looked curiously at the upper windows, and was sure that
+she saw the same blind open ever so little, then close again. She said
+nothing of this, and tried to change the trend of her companion's
+thoughts by talking about Gibralter Strait and wondering if they would
+see him during that day which had just dawned. Nann was deciding that she
+would take Gib into her confidence. A boy as fearless as he was would not
+mind entering the Burton cottage and finding out why that upper blind had
+opened and closed as it seemed to do.
+
+As they neared their home cabin, Dories became more like her natural self
+and even skipped along the hard beach, laughing back at Nann as she
+called, "Another glorious, sparkling day! I hope something interesting is
+going to happen."
+
+"I believe something will," Nann replied. They were nearing the front
+steps when Dories stood still, pointing, "Look at that stone lying in the
+middle of the top step. How do you suppose it ever got there?"
+
+Nann shook her head and, leaping up the steps, she lifted the small rock,
+then turned back, exclaiming: "Just what I thought! Here is today's note
+from your ghost. It's much too clever for us." Then she read: "In nine
+days you shall know all."
+
+Not wishing to awaken Miss Moore at so early an hour, the girls tiptoed
+down the steps and went around to the back of the cabin.
+
+"Let's look in the woodshed by daylight," Nann suggested as she unbolted
+the door. "Nothing within, just as I supposed," she remarked. "Humm-ho.
+We're not very good detectives, I guess."
+
+They started walking toward the kitchen. "But why try to find out what
+the mysteries are about if every day brings us one nearer to the time
+when we are to know all?" Dories inquired.
+
+Nann laughed. "O, I'd heaps rather ferret the thing out for myself than
+be told." Then she said more seriously: "Honestly, Dori, I don't think
+the notes refer to the mystery of the old ruin at all. I think, if that
+is ever solved, we'll have to find it out for ourselves."
+
+"Why do you think that?"
+
+"I'd rather not tell quite yet." They entered the kitchen. "Now," Nann
+said, "I'm going to make a fire and get breakfast. We've been up so long
+that I'm ravenously hungry. I'm going to make flapjacks no less."
+
+"Good!" Dories replied. "I won't refuse to eat them." Although consumed
+with curiosity concerning what her friend had said, Dories decided to
+bide her time before asking Nann to explain.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                          AN AIRPLANE SIGHTED
+
+
+Miss Moore did not awaken, apparently, until midmorning and the girls did
+not want to go away until they had served her breakfast. They had been to
+her door several times and to all appearances the elderly woman had been
+asleep. When, at length, Miss Moore did awaken, she complained of having
+been disturbed by noises in the night. "Why did you girls tiptoe around
+the living-room just before daybreak?"
+
+"Why, we didn't, Aunt Jane! Truly we didn't," Dories replied. She did not
+like to tell that it would have been a physical impossibility for them to
+have done so, as they were crouched behind "cabin seven" at that hour
+watching "cabin eight."
+
+The old woman looked at the speaker sharply, then continued: "I called
+your name and for a time the tiptoeing stopped. Then, when I pretended to
+be asleep, it began again. I was sure that under the crack of the door I
+could see a fire burning as though you had lighted wood on the grate."
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Moore, we didn't, I assure you," Nann exclaimed. "There
+wasn't any wood on it. We swept it clean yesterday afternoon." A cry from
+Dories caused the speaker to pause and turn toward her. She was pointing
+at the fireplace. There was a small charred pile in the center of the
+grate. The old woman's thoughts had evidently changed their direction for
+she asked, querulously, if they were going to keep her waiting all the
+morning for her breakfast.
+
+While out in the kitchen preparing it, Dories whispered, her eyes wide,
+"Nann, _what_ do you make of it all? You are smiling to yourself as if
+you had solved the mystery."
+
+"I believe I have, one of them; but, Dori, please don't ask me to explain
+until I catch the ghost red-handed, so to speak."
+
+"White-handed, shouldn't it be?" Dories inquired, her fears lessened by
+Nann's evident delight in something she believed she had discovered.
+
+When Miss Moore's breakfast had been served, the girls, wishing to tidy
+up the cabin, set to work with a will. Nann was sweeping the porch and
+Dories was dusting and straightening the living-room when a queer humming
+noise was heard in the distance. "Dori," Nann called, "come out here a
+moment. Can't you hear a strange buzzing noise? It sounds as though it
+were high up in the air. What can it be?"
+
+The other girl appeared in the open doorway and they both listened
+intently.
+
+"Maybe it's a flock of geese going south for the winter," Dories
+ventured, but her friend shook her head. "That noise is coming nearer.
+Not going farther away," she said. The buzzing and whizzing sounds
+increased with great rapidity. Springing down the steps, Nann exclaimed,
+"Whatever is making that commotion, is now right over our heads."
+
+Dories bounded to her friend's side and they both gazed into the gleaming
+blue sky with shaded eyes.
+
+"There it is!" Nann cried excitedly. "Why, of course, it's an airplane!
+We should have guessed that right away. I wonder where it is going to
+land. There's nothing but marsh and water around here besides this narrow
+strip of beach."
+
+"Oh, look! look!" This from Dories. "It's dropping right down into the
+ocean and so it must be one of those combination air and sea planes."
+
+"Unless it has broken a wing and is falling," Nann suggested. The
+airplane, nose downward, had seemed verily to plunge into the sea.
+
+"Let's run to the Point o' Rocks." Dories started as she spoke and Nann,
+throwing down the broom, raced after her. It was hard to go very rapidly
+where the sand was deep and dry, and so by the time they had climbed up
+on the highest boulder out on the rocky point, there was no sign whatever
+of the airplane either sailing safely on the water nor lying on the shore
+disabled.
+
+"Hmm! That certainly is puzzling," Nann said as she half closed her eyes
+in meditative thought. "Now, where can that huge thing have gone that it
+has disappeared so entirely?"
+
+"I can't imagine," Dories replied. "If only Gibralter were here with his
+punt, we might be able to find out." Then she exclaimed merrily, "Nann,
+there is another mystery added to the twenty and nine that we already
+have."
+
+"Not quite that many," the other maid replied, giving one last long look
+in the direction they believed the plane had descended or fallen. "I'm
+inclined to think," she ventured, "that there is a bay or something
+beyond the swamp. O, well, let's go back to our task. It's lunch time, if
+nothing else."
+
+They decided, as the day was unusually warm for that time of the year, to
+eat a cold lunch, and, as their aunt did not wish anything then, the
+girls decided to walk along the beach in the opposite direction and see
+if they could find the cove where Gib kept his punt in hiding. But, just
+as they reached the spot where the road from town ended at the beach,
+they heard a merry hallooing, and, turning, they beheld Gibralter Strait
+riding the white horse that was usually hitched to the coach.
+
+"Oh, good, good!" was Dories' delighted exclamation. "Now perhaps we will
+find out about the plane. Of course the people in town saw it and Gib may
+know----" She stopped talking to stare at the approaching steed and rider
+in wide-eyed amazement. "How queer!" she ejaculated. "Nann, am I seeing
+double? I'm sure that I see four legs and Gib certainly has only two."
+
+There were undeniably four long, slim legs, two on either side of the big
+white horse, but the mystery was quickly explained by the appearance,
+over Gib's shoulder, of a head belonging to another boy.
+
+"Nann Sibbett!" Dories whirled, the light of inspiration in her eyes, "I
+do believe that other boy is Dick Burton, of whom Gib has so often
+spoken."
+
+And Dories was right. Gib waved his cap, then leaped to the sand, closely
+followed by the newcomer. One glance at the young stranger assured the
+girls that he was a city lad. His merry brown eyes twinkled when
+Gibralter introduced him merely as the "kid that was crazy to find a way
+into the old ruin."
+
+The city boy took off his cap in a manner most polite, adding, "By name,
+Richard Ralston Burton, but I'm usually called Dick."
+
+Nann, realizing that Gib hadn't the remotest idea how to introduce his
+friend to them, then told the lad their names, adding, "Oh, Gib, you just
+can't guess how glad we are that you have come at last. The mysteries are
+heaping up so high and fast that we simply must solve a few of them."
+
+But it was quite evident that the boys were equally excited about the
+airplane, which they, too, had seen as they were riding on the white
+horse along the road in the swamps. "I say," Gib began at once, "did
+yo'uns see where that airplane fellow dove to? D'you 'spose he's smashed
+all to smithereens on the rocks over yonder?"
+
+The girls shook their heads. "No," Dories replied, "we just came from
+there and there wasn't a sign of that airplane. We thought that at least
+we would see the wreck of it."
+
+"It must o' landed round the curve whar the swamp comes down to the
+shore," Gib said.
+
+"Come on, old man, let's investigate." Then Dick smiled directly at Nann
+as he added, "We won't be gone long."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                          TWO BOYS INVESTIGATE
+
+
+Turning, the two girls, with arms locked, walked slowly back toward their
+home cabin, but their gaze was following the rapidly disappearing boys.
+
+"My, how they did scramble over the rocks. I wonder why they went over
+the top. I'm sure one can see better from up there," Dories turned to her
+friend to exclaim with enthusiasm. "Isn't Dick Burton the nicest boy? I'm
+ever so glad he came. He'll add a lot to our good times."
+
+Nann nodded. "One can tell in a moment that Dick has been well brought
+up," she commented. "Isn't it too bad that Gib isn't going to have a
+chance to make something of himself? I believe he would be a writer if he
+had an education. You know how imaginative he is and how he enjoyed
+telling us the story of the Phantom Yacht."
+
+The girls sauntered along to the point of rocks and stood watching the
+waves break over the boulders that projected into the water.
+
+"Isn't it queer how calm it is sometimes and how rough at others, and yet
+there isn't a bit of wind blowing, and it's as warm and balmy one time as
+another," Dories said, then leaped back with a merry laugh as an
+unusually large breaker pursued her up the beach.
+
+"I think it may be the stage of the tides," Nann speculated, "or else
+there may have been a storm at sea. O good! Here come the boys."
+
+Dick's expressive face told the girls of his disappointment before he
+spoke. "Didn't see a thing unusual," he said. "Of course we couldn't go
+far because of the marsh."
+
+"It sure is too bad the surf's crashin' in the way 'tis today," Gibralter
+told them. "Here's Dick, come all the way from Boston to stay till Sunday
+night, jest so's we could go up that little creek in the marsh. He's wild
+to get into the ol' ruin, aren't you, Dick?"
+
+"Yep," the other boy agreed, "but if we can't make it this week end, I'll
+come down next." Then with sudden interest, "How long are you girls going
+to be here on Siquaw Point?"
+
+Although Dick asked the question of Nann, it was Dories who replied.
+"Aunt Jane said this morning that she thinks we will be leaving in about
+ten days now. You see," by way of explanation, "my elderly aunt came down
+here for absolute rest, and now that she is rested, we may go back to
+town sooner than we expected."
+
+The four young people had seated themselves on the rocks.
+
+Nann put in with: "I, for one, don't want to leave this place until we
+have cleared up a few of the mysteries." Then, chancing to thrust her
+hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat, she drew out a half dozen slips
+of crumpled yellow paper. "Oh, Gib," she exclaimed, "where in the world
+do you suppose these came from? We find them in the queerest places. We
+can't understand in the least who is leaving them."
+
+Gibralter's face was a blank. "What's that writin' on 'em?" He picked one
+up as he spoke and scrutinized it closely.
+
+"In nine days you shall know all," Dick read as he looked over his
+friend's shoulder.
+
+"Know all o' what?" Gib queried.
+
+The boys looked from Dories to Nann. The girls shook their heads. "We
+thought maybe you could help clear up some of the mysteries," the latter
+said. "Have you ever heard of any queer person hanging around this beach?
+A hermit or a--a----"
+
+Gib leaned forward, his red-brown eyes gleaming. "D'y mean, mabbe, the
+lantern person that yo' uns saw one night on the rocks?"
+
+Nann nodded. "We thought it might be someone who visited the ruin by
+night and--" the speaker glanced at the visiting boy, then interrupted
+herself to inquire, "Dick, do you remember whether your people left your
+cabin locked or not?"
+
+The lad addressed turned and looked at the cottage nearest for a moment
+as though trying to recall something. Then a lightening in his eyes
+proved that he had succeeded. Springing to his feet, he exclaimed, "I
+declare if I hadn't forgotten it. I'm glad you spoke, Miss Nann. Mother
+said that in the hurry of getting away she wasn't sure whether or not she
+had locked the back door. She always hides the key under the back porch,
+so that if any one of us comes down out of season, he can get in." Then,
+when the others had also risen, Dick suggested, "Let's walk around that
+way and see what we will see."
+
+Dories glanced quickly at Nann and saw that her friend was gazing
+steadily at an upper window. She surmised that Nann was trying to decide
+whether or not to tell the boys that she had seen the blind moving, for,
+after all, how could she be sure but that it had been her imagination.
+The watcher saw Nann's expression change to one of suppressed excitement,
+then she whirled with her back to the cottage and said in a low voice,
+"Everybody turn and look at the ocean. I want to tell you something."
+
+Puzzled indeed, the boys and Dories faced about as Nann had done, and, to
+help her friend, the other maid pointed out toward the island. "What's
+this all about?" Dick inquired. "Miss Nann, you look as though you had
+seen something startling. What is it?"
+
+Very quietly Nann explained how for the third time she had seen an upper
+blind open ever so little as though someone was peering out at them, and
+then close again.
+
+"You think someone is hiding in our cottage?" Dick asked in amazement.
+Nann nodded. "Well then, we'll soon find out." The city boy's tone did
+not suggest hesitancy or fear. "You girls would better go over to your
+own cabin and wait until we join you."
+
+It was quite evident that Nann did not like this suggestion, but Dories
+did, and said so frankly. "I'll run home anyway," she said when she saw
+how disappointed Nann was. "Probably Aunt Jane would like me to read to
+her."
+
+And so it was that Nann accompanied the two boys around to the back of
+the Burton cottage. As before, the door creaked open, and very stealthily
+they entered the dark kitchen. This being the largest cottage in the row,
+the stairway was boarded off from a narrow hall; there being a door at
+the foot and another at the top. The one at the bottom was unlocked, and
+so the three investigators began the ascent, groping their way in the
+dark. "Wish't we had along some matches," Gib began, when Nann whispered,
+"I do believe that I have some. I took a dozen with us this morning. Yes,
+here they are in my watch pocket." Dick, in the lead, took the matches,
+and as he opened the upper door, he scratched one. It very faintly
+illumined a long hall with a boarded-up window at the end.
+
+There were four closed doors along the hall. The one at the right front
+would lead into the room where a window blind had moved. Nann almost held
+her breath as Dick, after scratching another match, tried the door. It
+did not open. "Mabbe it's jest stuck," Gib suggested. "Let's all push."
+This they did and the door burst open so suddenly that they plunged
+headlong into the room and the flicker of the match went out. How musty
+and dark it was! Quickly another match was lighted; but there seemed to
+be no occupant other than themselves. The closet door, standing open,
+revealed merely row after row of hooks and shelves. There was no
+furniture in the room of a concealing nature. Nann went at once to the
+blind and found that it was swinging slightly. "Well," she had to
+acknowledge, "I believe after all I was wrong in my surmise. Let's get
+back. Dories will be worried about me."
+
+Dick, before leaving the room, hooked the blind carefully on the inside,
+and, after closing the window, he remarked, "It's queer Mother should
+have left a window open as well as the back door. But I remember now. She
+said that they were afraid of losing the train. Something had delayed
+them. I had gone on ahead to start school."
+
+When they were again safely out in the sunshine, Nann inquired, "I wonder
+where your mother left the key. It isn't in the door."
+
+Before replying Dick went to one corner beneath the porch, removed a
+lattice door which could not have been discovered by anyone not knowing
+about it, reached his hand around to one of the uprights where, on a
+nail, he found the key hanging. He held it up triumphantly. Then, after
+locking the kitchen door, he replaced the key and the lattice, exclaiming
+as he did so, "I believe I understand now what happened. In the hurry,
+Mother put the key in the right place without having locked the door, so
+that's that." But Nann was not entirely convinced.
+
+The late afternoon fog was drifting in when the three started to walk
+along the beach. They saw Dories running to meet them. "Well, thanks be
+you're all alive," was her relieved exclamation.
+
+Nann laughed. "Did you think a cannibal was hiding in the Burton
+cottage?" Then she added, pretending to be disappointed, "I had at least
+hoped to find a ghost or a----"
+
+"Look! Look!" Gib cried excitedly, pointing beyond the rocks.
