Kitabı oku: «The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna: or, The Crew That Won», sayfa 5
CHAPTER XII
IN THE CAVE
The other boats of the flotilla began to make the cove and soon there was a loudly chattering crowd around the sunken boat.
"Are you sure that's the old rowboat Billy got from Mr. Norman?" asked one of the other boys of Chet.
"Yes, sir! I've been out in it more than once with Short and Long," declared Laura's brother.
"But where can Billy be?" cried Josephine Morse.
"Surely, the poor fellow isn't drowned?" queried Nellie Agnew.
"Oh, don't suggest such a thing!" returned one of the twins. "If you'd seen how badly his sister felt about his absence – "
"I expect the Longs are all broken up about it. And they have no mother," said Laura Belding, softly.
"And Billy could swim like a fish," quoth Lance Darby.
"No chance of his being drowned," declared Chet.
"But, do you suppose he sank the boat here to hide it – sank it purposely?" cried another girl. "Maybe he's hiding here. Why don't they search the island for him?"
"And the caves?" cried another.
"I'd like to get hold of him," Chetwood Belding said, gravely. "But Billy never in this world crawled through that basement window and opened the door for those burglars. I'll never believe it – "
"Not even if Billy said so himself, dear boy?" interposed Prettyman Sweet.
"I'd doubt it then," rejoined Chet, grimly. "And let me tell you fellows, this absence of Short and Long is a very bad thing for Central High. We lost the game with Lumberport just because Billy wasn't at short; you all know that. I'm mighty glad the game with West High was called off for to-day. Without Billy Long, Central High is very likely to win the booby prize on the diamond this season."
"Right you are, Chet," declared Lance Darby.
"I admit Billy is some little ball player," agreed another boy. "But it looks bad, his running away."
"What would you have done?" flashed out Dora Lockwood, for the twins had become strong partisans of the absent Billy since talking with Alice Long, "if that store detective had come and bullied you?"
"Put him through the third degree, did he?"
"Yes. And scared him by all sorts of threats. And then, everybody around the neighborhood got hold of it, and said that Billy was just the boy to do such a thing," Dorothy broke in.
"He was up to all sorts of mischief," Nellie Agnew observed.
"Never did a mean thing in his life, Billy didn't," declared Chet.
"Come on ashore," said Lance, he and Otto Sitz pulling their heavy boat in to a sloping landing. "No use gassing here about that old boat. We can't raise it. But I'll tell Mr. Norman where it is when I go back."
"You're very right, Lance," said Purt Sweet. "It's time to have the luncheon – don't you think? I'm getting howwibly hungry, dontcher know?"
"To see you eat strawberries up at Eve's house last Monday, I thought you would never be hungry again – if you recovered," laughed Jess.
"Aw – now – Miss Josephine – weally, you know," gasped the dude. "You are too, too cwuel!"
"Somebody throw that fellow overboard!" growled Chet. "He's getting softer and softer every day."
"Never mind," whispered his sister, laughing, "he is dressed much less gaudily to-day. What Bobby did to that sash of his last Monday seems to have made Purt less vociferous in his sartorial taste."
"Gee, Laura!" cried Bobby Hargrew, from the next boat, "if Mammy Jinny heard that, she sure would think that schools ought to teach only 'words of one syllabub.'"
"Never mind Mammy Jinny," laughed Laura. "We've got some of Mammy's finest efforts in pie and cake in our hamper. And I admit, like Purt, I am hungry myself. Let's eat before we do another living thing!"
That was indeed a hilarious picnic. The girls had brought paper napkins and tablecloths, as well as plenty of paper plates. No trouble about washing dishes, or packing them home again, afterward. Chet had bought a big tin pail and in this he made gallons of lemonade, and everybody ate and drank to repletion.
"Now, if we were only at the park for just a little while, and could top off on ice cream," said Lance, lying back on the greensward with a contented sigh despite his spoken wish.
"I'd rather see that monkey again," laughed Jess. "That's the cutest little beast."
"It weally is surprising how much the cweature knows," said Purt Sweet. "It is weally almost human."
