Chapter III: Part 3

But as Terry began to kick and squirm Captain Blow leaped on deck. The old man looked the picture of fury as he bore down on the two men from the other side of the island. Jim, springing at Frank, just missed him with a swing of the boathook, and the little man, uttering a howl of terror, rolled off the deck and splashed into the water. Benito, seeing the grim look in the captain’s eyes, attempted to let go of the boy, but Terry, realizing that he was to be captured, in turn held on to him.

Captain Blow’s haste spoiled the whole scheme. Like a battering ram the captain’s knotted old fist caught the bandit on the side of the head, knocking him clean overboard. Without touching the low rail or any portion of the sloop Benito simply flew in a back dive into the water.

“Get him!” yelled Jim, “don’t let him get away!”

Frank had succeeded in climbing into the rowboat and was rowing swiftly to where Benito was bobbing around in the water. As they watched the leader climbed into the boat, and they started to row rapidly for the island.

“We’ll get ’em in the dory,” Captain Blow said shortly. “Hop in, you two.”

Terry and Jim piled into the dory without loss of speed and the captain started the engine. The little boat ran around the _Lassie_ and then started in toward the shore.

“Oh, shucks!” snorted the captain. “I wish we’d thought to bring a flashlight along. My boat’s got no light on it. We’ll sort of have to feel our way along after them fellows.”

It was not too much like feeling, for the captain had a remarkably sharp pair of eyes, but although they patrolled up and down the shore for a good half hour they saw no signs of the two men in the rowboat.

“Must have headed right in to the shore,” Jim suggested.

“Yes,” the captain agreed. “Probably hiding in some black creek right now, where we’d never find ’em in a year of Sundays. Well, I suppose we go back now.”

“Aren’t you going to the house to get Don?” Jim cried.

The captain shook his head and headed the dory out to sea. “Nope, sorry to say. It wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do just now. Somebody has got to stay aboard the ship to watch her, and those fellows might come out again. Besides, we’d have a mean job finding the house in the dark and we couldn’t get in and roam around. Anyhow, you said your brother had escaped, so he may be somewhere on the island, just waiting for daylight.”

“I hope so,” Jim muttered. “But we’ll go ashore in the morning, won’t we?”

“Don’t you hang any doubts on that!” the captain declared, with emphasis. “We’ll just land all troops and clean up that place in fine style!”

They boarded the _Lassie_ again, where Jim told Terry of his adventures of the last few hours. Terry was very much pleased with Jim’s new find, Captain Blow. On his part, the old sailor was much impressed with the boys.

“You’re real shipshape lads,” he declared, warmly. “None of these softy loafers. I must say you keep this little boat in first class order. I’ve sailed in some worse rattletraps than this, in my time. Galloping smelts! there goes my fool tongue again. I mean I’ve sailed in some ships in my time that was rattletraps, not that your boat is one. Good thing my boats don’t navigate like my tongue.”

Hope that Don had managed to get away from the island house safely in some measure eased the minds of the two boys, and they ate some food. The captain asked to look at their barometer and frowned at it, but said nothing. In another hour, as they sat on the deck, a moaning breeze began to blow through the halyards of the sloop, and it began to rock with increasing force.

“In for bad weather,” growled the captain.

His words were scarcely out of his mouth before a violent gale swept over them, and the fury of the storm was on. Shouting to them to get below the captain forced his way to the bow to examine the anchor cable. Presently he dropped through the hatchway, soaking wet from head to foot from the flying spray.

“If it gets any worse we’ll have to weigh anchor and scoot,” he reported. “That baby hawser is getting quite a strain on it.”

For the next half hour the sloop rocked without stopping, and the three sat and talked in low tones. Each time a wave hit the little ship it jerked roughly at the anchor cable. Finally, shaking his shaggy head, the captain got up.

“Turn your power on,” he ordered Jim. “We’ve got to get that mud-hook up. If we don’t the cable’ll bust in two and then we’ll be bouncing all over the ocean.”