+
+"What? Where?" the girls scrambled to the top step of cabin three, which
+they happened to be passing, that they might have a better view of
+whatever had aroused Gib's interest.
+
+"Is it the Phantom Yacht?" Nann asked, almost hoping that it was.
+
+"No, 'tisn't that, I'm sure, because it isn't white." Gib continued to
+stare into the gathering dusk. "It's some queer kind of craft, as best I
+can make out, and it's scooting away from the shore at a pretty speedy
+rate and heading right for the island." For a moment the young people
+fairly held their breath as they watched.
+
+Dick was the first to break in with, "Gee-whiliker! I know what it is!
+Stupid that I didn't get on to it from the very first."
+
+"Why, Dick, what do you think it is?" Dories inquired.
+
+"I don't think; I know! It's that seaplane! Look! There she soars. See
+her take the air! Now the pilot's turning her nose, and heading straight
+for Boston."
+
+"Whoever 'tis in that airplane is takin' a purty big chance," Gibralter
+commented, "startin' up with night a comin' on and fog a sailin' in."
+
+Dick was optimistic. "He'll keep ahead of the fog all right, and those
+high-powered machines travel so fast he'll be at the landing place,
+outside of Boston, before it's really dark. He's safe enough, but the big
+question is, who is he, and what was he doing over there close to the old
+ruin?"
+
+"Maybe he knows about that opening in the swamp," Nann ventured.
+
+"I bet ye he does! Like's not he has a little boat and goes up to the ol'
+ruin in it."
+
+"But where do you suppose his airship was anchored?" Dories inquired.
+"Probably in the cove beyond the marsh," Dick replied, when Gib broke in
+with, "Gee, I sure sartin wish we'd taken a chance and gone out in the
+punt. I sure do. I'd o' gone, but Dick, he was afraid!"
+
+The city lad flushed, but he said at once, "You are wrong, Gib, but I
+promised my mother that I would only go out in your punt when the tide
+was low, and when I give my word, she knows that she can depend upon it."
+
+"You are right, Dick. It is worth more to have your mother able to trust
+you, when you are out of her sight, than it is to solve all the mysteries
+that ever were or will be." Nann's voice expressed her approval of the
+city lad. Gib's only comment was, "Wall, how kin we go at low tide? It
+comes 'long 'bout midnight!"
+
+"What if it does? We can--" Dick had started to say, but interrupted
+himself to add, "'Twouldn't be fair to go without the girls since they
+found the opening in the swamp. It will be low tide again tomorrow noon,
+and I vote we wait until then."
+
+"O, Dick, that's ever so nice of you! We girls are wild to go." Nann
+fairly beamed at him.
+
+"Wall, so long. We'll see you 'bout noon tomorrow." This from Gib. Dick
+waved his cap and smiled back over his shoulder.
+
+"I can hardly wait," Nann said, as the two girls went into the cabin. "I
+feel in my bones that we're going to find clues that will solve all of
+the mysteries soon."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                           ONE MYSTERY SOLVED
+
+
+A glorious autumn morning dawned and Dories sat up suddenly. Shaking
+Nann, she whispered excitedly: "I hear it again."
+
+"What? The ghost? Was he ringing the bell?" This sleepily from the girl
+who seemed to have no desire to waken, but, at her companion's urgent:
+"No, not the bell! Do sit up, Nann, and listen. Isn't that the airplane
+coming back? Hark!"
+
+Fully awake, the other girl did sit up and listen. Then leaping from the
+bed, she ran to the window that overlooked the wide expanse of marsh.
+
+"Yes, yes," she cried. "There it is! It's flying low, as though it were
+going to land, and it's heading straight for the old ruin. Get dressed as
+quickly as you can."
+
+"But why?" queried the astonished Dories. "We can't get any nearer than
+we did yesterday; that is, not by land, and the tide is high again, and
+so we can't go out in the punt."
+
+Nann did not reply, but continued to dress hurriedly, and so her friend
+did likewise.
+
+"I don't know why it is," the former confided a moment later, "but I feel
+in my bones that this is the day of the great revelation."
+
+"Not according to the yellow messages. They would tell us that in seven
+days we would know all." Dories was brushing her brown hair preparing to
+weave it into two long braids.
+
+"But, as I told you before," Nann remarked, "I don't believe the papers
+refer to the old ruin mystery at all. In fact, I think the ghost that
+writes the message on the papers does not even know there is an old ruin
+mystery."
+
+"Well, you're a better detective than I am," Dories confessed as she tied
+a ribbon bow on the end of each braid. "I haven't any idea about anything
+that is happening."
+
+The girls stole downstairs and ran out on the beach, hoping to see the
+airplane, but the long, shining white beach was deserted and the only
+sound was the crashing of the waves over the rocks and along the shore,
+for the tide was high.
+
+"I wonder if Dick and Gib heard the plane passing over their town?"
+Dories had just said, when Nann, glancing in the direction of the road,
+exclaimed gleefully, "They sure did, for here they come at headlong speed
+this very minute." The big, boney, white horse stopped so suddenly when
+it reached the sand that both of the boys were unseated. Laughingly they
+sprang to the beach and waved their caps to the girls, who hurried to
+meet them.
+
+"Good morning, boys!" Nann called as soon as they were near enough for
+her voice to be heard above the crashing of the waves. "I judge you also
+saw the plane."
+
+"Yeah! We'uns heerd it comin' 'long 'fore we saw it, an' we got ol'
+Spindly out'n her stall in a twinklin', I kin tell you."
+
+The city lad laughed as though at an amusing memory. "The old mare was
+sound asleep when we started, but when she heard that buzzing and
+whirring over her head, she thought she was being pursued by a regiment
+of demons, seemed like. She lit out of that barn and galloped as she
+never had before. Of course the airplane passed us long ago, but that
+gallant steed of ours was going so fast that I wasn't sure that we would
+be able to stop her before we got over to the island."
+
+Gib, it was plain, was impatient to be away, and so promising to report
+if they found anything of interest, the lads raced toward the point of
+rocks, while the girls went indoors to prepare breakfast. Dories found
+her Great-Aunt Jane in a happier frame of mind than usual. She was
+sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, when her niece carried in the
+tray. And when a few moments later the girl was leaving the room, she
+chanced to glance back and was sure that the old woman was chuckling as
+though she had thought of something very amusing. Dories confided this
+astonishing news item to Nann while they ate their breakfast in the
+kitchen. "What do you suppose Aunt Jane was thinking about? It was surely
+something which amused her?" Dories was plainly puzzled.
+
+Nann smiled. "Doesn't it seem to you that your aunt must be thoroughly
+rested by this time? I should think that she would like to get out in the
+sunshine these wonderful bracing mornings. It would do her a lot more
+good than being cooped up indoors."
+
+Dories agreed, commenting that old people were certainly queer. It was
+midmorning when the girls, having completed their few household tasks,
+again went to the beach to look for the boys. The tide was going out and
+the waves were quieter. Arm in arm they walked along on the hard sand.
+Dories was saying, "Aunt Jane told me that she would like to read to
+herself this morning. I was so afraid that she would ask me to read to
+her. Not but that I do want to be useful sometimes, but this morning I am
+so eager to know what the boys are doing. I wish they would come. I
+wonder where they went."
+
+"I think I know," Nann replied. "I believe they are lying flat on the big
+smooth rock on which we sat that day Gibralter told us the story of the
+Phantom Yacht. You recall that we had a fine view of the old ruin from
+there."
+
+"But why would they be lying flat?" Dories, who had little imagination,
+looked up to inquire.
+
+"So that they could observe whoever might enter the old ruin without
+being observed, my child."
+
+"But, Nann, why would anyone want to get into that dreadful place unless
+it was just out of curiosity, which, of course, is our only motive."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," the older girl had to confess, adding: "That is
+a mystery that we have yet to solve."
+
+Suddenly Nann laughed aloud. "What's the joke?" This from her astonished
+companion. Since Nann continued to laugh, and was pointing merrily at
+her, Dories began to bristle. "Well, what's funny about me? Have I
+buttoned my dress wrong?"
+
+The other maid shook her head. "It's something about your braids," she
+replied.
+
+"Oh, I suppose I put on different colored ribbons. I remember noticing a
+yellow one near the red." She swung both of the braids around as she
+spoke, but the ribbon bows were of the same hue. Tossing them back over
+her shoulder, she said complacently: "This isn't the first of April, my
+dear. There's nothing the matter with my braids and so--" But Nann
+interrupted, "Isn't there? Unbeliever, behold!" Leaping forward, she
+lifted a braid, held it in front of her friend, and pointed at a bit of
+crumpled yellow paper. Dories laughed, too.
+
+"Well," Nann exclaimed, "that proves to my entire satisfaction that a
+supernatural being does _not_ write the notes and hide them just where we
+will be sure to find them."
+
+"But who do you suppose does write them?" Dories asked. "This morning
+I've been close enough to four people to have them slip that folded paper
+in my hair ribbon. Their names are Nann Sibbett, Great-Aunt Jane,
+Gibralter Strait and Dick Moore. Dick, of course, is eliminated because
+he was nowhere about when the messages first began to appear. It isn't
+_your_ hand-writing," the speaker was closely scrutinizing the note,
+"and, as for Gib, I'm not sure that he can write at all." Then a light of
+conviction appeared in her eyes. "Do you know what I believe?" she turned
+toward her friend as one who had made an astonishing discovery. "I
+believe Great-Aunt Jane writes these notes and that she gets up out of
+bed when we are away from home and hides them."
+
+Nann laughed. "I agree with you perfectly. I suspected her the other day,
+but I didn't want to tell you until I was more sure. But why do you
+suppose she does it--if she does?"
+
+Dories shook her head, then she exclaimed: "Now I know why Aunt Jane was
+chuckling to herself when I looked back. She had just slipped the folded
+paper into my hair ribbon, I do believe."
+
+"The next thing for us to find out is when and why she does it?" The
+girls had stopped at the foot of the rocks and Nann changed the subject
+to say: "I wonder why the boys don't come. It's almost noon. We'll have
+to go back and prepare your Aunt Jane's lunch." She turned toward the
+home cottage as she spoke. Dories gave a last lingering look up toward
+the tip-top rock. "Maybe they have been carried off in the airplane," she
+suggested.
+
+"Impossible!" Nann said. "It couldn't depart without our hearing."
+
+When they reached the cabin, Dories whispered, "I've nine minds to show
+Aunt Jane the notes and watch her expression. I am sure I could tell if
+she is guilty."
+
+"Don't!" Nann warned. "Let her have her innocent fun if she wishes."
+Then, when they were in the kitchen making a fire in the wood stove, Nann
+added, "I believe, my dear girl, that there is more to the meaning of
+those messages than just innocent fun. I believe your Aunt Jane is going
+to disclose to you something far more important than the solving of the
+ruin mystery. She may tell you where the fortune is that your father
+should have had, or something like that."
+
+Dories, who had been filling the tea-kettle at the kitchen pump, whirled
+about, her face shining. "Nann Sibbett," she exclaimed in a low voice,
+"do you really, truly think that may be what we are to know in seven
+days? O, wouldn't I be glad I came to this terrible place if it were?
+Then Mother darling wouldn't have to sew any more and you and I could go
+away to school. Why just all of our dreams would come true."
+
+"Clip fancy's wings, dearie," Nann cautioned as she cut the bread
+preparing to make toast. "Usually I am the one imagining things, but now
+it is you."
+
+Dories looked at her aunt with new interest when she went into her room
+fifteen minutes later with the tray, but the old woman, who was again
+lying down, motioned her to put the tray on a small table near and not
+disturb her. As Dories was leaving the room, her aunt called, "I won't
+need you girls this afternoon."
+
+"Just as though she divined our wish to go somewhere," Nann commented, a
+few moments later, when Dories had told her.
+
+"I'll tell you what let's do," the younger girl suggested, "let's pack a
+lunch of sandwiches and olives and cookies. Then when the boys come we
+can have a picnic. It's noon and they didn't have a lunch with them, I am
+sure."
+
+"Good, that will be fun," Nann agreed. "I'll look now and see if they are
+coming. We don't want them to escape us."
+
+A moment later she returned from the front porch shaking her head. "Not a
+trace of them," she reported. Hurriedly they prepared a lunch and packed
+it in a box. Then, after donning their bright-colored tams and sweater
+coats, they went out the back door and were just rounding the front of
+the cabin when Nann exclaimed, "Here they come, or rather there they go,
+for they do not seem to have the least idea of stopping here."
+
+Nann was right. The two lads had appeared, scrambling over the point of
+rocks, and away they ran along the hard sand of the beach, acknowledging
+the existence of the girls merely by a hilarious waving of the arms.
+
+Nann turned toward her friend, her large eyes glowing. "They've found a
+clue, I'm sure certain! You can tell by the way they are racing that they
+are just ever so excited about something." As she spoke the boys
+disappeared over a hummock of sand, going in the direction of the inlet
+where Gibralter kept his punt hidden.
+
+Dories clapped her hands. "I know!" she cried elatedly. "They're going
+out in the punt. The tide has turned! Oh, Nann, what do you suppose they
+saw?"
+
+"I believe they saw the pilot of the airplane enter the old ruin, so now
+they are going to get the punt, and they're in a great hurry to get back
+to the creek before the airplane leaves."
+
+"Oh! How exciting! Do you suppose they will make it?"
+
+Nann intently watched the blue water beyond the hummock of sand as she
+replied, "I believe they will." Then she added, "Oh, dear, I do hope
+they'll take time to stop and get us. It wouldn't be fair for them to
+have all the thrills, since we girls found the channel in the marsh."
+
+"Of course they'll take us," Dories replied, although in her heart of
+hearts she rather hoped they would not, as she was not as eager as Nann
+for adventure. "You know Dick said it wouldn't be fair to go without us."
+
+Nann nodded. Then, with sudden brightening, "Hurry! Here they come! Let's
+race down to the point o' rocks and see if they want to hail us."
+
+Then, as they started, "Do you know, Dori, I feel as though something
+most unexpected is about to happen. I mean something very different from
+what we think."
+
+The girls had reached the point of rocks and were standing with shaded
+eyes, gazing out at the glistening water.
+
+The flat-bottomed boat slowly neared them. Dick held one oar and Gib the
+other. They both had their backs toward the point and evidently they had
+not seen the girls.
+
+"Why, I do declare! They aren't going to stop. They're going right by
+without us." Nann felt very much neglected, when suddenly Gib turned and
+grinned toward them with so much mischief in his expression that Dories
+concluded: "They did that just to tease. See, they're heading in this way
+now."
+
+This was true, and Dick, making a trumpet of his hands, called: "Want to
+come, girls? If so, scramble over to the flat rock, quick's you can!
+We're in a terrifical hurry!"
+
+Dories and Nann needed no second invitation, but climbed over the jagged
+rocks and stood on the broad one which was uncovered at low tide and
+which served as a landing dock.
+
+Dick, the gallant, leaped out to assist them into the punt, then, seizing
+his oar, he commanded his mate, "Make it snappy, old man. We want to
+catch the modern air pirate before he gets away with his treasure."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                         A CHANNEL IN THE SWAMP
+
+
+The wind was from the shore and Gib suggested that the small sail be run
+up. This was soon done and away the little craft went bounding over the
+evenly rolling waves and, before very many minutes, the point was rounded
+and the swamp reached.
+
+"Where is the airplane anchored?" Nann inquired, peering curiously into
+the cove which was unoccupied by craft of any kind.
+
+"Well, we aren't sure as to that," Dick told her, speaking softly as
+though fearing to be overheard. "We climbed to the top of the rocks and
+lay there for hours, or so it seemed to me. We were waiting for the tide
+to turn so we could go out in the punt. But all the time we were there we
+didn't see or hear anything of the airplane or the pilot. Of course,
+since it's a seaplane, too, it's probably anchored over beyond the marsh.
+
+"Now my theory is that the pilot has a little tender and that in it he
+rowed up the creek and probably, right this very minute, he is in the old
+ruin, and like as not if we go up there we will meet him face to face."
+
+"Br-r-r!" Dories shuddered and her eyes were big and round. "Don't you
+think we'd better wait here? We could hide the punt in the reeds and
+watch who comes out. You wouldn't want to meet--a--a--"
+
+Dories was at a loss to conjecture who they might meet, but Gib chimed in
+with, "Don't care who 'tis!" Then, looking anxiously at the girl who had
+spoken, he said, "'Pears we'd ought to've left you at home. 'Pears like
+we'd ought."