"So are you!" scoffed Lance. "It's an ugly little animal. Never did like a monkey. And I think Tony Allegretto and his trained monkey are fakes. We didn't see him do anything wonderful."
"Oh, they say that the monkey does lots of other tricks when Tony gets a big crowd into his booth," said Laura.
"Now, who's for seeing the caves?" cried Chet, rising briskly. "You girls declared you wanted to go 'way through the hill."
"Won't we get lost?" asked Nellie, timidly.
"Not a bit of it. It's a straight passage – nearly," said Chet. "Lance and I have been through a couple of times. We come out into just the prettiest little valley in the middle of the island – and not far from the park, at that."
"But people have been lost in the caves," objected one girl.
"Not of late years. There are side passages, I know, where a fellow could get turned around."
"It's just like a maze, over at the east end," Lance observed. "But we won't go into that part."
"And the way is marked along the walls of the straight cave in red paint. I've got a box of tapers," said Chet, and ran to the boat for them.
"Gas lighters," said Dorothy.
"Oh, Jolly!" ejaculated Bobby Hargrew. "You know what that new hired girl of ours said when mother showed her how to cook macaroni? She says:
"'Sure, Mrs. Hargrew, do youse be atein' them things?'
"And when mother told her yes, Bridget said:
"'Well! well! Where I wor'rked last they used 'em to light the gas wid!'"
The party of young folk had to follow a narrow path along the shore of the cove for some distance ere they came to the first opening into the caves. The sheer face of Boulder Head rose more than a hundred feet above their heads. There were shelves and crevices in the rock, out of which stunted trees and bushes grew in abundance; but there was no practicable path to the top of the cliff.
"They say that, years ago, a man used to live on this island who could climb that cliff like a goat," Chet said.
"Bet none of you boys could climb it," cried Bobby Hargrew.
"And we're not going to try it, Miss! Not on a double-dare," laughed Chet. "We'll go through it, if you please. Now, here's the opening of the main passage. You see, there's an arrow in red painted on the rock just inside."
"It looks awfully dark," said Nellie, quaveringly.
"And suppose the 'lone pirate' should be hiding in there?" whispered Dora to her twin.
"We – ell! I guess there are enough of us to frighten him away," said Dorothy.
Chet took the lead with a lighted taper. Of course, when he was well inside the small flame gave a very pale glow; but those behind could see it. Then Lance followed with another light at about the middle of the Indian file, and Otto Sitz brought up the rear with a third.
"You look out somebody doesn't creep up behind you and bite, Otto," laughed Bobby Hargrew, who was just ahead of the Swiss boy.
"Dat don't worry me von bit," growled Otto. "It iss only ha'ants I am afraid of, and ha'nts don't live in caves."
"No," said Bobby, shivering. "B – r – r – r! they'd freeze to death in here. Isn't it cold, after coming out of the warm sun?"
But when they were once well into the passage through the rock, and the first 'shivery' feeling had worn off, the girls as well as the boys were hilarious. When they shouted in the high and vaulted chambers their voices were echoed thunderously in their ears. The flaming tapers were reflected in places from many points of quartz, or mica. The floor of the cavern was quite smooth, and rose only a little. In places the walls were worn as smooth as glass. In some dim, past age the center of this island must have been a great lake, and the water had found an outlet through these passages.
At one point they found a little circular chamber at one side, in which was a bed of pine branches. It really looked as though the place had been used – and not so long before – as a camp. There were the ashes of a fire on the floor.
"Here's where the pirate has been living," Dora declared to her sister. "It would scare the girls into fits if we should tell them so."
"Hush!" said Dorothy. "Perhaps that man is here somewhere," and she, at least, was glad to hurry on, although Chet searched the chamber with particular care.
"What do you expect to find here, old man?" asked Lance, laughing.
But his chum only shook his head and led the way toward the distant outlet of the passage.
CHAPTER XIII
THE STRANGE MAN AGAIN
They came out of the cave into a hollow, grown to a wilderness of small trees, yet carpeted between with a brilliant sod of short grass. On the steep sides were larger trees; but evidently, at a time not then long past, the cup of the hollow had been cleared. And at one side was the ruin of a log hut.
