Chapter XVI: A Picnic

Both Stella Stroth and Stevens were already at table, and the girl seemed to be in the highest sort of spirits.

From the very second of my arrival she kept me jumping from subject to subject in a sparkling joy of life. Little showed of that pensive mood of last night’s moonlight.

Stroth and Stevens soon became engrossed in plans for the refitting of the schooner, no small task under the circumstances; but little of the more serious talk got to me, for the girl kept me busy.

Presently she burst out with:

“Oh, daddy, have you still got my canoe aboard?”

Not a trace of annoyance at her interruption showed in the father’s manner as he replied:

“I just reckon we have, honey. It’s below deck, of course; somewhere beknownst to old Steve; he stowed it away carefully. Why, do you want it?”

She turned to me happily. “Wouldn’t it be just great to paddle over to the beach yonder?” she cried. “Why, we might even catch some fish, Mr. Grey.”

I glanced at Stroth, who smiled back meaningly.

“I’m afraid we’d be sort of deserters, and----” I began.

“Oh, shucks! Daddy, we couldn’t help fix the schooner, anyway, could we? We’d just be in the way, wouldn’t we?”

Stroth replied easily:

“Well, honey, I don’t want Grey, here, to take it as a slight, but I really don’t think he could be of much service, for we’ve plenty of men. And so that is not at all a bad suggestion.”

“Ah, you hear that, Mr. Grey?” she cried delightedly, tossing down her napkin. “Come on, let’s get old Steve!”

As she quitted the doorway, and before she turned to see if I were following, I questioned her father with a look, and got another nod of approval. He certainly was putting my liberty on my honor.

Old Steve chuckled joyously at her request, and it wasn’t ten minutes before a light and graceful canvas canoe was bobbing alongside the starboard landing stairs. And the old bo’s’n added this suggestion to the fishing part of the picnic:

“I don’t guess as how you’ll find overmuch fish atween here and the beach, missy; but onless this region is dead changed, the shallows is full of crabs; so I just brought this here net along in case----”

“Oh, dandy! I just dote on scoopin’ ’em in!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “And we’ll take along a kettle. Why, it’ll just be scrumptious! And you can tell Saki that he needn’t expect us to dinner.”

Whereupon she took her place in the bow of the frail craft, and caught up her paddle, and not ten strokes were needed to prove that she was no novice at the trick.

We reached the main beach within a half hour, then coasted along its shallows, scooping up the crustaceans. We made a goodly haul in short order, and by noon she had had enough of the sport.

“Let’s land on the beach, leave the canoe pulled up, and take our kettle over to the ocean side of the bar,” she proposed. “We can make a bully good fire of driftwood. My, but this is all primitive and bully, isn’t it?”

And it was all I could do to keep from telling her just how bully it was to me, and how I’d like to keep on this way forever.

But before we got that fire started, we met a difficulty. I hadn’t a match--not a single one.

This was an insuperable difficulty, that cleared quicker and easier than usual, for a blue-uniformed government coast guard came trudging his solitary beat along the hardened sands where the tide had run out.

He seemed not a whit surprised at seeing such a couple as we were. I suppose he credited “summer folks” with any kind of asininity, even to paddling a canoe clear over from Babylon.

“A match?” he echoed genially. “Why, shore! Here you are,” and he produced one from behind his ear, where he carried a half dozen.

As he handed it over, I detected a lingering eye on our catch.

“You certainly got quite a mess, didn’t you?” he commented.

“Yes; don’t you want some of ’em?” I asked.

“Why, I don’t care if I do,” he answered. “The boys up to the station ain’t got much time to catch ’em themselves. Ef you don’t mind, I’ll jest take along a half dozen.”

So saying, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, tore a sheet from it, and, to our hearty urging, wrapped up a full dozen.

Then he wished us a good appetite for our crude meal, and once more strode away at his steady, distance-covering gait.

It was with the intention of starting the fire at once that I caught up the sheet of newspaper he had left behind him; but, after one glance, I didn’t burn it.

The item that met my eye was not a large one; the bit of news was not featured; but it held me. This is what I saw:

“WIRELESS FROM MONTAUK.

“A message received late last night reports a strange happening off
Montauk Point yesterday during a short, but fierce, squall.

“At the very instant when the operator at the point was trying to
get into communication with a trim, black schooner that carried the
apparatus, the wind caught her full; she heeled sharply; then the
fog, which had held the whole day, once more descended. But there
came another sudden rift in the mist when the craft was again
sighted. This time it was only her hull, for both masts, in the
interval, had been carried away clean to the deck. Then once more
the fog descended. No hint of her identity or present whereabouts
is known.”

That was all, but I shoved the paper quickly into my jacket pocket before the girl returned from the water, where she had been filling our kettle.