While Jim turned on the power the captain scrambled outside to pull up the anchor. Even under full power the _Lassie_ made little headway, only enough to slack up the strain on the taut cable. Bending double in the raging storm the old sea captain slowly and painfully cranked up the hand windlass. Reluctantly, the anchor came up.

Immediately the captain flew to the tiller, for, once released of the controlling power of the anchor the sloop bucked and rolled like a thing alive. Jim shut off the power and the boys looked out of the companionway, which was opened on a crack, at the captain, where he sat holding the sloop firmly on its course.

“What shall we do now?” Jim shouted to the skipper.

“Toss me out a good oilskin and then go to bed,” he returned, looking through narrowed eyes at the huge waves that rolled around them.

Terry handed him a suit of oilskins. “We don’t want to go to bed, sir,” he said. “Too much excitement.”

The captain slapped his knee. “Excitement, by golly! What kind of sailors do you two calculate to be? Don’t you know a real jack tar don’t let anything bother his sleep but the sinkin’ of the ship! And answer me this: either of you ever try to hold a small vessel in line in a blow?”

The boys shook their heads. The captain chuckled. “If you tried this tonight, you’d be flappin’ back and forth in the breeze like a shirt on a line. Get into bed and get some sleep!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” laughed Jim. He and Terry climbed into their bunks, but for a time found sleep impossible.

“My gosh!” gasped Terry. “I was never in a bed that threw you up in the air like this.”

Finally, however, almost worn out by the events of the day, the boys went to sleep, to wake up several hours later. They sprang up and opened the companionway slide, to find that they were far from the island. The wind had gone down and the stalwart old captain still sat at the tiller.

“Good morning, Captain Blow,” nodded Jim. “I feel guilty to have slept while you sat here on this wet deck all night with the tiller.”

“I do, too,” agreed Terry.

“Pull in your sail!” ordered the captain, good-naturedly. “It didn’t hurt me any. We’re a considerable spell further out than we were yesterday, ain’t we?”

“Yes,” Jim agreed, anxiously. “Can we get back?”

The captain tossed his oilskins aside. “We sure can. We’re about three miles off of that island now. The water’s running pretty heavy right now, but put on the power anyway. We’ve got to get back to that island.”

The sloop was soon under full power, headed back toward the low island. The captain surrendered the tiller to Jim and went below to make coffee, which warmed them and buoyed up their spirits.

It took them more than an hour to run back to the island, but at the end of that time they dropped anchor in the cove, where the dinghy had been placed on the sands. But there was no dinghy there now, and Jim was worried.

“Let’s hope Don didn’t take to the dinghy and was lost in the storm,” he said.

But the captain shook his head. “Don’t believe it,” he declared, stoutly. “Well, here is where we raid that nest in the woods. Only this time I suggest that Jim stays on the ship, and you, Terry, come with me.”

“Can’t we all go?” Jim cried.

“Nope. I’d like you to stay here, while Terry and me see what we can stir up in that place.”

So Jim was left alone to pace restlessly around the deck of the _Lassie_ while the other two, in the captain’s dory, went ashore. He watched them land and then settled himself to wait.

Terry and the captain took the path and soon reached the old house. It looked every bit as deserted as it ever had, but the captain wasted no time in wondering. He marched up the shaking front steps, raised his foot, and kicked the door off its hinges. With a roar the door flew into the damp hall.

“Nobody can say I didn’t knock!” he grinned.

Both of them had armed themselves with heavy sticks, although Terry was sure that the captain had something cold and steel in an inside pocket, something which reassured him, but which he hoped the captain would not have to use. They were now in a large hall, off which ran a number of rooms. A winding staircase ran to the floor above, and on a turn in it they saw a large old redwood clock.

“A grandfather clock,” breathed Terry.

“Sure! See the whiskers on it!”