"The man who lived alone at this end of the island, and climbed up and down Boulder Head, used to occupy this hut," said Chet.
"But those logs were cut a hundred years ago!" cried Dora Lockwood. "See how they have rotted at the ends."
"I guess that's so. Nobody knows who built the cabin."
"Indians!" cried Jess.
"Indians didn't built log houses. The first settlers did that. Indians lived in wigwams," declared Laura.
"Some old hunter lived here, maybe, when the woods were full of bears and wildcats," suggested her chum.
"What's that!" suddenly shrieked Bobby. "There's a wildcat, now!"
"Behave!" commanded Laura, shaking the smaller girl. "You can't scare us that way."
"Nothing more ferocious inhabits these woods than a Teddy-bear," laughed Jess Morse.
"Then it was a Teddy bear I saw in that tree," declared Bobby, pointing. "And it was a live one."
The girls – some of them, at least – drew together. "What did you see, Clara?" demanded Nellie Agnew.
"A little brown animal – "
"A red squirrel!" cried Lance.
"Hark!" cried Chet. "I hear him."
There certainly did come to their ears a chattering sound.
"That's no squirrel," announced Otto. "I haf been hunting enough for them alretty."
"No squirrel was ever so noisy as that, Chet," said his sister.
"There! I see it again," cried the quick-eyed Bobby.
"My goodness, gracious me!" gasped Purt, who was craning his neck to see into the tree tops so that the back of his high collar sawed his neck. "I – I thought it looked like a blue-jay."
"Say!" exclaimed Lance. "You're looking in the wrong direction."
"It's a monkey!" cried Dora Lockwood, at that moment.
"It's Tony Allegretto's monkey," added her twin.
Some of the others caught sight of the animal then. It was truly the large monkey the friends had seen only the week before at the amusement park at the other end of the island.
"He's run away!" cried Laura.
"I hope he has," Dorothy Lockwood said. "That Italian didn't treat him kindly. What was his name?"
"He called the monk 'Bébé'," said Lance.
"Let's see if he will come down to us," suggested Laura, crossing the hollow.
"Now, keep back, the rest of you," commanded Lance. "If anybody can get the little beast, Laura can do it."
"Sure!" chuckled Bobby. "Mother Wit can charm either boys, or monkeys – and right out of the trees!"
But they gave way to Mother Wit and she went alone to the foot of the tree in which Bébé was swinging. He chattered when she came near, and swung upright on the branch. But he did not appear to be much afraid.
Laura found an apple in her pocket, and she offered it to the monkey, calling to him soothingly. Whether his monkeyship was fond of apples, or not, he was curious, and he began to descend the tree slowly.
He was dressed in a part of his odd Neapolitan suit; but it was torn and bedraggled. A cord was fastened to his collar, but it had become frayed and so was broken. His queer, ugly face was wrinkled into an expression of doubt as he approached Laura, and his little eyes snapped greedily. The apple tempted him.
"Come down, Bébé," coaxed Laura.
"Talk Italian to him – he understands that better," giggled Jess.
Bébé chattered angrily.
"Hush!" commanded Lance. "She'll get him yet, if you'll let her alone."
The monkey did seem, when all was quiet, to be about to leap into Laura's arms.
"Come, Bébé," she coaxed, and finally the chattering creature timidly dropped from the branch of the tree and snuggled down into her arms, grabbing the apple on the instant and sinking his sharp teeth into it.
At the very moment of her success there were crashing footsteps in the bushes and into the opening rushed Tony Allegretto, the monkey's master.
"Ah-ah!" cried the Italian, his face glowing and his black eyes snapping. "You try-a to steal-a da monk! Come to me Bébé – or I break-a da neckl!"
He rushed toward the girl holding the monkey. The animal chattered angrily and cowered in Laura's arms.
"Hold on," said Chet, stepping forward. "Nobody's stealing your monkey, and don't you say we are. He was up the tree there and my sister got him down for you. I reckon if you treated him half decently he wouldn't run away from you."