+
+The boy looked so truly troubled that Dories assumed a courage she did
+not feel. "No, indeed, Gib! If you three aren't afraid to meet whoever it
+is, neither am I. Row ahead."
+
+Thus advised, the lad lowered the small sail, and the two boys rowed the
+punt to the opening in the marsh.
+
+It was just wide enough for the punt to enter. "Wall, we uns can't use
+the oars no further, that's sure sartin." Gib took off his cap to scratch
+his ear as he always did when perplexed.
+
+"I have it!" Dick seized an oar, stepped to the stern, asked Nann to take
+the seat in the middle of the boat and then he stood and pushed the punt
+into the narrow creek.
+
+They had not progressed more than two boat-lengths when a whizzing,
+whirring noise was heard and the seaplane scudded from behind a reedy
+point which had obscured it, and crossed their cove before taking to the
+air. Then it turned its nose toward the island. All that the watchers
+could see of the pilot was his leather-hooded, dark-goggled head, and, as
+he had not turned in their direction, it was quite evident that he didn't
+know of their existence.
+
+"Gone!" Dick cried dramatically. "'Foiled again,' as they say on the
+stage."
+
+"Wall, anyhow, we're here, so let's go on up the creek and see what's in
+the ol' ruin."
+
+Dick obeyed by again pushing the boat along with the one oar. Dories said
+not a word as the punt moved slowly among the reeds that stood four feet
+above the water and were tangled and dense.
+
+"There's one lucky thing for us," Nann began, after having watched the
+dark water at the side of the craft. "That sea serpent you were telling
+about, Gib, couldn't hide in this marsh."
+
+"Maybe not," Dick agreed, "but it's a favorite feeding ground for slimy
+water snakes." Nann glanced anxiously at her friend, then, noting how
+pale she was, she changed the subject. "How still it is in here," she
+commented.
+
+A breeze rustled through the drying reed-tops, but there was indeed no
+other sound.
+
+In and out, the narrow creek wound, making so many turns that often they
+could not see three feet ahead of them.
+
+For a moment the four young people in the punt were silent, listening to
+the faint rustle of the dry reeds all about them in the swamp. There was
+no other sound save that made by the flat-bottomed boat, as Dick,
+standing in the stern, pushed it with one oar.
+
+"There's another curve ahead," Nann whispered. Somehow in that silent
+place they could not bring themselves to speak aloud.
+
+"Seems to me the water is getting very shallow," Dories observed. She was
+staring over one side of the boat watching for the slimy snakes Dick had
+told her made the marsh their feeding ground.
+
+"H-m-m! I wonder!" Nann, with half closed eyes looked meditatively ahead.
+
+"Wonder what?" her friend glanced up to inquire.
+
+"I was thinking that perhaps we won't be able to go much farther up this
+channel, since the tide is going out. The water in the marsh keeps
+getting lower and lower."
+
+"Gee-whiliker, Nann!" Dick looked alarmed. "I believe you're right. I've
+been thinking for some seconds that the pushing was harder than it has
+been."
+
+They had reached a turn in the narrow channel as he spoke, but, when he
+tried to steer the punt into it, the flat-bottomed boat stopped with such
+suddenness that, had he not been leaning hard on the oar, he would surely
+have been thrown into the muddy water. As it was, he lost his balance and
+fell on the broad stern seat. Dories, too, had been thrown forward, while
+Gib leaped to the bow to look ahead and see what had obstructed their
+progress.
+
+"Great fish-hooks! If we haven't run aground," was the result of his
+observation.
+
+"Nann's right. This here channel dries up with the tide goin' out."
+
+"Then the only way to get to the old ruin is to come when the turning
+tide fills this channel in the marsh," Dick put in.
+
+"Wall, it's powerful disappointin'," Gib looked his distress, "bein' as
+the tide won't turn till 'long about midnight, an' you've got to go back
+to Boston on the evening train."
+
+"I'd ought to go, to be there in time for school on Monday," the lad
+agreed.
+
+"Couldn't you make it if you took the early morning train?" Nann
+inquired.
+
+"May be so," Dick replied, "but we can decide that later. The big thing
+just now is, how're we going to get out of this creek?"
+
+"Why--" The girls looked helplessly from one boy to the other. "Is there
+any problem about it? Can't you just push out the way you pushed in?"
+
+Dick's expression betrayed his perplexity. "Hmm! I'm not at all sure,
+with the tide going out as fast as it is now."
+
+"Gracious!" Dories looked up in alarm. "We won't have to stay in this
+dreadful marsh until the tide turns, will we?" Then appealingly, "Oh,
+Dick, please do hurry and try to get us out of here. Aunt Jane will be
+terribly worried if we don't get home before dark."
+
+The boy addressed had already leaped to the stern of the boat and was
+pushing on the one oar with all his strength. Gib snatched the other oar
+and tried to help, but still they did not move. Then Nann had an
+inspiration. "Dori," she said, "you catch hold of the reeds on that side
+and I will on this and let's pull, too. Now, one, two, three! All
+together!"
+
+Their combined efforts proved successful. The punt floated, but it was
+quite evident that they would have to travel fast to keep from again
+being grounded, so they all four continued to push and pull, and it was
+with a sigh of relief that they at last reached deeper water as the
+channel widened into the sea.
+
+"Well, that certainly was a narrow escape," Nann exclaimed as the punt
+slipped out of the narrow channel of the marsh into the quiet waters of
+the cove.
+
+"Now we know why the pilot of the airplane left. He probably visits the
+old ruin only at high tide, when he is sure that there is water enough in
+the creek," Dick announced.
+
+Dories seemed greatly relieved that the expedition had returned to the
+open, and, as it was sheltered in the cove, the boys soon rowed across to
+the point of rocks. "If Gib could leave the punt here where the water is
+so sheltered and quiet, your mother, Dick, would not object even if you
+went out when the tide is high, would she?" Nann inquired.
+
+"No, indeed," the boy replied. "Mother merely had reference to the open
+sea. A punt would have little chance out there if it were caught between
+the surf and the rocks, but here it is always calm."
+
+While they had been talking, Gib had been busy letting his home-made
+anchor overboard. It was a heavy piece of iron tied to a rope, which in
+turn was fastened to the bow.
+
+"Hold on there, Cap'n!" Dick merrily called. "Let the passengers ashore
+before you anchor." Gib grinned as he drew the heavy piece of iron back
+into the punt. Then Dick rowed close to the rocks and assisted the girls
+out.
+
+"What shall we do now?" he turned to ask when he saw that Gib had pushed
+off again. He dropped the anchor a little more than a boat length from
+the point, pulled off his shoes and stockings and waded to the rocks.
+After putting them on again he joined the others, who had started to
+climb.
+
+When they reached the wide, flat "tiptop" rock Dories sank down,
+exclaiming, "Honestly, I never was so hungry before in all my life."
+Then, laughingly, she added, "Nann Sibbett, here we have been carrying
+that box of lunch all this time and forgot to eat it. The boys must be
+starved."
+
+"Whoopla!" Dick shouted. "Starved doesn't half express my famished
+condition. Does it yours, Gib?"
+
+The red-headed boy beamed. "I'm powerful hungry all right," he
+acknowledged, "but I'm sort o' used to that." However, he sat down when
+he was invited to do so and ate the good sandwiches given him with as
+much relish as the others.
+
+Half an hour later they were again on the sand walking toward the row of
+cottages. Nann glanced at the upper window of the Burton cabin, and Dick,
+noticing, glanced in the same direction. Then, smiling at the girl, he
+said, "I guess, after all, there has been no one in the cottage. The
+blind is still closed just as I left it yesterday."
+
+"We'll look again tonight," Nann said, adding, "We'll each have to carry
+a lantern."
+
+"What are you two planning?" Dories asked suspiciously.
+
+"Can't you guess the meaning that underlies our present conversation?"
+Nann smilingly inquired.
+
+"Goodness, I'm almost afraid that I can," was her friend's queer
+confession. "I do believe you are plotting a visit to the old ruin at the
+turn of the tide, and that will not be until midnight, Gib said."
+
+"It's something like that," Dick agreed.
+
+"Well, you can count me out." Dories shuddered as she spoke.
+
+Nann laughed. "I know just exactly what will happen (this teasingly) when
+you hear me tiptoeing down the back stairs. You'll dart after me; for you
+know you're afraid to stay alone in our loft at night."
+
+"You are wrong there," Dories contended. "Now that I know about the
+ghost, I won't be afraid to stay alone, and I would be terribly afraid to
+go to the ruin at midnight, even with three companions."
+
+"Speaking of lanterns," Dick put in, "if it's foggy we won't be able to
+go at all. That would be running unnecessary risks, but if it is clear,
+there ought to be a full moon shining along about midnight, and that will
+make all the light we will need." Then he hastened to add, "But we'll
+take lanterns, for we might need them inside the old ruin, and what is
+more, I'll take my flashlight."
+
+The boys had left the white horse tied to the cottage nearest the road.
+When they had mounted, Spindly started off as suddenly as hours before it
+had stopped.
+
+"Good-bye," Dick waved his cap to the girls, "we'll whistle when we get
+to the beach."
+
+"Just look at Spindly gallop," Dories said. "The poor thing is eager to
+get to its dinner, I suppose." Arm in arm they turned toward their
+home-cabin.
+
+"My, such exciting things are happening!" Nann exclaimed joyfully. "I
+wouldn't have missed this month by the sea for anything."
+
+Dories shuddered. "I'll have to confess that I'm not very keen about
+visiting the old ruin at----" She interrupted herself to cry out
+excitedly, "Nann, do look over toward the island. We forgot all about
+that sea plane. There it is just taking to the air. What do you suppose
+it has been doing out on that desolate island all this time?"
+
+Nann shook her head, then shaded her eyes to watch the airplane as it
+soared high, again headed for Boston.
+
+"Little do you guess, Mr. Pilot," she called to him, "that tonight we are
+to discover the secret of your visits to the old ruin."
+
+"Maybe!" Dories put in laconically.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+                        THE OLD RUIN AT MIDNIGHT
+
+
+Never had two girls been more interested and excited than were Dories and
+Nann as midnight neared. Of course they neither of them slept a wink nor
+had they undressed. Nann had truly prophesied. Dories declared that when
+she came to think of it, nothing could induce her to stay alone in that
+loft room at midnight, and that if she were to meet a ghost or any other
+mysterious person, she would rather meet him in company of Nann, Dick and
+Gib.
+
+Every hour after they retired, they crept from bed to gaze out of the
+small window which overlooked the ocean. At first the fog was so dense
+that they could see but dimly the white line of rushing surf out by the
+point of rocks.
+
+"Well, we might as well give up the plan," Dories announced as it neared
+eleven and the sky was still obscured.
+
+But Nann replied that when the moon was full it often succeeded in
+dispelling the fog by some magic it seemed to possess, and that she
+didn't intend to go to sleep until she was sure that the boys weren't
+coming. She declared that she wouldn't miss the adventure for anything.
+
+Dories fell asleep, however, and, for that matter, so, too, did Nann, and
+since they were both very weary from the unusual excitement and late
+hours, they would not have awakened until morning had it not been for a
+low whistle at the back of the cabin.
+
+Instantly Nann sprang up. "That must be Gib," she whispered. Then added,
+jubilantly: "It's as bright as day. The moon is shining now in all its
+splendor."
+
+In five seconds the two girls had crept down the outer stairway, and as
+they tiptoed across the back porch, two dark forms emerged from the
+shadows and approached them.
+
+"Hist!" Gib whispered melodramatically, bent on making the adventure as
+mysterious as possible. "You gals track along arter us fellows, and don't
+make any noise."
+
+Then without further parley, Gib darted into the shadow of the woodshed,
+and from there crept stealthily along back of the seven boarded-up
+cabins.
+
+"What's the idea of stealing along like this?" Nann inquired when the
+wide sandy spaces were reached.
+
+"We thought we'd keep hidden as much as possible," Dick told her. "For if
+that airplane pilot is anywhere around, we don't want him to get wise to
+us."
+
+"But, of course, he isn't around," Dories said. "How could he be? An
+airplane can't fly over our beach without being heard. It would waken us
+from the deepest sleep, I am sure."
+
+They were walking four abreast toward the point which loomed darkly ahead
+of them. "I suppose you're right," Dick agreed, "but it sort of adds to
+the zip of it to pretend we're going to steal upon that airplane pilot
+and catch him at whatever it is that he comes here to do."
+
+The girls did not need much assistance in climbing the rocks nor in
+descending on the side of the cove. Gibralter, as before, removed his
+shoes and stockings, waded out to the punt, drew up the anchor and then
+returned for the others. The moon had risen high enough in the clear
+starlit sky to shine down into the narrow channel in the marsh and, as
+the water deepened continually and was flowing inward, it was merely a
+matter of steering the flat-bottomed boat, which the boys did easily,
+Dick in the stern with an oar while Gib in the bow caught the reeds first
+on one side and then on the other, thus keeping the blunt nose of the
+punt always in the middle of the creek.
+
+"Sh! Don't say a loud word," Gib cautioned, as they reached the curve
+where the afternoon before they had run aground.
+
+"Goodness, you make me feel shivery all over," Dories whispered. "Who do
+you suppose would hear if we did speak out loud?"
+
+"Dunno," Dick replied, "but we won't take any chances."
+
+The creek was perceptibly widening and the rising tide carried them along
+more swiftly, but still the reeds were high over their heads and so, even
+though Dick was standing as he pushed with an oar, he could not see the
+old ruin, but abruptly the marsh ended and there, high and dry on a
+mound, stood the object of their search, looking more forlorn and haunted
+than it had from a distance.
+
+The boys had been about to run the boat up on the mound, when suddenly,
+and without a sound of warning, Dick shoved the punt as fast he could
+back into the shelter of the reeds from which they had just emerged.
+
+"Why d'y do that?" Gib inquired in a low voice. "D'y see anything that
+scared you, kid?"
+
+"I saw it, too!" Dories eyes were wide and startled. "That is, I thought
+I saw a light, but it went out so quickly I decided maybe it was the
+moonlight flashing on something."
+
+"Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't." Dick moved the punt close to the edge
+of the reeds that they might observe the ruin from a safe distance.
+
+"But who could be in there?" Nann wondered. "We have never seen anyone
+around except the pilot of the airplane and we have all agreed that he
+can't be here tonight."
+
+"No, he isn't!" Dick was fast recovering his courage. "I believe Dories
+may have been right Probably it was only reflected moonlight. Perhaps you
+girls had better remain in the punt while we fellows investigate."
+
+"No, indeed, we'll all go together." Nann settled the matter. "Now shove
+back up to the mound, Dick, and let's get out." This was done and the
+four young people climbed from the punt and stood for a long silent
+moment staring at the ruin that loomed so dark and desolate just ahead of
+them.
+
+"Thar 'tis! Thar's that light agin!" Gib seized his friend's arm and
+pointed, adding with conviction: "Dori was right. It's suthin' swingin'
+in the wind an' flashin' in the moonlight."
+
+"Gib," Nann said, "that is probably what the people in Siquaw Center have
+seen on moonlight nights."
+
+"Like's not!" the red-headed lad agreed. Then stealthily they tiptoed
+toward the two tall pillars that stood like ghostly sentinels in front of
+the roofless part of the house which had once been the salon.
+
+The side walls were crumbled, but the rear wall stood erect, supporting
+one side of the roof which tipped forward till it reached the ground,
+although one corner was upheld by a heap of fallen stone.
+
+"I suppose we'll have to creep beneath that corner if we want to see
+what's under the roof," Dick said. He looked anxiously at the girls as he
+spoke, but Nann replied briskly, "Of course we will. Who'll lead the
+way?"
+
+"Since I have a flashlight, I will," the city boy offered. "Here, Nann,
+give me your lantern and I'll light it. Then if you girls get separated
+from us boys, you won't be in the dark."
+
+"Goodness, Dick!" Dories shivered. "What in the world is going to
+separate us? Can't we keep all close together?"
+
+"Course we can," Gib cheerfully assured her. "Dick kin go in furst, you
+girls follow, an' I'll be rear guard."
+
+"You mean I can go in when I find an opening," the city boy turned back
+to whisper. Somehow they just couldn't bring themselves to talk out loud.
+
+Nann held her lantern high and looked at the corner nearest where a
+crumbling wall upheld the roof. "There ought to be room to creep in over
+there," she pointed, "if it weren't for all that debris on the ground."
+
+"We'll soon dispose of that," Dick said, going to the spot and placing
+his flashlight on a rock that it might illumine their labors. The two
+boys fell to work with a will tossing away bricks and stones and broken
+pieces of plaster.