Terry laughed. “Those are cobwebs,” he said. The captain moved away in the direction of another room, but the red-headed boy remained where he was, looking up the stairs.

“Come on,” ordered the captain, impatiently, “What are you standing there for? Your feet sprouting lead?”

“No,” answered Terry slowly. “But I do think I just saw that grandfather clock move, Captain Blow!”

_11. The Storage Room_

When Don let go of the edge of the flooring in the old house and dropped into space he had no idea of how far he would fall or how he would land. His teeth gripped together firmly, he felt himself shooting through a black void, to land suddenly on something wet and soft. The fall had not been long, and he was not even shaken up.

By feeling about him he soon came to the conclusion that he had landed on a heap of ashes, long ago soaked down by the dampness of the cellar. Don stood up and slowly moved his arms around in circles to gauge his distance, and then, finding that he was not near any wall or partition, began a careful advance. The place was pitch dark, and he had no idea what terrible holes or traps might exist in the loathsome place.

After traveling slowly in one direction he found that his hands encountered a wall, and with that as a guide he began a systematic journey around the place, seeking some sort of an opening. He had traveled around three of the four walls when his groping hands felt an iron door. He ran his hand up and down it from top to bottom and found that it was only five feet high and about three feet wide. The iron, much to his surprise, did not feel badly rusted. He wondered how that could be, and concluded that it had not been there for any length of time.

Continuing his explorations with his fingers he found a sliding bolt on the door which he had no difficulty in working. The bolt slipped back without protest, and the door opened inward, toward him. But when Don had opened the door, he felt rather disappointed. He had hoped to feel a rush of cold air, but there was none. Only a drier odor and one heavily tinctured with canvas. It was evidently good dry canvas, too, and that fact surprised him.

He stepped over the sill into the blackness and nearly pitched headlong. Only a good hold on the door frame saved him from going down, and he realized that this room was a few steps below the main cellar. So he lowered his foot until he felt the top step, and then found the second, and so on, until he had walked down four of them. Then he had made the level of the floor.

He felt a table to one side of him, and found that the top was covered with miscellaneous articles. Fortunately, he found a candle among the odds and ends which lay there.

“Now to find some matches,” he thought, and with increasing care he felt around the table until he came across a small box of safety matches. With an inward whoop of joy he scratched a match and lighted the candle. When the glow was steady he held the light above his head and looked around.

He was in a storage room that was quite large, and it was evident that some things were kept here with care. Several shelves ranged along the walls and these shelves seemed to be loaded with articles, all of which were covered with canvas. Don approached a bottom shelf and lifted a piece of canvas.

What he saw made his eyes bulge out. Quickly he lifted other coverings and examined the articles under them. In each case the same conviction was forced upon him.

“Jeepers!” he breathed. “These fellows are the marine bandits all right!”

Each piece of canvas covered some stolen object from a boat or a boathouse. Here there was a clock, there a sextant, there a binnacle, under another cover a compass and in a corner a telescope. There must have been almost a hundred pieces of ships’ goods there, and Jim’s clock was there, too.

“So,” decided Don, “this is where they store the stuff and then afterward they run it down the shore and sell it to cheap ship chandlers. No wonder they were never caught. It was easy for them to run out here and hide the stuff, and no one thought that they were so near home.”

He was trying to make up his mind just what to do when a sound outside startled him. Someone was walking around, and had gone into the room where he had been confined. With a swift movement Don blew out the light and waited, his heart pounding furiously. He knew that if they caught him in that room his life might be in grave danger, for they would realize that he controlled their secret.

The man in the room uttered a startled cry and then ran from the room. Don heard him running about the house, and then he heard other voices raised in excited talking. He also heard Jim fall through the porch, without knowing what it was, however. But when he heard a patter of feet returning to the room above he knew that he must seek safety at once.

His first impulse was to leave the storage room, but on second thought he dismissed it. Out in the dark cellar he would be at a distinct loss, and he dared not go out there with a light. No, he remembered that there was some extra canvas piled on the floor at the end of the storage room, and it was under this that he hid himself, hoping against hope that he was fully concealed.