"You! Ha!" sputtered Tony. "You one o' dem fresh boys, eh? Give-a me da monk!"
"Let him have the creature, Laura," said Chet.
"He'll beat him. See how frightened poor Bébé is!"
"Can't help it," said her brother. "He belongs to the dago – "
"Calla me da dago, too!" stammered the angry Italian. "I fix-a you for dis!" and he shook his fist at Chet.
"Come on and do your fixing right now," advised the big boy, easily. "You won't find me as easy as Bébé, I bet you!"
"You 'Merican boys and girls want to steal my monk – want-a spoil-a da act!" cried Tony. He grabbed Bébé out of Laura's arms, although the monkey shrieked his protest at the exchange. But Tony did not beat the little beast, and it clung to him with one arm around Tony's neck while it finished the apple.
"You ought to thank us for finding your monkey for you," said Lance Darby, in disgust.
Tony growled something in Italian and started off up the side of the hollow. Before he got out of sight he was joined by a man who stepped out of hiding in a clump of brush.
"Did you see that?" cried Lance, eagerly, in Chefs ear. "There's another of 'em here."
"Another monkey?" laughed Chet.
But Dora whispered to Dorothy: "That man has whiskers. Do you suppose he is our lone pirate?"
"I'd like to see this piratical individual you girls are talking about," laughed Laura, who was nearest to the Lockwood twins.
At that moment Lance and Chet were walking back toward the entrance to the cave.
"Say, old man," Lance asked his chum, "what were you searching that chamber in the cavern for? What did you expect to find?"
"I don't know that I expected to find anything," answered Chetwood Belding. "But I'll show you what I did find," and he drew from his pocket an old knife and placed it in Lance's hand.
The latter turned it over, and whistled under his breath. "I ought to know this old toad-stabber," he said. "Broken corkscrew – yes; small blade broken short off, too. Why, Chet, that's Short and Long's knife!"
"That's right."
"And you mean to say you picked it up in the cavern?"
"Right in that place where somebody had been camping," declared his chum. "But don't say anything about it. We can't do anything toward finding him with all these girls about. But, later – "
"You bet!" agreed Lance.
So the boys rather hurried the departure of the crowd for the place where the boats had been left, and where they had lunched. The walk through the cove did not take long, and the party, happy and laughing, crowded out upon the shore of the cove in front of the subterranean passage.
Instantly one of the twins drew the attention of all by uttering a startled little scream.
"What's the matter with you – er – Sister?" demanded the other Lockwood girl, with a chuckle.
"That wasn't the man we saw with Tony!" declared the girl who had cried out.
"What man?"
"The pirate," said the twin.
"How do you know?" demanded Laura, laughing.
"For I just saw him again. And he couldn't have gotten through the cave ahead of us."
"There are prowlers about," declared Chet to Lance.
"What sort of a looking man, Miss Lockwood?" demanded Lance.
"Oh, he's all bushy black whiskers and hair. I only saw the upper part of his body again. He dodged down behind that boulder yonder."
"Say! the other cave opening is over there," cried Bobby Hargrew.
"And that's a fact," admitted Chet.
"Let's see if the boats are all right," cried Lance, starting on a run for the landing.
"And the rest of the lunch, dear boy!" cried Prettyman Sweet, following him. "Weally, if that has been stolen it is a calamity."
CHAPTER XIV
THE NEW SHELL
The calamity had occurred!
Soulful were the wails of Purt Sweet. Not a crumb of food left in the girls' hampers when the party set out through the cave for the middle of Cavern Island was now left to appease Mr. Sweet's appetite.
"The lone pirate has done his fell work, sure enough," Laura Belding declared. "And how hungry he must have been, Nellie! He took that pie you made that none of us could eat."
They all laughed at this hit, for the doctor's daughter was not much of a pastry cook and her lemon pie had been voted the booby prize at luncheon.
"Ooh!" gasped Bobby. "Do you suppose it will kill him? Maybe it will give him such a terrible case of indigestion that he will steal a boat, raise the Jolly Roger again, and go to work making people walk the plank and all that sort of thing – and it will be your fault, Nellie Agnew!"