+
+At last an opening large enough to be entered on hands and knees
+appeared. Dick cautioned the girls ta stay where they were until he had
+investigated. Dories gave a little startled cry when the boy disappeared,
+fearing that the wall or the roof might fall on him. After what seemed
+like a very long time, they heard a low whistle on the inside of the
+opening. Gib peered under and received whispered instructions from Dick.
+"It's safe enough as far as I can see. Bring the girls in." And so Dories
+crept through the opening, followed by Nann and Gib. Rising to their feet
+they found themselves in what had one time been a large and handsomely
+furnished drawing-room. A huge chandelier with dangling crystals still
+hung from the cross-beams, and in the night wind that entered from above
+they kept up a constant low jangling noise. Heavy pieces of mahogany
+furniture were tilted at strange angles where the rotting floor had given
+way.
+
+"Watch your step, girls," Dick, in the lead, turned to caution. "See,
+there's a big hole ahead. I'll go around it first to be sure that the
+boards will hold. Aha, yonder is a partition that is still standing. I
+wonder what room is beyond that."
+
+"Look out, Dick!" came in a low terrorized cry from Dories. The boy
+turned to see the girl, eyes wide and frightened, pointing toward a dark
+corner ahead. "There's a man crouching over there. I'm sure of it! I saw
+his face."
+
+Instantly Dick swung the flashlight until it illumined the corner toward
+which Dories was still pointing. There was unmistakably a face looking at
+them with piercing dark eyes that were heavily overhung with shaggy grey
+brows.
+
+For one terrorized moment the four held their breath. Even Dick and Gib
+were puzzled. Then, with an assumption of bravery, the former called:
+"Say, who are you? Come on out of there. We're not here to harm
+anything."
+
+But the upper part of the face (that was all they could see) did not
+change expression, and so Dick advanced nearer. Then his relieved
+laughter pealed forth.
+
+"Some man--that," he said, as he flashed the light beyond the pile of
+debris which partly concealed the face.
+
+"Why, if it isn't an old painting!" Nann ejaculated.
+
+And that, indeed, was what it proved to be. Battered by its fall, the
+broken frame stood leaning against a partition.
+
+"I believe its a portrait of that cruel old Colonel Woodbury himself,"
+Dories remarked. Then eagerly added, "I do wish we could find a picture
+of that sweet girl, his daughter. Ever since Gib told us her story I have
+thought of her as being as lovely as a princess. Though I don't suppose a
+real princess is always beautiful."
+
+"I should say not! I've seen pictures of them that couldn't hold a candle
+to Nann, here." This was Dick's blunt, boyish way of saying that he
+admired the fearless girl.
+
+Gib, having found a heavy cane, was poking around in the piles of debris
+that bordered the partition and his exclamation of delight took the
+others to his side as rapidly as they could go.
+
+"What have you found, old man?" Dick asked, eagerly peering at a heap of
+rubbish.
+
+"Nuther picture, seems like, or leastwise I reckon it's one."
+
+Gib busied himself tossing stones and fragments of plaster to one side,
+and when he could free it, he lifted a canvas which faced the wall and
+turned it so that light fell full upon it.
+
+"Gee-whiliker, it's yer princess all right, all right!" he averred. "Say,
+wasn't she some beaut, though?"
+
+There were sudden tears in Nann's eyes as she spoke. "Oh, you poor, poor
+girl," she said as she bent above the pictured face, "how you have
+suffered since that long-ago day when some artist painted your portrait."
+
+"Even then she wasn't happy," Dories put in softly. "See that little
+half-wistful smile? It's as though she felt much more like crying."
+
+"And now she is a woman and over in Europe somewhere with a little girl
+and boy," Nann took up the tale; but Gib amended: "Not so very little.
+Didn't we cal'late that if they're livin' the gal'd be about sixteen, an'
+the boy eighteen or nineteen?"
+
+"Why, that's so." Nann looked up brightly. "When I spoke I was
+remembering the story as you told it, and how sad the young mother looked
+when she landed from the snow-white yacht and led a little boy and girl
+up to this very house to beg her father to forgive her. But I recall now,
+you said that was at least ten years ago."
+
+"What shall we do with this beautiful picture?" Dories inquired. "It
+doesn't seem a bit right to leave it here in all this rubbish, now that
+we've found it."
+
+"Let's take it into the next room," Dick said; "maybe we'll find a better
+place to leave it."
+
+They had reached an opening in the rear partition, but the heavy carved
+door still hung on one hinge, obstructing their passage.
+
+"We _must_ get through somehow," Nann, the adventurous, said. "I feel in
+my bones that the next room holds something that will help solve the
+mystery of the air pilot's visits."
+
+Dories held the painting while Nann flashed the light where it would best
+aid the boys in removing the debris that held the old door in such a way
+that it obstructed their passage into the room back of the salon.
+
+A long half-hour passed and the boys labored, lifting stones and heavy
+pieces of ceiling, but, when at last the floor space in front of the
+heavy door was cleared, they found that something was holding it tight
+shut on the other side.
+
+"Gee-whiliker!" Dick ejaculated, removing his cap and wiping his brow.
+"Talk about buried treasure. If it's as hard to get at as it is to get
+through this door, I----"
+
+He was interrupted by the younger girl, who said: "Let's pretend there is
+a treasure behind this door, and after all, maybe there is. Perhaps the
+air pilot is a smuggler of some kind and brings things here to hide."
+Dories had made a suggestion which had not occurred to the boys.
+
+"That's so!" Dick agreed. "But if he gets into the next room, he must
+have an entrance around at the back of the ruin. No one has been through
+this door since the flood undermined the old house."
+
+Gib was still trying to open the stubborn door. He put his shoulder
+against it. "Come on, Dick, help a fellow, will you?" he sang out.
+
+The boys pushed as hard as they could and the door moved just the least
+bit, then seemed to wedge in a way that no further assaults upon it could
+effect.
+
+"Whizzle! What if that pilot feller is on the other side holdin' it. What
+if he is?"
+
+"But he couldn't be," Nann protested. "We all agreed long ago that he
+couldn't be here because how could he arrive in the airplane without
+being heard?"
+
+"I know what I'm a-goin' to do," Gib's expression was determined. "I'm
+a-goin' to smash a hole in that ol' door and crawl through."
+
+Dick sprang to get a heavy stone from one of the crumbling side walls and
+Gib, having procured another, the two boys began a battering which soon
+resulted in a loud splintering sound and one of the heavy panels was
+crashed in.
+
+Gib wiggled his way through and Dick handed him the searchlight. "Huh,
+we're bright uns, we are!" came in a muffled voice from the other room.
+"Thar's as much rubbish a holdin' the door on this side as thar was on
+the other, but I, fer one, jest won't move a stick o' it."
+
+"No need to!" Nann said blithely. "Make that hole a little bigger and we
+can all go through the way you did."
+
+This was quickly done and the boys assisted the two girls through the
+opening. Then they stood close together looking about them as Dick
+flashed the light. The room was not quite as much of a wreck as the salon
+had been. In it a mahogany table stood and the chairs with heavily carved
+legs and backs had been little harmed. With a little cry of delight, Nann
+dragged Dories toward an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard. "Don't you
+love it?" she said enthusiastically, turning a glowing face toward her
+companion. "Wouldn't you adore having it?" But before Dories could voice
+her admiration, Dick, having looked at his watch, exclaimed:
+"Gee-whiliker, I'll have to beat it if I am to catch that early train
+back to Boston. I hate to break up the party." He hesitated, glancing
+from one to the other.
+
+"Of course you must go!" Nann, the sensible, declared. "There's another
+week-end coming." Then turning to her friend, who was still holding the
+picture, she said: "Dori, let's leave the painting of our princess
+standing on the old mahogany sideboard." When this had been done, she
+addressed the picture: "Good-bye, Lady of the Phantom Yacht. Keep those
+sweet blue eyes of yours wide open that you may tell us what mysterious
+things go on in this old ruin while we are away."
+
+The pictured eyes were to gaze upon more than the pictured lips would be
+able to tell.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+                         LETTERS OF IMPORTANCE
+
+
+The young people found the grey of dawn in the sky when they emerged
+through the hole under one corner of the roof and a new terror presented
+itself. "What if the receding tide had left their boat high and dry." But
+luckily there was still enough water in the narrow creek to take them out
+to the cove. Since they were in haste, the sail was put in place and a
+brisk wind from the land took them out and around the point. There was
+still too high a surf to make possible a landing on the platform rock and
+so the girls were obliged to go with the boys as far as the inlet in
+which Gib kept his punt. The white horse had been tied to a scrubby tree
+near, but, before he mounted, Dick took off his hat and held out a hand
+to each of the girls in turn, assuring them that he had been ever so glad
+to meet them and that if all went well, he would return the following
+week-end.
+
+"And we will promise not to visit the old ruin again until you come,"
+Nann told him. The boy's face brightened. "O, I say!" he exclaimed,
+"that's too much to ask." But Gib assured him that half the fun was
+having him along.
+
+Just before they rode away, Dick turned to call: "Keep a watch-out on our
+cabin, will you, Nann? I really don't believe anyone has been there,
+however. Mother remembered that she had left the back door open."
+
+"All right. We will. Good-bye."
+
+Slowly the girls walked toward their home-cabin. "Do you suppose we ought
+to tell Aunt Jane that we visited the old ruin at midnight?" Dories
+asked.
+
+"Why, no, dear, I don't," was the thoughtful reply. "Your Aunt Jane told
+us to do anything we could find to amuse us, don't you recall, that very
+first day after we had opened up the cottage and were wondering what to
+do?"
+
+Dories nodded. "I remember. She must have heard us talking while we were
+dusting and straightening the living-room. That was the day that I said I
+believed the place was haunted, and you said you hoped there was a ghost
+or something mysterious."
+
+Nann stopped and faced her companion. Her eyes were merry. "Dori Moore,"
+she exclaimed, "I believe your aunt _did_ hear my wish and that she has
+been trying to grant it by writing those mysterious messages and leaving
+them where we would find them."
+
+"Maybe you are right," her friend agreed. "I wish we could catch her in
+the act." Then Dories added: "Nann, if Aunt Jane is really doing that
+just for fun, then she can't be such an old grouch as I thought her. You
+know I told you how I was sure that I heard her chuckling."
+
+The older girl nodded, then as the back porch of the cabin had been
+reached, they went quietly up the steps and into the kitchen.
+
+"It's going to be a long week waiting for Dick to return," Dories said as
+she began to make a fire in the stove. "What shall we do to pass away the
+time?"
+
+Nann smiled brightly. "O, we'll find plenty to do!" she said. "There is
+that box of books in the loft. Surely there will be a few that we would
+like to read and that your Aunt Jane would like to hear. We have left her
+alone so much," Nann continued, "don't you think this last week that we
+ought to spend more time adding to her happiness if we can?"
+
+Dories flushed. "I wish I'd been the one to say that," she confessed,
+"since Great-Aunt Jane loved my father so much when he was a boy."
+
+Although the girls had their breakfast early, it was not until the usual
+hour that Dories took the tray in to her aunt. Nann followed with
+something that had been forgotten. They were surprised to see the old
+woman propped up in bed reading the book of ghost stories which Dories
+had left in the room. She fairly beamed at them when they entered. Then
+she asked, "Do you girls believe in ghosts?"
+
+"Oh, no. Aunt Jane," Dories began rather hesitatingly. "That is, I don't
+believe that I do."
+
+The sharp grey eyes, in which a twinkle seemed to be lurking, turned
+toward Nann. "Do you?" she asked briefly.
+
+"No, indeed, Miss Moore, I do not," was the emphatic reply, then, just
+for mischief, the girl asked, "Do you?"
+
+"Indeed I do," was the unexpected response. "A ghost visited me last
+night and told me that you girls had gone with Gibralter Strait and the
+Burton boy over to visit the old ruin."
+
+"Aunt Jane! Miss Moore!" came in two amazed exclamations.
+
+"We did go. I sincerely hope you do not object," the older girl hastened
+to say.
+
+"No, I don't object. There's nothing over there that can hurt you. Now
+I'd like my breakfast, if you please."
+
+When the girls returned to the kitchen, Dories whispered, "Nann, how in
+the world did she know?"
+
+The older girl shook her head. "Mysteries seem to be piling up instead of
+being solved," she said.
+
+"Do you suppose Aunt Jane knows who the air pilot is and why he goes to
+the old ruin?" Dories wondered as they went about their morning tasks.
+
+"I'll tell you what, let's stay around home pretty closely for a few days
+and see if anyone does visit Aunt Jane, shall we?"
+
+The old woman seemed to be glad to have the companionship of the girls.
+They read to her in the morning, and on the third afternoon their
+suspicions were aroused by the fact that their hostess asked them why
+they stayed around the cabin all of the time. It was quite evident to
+them that she wanted to be left alone.
+
+"Would it be too far for you to walk into town and see if there isn't
+some mail for me?" Miss Moore inquired early on the fourth morning of the
+week. "I am expecting some very important letters. That boy Gibralter was
+told to bring them the minute they came, but these Straits are such a
+shiftless lot." Then, almost eagerly, looking from one girl to another,
+she inquired: "It isn't too far for you to walk, is it? You can hire
+Gibralter to bring you back in the stage."
+
+"We'd love to go," Nann said most sincerely, and Dories echoed the
+sentiment. The truth was the girls had been puzzled because Gib had not
+appeared. Indeed, nothing had happened for four days. Although they had
+searched everywhere they could think of, there had been no message for
+them telling in how many days they would know all. An hour later, when
+they were walking along the marsh-edged sandy road leading to town, they
+discussed the matter freely, since no one could possibly overhear. "If
+Aunt Jane really has been writing those notes and leaving them for us to
+find, do you suppose that she has stopped writing them because she thinks
+we suspect her of being the ghost?" Dories asked.
+
+"I don't see why she should suspect, as we have said nothing in her
+hearing; in fact, we were out on the beach when I told you that I thought
+your Aunt Jane might be writing the notes," Nann replied.
+
+Dories nodded. "That is true," she agreed. Then she stopped and stared at
+her companion as she exclaimed: "Nann Sibbett, I don't believe that Aunt
+Jane writes them at all. I believe Gibralter Strait does. There hasn't
+been a note for four days anywhere in the cabin, and Gib hasn't been to
+the point in all that time. There, now, doesn't that seem to prove my
+point?"
+
+"It surely does!" Nann said as they started walking on toward the town.
+"Only I thought we agreed that probably Gib couldn't write. But I do
+recall that he said he went to a country school in the winter months when
+his father didn't need him to help in the store."
+
+"If Gib writes them he is a good actor," Dories commented. "He certainly
+seemed very much surprised when we showed him the notes, you remember."
+
+Nann agreed. "It's all very puzzling," she said, then added, "What a
+queer little hamlet this is?" They were passing the first house in Siquaw
+Center. "I don't suppose there are more than eight houses in all," she
+continued. "What do you suppose the people do for a living?"
+
+"Work on the railroad, I suppose," Nann guessed. They had reached the
+ramshackle building that held the post office and general store when they
+saw Gib driving the stage around from the barns. "Hi thar!" he called to
+them excitedly. "I got some mail for yo'uns. I was jest a-goin' to fetch
+it over, like I promised Miss Moore. It didn't come till jest this
+mornin'. Thar's some mail for yo'uns, too. A letter from Dick Burton. He
+writ me one along o' yourn."
+
+The girls climbed up on the high seat by Gib's side. The day had been
+growing very warm as noon neared and they had found it hard walking in
+the sand, and so they were not sorry that they were to ride back. Gib
+gave them two long legal envelopes addressed to Miss Moore and the letter
+from Dick.
+
+Eagerly Nann opened it, as it had been written especially to her, and
+after reading it she exclaimed: "Well, isn't this queer?"
+
+"What?" Dories, who was consumed with curiosity, exclaimed.
+
+"Dick writes that he told his mother that he had found that upper front
+room window open and the blind swinging, but she declares that she
+_knows_ all of the upper windows were closed and the blinds securely
+fastened. She had been in every room to try them just before she left,
+and that was what had delayed her so long that, in her hurry, she took
+the key out of the back door, hung it in its hiding place, without having
+turned it in the lock. Dick says that he's wild to get back to Siquaw,
+and that the first thing he is going to do is to search in that upper
+room for clues."
+
+Gib nodded. "That's what he wrote into my letter. He's comin' down Friday
+arter school lets out, so's we'll have more time over to the ruin. Dick
+says he's sot on ferritin' out what that pilot fella does thar."