He heard the man drop through the opening that he had made earlier in the evening and he could follow his progress as the man cautiously made his way around the cellar. It was not long before he heard the iron door open and a light, evidently from a lantern, flashed into the storage room.

From a split in the canvas Don could gain a fairly good view of what was going on. He saw the shaggy individual that Jim had seen come into the room and look about him carefully. Don could not understand why Benito and Frank were not with this man. Sizing him up, Don felt quite capable of handling him if it became necessary for him to try, but he hoped that it would not. Meanwhile, the man looked in each corner of the room, ducking his lantern down into the dark places.

At last, apparently satisfied that Don was not in there, the man turned and started for the steps. But as his foot touched the first one he paused and looked fully at the canvas under which Don lay. There was something burning in his glance, and Don felt his skin grow tight. Then, placing the lantern on the lowest step, the man headed straight for the heap of canvas.

Don gritted his teeth and clinched his fists, prepared to carry his adversary off of his feet in the first rush. But just as the man was about to lean down to pick up a strip of the covering Benito’s voice hailed him from above.

“Hey! Did you find that kid?”

“No!” the man shouted. “He’s got away.”

“Well, then come on up. What are you doing down there now?”

“Just gettin’ a strip of canvas to cover that hole with.”

Benito snorted. “Never mind that now. I want you to go down to the cove and row those kids’ dinghy around to the creek. Frank and me are going out and capture the sloop.”

The man went out, taking the lantern with him, and the room was in absolute darkness. Don heard them all go out, and as soon as he knew that he had the place to himself he sprang from his place of concealment. Lighting the candle, whose light he did not fear, since there were no cellar windows in the house, he went to the door, hoping to find a way upstairs. But to his intense disappointment he found that the man had slipped the bolt into place as he went out.

Don was once more a prisoner.

The realization at first staggered him, and then made him angry. He realized that if he did not get out of here at once he would probably never have a chance to get out. He hoped fervently that Terry and Jim would not fall into the hands of the men, and groaned as he realized that he could not help them any. But the one fact remained: he must get out.

A thought occurred to him that made him pause. Suppose the men were ever trapped down in that room by someone entering the house above, how would they get out? Was it possible that they had made no provision for that? He could not believe it, and he felt certain that there was an opening somewhere in that very room. So, holding the dripping candle in front of him, he made his way back of the shelves, which were built out a bit from the walls, and began to search thoroughly.

He almost uttered a cry of triumph at what he found. Right back of the main section of the shelves he found a square piece of canvas hung up, and when he pushed it back a doorway, leading to a flight of iron stairs, was disclosed. These iron stairs ran upward at an abrupt angle and terminated at a small door. Don stepped through the canvas and walked up the steps, until he stood on the tiny platform before the door.

Not knowing where the door might lead, he blew out the candle and opened it.

He was astonished to hear the sound of a loud ticking burst on his ears. Thrusting his hand forward, he encountered wood, and at last, sure that he was not yet in the old house, itself, he relighted the candle and looked at the object before him.

It was the back of a big, redwood grandfather clock, and Don was further amazed to see that a hook held one side of it to the doorway. Undoing this hook he found that the big clock swung outward on hinges, and then it came to him. The clock was a real one, but it was a clever disguise. If anyone raided the house the men would open the concealed doorway by pushing forward their clock, and if they happened to be in the storage room at the time they could make their escape into the house by way of the clock. The clock, for all its works and its ticking, was in reality a door, leading either into the storage room or into the house from the storage room.

Don now found himself on the landing of the stairway and alone in the house, unless the old woman was about. Fearful that she was, and not wishing to meet her, Don was at a complete loss as to what to do. He might find his way to the cove in the darkness, overpower the man who had been sent for the dinghy, and then make his way out to the sloop.