"I'm only afraid he will eat it and die in terrible agony all alone here," wailed Nellie, who could take a joke as well as give one. "And then his ghost will haunt this end of the island – "
"And Otto will never come here again," said Eve Sitz, poking fun at her brother, who had once been very much afraid of a supposed "haunt" in an old house in Robinson's Woods.
"Never you mind," growled her brother. "There iss ha'ants, undt you will findt oudt so some day – yes!"
But Chet and Lance decided that there were altogether too many prowlers at this end of the island for the party to remain longer. Had they been alone, or with the other boys and no girls, they would surely have made an attempt to find the bewhiskered man whom the Lockwood twins had twice seen disappear into the far entrance of the caverns.
"We ought to report him to the park police," said Nellie Agnew. "He may steal something more than food, next time."
"Leave that to us," said Chet, hastily. "Lance and I will report it in proper time."
But to his chum he whispered: "We don't want any police fooling around here. Suppose they found Short and Long?"
"Right – oh!" agreed Lance. "Hope they'll all forget it and not mention the 'lone pirate' when they get home."
But as events proved, some member of the party mentioned the robbery of the lunch – and in a quarter which brought a search of the eastern end of Cavern Island by the police, a happening that Chet would have given a good deal to avoid.
Now, however, Laura's brother was busy inventing something to interest the party, and yet take them away from this end of the island. The twins were discussing with Eve Sitz the advantages of paddling over rowing, when Chet gave a shout which drew all attention to him instantly.
"Come on!" said the big lad. "Let's get into the boats. We'll have a four-oared race. I'll choose a crew of boys and let Laura choose one of girls. I bet we boys, using my boat, can row around that channel buoy out yonder and back again, before Laura in Lance's boat can do it. And Lance has the lightest boat."
"Done!" cried his sister. "And Lance's boat isn't so much lighter, either. What do you say, girls?"
"Let's show 'em!" cried Bobby. "Let me steer, Laura."
"All right," said Laura.
"And Freddie Ackerman here will steer for us," said Chet.
The crews were quickly chosen. Laura took Eve and the twins with her. Chet had Purt Sweet for Number 2 and pulled stroke himself. Lance arranged the start and was referee.
"When I slap these two sticks together, you're to go," instructed Lance. "The line is right between where I stand here on this rock and the boulder at the far mouth of the cavern. I can see the whole course from here. Now, no bumping at the turn. The boat that has the inside at the buoy must be cleared by the other boat. Don't forget. Are you ready?"
"Oh, wait a minute!" squealed Purt Sweet.
"Yes, hold on!" grunted Chet. "Purt's back hair has come down."
"I weally will have to remove my waistcoat – if you will allow me?" suggested the exquisite. "It might get splashed."
"Go as far as you like," said Lance. "Chuck it ashore here. I'll stand on it so as to see better."
But Purt entrusted the precious waistcoat to one of the girls in another boat, and then the two racing boats were brought into line. The referee asked if they were ready again, and, receiving no contrary answer, shouted:
"Go!"
Chet's crew certainly were a scrub lot, and he did not expect to get much speed out of them; but Otto was a strong oar and had Purt been able to keep the stroke the girls would have made a bad showing to the buoy. Up to that turn the boys kept ahead. Laura set an easy stroke, and found that Eve Sitz was not much inferior to either Dora or Dorothy.
"They're going to beat!" gasped Bobby, swinging with the rowers.
"Don't let them worry you," advised Laura, between her teeth. "The race isn't done until we cross the line."
But in turning the buoy the boys came to grief. Or, rather, Purt Sweet came to grief. He managed to catch a most famous crab, and went over on his back, hitting his head a resounding crack upon the handle of Lance's oar, and waving his long legs in the air.
"Now!" cried Laura, increasing her stroke, and the girls' boat went past their opponents' at a fast clip.
The boys got together again after half a minute; but those thirty seconds told the story of the race. The best the boys could do brought them across the line several lengths behind. And the whole crowd were shouting with laughter over Purt's mishap.