+
+Old Spindly seemed to feel spryer than usual and trotted along the sandy
+road at such a pace that in a very little while they had reached the end
+of it at the beach.
+
+"Wall, so long," Gib called when the girls had climbed down from the high
+seat, but before they had turned to go, he ejaculated: "By time, if I
+didn't clear fergit ter give yo'uns the rest o' yer mail. Here 'tis!"
+Leaning down, he handed them another envelope. Before they could look at
+it, he had snapped his whip and started back toward town. The girls
+watched the old coach sway in the sand for a minute, then they glanced at
+the envelope. On it in red ink was written both of their names.
+
+"Well of all queer things!" Nann ejaculated. Tearing it open, they found
+a message: "_Today you will know all._"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+                        A SURPRISING REVELATION
+
+
+The girls stood where Gib had left them staring at each other in puzzled
+amazement. "Well, what do you make of it?" Dories was the first to
+exclaim. Nann laughingly shook her head. "I don't know unless this
+confirms our theory that Gib writes the notes. I almost think it does."
+
+They started walking toward the cabin. "Well, time will tell and a short
+time, too, if we are to know all today," Dories remarked, then added,
+"That long walk has made me ravenously hungry and we haven't a thing
+cooked up." Then she paused and sniffed. "What is that delicious odor? It
+smells like ham and something baking, doesn't it?"
+
+"We surely are both imaginative," Nann agreed, "for I also scent a most
+appetizing aroma on the air. But who could be cooking? We left Miss Moore
+in bed and anyway, of course, it is not she."
+
+They had reached the kitchen door and saw that it was standing open and
+that the tempting odor was actually wafting therefrom. Puzzled indeed,
+they bounded up the steps.
+
+A surprising sight met their gaze. Miss Jane Moore, dressed in a soft
+lavender gown partly covered with a fresh white apron, turned from the
+stove to beam upon them; her eyes were twinkling, her cheeks were rosy
+from the excitement and the heat.
+
+"Aunt Jane! Miss Moore!" the girls cried in astonishment. "Ought you to
+be cooking? Are you strong enough?"
+
+"Of course I am strong enough," was the brisk reply. "Haven't I been
+resting for nearly two weeks? I thought probably you girls would be
+hungry after your long walk." Then, as she saw the legal envelopes, she
+added with apparent satisfaction: "Well, they have come at last, have
+they? Put them in on my dresser, Dories; then come right back. It is such
+a fine day I thought we would take the table out on the sheltered side
+porch and have a sort of picnic-party."
+
+It was hard for the girls to believe that this was the same old woman who
+had been so grouchy most of the time since they had known her. Would
+surprises never cease? The girls were delighted with the plan and carried
+the small kitchen table to the sunny, sheltered side porch and soon had
+it set for three.
+
+When they returned they found the flushed old woman taking a pan of
+biscuits from the oven. How good they looked! Then came baked ham and
+sweet potatoes, and a brown Betty pudding. The elderly cook seemed to
+greatly enjoy the girls' surprise and delight. They made her comfortable
+in an easy willowed chair at one end of the table facing the sea and,
+when the viands had been served, they ate with great relish. To their
+amazement their hostess partook of the entire menu with as evident a zest
+as their own. Dories could no longer remain silent. "Aunt Jane," she
+blurted out, "ought you to eat so heartily after such a long fast? You
+haven't had anything but tea and toast since we came."
+
+Nann had glanced quickly and inquiringly at the old woman, and the
+suspicions she had previously entertained were confirmed by the merry
+reply: "I'll have to confess that I've been an old fraud." Miss Moore was
+chuckling again. "Every time you girls went away and I was sure you were
+going to be gone for some time, I got up and had a good meal."
+
+"But, Aunt Jane," Dories' brow gathered in a puzzled frown, "why did you
+have to do that? It would have been a lot more fun all along to have had
+our dinners all together like this."
+
+Miss Moore nodded. "Yes, it would have been, but I'm an odd one. There
+was something I wanted to find out and I took my own queer way of going
+about it."
+
+"D--did you find it out, Aunt Jane?" Dories asked, almost anxiously.
+
+"Yes and no," was the enigmatical answer. Then, tantalizingly, she
+remarked as she leaned back in her comfortable willow chair, having
+finished her share of the pudding, "This is wonderful weather, isn't it,
+girls? If it keeps up I won't want to go back next Monday. Perhaps we'll
+stay a week longer as I had planned when we first came." Then before the
+girls could reply, the grey eyes that could be so sharply penetrating
+turned to scrutinize Dories. "You look much better than you did when we
+came. You had a sort of fretful look as though you had a grudge against
+life. Now you actually look eager and interested." Then, after a glance
+at Nann, "You are both getting brown as Indians."
+
+Would Miss Moore never come to the subject that was uppermost in the
+thoughts of the two girls? If she had written the message telling them
+that today they were to know all, why didn't she begin the story, if it
+was to be a story?
+
+How Dories hoped that she was to hear what had become of the fortune she
+had always believed should have been her father's. Her own mother had
+never told her anything about it, but she had heard them talking before
+her father died; she had not understood them, but as she grew older she
+seemed vaguely to remember that there should have been money from
+somewhere, enough to have kept poverty from their door and more,
+probably, since her father's Aunt Jane had so much.
+
+But Miss Moore rose without having satisfied their burning curiosity.
+"Now, girls," she said, "I'll go in and read my letters while you wash
+the dishes. Later, when the fog drifts in, build a fire on the hearth and
+I'll tell you a story." Then she left them, going to her own room and
+closing the door.
+
+"I'm so excited that I can hardly carry the dishes without dropping
+them," Dories confided to Nann when at last they had returned the table
+to its place in the kitchen and were busily washing and drying the
+dishes. "What do you suppose the story is to be about?"
+
+"You and your mother and father chiefly, I believe," Nann said with
+conviction.
+
+"Aunt Jane's saying that she had a story to tell us proves, doesn't it,
+that she wrote the messages?"
+
+"I think so, Dori."
+
+"I hope the fog will come in early," the younger girl remarked as she
+hung up the dish-wiper on the line back of the stove.
+
+"It will. It always does. Now let's go out to the shed and bring in a big
+armful of driftwood. There's one log that I've been saving for some
+special occasion. Surely this is it."
+
+As Nann had said, the fog came in soon after midafternoon; the girls had
+drawn the comfortable willow chair close to the hearth. The wood was in
+place and eagerly the girls awaited the coming of their hostess. At last
+the bedroom door opened and Miss Moore, without the apron over her
+lavender dress, emerged. Although she smiled at them, the discerning Nann
+decided that the letters had contained some disappointing news. Dories at
+once set fire to the driftwood and a cheerful blaze leaped up. When Miss
+Moore was seated the girls sat on lower chairs close together. Their
+faces told their eager curiosity.
+
+Glancing from one to the other, their hostess said: "Dori, you and Nann
+have been the best of friends for years, I think you wrote me."
+
+"Oh, yes, Aunt Jane," was the eager reply, "we started in kindergarten
+together and we've been in the same classes through first year High, but
+now Nann's father has taken her away from me. They are going to live in
+Boston. And so a favorite dream of ours will never be fulfilled, and that
+was to graduate together."
+
+"If only your mother would consent to come and live with me, then your
+wish would be fulfilled," the old woman began when Dories exclaimed,
+"Why, Aunt Jane, I didn't even know that you _wanted_ us to live with you
+in Boston."
+
+Miss Moore nodded gravely. "But I do and have. I have written your mother
+repeatedly, since my dear nephew died, telling her that I would like you
+three to make your home with me, but it seems that she cannot forget."
+
+"Forget what?" Dories leaned forward to inquire. Nann had been right, she
+was thinking. The something they were to know did relate to her father's
+affairs, she was now sure.
+
+The old woman seemed not to have heard, for she continued looking
+thoughtfully at the fire. "I know that she has forgiven," she said at
+last. "Your mother is too noble a woman not to do that, but her pride
+will not let her forget." Then, turning toward the girls who sat each
+with a hand tightly clasped in the others, the speaker continued: "I must
+begin at the beginning to make the sad story clear. I loved your father,
+as I would have loved a son. I brought him up when his parents were gone.
+The money belonged to my father and he used to say that he would leave
+your father's share in my keeping, as he believed in my judgment. I was
+to turn it over to my nephew when I thought best." She was silent a
+moment, then said: "When your father was old enough to marry, I wanted
+him to choose a girl I had selected, but instead, when he went away to
+study art, he married a school teacher of whom I had never heard. I
+believed that she was designing and marrying him for his money, and I
+wrote him that unless he freed himself from the union I would never give
+him one cent. Of course he would not do that, and rightly. Later, in my
+anger, I turned over to him some oil stock which had proved valueless and
+told him that was all he was to have. Then began long, lonely years for
+me because I never again heard from the nephew whose boyish love had been
+the greatest joy life had ever brought me. I was too stubborn to give him
+the money which legally I had the right to withhold from him, and he was
+so hurt that he would not ask my forgiveness. But, when I heard that my
+boy had died, my heart broke, and I knew myself for what I was--a
+selfish, stubborn old woman who had not deserved love and consideration.
+Then, but far too late, I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of your
+mother. I wrote, begging her to come and bring her two children to my
+home. I told her how desolate I had been since my boy, your father, had
+left. Very courteously your mother wrote that, as long as she could sew
+for a living for herself and her two children, she would not accept
+charity. Then I conceived the plan of becoming acquainted with you, for
+two reasons: one that I might discover if in any way you resembled your
+father, and the other was that I wanted you to use your influence to
+induce your mother to forget, as well as forgive, and to live with me in
+Boston and make my cheerless mansion of a house into a real home."
+
+She paused and Dories, seeing that there were tears in the grey eyes,
+impulsively reached out a hand and took the wrinkled one nearest her.
+
+"Dear Aunt Jane, how you have suffered." Nann noted with real pleasure
+that her friend's first reaction had been pity for the old woman and not
+rebellion because of the act that had caused her to be brought up in
+poverty. "Mother has always said that you meant to be kind, she was
+convinced of that, but she never told me the story. This is the first
+time that I understood what had happened. Truly, Aunt Jane, if you really
+wish it, I shall urge Mother to let us all three come and live with you.
+Selfishly I would love to, because I would be near Nann, if for no other
+reason, but I have another reason. I believe my father would wish it.
+Mother has often told me that, as a boy, he loved you."
+
+The old woman held the girl's hand in a close clasp and tears unheeded
+fell over her wrinkled cheeks. "But it's too late now," she said
+dismally.
+
+Dories and Nann exchanged surprised glances. "Too late, Aunt Jane?"
+Dories inquired. "Do you mean that you do not care to have us now?"
+
+"No, indeed, not that!" The old woman wiped away the tears, then smiled
+tremulously. "I haven't finished the story as yet. This is the last
+chapter, I fear. I ought to be glad for your mother's sake, but O, I have
+been so lonely."
+
+Then, seeing the intense eagerness in her niece's face, she concluded
+with, "I must not keep you in such suspense, my dear. That long legal
+envelope brought me news from your father's lawyer. It is news that your
+mother has already received, I presume. The stock, which I turned over to
+your father years ago, believing it to be worthless, has turned out to be
+of great value. Your mother will have a larger income than my own, and
+now, of course, she will not care to make her home with me."
+
+"O, Aunt Jane!" To the surprise of both of the others, the girl threw her
+arms about the old woman's neck and clung to her, sobbing as though in
+great sorrow, but Nann knew that the tears were caused by the sudden
+shock of the joyful revelation. The old woman actually kissed the girl,
+and then said: "I expected to be very sad because I cannot do something
+for you all to prove the deep regret I feel for my unkind action, but,
+instead, I am glad, for I know that only in this way would your mother
+acquire the real independence which means happiness for her." With a
+sigh, she continued: "I've lived alone for many years, I suppose I can go
+on living alone until the end of time." Then she added, a twinkle again
+appearing in her grey eyes, "and now you know all."
+
+"O, Aunt Jane, then you _did_ write those messages and leave them for us
+to find?"
+
+"I plead guilty," the old woman confessed. "I overheard you and Nann
+saying that you wished something mysterious would happen. I had been
+wondering when to tell you the story, and I decided to wait until I heard
+from the lawyer. I know you are wondering how Gibralter Strait happened
+to give you that last message the very day a letter came telling about
+the stock. That is very simple. One day when Mr. Strait came for a
+grocery order, you were all away somewhere. I gave him that last message
+and told him to keep it in our box at the office until a letter should
+arrive from my lawyer, then they were to be brought over and that letter
+was to be given to you girls." The old woman leaned back in her chair and
+it was quite evident that her recent emotion had nearly exhausted her.
+Nann, excusing herself thoughtfully, left the other two alone.
+
+"Dori," the old woman said tenderly, "as you grow older, don't let
+circumstances of any nature make you cold and critical. If I had been
+loving and kind when your girl mother married my boy, my life, instead of
+being bleak and barren, would have been a happy one. No one knows how I
+have grieved; how my unkindness has haunted me."
+
+Just then Dories thought of her sweet-faced mother who had borne the
+trials of poverty so bravely, and again she heard her saying, "The only
+ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving words that might have
+been spoken and loving deeds that might have been done."
+
+Impulsively the girl leaned over and kissed the wrinkled face. "I love
+you, Aunt Jane," she whispered. "And I shall beg Mother to let us all
+live together in your home, if it is still your wish." Then, as Miss
+Moore had risen, seeming suddenly feeble, Dories sprang up and helped her
+to her room and remained there until the old woman was in her bed.
+
+When the girl went out to the kitchen where her friend was preparing
+supper, she exclaimed, half laughing and half crying: "Nann Sibbett, I'm
+so brimming full of conflicting emotions, I don't feel at all real. Pinch
+me, please, and see if I am."
+
+"Instead I'll give you a hard hug; a congratulatory one. There! Did that
+seem real?" Then Nann added in her most sensible, matter-of-fact voice:
+"Now, wake up, Dori. You mustn't go around in a trance. Of course the
+only mystery that _you_ are interested in is solved, and wonderfully
+solved, but I'm just as keen as ever to know the secret the old ruin is
+holding."
+
+"I'll try to be!" Dories promised, then confessed: "But, honestly, I am
+not a bit curious about any mystery, now that my own is solved." A moment
+later she asked: "Nann, do you suppose Mother will want me to come home
+right away?"
+
+"Why, I shouldn't think so, Dori," her friend replied. "You always hear
+from your mother on Friday, so wait and see what tomorrow brings."
+
+The morrow was to hold much of interest for both of the girls.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+                             PUZZLED AGAIN
+
+
+As soon as their breakfast was over, Dories asked her Aunt if she were
+willing that the girls go to Siquaw Center for the mail. "I always get a
+letter from Mother on the Friday morning train," was the excuse she gave,
+"and, of course, I am simply wild to hear what she will have to say
+today; that is, if she does know about--well, about what you told us that
+father's lawyer had written."
+
+Miss Moore was glad to be alone, for she had had a sleepless night. She
+had long dreamed that, perhaps, when she became acquainted with her
+niece, that young person might be able to influence the stubborn mother
+to accept the home that the old woman had offered, and that peace might
+again be restored to the lonely, repentant heart. But now, just as that
+dream seemed about to be fulfilled, the mother was placed in a position
+of complete independence, and so, of course, she would never be willing
+to share the home of her husband's great-aunt. The desolate loneliness of
+the years ahead, however few they might be, depressed the old woman
+greatly. Dories, seeing tears in the grey eyes, stooped impulsively, and,
+for the second time, she kissed her great-aunt. "If you will let me, I'm
+coming to visit you often," she whispered, as though she had read her
+aunt's thoughts. Then away the two girls went.
+
+It was a glorious morning and they skipped along as fast as they could on
+the sandy road. Mrs. Strait, with a baby on one arm, was tending the
+general store and post office when the girls entered. No one else was in
+sight.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Strait. Is there any mail for Miss Dories Moore?"
+that young maiden inquired.
+
+"Yeah, thar is, an' a picher card for tother young miss," was the welcome
+reply.
+
+Dories fairly pounced on the letter that was handed her. "Good, it _is_
+from Mother! I am almost sure that she will want me to come home," she
+exclaimed gleefully. But when the message had been read, Dories looked up
+with a puzzled expression. "How queer!" she said. "Mother doesn't say one
+thing about the stock; not even that she has heard about it, but she does
+say that she and Brother are leaving today on a business journey and that
+she may not write again for some time. I'll read you what she says at the
+end: 'Daughter dear, if your Aunt Jane wishes to return to Boston before
+you again hear from me, I would like you to remain with her until I send
+for you. Peter is standing at my elbow begging me to tell you that he is
+going to travel on a train just as you did. I judge from your letters
+that you and Nann are having an interesting time after all, but, of
+course, you would be happy, I am sure, anywhere with Nann!'" Dories
+looked up questioningly. "Don't you think it is very strange that Mother
+should go somewhere and not tell me where or why?"
+
+Nann laughed. "Maybe she thought that she would add another mystery to
+those we are trying to solve," she suggested, but Dories shook her head.
+"No, that wasn't Mother's reason. Perhaps--O, well, what's the use of
+guessing? Who was your card from?"
+
+"Dad, of course. I judge that he will be glad when his daughter returns.
+O, Dori," Nann interrupted herself to exclaim, "do look at that pair of
+black eyes peering at us out of that bundle!" She nodded toward the baby,
+wrapped in a blanket, that had been placed in a basket on the counter.
+
+The girls leaned over the little creature, who actually tried to talk to
+them but ended its chatter with a cracked little crow. "He ain't a mite
+like Gib," the pleased mother told them. "The rest of us is sandy
+complected, but this un is black as a crow, an' jest as jolly all the
+time as yo'uns see him now."
+
+"What is the little fellow's name, Mrs. Strait?" Nann asked.
+
+The woman looked anxiously toward the door; then said in a low voice:
+"I'm wantin' to give the little critter a Christian name--Moses, Jacop,
+or the like, but his Pa is set on the notion of namin' 'em all after
+geography straits, an' I ain't one to hold out about nothin'." She
+sighed. "But it's long past time to christen the poor little mite."
+
+Nann and Dories tried hard not to let their mirth show in their faces.
+The older girl inquired: "Why hasn't he been christened, Mrs. Strait?
+Can't you decide on a name?"
+
+"Wall, yo' see it's this a-way," the gaunt, angular woman explained. "Gib
+didn't fetch home his geography books, an' school don't open up till snow
+falls in these here parts. So baby'll have to wait, I reckon, bein' as
+Gib don't recollect no strait names." Then, with hope lighting her plain
+face, the woman asked: "Do you girls know any of them geography names?"
+
+Dories and Nann looked at each other blankly. "Why, there is Magellan,"
+one said. "And Dover," the other supplemented.
+
+Mrs. Strait looked pleased. "Seems like that thar Dover one ought to do
+as wall as any. Please to write it down so's Pa kin see it an' tother un
+along side of it."
+
+The girls left the store as soon as they could, fearing that they would
+have to laugh, and they did not want to hurt the mother's feelings, and
+so, after purchasing some chocolate bars, they darted away without having
+learned where Gib was.
+
+"Not that it matters," Nann said when they were nearing the beach. "He
+won't come over, probably, until tomorrow morning with Dick."
+
+"But Dick said he would arrive on Friday," Dories reminded her friend.
+
+"Yes, I know, but if he leaves Boston after school is out in the
+afternoon, he won't get there until evening."
+
+"They might come over then," Dories insisted. A few moments later, as
+they were nearing the cabin, she added: "There is no appetizing aroma to
+greet us today. Aunt Jane is probably still in bed." Then, turning toward
+Nann, the younger girl said earnestly: "Truly, I feel so sorry for her.
+She seems heartbroken to think that Mother and Peter and I will not need
+to share her home. I believe she fretted about it all night; she looked
+so hollow-eyed and sick this morning."
+
+Dories was right. The old woman was still in bed, and when her niece went
+in to see what she wanted, Miss Moore said: "Will you girls mind so very
+much if we go home on Monday. I am not feeling at all well, and, if I am
+in Boston I can send for a doctor. Here I might die before one could
+reach me."
+
+"Of course we want to go whenever you wish," Dories declared. She did not
+mention what her mother had written. There would be time enough later.
+
+Out in the kitchen Dories talked it over with Nann. "You'll be sorry to
+go before you solve the mystery of the old ruin, won't you?" the younger
+girl asked.
+
+Nann whirled about, eyes laughing, stove poker upheld. "I'll prophesy
+that the mystery will all be solved before our train leaves on Monday
+morning," she said merrily.
+
+After her lunch, which this time truly was of toast and tea, Miss Moore
+said that she felt as though she could sleep all the afternoon if she
+were left alone, and so Dories and Nann donned their bright-colored tams
+and sweater-coats, as there was a cool wind, and went out on the beach
+wondering where they would go and what they would do. "Let's visit the
+punt and see that nothing has happened to it," Dories suggested.
+
+They soon reached the end of the sandy road. Nann glanced casually in the
+direction of Siquaw, then stopped and, narrowing her eyes, she gazed
+steadily into the distance for a long moment. "Don't you see a moving
+object coming this way?" she inquired.
+
+Dories nodded as she declared: "It's old Spindly, of course, and I
+suppose Gib is on it. I wonder why he is coming over at this hour. It
+isn't later than two, is it?"
+
+"Not that even." Dories glanced at her wrist-watch as she spoke. For
+another long moment they stood watching the object grow larger. Not until
+it was plain to them that it was the old white horse with two riders did
+they permit their delight to be expressed. "Dick has come! He must have
+arrived on the noon train. It must be a holiday!" Dories exclaimed, and
+Nann added, "Or at least Dick has proclaimed it one." Then they both
+waved for the boys, having observed them from afar, were swinging their
+caps.
+
+"Isn't it great that I could come today?" was Dick's first remark after
+the greetings had been exchanged. "Class having exams and I was exempt."
+
+Nann's eyes glowed. "Isn't that splendid, Dick? I know what that means.
+Your daily average was so high you were excused from the test."
+
+The city boy flushed. "Well, it wasn't my fault. It's an easy subject for
+me. I'm wild about history and I don't seem able to forget anything that
+I read." Then, smiling at the country boy, he added: "Gib, here, tells me
+that you haven't visited the old ruin since I left. That was mighty nice
+of you. I've been thinking so much about that mysterious airplane chap
+this past week, it's a wonder I could get any of my lessons right."
+
+"Isn't it the queerest thing?" Nann said. "That airplane hasn't been seen
+or heard since you left."
+
+"I ain't so sure." Gib had removed his cap and was scratching one ear as
+he did when puzzled. "Pa 'n' me both thought we heard a hummin' one
+night, but 'twas far off, sort o'. I reckon'd, like's not, that pilot
+fellar lit his boat way out in the water and slid back in quiet-like."
+
+Dick, much interested, nodded. "He could have done that, you know. He may
+realize that there are people on the point and he may not wish to have
+his movements observed." Then eagerly: "Can you girls go right now? The
+tide is just right and we wanted to give that old dining-room a thorough
+overhauling, you know."
+
+"Yes, we can go. Aunt Jane is going to sleep all of the afternoon." Then
+impulsively Dories turned toward the red-headed boy. "Gib," she exclaimed
+contritely, "I'm just ever so sorry that I called Aunt Jane queer or
+cross. Something happened this week which has proved that she is very
+different in her heart from what we supposed her to be. She has just been
+achingly lonely for years, and some family affairs which, of course,
+would interest no one but ourselves, have made her shut herself away from
+everyone. I'm ever so sorry for her, and I know that from now on I'm
+going to love her just dearly."
+
+"So am I," Nann said very quietly. "I wish we had realized that all this
+time Miss Moore has been hungering for us to love and be kind to her. We
+girls sometimes forget that elderly people have much the same feelings
+that we have."
+
+"I know," Dick agreed as they walked four abreast toward the creek where
+the punt was hid, "I have an old grandmother who is always so happy when
+we youngsters include her in our good times." Then he added in a changed
+tone: "Hurray! There's the old punt! Now, all aboard!" Ever chivalrous,
+Dick held out a hand to each girl, but it was to Nann that he said with
+conviction: "This is the day that we are to solve the mystery."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+                     A CLUE TO THE OLD RUIN MYSTERY
+
+
+The voyage up the narrow channel in the marsh was uneventful and at last
+the four young people reached the opening near the old ruin. They stopped
+before entering to look around that they might be sure the place was
+unoccupied. Then Dick crept through the opening in the crumbling wall to
+reconnoiter. "All's well!" he called to them a moment later, and in the
+same order as before the others followed. Everything was just as it had
+been on their former visit.
+
+Dick flashed his light in the corner where they had seen the picture of
+old Colonel Wadbury, and the sharp eyes, under heavy brows, seemed to
+glare at them. Dories, with a shudder, was secretly glad that they were
+only pictured eyes.
+
+"Sh! Hark!" It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held
+up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had
+broken a panel the week before.
+
+"What is it? What do you hear?" Nann asked.
+
+"A sort of a scurrying noise," Dick told her. "Nothing but rats, I guess,
+but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have
+looked around in there. Perhaps you'd better go back to the opening," he
+added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories' pale, frightened face. The
+younger girl was clutching her friend's arm as though she never meant to
+let go. "I'm just as afraid of rats," she confessed, "as I am of ghosts."
+
+"We'll wait here," Nann said calmly. "Rats won't hurt us. They would be
+more afraid of us than even Dori is of them."
+
+Dick climbed through the hole in the door, followed closely by Gib. Nann,
+holding a lighted lantern, smiled at her friend reassuringly. Although
+only a few moments passed, they seemed like an eternity to the younger
+girl; then Dick's beaming face appeared in the opening. It was very
+evident that he had found something which interested him and which was
+not of a frightening nature. The boys assisted the girls over the heap of
+debris which held the door shut and then flashed the light around what
+had once been a handsomely furnished dining-room. Dories' first glance
+was toward the sideboard where they had left the painting of the
+beautiful girl. It was not there.
+
+The boys also had made the discovery. "Which proves," Dick declared,
+"that Gib was right about that airplane chap having been here. He must
+have taken the picture, but _why_ do you suppose he would want it?"
+
+"I guess you're right," Dick had been looking behind the heavy piece of
+mahogany furniture as he spoke, "and, whoever was here has left
+something. The rats we heard scurrying about were trying to drag it away,
+to make into a nest, I suppose."
+
+Arising from a stooping posture, the boy revealed a note book which he
+had picked up from behind the sideboard.
+
+He opened it to the first page and turned his flashlight full upon it.
+"Those plaguity little rats have torn half of this page nearly off," he
+complained, "but I guess we can fit it together and read the writing on
+it."
+
+"October fifteen," Dick read aloud. Then paused while he tried to fit the
+torn pieces. "There, now I have it," he said, and continued reading: "At
+Mother's request, I came to her father's old home, but found it in a
+ruined state. The natives in the village tell me there is no way to reach
+the place, as it is in a dangerous swamp, sort of a 'quick-mud', all
+about it, and what's more, one garrulous chap tells me that the place is
+haunted. Well, I don't care a continental for the ghost, but I'm not
+hankering to find an early grave in oozy mud."
+
+"I don't recollect any sech fellow," Gib put in, but Dick was continuing
+to read from the note book:
+
+"I didn't let on who I was. Didn't want to arouse curiosity, so I took
+the next train back to Boston. I simply can't give up. I _must_ reach
+that old house and give it a real ransacking. Mother is sure her papers
+are there, and if they are, she must have them."
+
+The next page revealed a rapidly scrawled entry: "October 16th. Lay awake
+nearly all night trying to think out a way to visit that old ruin. Had an
+inspiration. Shall sail over it in an airplane and get at least a
+bird's-eye view. Glad I belong to the Boston Aviation Club.
+
+"October 18. Did the deed! Sailed over Siquaw in an aircraft and saw,
+when I flew low, that there was a narrow channel leading through the
+marsh and directly up to the old ruin.
+
+"I'll come in a seaplane next time, with a small boat on board. Mother's
+coming soon and I want to find the deed to the Wetherby place before she
+arrives. It is her right to have it since her own mother left it to her,
+but her father, I just can't call the old skinflint my grandfather, had
+it hidden in the house that he built by the sea. When Mother went back,
+she asked for that deed, but he wouldn't give it to her. She told him
+that her husband was dead and that she wanted to live in her mother's old
+home near Boston, but he said that she never should have it, that he had
+destroyed the deed. He was mean enough to do it, without doubt, but I
+don't believe he did it, somehow. I have a hunch that the papers are
+still there.
+
+"October 20. Well, I went in a seaplane, made my way up that crooked
+little channel in the swamp. Found more in the ruin than I had supposed I
+would. First of all, I hunted for an old chest, or writing desk, the
+usual place for papers to be kept. Located a heavy walnut desk in what
+had once been a library, but though there were papers enough, nothing
+like a deed. Had a mishap. Had left the seaplane anchored in a quiet
+cove. It broke loose and washed ashore. Wasn't hurt, but I couldn't get
+it off until change of tide, along about midnight. Being curious about a
+rocky point, I took my flashlight and prowled around a bit. Saw eight
+boarded-up cottages in a row, and to pass away the time I looked them
+over. Was rather startled by two occurrences. First was a noise regularly
+repeated, but that proved to be only a blind on an upper window banging
+in the wind. That was the cottage nearest the point. Then later I was
+sure I saw two white faces in an upper window of a cottage farther along.
+Sort of surprising when you suppose you're the only living person for a
+mile around. O well, ghosts can't turn me from my purpose. Got back to
+the plane just as it was floating and made off by daybreak. Haven't made
+much headway yet, but shall return next week."
+
+Dick looked up elated. "There, that proves that Mother did forget to
+fasten that blind," he exclaimed. Dories was laughing gleefully. "Nann,"
+she chuckled, "to think that we scared him as much as he scared us. You
+know we thought the person carrying a light on the rocks was a ghost, and
+he, seeing us peer out at him, thought we were ghosts."
+
+Nann smiled at her friend, then urged Dick continue reading, but Dick
+shook his head. "Can't," he replied, "for there is no more."
+
+"But he came again," Nann said. "We know that he did, because he left
+this little note book."
+
+"And what is more, he took away with him the painting of his lovely
+girl-mother," Dories put in.
+
+Dick nodded. "Don't you see," he was addressing Nann, "can't you guess
+what happened? When he came and found a panel had been broken in this
+door and the painting on the sideboard, he realized that he was not the
+only person visiting the old ruin."
+
+"Even so, that wouldn't have frightened him away. He evidently is a
+courageous chap, shouldn't you say?" Nann inquired, and Dick agreed,
+adding: "Well then, what _do_ you think happened?"
+
+It was Gib who replied: "I reckon that pilot fellar found them papers he
+was lookin' fer an' ain't comin' back no more."
+
+"But perhaps he hasn't," Nann declared. "Suppose we hunt around a little.
+We might just stumble on that old deed, but even if we did, would we know
+how to send it to him?"
+
+Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. "Yes, we would,"
+he answered her. "Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to
+the Boston Tech, I judge."
+
+"O, what is his name?" Dories asked eagerly.
+
+"Wouldn't you love to meet him?" the younger girl continued.
+
+"I intend to look him up when I get back to town," Dick assured them,
+"and wouldn't it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course,
+if he hasn't."
+
+Nann glanced about the dining-room. "There's a door at the other end.
+It's so dark down there I hadn't noticed it before."
+
+The boys went in that direction. "Perhaps it leads to the room where the
+desk is. We haven't seen that yet." Dories and Nann followed closely.
+
+Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made
+him pause. "Like's not all this time that pilot fellar's been in there
+waitin' fer us to clear out." Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was
+true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the
+young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been
+little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.
+
+One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly
+ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. "In all the stories I have ever
+read," Dories told them, "there were secret drawers, or sliding panels,
+or----"
+
+"A removable stone in a chimney," Nann merrily added. "But I believe that
+old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different," she
+concluded.
+
+While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around
+the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. "There is
+the pilot chap's entrance to the ruin." He pointed toward a fireplace.
+Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough
+for a person to creep through.
+
+"Perhaps he had never been in the front room, then," Nann remarked.
+
+"I hate to suggest it," Dories said hesitatingly, "but I think we ought
+to be going. It's getting late."
+
+"I'll say we ought!" Dick glanced at his time-piece. "Tides have a way of
+turning whether there is a mystery to ferret out or not. We have all day
+tomorrow to spend here, or at least part of it," he modified.
+
+At Gib's suggestion they went out through the hole in the back of the
+fireplace. The narrow channel was easily navigated and again they left
+the punt, as on a former occasion, anchored in the calm waters on the
+marsh side of the point. Then they climbed over the rocks, and walked
+along the beach four abreast. They talked excitedly of one phase of what
+had occurred and then of another.