"I wish you'd kept your vest on, Purt," snarled Lance. "There'd been some satisfaction in your getting it wet. My goodness! what a lubber you are in a boat!"
"Weally, I couldn't help it, dear boy," sighed Pretty.
"Just the same, you crabbed the race," grunted Chet. "Now the girls have put it all over us."
And the girls certainly did not spare the boys, and joked at their expense all the way home. But the day was voted a very merry one and Eve and Otto went home in the evening strongly of the opinion that the boys and girls of Central High were a jolly company indeed. Eve promised Laura before she went home that, if she could pass the exams, for junior classes under Principal Sharp, she would surely attend Central High in the fall.
"We've got a splendid bit of athletic timber in Eve Sitz," Laura said, discussing the matter with Jess and the Lockwood twins.
"I hope she'll take up rowing. We can put her into Celia's place on the eight for next year, and then there will be no danger of Hester Grimes getting it," said Jess, who was very outspoken.
"She is better material for stroke than Hester," admitted Laura.
"And enough sight better tempered," Dora observed.
"You know what Hester is doing now?" demanded Jess, in anger.
"What is it?" asked Dorothy.
"She is trying to make the other girls think that the Executive Committee only cares about the eight-oared boat race, and that we'll put up no fight for Central High's entries in the other events."
"She is going to make trouble if she can," declared Dora.
"It isn't so," Laura said, firmly. "There is going to be a fine canoe race – we look to you twins to make good for Central High in that."
"We'll do our best," said the twins together, nodding.
Aunt Dora did not approve of the twins being on the lake so much; in her girlhood "young ladies" of the twins' age did not row, and paddle, and swim, and otherwise imitate boys.
"And I remember that you never were any fun, as a girl, Dora," observed Mr. Lockwood, at the supper table that night, when his sister uttered her usual criticisms of the twins' conduct. "You squealed if you came across a caterpillar, and a garter snake sent you into spasms, and it tired you to walk half a mile, and – "
"Thanks be! I was no tomboy," gasped Aunt Dora.
"Far from it," said the flower lover. "And mother was always having the doctor for you, and you got cold the easiest of any person I ever saw – and do to this day – "
"That is perfectly ridiculous, Lemuel."
"I believe you're sitting in a draught now, Dora," said Mr. Lockwood, quickly.
"Well – I – Achoo! I believe you! I never did see such a draughty place as this house, Lemuel. Ahem! Dora! get me my little knit shawl, will you, child?"
"Oh, yes, Auntie," said one of the twins, as they both rose.
"We're both through our suppers, Auntie," said the other. "We'll bring the shawl."
"Now!" exclaimed the exasperated old lady, when the twins were out of the room. "Which of 'em went for it?"
Her brother shook his head sadly, but his eyes were a-twinkle. "I could not undertake to say, Sister."
It annoyed Aunt Dora very much to hear the girls talk continually of the coming Big Day on Lake Luna and the part the girls of Central High would take in the races. And that next week Dora and Dorothy certainly were full of the new eight-oared shell.
It arrived at the boathouse early in the week, and proved to be the handsomest shell that had ever been launched in Luna waters. Even the wealthy Luna Boat Club did not own a shell like it.
Every other afternoon Mrs. Case allowed the crew to go out for a spin, and Professor Dimp, who coached the boys' crews, looked after the girls' rowing, as well. Some of the girls' parents went down to the shore in the early evening to watch the practice work off Colonel Richard Swayne's estate; but would Aunt Dora go? Only once!
By some inquiry she learned that each member of the crew of eight girls had her own particular seat in the big shell. Dorothy was supposed to row Number 2 and Dora Number 6. But the twins sometimes changed seats – and who was to know the difference?
Not the coach, for Professor Dimp could tell them apart no better than other people. Had Aunt Dora been sure that her namesake rowed in her right place on the evening when she viewed the practice, she would have met the shell at the landing, seized Number 6 oar, and marched her home and locked her into her own room until tickets could be bought for Aunt Dora's home city.
But in their natty-looking costumes the twins looked more alike than ever – were that possible!