+
+"You were right, Dick, when you said that the mystery about the pilot of
+the airplane would be solved today." Nann smiled at the boy who was
+always at her side. Then she glanced over toward the island, misty in the
+distance. "And to think that that girl-mother and her daughter are really
+coming back to America."
+
+"Do you suppose they will come in the Phantom Yacht?" Dories turned
+toward Gib to inquire.
+
+"I don't reckon so," that boy replied. "I cal'late we-uns saw the
+skeleton of the Phantom Yacht over to the island that day we was thar,
+Miss Nann. A storm came up, Pa said, an' he allays thought that thar
+yacht was wrecked."
+
+"If that's true, then everyone on board must have been saved," Nann said.
+"Of that much, at least, we're sure."
+
+The boys left the girls in front of their home-cabin, promising to be
+back early the next day. On entering the cottage, Dories went at once to
+her aunt's room and was pleased to see that she looked rested. A wrinkled
+old hand was held out to the girl, and, when Dories had taken it, she was
+surprised to hear her aunt say, "I'm trying to be resigned to my big
+disappointment, Dories; but even if I _do_ have to live alone all the
+rest of my days, I'm going to make you and Peter my heirs. Your mother
+can't refuse me that." Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. She tried to
+speak, but could not.
+
+Her aunt understood, and, as sentimentality was, on the whole, foreign to
+her nature, she said, with a return of her brusque manner, "There! That's
+all there is to that. Please fetch me a poached egg with my toast and
+tea."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+                        RANSACKING THE OLD RUIN
+
+
+It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household
+tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron,
+smiling brightly at her friend. "Good, there are the boys!" she
+exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed
+with their tams and sweater-coats.
+
+"We've put up a lunch," Nann told the newcomers. "Miss Moore said that we
+might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we
+are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested." They were
+walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.
+
+Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. "Say, Miss Dori," he
+exclaimed, "Miss Moore's been here sech a long time, like's not she knew
+ol' Colonel Wadbury, didn't she now?"
+
+"No, she didn't know him," Dories replied. "He was such an old hermit he
+didn't want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter's
+return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn't here the year
+of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she
+really doesn't know any more than we do."
+
+"We didn't start coming here until after it had all happened," Dick put
+in.
+
+"I'm so excited." Nann gave a little eager skip. "I almost hope the pilot
+of the seaplane has not found the deed and that we may find it and give
+it to him."
+
+"So do I!" Dick seconded. Over the rugged point they went, each time
+becoming more agile, and into the punt they climbed when Gib, barefooted
+as usual, had waded out and rowed close to a flat-rock platform. The tide
+was in and with its aid they floated rapidly up the channel in the marsh.
+"Shall we enter by the front or the back?" Nann asked of Dick.
+
+"The front is nearer our landing place," was the reply. "Let's give the
+old salon a thorough ransacking. I feel in my bones that we are going to
+make some interesting discovery today, don't you, Gib?"
+
+"Dunno," was that lad's laconic reply. "Mabbe so."
+
+A few moments later they were standing under the twisted chandelier
+listening to the faint rattle of its many crystal pendants. Nann made a
+suggestion: "Let's each take a turn in selecting some place to look for
+the deed, shall we?"
+
+"Oh, yes, let's," Dories seconded. "That will make sort of a game of it
+all."
+
+Dick held the flashlight out to the older girl. "You make the first
+selection," he said.
+
+Nann took the light and, standing still with the others under the
+chandelier, she flashed the bright beam around the room. "There's a
+broken door almost crushed under the sagging roof." She indicated the
+front corner opposite the one by which they had entered. "There must have
+been a room beyond that. I suggest that we try to get through there."
+
+But Dick demurred. "I'm not sure that it would be wise," he told her.
+"The roof might sag more if that door were pulled away." They heard a
+noise back of them and turned to see Gib making for the entrance. "I'll
+be back," was all that he told them. When, a moment later, he did return,
+he beckoned. "Come along out," he said. "There's a way into that thar
+room from the outside."
+
+He led them to a window, the pane of which had been broken, leaving only
+the frame. They peered in and beheld what had been a large bedroom. A
+heavy oak bed and other pieces of furniture to match were pitched at all
+angles as the rotting floor had given way. Dick stepped back and looked
+critically at the sagging roof, then he beckoned Gib and together they
+talked in low tones. Seeming satisfied with their decision, they returned
+to the spot where the girls were waiting. "We don't want you to run any
+risk of being hurt while you are with us," Dick explained. "We want to
+take just as good care of you as if you were our sisters." Then he
+assured them: "We think it is safe. Gib showed me how stout the
+cross-beam is which has kept the roof from sagging farther."
+
+And so they entered the room through the window. For an hour they
+ransacked. There was no evidence that anyone had been in that room since
+the storm so long ago. "Queer, sort of, ain't it?" Gib speculated,
+scratching his ear. "Yo'd think that pilot fellar'd a been all over the
+place, wouldn't yo' now?"
+
+"Let's go back to the front room again and let Dori choose next for a
+place to search," the ever chivalrous Dick suggested.
+
+A few seconds later they again were under the chandelier. Dories, as
+interested and excited now as any of them, took the light and flashed it
+about the room, letting the round glow rest at last on the huge
+fireplace. "That's where I'll look," she told the others. "Let's see if
+there is a loose rock that will come out and behind which we may find a
+box with the deed in it."
+
+Nann laughed. "Like the story we read when we were twelve or thirteen
+years old," she told the boys. But though they all rapped on the stones
+and even tried to pry them out, so well had the masonry been made, each
+rock remained firmly in place and not one of them was movable.
+
+"Now, Dick, you have a turn." Dories held the flashlight toward him, but
+he shook his head. "No, Gib first."
+
+The red-headed boy grinned gleefully. "I'll choose a hard place. I reckon
+ol' Colonel Wadbury hid that thar deed somewhar's up in the attic under
+the roof." Dories looked dismayed. "O, Gib, don't choose there, for we
+girls couldn't climb up among the rafters." But Nann put in: "Of course,
+dear, Gib may choose the loft if he wishes. But how would you get there?"
+
+Gib had been flashing the light along the cracked, tipped ceiling of the
+room. Suddenly his freckled face brightened. "Come on out agin." He
+sprang for the low opening as he spoke. Then, when they were outside, he
+pointed to the spot where the roof was lowest. "Yo' gals stay here whar
+the punt is," he advised, "while me 'n' Dick shinny up to whar the
+chimney's broke off. Bet yo' we kin git into the garrit from thar. Bet
+yo' we kin."
+
+Dick was gazing at the roof appraisingly. "O, I guess it's safe enough,"
+he answered the anxious expression he saw in the face of the older girl.
+"If our weight is too much, the roof will sag more and close up our
+entrance perhaps, but we can slide down without being hurt, I am sure of
+that."
+
+The girls sat in the punt to await the return of the boys, who, after a
+few moments' scrambling up the sloping roof, actually disappeared into
+what must have once been an attic.
+
+"I never was so interested or excited in all my life," Nann told her
+friend. "I do hope we will find that deed today, for tomorrow will be
+Sunday, and I feel that we ought to remain with your Aunt Jane and put
+things in readiness for our departure on Monday."
+
+"Yes, so do I." Dories glanced up at the roof, but as the boys were not
+to be seen, she continued: "I am interested in finding the deed, of
+course, but I just can't keep my thoughts from wandering. I am so glad
+that Mother will not have to keep on sewing. She has been so wonderful
+taking care of Peter and me the way she has ever since that long ago day
+when father died." Then she sighed. "Of course I wish she hadn't been too
+proud to accept help from Aunt Jane." But almost at once she contradicted
+with, "In one way, though, I don't, for if I had lived in Boston all
+these years, I would never have known you. But now that you are going to
+live in Boston, how I do wish that Mother and Peter and I were to live
+there also."
+
+"Maybe you will," Nann began, but Dories shook her head. "I don't believe
+Mother would want to leave her old home. It isn't much of a place, but
+she and Father went there when they were married, and we children were
+born there." Then, excitedly pointing to the roof, Dories exclaimed:
+"Here come the boys, and they have a packet of papers, haven't they?"
+
+Nann stepped out of the punt to the mound as she called, "O, boys, have
+you found the deed?"
+
+"We don't know yet," Dick replied, but the girls could see by his glowing
+expression that he believed that they had.
+
+They all sat in the punt, which had been drawn partly up on the mound and
+which afforded the only available seats. Dick and Nann occupied the wide
+stern seat, while Dories and Gib in the middle faced them. Dick
+unfastened the leather thong which bound the papers and, closing his
+eyes, just for the lark of it, he passed a folded document to each of his
+companions. Then he opened them as he said laughingly:
+
+"Just four. How kind of old Colonel Wadbury to help us with our game!
+Now, Nann, report about yours first. Is it the Wetherby deed?"
+
+After a moment's eager scrutiny, Nann shook her head. "Alas, no! It's
+something telling about shares in some corporation," she told them.
+
+"Well, we'll keep it anyway to give to our pilot friend," Dick commented.
+
+"Mine," Dories said, "is a deed, but it seems to be for this Siquaw Point
+property."
+
+Dick reported that his was a marriage license, and Gib dolefully added
+that his was some government paper, the meaning of which he could not
+understand. He handed it to Dick, who, after scrutinizing it, said:
+"Well, at least one thing is certain, it isn't the deed for which we are
+searching." Then, rising, he exclaimed: "Now it's my turn. I want to go
+back to the salon. I had a sort of inspiration awhile ago. I thought I
+wouldn't mention it until my turn came."
+
+They left the punt and followed the speaker to their low entrance in the
+wall. Although they were curious to know Dick's plan, no one spoke until
+again they stood beneath the rattling chandelier. At once the boy flashed
+the round light toward the corner where the piercing eyes under shaggy
+brows seemed to be watching them. Then he went in that direction. Dories
+shuddered as she always did when she saw that stern, unrelenting old
+face. "Why, Dick," Nann exclaimed, "do you suspect that the picture of
+the old Colonel can reveal the deed's hiding-place?"
+
+The boy was on his knees in front of the painting. "Yes, I do," he said.
+"At least I happened all of a sudden to remember of having heard of
+valuable papers that were hidden in a frame back of a painting. That is
+why I wanted to look here." He had actually lifted the large painting in
+the broken frame. Dories cried out in terror: "O, Dick, how dare you
+touch that terrible thing? He looks so real and so scarey." The boy
+addressed evidently did not hear her. Handing the flashlight to Nann, he
+asked her to hold it close while he tore off the boards at the back.
+
+For a tense moment the four young people watched, almost holding their
+breath.
+
+"Wall, it ain't thar, I reckon." Gib was the first to break the silence.
+
+"You're right!" Dick placed the painting from which the frame had been
+removed against the wall and was about to step back when the rotting
+boards beneath him caved in and he fell, disappearing entirely. Dories
+screamed and Gib, taking the light from Nann, flashed the glow from it
+down into the dark hole. "Dick! Dick! Are you hurt?" Nann was calling
+anxiously.
+
+After what seemed like a very long time, Dick's voice was heard: "I'm all
+right. Don't worry about me. Gib, see if there isn't a trap-door or
+something. I seem to have fallen into a vault of some kind." Then after
+another silence, "I guess I've stumbled onto steps leading up." A second
+later a low door in the dark corner opened and Dick, smiling gleefully,
+emerged, covered with dust and cobwebs. "Give me the light and let's see
+what this door is." Then, after a moment's scrutiny, "Aha! That vault was
+meant to be a secret. The door looks, from this side, like part of the
+paneling."
+
+"Oh, Dick!" Nann cried exultingly. "_That's_ where the Wetherby deed is.
+Down in that old vault."
+
+"I bet yo' she's right." Gib stooped to peer into the dark hole.
+
+"Can't we all go down and investigate?" Nann asked eagerly.
+
+Dick hesitated. "I'd heaps rather you girls stayed out in the punt," he
+began, but when he saw the crestfallen expression of the adventurous
+older girl he ended with, "Well, come, if you want to. I don't suppose
+anything will hurt us."
+
+Although Dories was afraid to go down, she was even more fearful of
+remaining alone with those pictured sharp grey eyes glaring at her, and
+so, clinging to Nann, she descended the rather rickety short flight of
+steps. The flashlight revealed casks which evidently had contained
+liquor, and a small iron box. "That box," Dick said with conviction,
+"contains the Wetherby deed." He was about to try to lift it when Nann
+grasped his arm. "Hark," she whispered. "I heard someone walking. It
+sounds as though it might be someone in that library or den where the
+desk was."
+
+They all listened and were convinced that Nann had been right. "It's that
+pilot chap, I reckon," Gib said. But Dick was not so sure. "Please,
+Nann," he pleaded, "you and Dories go out to the punt and wait, while Gib
+and I discover who is prowling around. I didn't hear an airplane pass
+overhead, but then, of course, he might have come in from the sea as he
+did before."
+
+The girls were glad to get out in the sunlight. They stood near the punt
+with hands tightly clasped while the boys went around to the back to
+enter the opening in the wall of the den. It seemed a very long while
+before Nann and Dories heard voices.
+
+Then three boys approached them. A tall, slender lad, dressed after the
+fashion of aviators, with a dark handsome face lighted with interest, was
+listening intently to what Dick was telling him.
+
+The girls heard him say, "Of course, I knew someone else was visiting my
+grandfather's home, especially after I found the painting of my
+mother----" He paused when he saw the girls, and Nann was sure that the
+boys had neglected to tell him that they were not alone. Dick, in his
+usual manly way, introduced Carl Ovieda. Dories thought the newcomer the
+nicest looking boy she had ever seen. At once Dick made a confession. "I
+know that we ought not to have done it, Mr. Ovieda. We read the note book
+that we found, hoping that it would throw some light on the mystery."
+
+"I'm glad you did!" was the frank reply. "The truth is, I was getting
+rather desperate. You see, Mother and Sister are to arrive tomorrow from
+overseas, and I did so want to have the deed of Grandma Wetherby's old
+home to give to Mother. The place has been vacant for years, but the
+taxes have been paid. Of course no one would dispute our right to live
+there, but there couldn't be a clear title without having the deed
+recorded."
+
+Gib asked a question in his usual indifferent manner, but Nann knew how
+eager he really was to hear the answer, "Air they comin' in that thar
+Phantom Yacht, yer mother and sister?"
+
+The newcomer looked at the questioner as though he did not understand his
+meaning; then turning toward Nann and Dories he asked, "What is the
+Phantom Yacht?"
+
+Nann told him. Then the lad, with a friendly smile, answered Gib: "No,
+indeed. That yacht was sold, Mother told me, when we returned to
+Honolulu. That is where we have lived nearly all of our lives, but ever
+since my father died, Mother has longed to return to her own home
+country."
+
+Nann, glancing at Dick, realized that he was very eager to speak, but was
+courteously waiting until the others were finished, and so she said: "Mr.
+Ovieda, I believe Dick wishes to tell you of an iron box in which he is
+almost sure the lost deed will be found."
+
+The dark, handsome face lightened. Turning to the boy at his side, he
+inquired: "Have you really unearthed an iron box? Lead me to it, I beg."
+
+"We'll wait in the punt," Nann told the three boys. Dories knew how hard
+it was for her friend to say that, since she so loved adventure.
+
+However, it was not long before a joyful shouting was heard and the three
+boys appeared creeping through the low opening. Carl Ovieda waved a
+folded document toward them. "It is found!" Never before had three words
+caused those young people so much rejoicing. After they had each examined
+the paper, yellowed with age, and Carl had assured them that he and his
+mother and sister would never be able to thank them enough for the
+service they had rendered, Nann exclaimed: "I don't know how the rest of
+you feel, but I am just ever so hungry."
+
+"I have a suggestion to make," Dories put in. "Let's all go back to the
+point of rocks and have a picnic." Then, as the newcomer demurred, the
+pretty young girl hastened to say, "Oh, indeed we want you, Mr. Ovieda."
+
+The tall, handsome youth went to the place where he had left his small
+portable canoe and paddled it around.
+
+"Miss Dories," he called, "this craft rides better if there are two in
+it. May I have the pleasure of your company?"
+
+Blushing prettily, Dories took Carl's proffered hand and stepped in the
+canoe. Nann, Dick and Gib, in the punt, led the way.
+
+Half an hour later, high on the rocks, the five young people ate the good
+lunch the girls had prepared and told one another the outstanding events
+of their lives. "I'm wild to meet your sister, Mr. Ovieda," Dories told
+him. "Does she still look like a lily, all gold and white. That was the
+way Gib's father described her."
+
+The tall lad nodded. "Yes, Sister is a very pretty blonde. She has iris
+blue eyes and hair like spun gold, as fairy books say. I want you all to
+come to our home in Boston just as soon as we are settled." His
+invitation, Nann was pleased to see, included Gib as well as the others.
+That embarrassed lad replied, with a hunch of his right shoulder, "Dunno
+as I'll ever be up to the big town. Dunno's I ever will."
+
+"You're wrong there, Gib!" Dick exclaimed in the tone of one who could no
+longer keep a most interesting secret. "You know how you have wished and
+wished that you could have a chance to go to a real school. Well, Dad has
+been trying to work it so that you might have that chance, and, just
+before I came away, he told me that he had managed to get a scholarship
+for you in a boys' school just out of Boston. Why, what's the matter,
+Gib? It's what you wanted, isn't it?"
+
+It was hard to understand the country boy's expression. "Yeah!" he
+confessed. "That thar's what I've been hankerin' fer. It sure is." Then,
+as a slow grin lit his freckled face, he exclaimed: "It's hit me so
+sudden, sort of, but I reckon I kinder feel the way yo're feelin'," he
+nodded toward the grandson of old Colonel Wadbury, "as though I'd found a
+deed to suthin, when I'd never expected to have nuthin' not as long as
+I'd live."
+
+The girls were deeply touched by Gib's sincere joy and they told him how
+glad they were for his good fortune. Then Carl Ovieda sprang to his feet,
+saying that he was sorry to break up the party, but that he must be
+winging on his way. He held out his hand to each of the group as he bade
+them good-bye, turning, last of all, to Dories, to whom he said: "I shall
+let you know as soon as we are settled. I want you and my sister to be
+good friends."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+                        THE BEST SURPRISE OF ALL
+
+
+As the four young people neared the home cabin, they were amazed to
+behold Miss Moore seated in a rocker on the front porch and, instead of
+her house dress, she had on her traveling suit. Dories leaped up the
+steps, exclaiming, "Why, Aunt Jane, what has happened?"
+
+The old woman replied suavely: "Nothing at all, my dear; that is, nothing
+startling. Mr. Strait drove over this morning with some mail for me and I
+asked him to return at two. Now hurry and pack up your things. We're
+going home."
+
+Dories put her hand to her heart. "O," she exclaimed, "I was afraid there
+had been bad news from Mother." Then, hesitatingly, "I thought we weren't
+going home until Monday."
+
+"We are going now," was all that her aunt said.
+
+Dories ran back to the beach to explain to the three standing there, then
+the girls bade the boys good-bye and hastened up to the loft to pack
+their satchels and don their traveling costumes.
+
+"What can it mean?" Dories almost whispered. "There must have been
+something urgent in the letter Aunt Jane received this morning," she
+concluded.
+
+Nann snapped down the cover of her suitcase, then flashed a bright smile
+at her friend. "To tell you the truth," she confessed, "I am glad that we
+are going today. Since your Aunt Jane will not travel on Sunday, and
+since the mysteries have all been solved, there would be nothing to do
+from now until Monday."
+
+Before the other girl could reply Nann, with eyes glowing, continued
+enthusiastically: "And how wonderfully the old ruin mystery turned out,
+didn't it? I feel ever so sure that Carl Ovieda and his sister will prove
+good friends." Then, teasingly, "Carl seemed to like you especially
+well."
+
+Dories' surprised expression was sincere. "Me?" she exclaimed
+dramatically, then shook her head. "Of course you are wrong! You are so
+much prettier and wittier and wiser, Nann, boys _always_ like you better
+than they do your friends."
+
+"I hold to my opinion," was the laughing response. "But come along now, I
+hear the rattly old stage coming. If we are to make the 3:10 train,
+Spindly will have to make good time." Nann glanced at her wrist watch as
+she spoke; then, taking their suitcases, they went down the rickety
+stairs. On the front porch they found Miss Moore waiting among her bags;
+her heavy black veil thrown back over her bonnet. Gib's father, having
+left the stage at the beach end of the road, was coming for the baggage.
+"O, Aunt Jane!" Dories suddenly exclaimed, "aren't we going to put the
+covers on the furniture and fasten the blinds?"
+
+It was Mr. Strait who answered: "Me'n Amandy'll tend to all them things,
+Miss. We'll come over fust off Monday an' take the key back to the
+store."
+
+Miss Moore nodded her assent. Then, with the help of the two girls, she
+picked her way through the sand to the stage and was soon seated between
+the two black bags as she had been three weeks previous, but now how
+different was the expression on the wrinkled old face. On that other ride
+the girls had been justified in believing her to be a grouchy old woman,
+but today Dories noticed that when her aunt smiled across at her, there
+was a wistful expression in the grey eyes that could be so sharp and a
+quivering about the thin lips. "Poor Aunt Jane," was the thought that
+accompanied her answering smile, "she dreads going back to her lonely
+mansion of a home, but of course I am to remain with her for a few days,
+or, at least, until I hear from Mother."
+
+When Siquaw was reached the girls saw that the train was even then
+approaching the small station, and, in the rush that followed, they quite
+forgot to look for Dick and Gibralter to say good-bye. It was not until
+they were seated in the coach, and the train well under way, that Dories
+exclaimed: "We didn't see the boys! Don't you think that is queer, Nann?
+They knew we were going on that train. I wonder why they weren't at the
+station to see us off."
+
+A merry laugh back of them was the unexpected answer. Seated directly
+behind them were the two boys about whom they had been talking. Rising,
+they skipped around and took the seat facing the girls.
+
+"Well, where did you come from?" Dories began, then noticed that Gib wore
+his one best suit and that he was carrying a funny old hand satchel. His
+freckled face was shining from more than a recent hard scrubbing. Nann
+interpreted that jubilant expression. "Gibralter Strait," she exclaimed,
+"you're going away to school, aren't you?" Then impulsively she held out
+her hand. "You don't know how glad I am. I have great faith in you. I
+know you will amount to something."
+
+As the country lad was squirming in very evident embarrassment, his
+friend drew the attention of the girls to himself by saying: "I suppose,
+Mistress Nann, that you don't expect _me_ to amount to anything." The
+good-looking boy tried so hard to assume an abused expression that the
+girls laughingly assured him that they had some slight hope of his
+ultimate success in life.
+
+Dories glanced across at the seat where her aunt was sitting and,
+excusing herself, she went over and sat with the elderly woman, although
+Nann could see that they talked but little, her heart warmed toward her
+friend, who was growing daily more thoughtful of others. After a time
+Miss Moore said: "Dories, dear, I think I'll try to take a little nap.
+You would better go back to your friends. I am sure that they are missing
+you."
+
+Then as the old lady did close her eyes and seem to sleep, the four young
+people talked over the past three weeks in quiet voices and made plans
+for the future. "I hope we will be friends forever," Dories exclaimed,
+and Nann added, "Perhaps, when we have made the acquaintance of Mr.
+Ovieda's sister, we can form a sort of friendship club with six members.
+We could meet now and then, and have merry times." Dories' doleful
+expression at this happy suggestion caused Nann to add, as she placed a
+hand on her friend's arm, "I know what you are thinking, dear. That all
+the rest of us will be in Boston, but that you will be in Elmwood. But
+surely you will come to visit your Aunt Jane often during vacations."
+
+Before Dories could reply the boys informed them that they were entering
+the city. Dories, who had traveled little, was eager to stand on the
+platform at the back of the car that she might have a better view, and
+later when the young people returned to the coach it was time to collect
+their baggage and prepare to descend. First of all, Dick and Gib assisted
+Miss Moore to the platform and then carried out her bags. Then they
+hailed a taxi driver at her request. Then Miss Moore surprised the girls
+by saying hospitably: "Come over and see us tomorrow, Dick and Gibralter.
+You know where I live." She actually smiled at the older boy. "Dories
+will be with me for a few days, I suppose, and Nann as well." Then, when
+the older girl started to speak, the old woman said firmly, "You accepted
+an invitation to be my guest for one month, and only three weeks of that
+month have passed." This being true, Nann did not protest.
+
+Dories squeezed her friend's arm ecstatically. She had dreaded the moment
+when Nann would leave for the hotel where her father stayed. Gib lifted
+his cap as he saw Dick doing when the taxi drove away.
+
+Then the old woman addressed the girls. "They're fine boys, both of
+them!" she said. "That's why I was willing you should go anywhere with
+them that you wished. I knew they would take as good care of you as they
+would of their sisters."
+
+Dusk came early that autumn afternoon, and so, try as she might, Dories
+could see little of the neighborhoods through which the taxi was taking
+them. It was a long ride. At first it was through a business district
+where many lights flashed on, and where their progress was very slow
+because of the traffic. Then the noise gradually lessened, big elm trees
+could be seen lining the streets, and far back among other trees and on
+wide lawns, lights from large homes flickered. At last the taxi turned in
+between two high stone gate posts. Miss Moore was sitting ram-rod
+straight and the girls, watching, found it hard to interpret her
+expression. Dories asked: "Aunt Jane, have we reached your home?"
+
+They were surprised at the bitterness of the tone in which the reply was
+given: "Home? No! We have reached my house. A place where there is only a
+housekeeper and a maid to welcome you is _not_ a home."
+
+Dories slipped a hand in her aunt's and held it close. She wanted to say
+something comforting, but could think of nothing. The taxi had stopped
+under the portico by the front steps, and, when she had been helped out,
+Miss Moore paid the driver. Then they went upon the wide stone porch,
+followed by the man, laden with their baggage. "I can't understand why
+there isn't a light in the house. The maids knew I was to return almost
+any day." Miss Moore rang the bell as she spoke.
+
+Suddenly lights within were flashed on. The heavy oak door was thrown
+open and a small boy leaped out and hurled himself at one of the girls.
+"Dori! Hello, Dori!" he cried jubilantly. "Here's Mother and me waiting
+to surprise you all." And truly enough, there back of him was Mrs. Moore,
+smiling and holding out her hand to the old woman, who stood as one
+dazed. Then, comprehending what it all meant, she went in, tears falling
+unheeded down her wrinkled cheeks. She took the outstretched hand as she
+said tremulously, "My Peter's wife is here to welcome me _home_." She was
+so deeply affected that Mrs. Moore, after stooping to quietly kiss her
+daughter, led the old woman into a formally furnished parlor and sat with
+her on a handsome old lounge. Then to the small boy in the doorway she
+said, "Little Peter, show Dori and Nann up to their room."
+
+What those two women had to say to each other, no one ever knew, but that
+it drew them very close together was evident by the loving expression in
+the grey eyes of the older woman when she looked at the younger.
+
+Meanwhile the two girls, led by the small boy, entered a large upper room
+which seemed to overlook a garden. Like the rooms below, it was formally
+furnished after the style of an earlier period, but it seemed very grand
+indeed to Dories.
+
+Her eyes were star-like with wonderment. "Nann," she half whispered in an
+awed voice when Peter had gleefully displayed the wardrobe where the
+girls were to hang their dresses and had opened each empty bureau drawer
+that they were to use, "do you suppose that Mother, Peter and I are to
+live here forever?"
+
+"I'm sure of it!" Nann replied. "And O, Dori, isn't it wonderful?"
+
+Just then a bell in some room below tinkled musically. "That's the supper
+bell," the small boy told them. "Hilda's the cook, and O, Dori, such nice
+puddings as she can make. Yum! Jum!" Then he cried excitedly: "Quick!
+Take off your hats. Here's the bathroom that belongs to you. Honestly,
+Dori, you have one all to yourself, and Mother and I, we have one."
+
+The girls smiled at the little fellow's enthusiasm. Dories felt as though
+she must be dreaming. It all seemed so unreal.
+
+A few moments later they went downstairs and found that Miss Moore, whose
+room was on the first floor, had changed to a house dress. She was seated
+in a comfortable chair by the fireplace, on which a log was burning, and
+she looked content, at peace with the world. She was saying to her
+nephew's wife: "I do love Dories; she is a dear girl, but I will confess
+that I was disappointed because she does not look like the lad I had so
+loved."
+
+Hearing a sound at the door, the old woman turned, and for the first time
+really beheld the small boy who appeared in front of the girls.
+
+"Peter!" was her amazed exclamation; the light of a great joy in her
+eyes. Then she pointed to a life-size painting over the mantle in which
+was a pictured boy of about the same age. "They are so alike," she said,
+with tears in her eyes, as she looked up at Mrs. Moore, who, having
+risen, was standing by the older woman's chair. Dories, gazing up at the
+picture, thought that it might have been a painting of her small brother
+except for the old-fashioned costume.
+
+The elderly woman was holding out her arms to the little fellow, and,
+unafraid, he went to her trustingly. "My cup of joy is now full!" she
+said, her voice tremulous with emotion. Then, smiling over the boy's head
+at his mother, she asked: "Niece, shall we tell our plan to the girls
+that _their_ cup of joy may also be full?"
+
+Mrs. Moore nodded and the old woman continued: "Nann, your father has
+written to Dories' mother for advice. It seems that a change in his
+business will take him traveling about the country for at least a year,
+and he wanted to know what she thought would be best for you. He was
+thinking of sending you to some distant relatives, but we, my Peter's
+wife and I, have decided to keep you as a sister-companion for our Dori."
+Then, before the girls could express their joy, the old woman concluded,
+as she held little Peter close: "And so, at last, after many years of
+desolate loneliness, this old house among the elms is to be a real
+_home_."
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                          _SAVE THE WRAPPER!_
+
+
+If you have enjoyed reading about the adventures of the new friends you
+have made in this book and would like to read more clean, wholesome
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+
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+                         By HARRIET PYNE GROVE
+                   Stories of Ranch and College Life
+                        For Girls 12 to 16 Years
+
+       _Handsome Cloth Binding with Attractive Jackets in Color_
+
+  ANN STERLING
+    The strange gift of Old Never-Run, an Indian whom she has befriended,
+          brings exciting events into Ann's life.
+  THE COURAGE OF ANN
+    Ann makes many new, worthwhile friends during her first year at
+          Forest Hill College.
+  ANN AND THE JOLLY SIX
+    At the close of their Freshman year Ann and the Jolly Six enjoy a
+          house party at the Sterling's mountain ranch.
+  ANN CROSSES A SECRET TRAIL
+    The Sterling family, with a group of friends, spend a thrilling
+          vacation under the southern Pines of Florida.
+  ANN'S SEARCH REWARDED
+    In solving the disappearance of her father, Ann finds exciting
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+  ANN'S AMBITIONS
+    The end of her Senior year at Forest Hill brings a whirl of new
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+  ANN'S STERLING HEART
+    Ann returns home, after completing a busy year of musical study abroad.
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+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure at
+          Carver House.
+  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles.
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+                         The Girl Scouts Series
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+                            BY EDITH LAVELL
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+  THE GIRL SCOUTS' RIVALS
+  THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH
+  THE GIRL SCOUTS' VACATION ADVENTURES
+  THE GIRL SCOUTS' MOTOR TRIP
+  THE GIRL SCOUTS' CAPTAIN
+  THE GIRL SCOUTS' DIRECTOR
+
+
+                       The Greycliff Girls Series
+
+                         By HARRIET PYNE GROVE
+
+Stories of Adventure, Fun, Study and Personalities of girls attending
+Greycliff School.
+
+                        For Girls 10 to 15 Years
+                          PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH
+                           POSTAGE 10c EXTRA.
+             Cloth bound, with Individual Jackets in Color.
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+  CATHALINA AT GREYCLIFF
+  THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF
+  GREYCLIFF WINGS
+  GREYCLIFF GIRLS IN CAMP
+  GREYCLIFF HEROINES
+  GREYCLIFF GIRLS IN GEORGIA
+  GREYCLIFF GIRLS' RANCHING
+  GREYCLIFF GIRLS' GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+
+                   MARJORIE DEAN POST-GRADUATE SERIES
+
+
+                           By PAULINE LESTER
+
+   Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean High School and College Series.
+
+                 All Cloth Bound.    Copyright Titles.
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+  MARJORIE DEAN'S ROMANCE
+  MARJORIE DEAN MACY
+
+
+For sale by all booksellers, or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers
+            A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber's Notes
+
+
+--Rearranged front matter to a more-logical streaming order and added a
+  Table of Contents.
+
+--Preserved the copyright notice from the printed edition, although this
+  book is in the public domain in the country of publication.
+
+--Silently corrected a few typos (but left nonstandard spelling and
+  dialect unchanged).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantom Yacht, by Carol Norton
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