He made his way down the stairs, which creaked loudly under his feet, and got as far as the front door. This he could not open, but a full length window on the other side was much easier. After raising the window, he threw one leg over the sill, which was about a foot high. Suddenly a thin old voice shrilled out from upstairs.

“Who is it? Who is it?”

Don knew that it was the old woman, and so he lost no time in getting away. He found that he was lost in the intense blackness of the night, and was almost as hopelessly mixed up as he had been in the dark cellar. But he had a general idea of the direction of the cove, and he made his way in that direction rapidly.

It took him longer to get there than it had taken him to get to the house earlier in the day, but when he did get there he found he was doomed to disappointment. The dinghy was gone, and there was no sign of the men. Thinking that they might have gone somewhere along the shore he followed it, puzzled by another circumstance. The _Lassie_ was nowhere to be seen. But that in itself was not hopeless, for he thought that Jim might have moved it purposely.

Continuing on around the shore he was in time to witness the battle aboard the sloop. He saw it all, from the appearance of Terry to the victory for his side. He exulted gleefully, mourning the fact that he could not be in on it, but he dared not swim out, for the distance was great and it was possible that they might weigh anchor and sail, leaving him to swim back to shore.

He missed the scene of the escape and the chase because of the darkness. He would not have seen the fight, except that vivid light poured up from the companionway of the _Lassie_. Realizing that he must stay there until morning, he sat down in the wet undergrowth to wait.

But when the storm came up he was forced to go back to the old house. He knew that he must find some kind of shelter, and so he followed the beach around to the cove and went back over the trail to the house. The place was absolutely black, without a light of any sort, but fearing a trap, he took refuge in a well-built henhouse until morning.

It was a long, dreary night, and he was glad to see the gray dawn. He watched the house for a full hour, and at last, convinced that there was no one around the place, he boldly entered the back door and roamed around. No one was in the place, and only one bed had been occupied, that of the old woman. They had fled somewhere during the storm and had taken her with them.

It was as he was coming down the front stairs that he heard two men tramp up on the front porch. Quickly he slipped in back of the clock and waited. In another moment the door was kicked off its hinges and the two entered. Don listened intently, and then, to his joy, he discovered that one of them was Terry.

_12. The Beach Party_

To Terry’s statement that he had seen the clock move the captain was prepared to give a contemptuous snort, but as he looked he too saw it move and then open wide. A moment later and Don Mercer was bounding down the stairs and thumping Terry on the back.

“Chucklehead, you character,” Don cried. “I sure am glad to see you!”

“Don’t say a word,” replied his chum, fairly dancing around in his joy. “We’re more than glad to see you, even if you did come out of a clock!”

“A little story which might be entitled ‘Once upon a time!’ eh?” grinned Don.

Terry frowned. “You must have been treated horribly here, to spring such a bad pun as that one. Don, I want you to know Captain Blow, who saved the sloop from capture.”

Don and the captain shook hands warmly. “Glad to meet you, young fellow,” the captain said. “We was prepared to rip up this island to find you.”

“You certainly took the gates of the mansion off in great style,” Don nodded. “I’m very happy to know you, captain. I appreciate what you have done.”

“It’s nothing,” declared the captain, waving his hand. “Anybody in this place?”

They went through the house from top to bottom and Don showed them the storage room. But now there remained but a few of the smaller articles, everything else had been carted off.

“After we chased them off last night they must have loaded their stuff into a boat and run off with it,” remarked the captain. “But what I want to know is what kind of a boat have those fellows got? Must have some kind of a power cruiser that runs up here close to the house by way of a creek.”

A little later on, they found that this was so. While looking over the cellar which Don had not seen at all, owing to the darkness, they found at one end a door which led directly out into a thicket. Through the midst of this thicket was a path, and soon they came across a narrow creek, in which lay their own dinghy.

“Sure,” nodded the captain. “They run their boat up here and kept out of sight. Last night they loaded that stuff and slipped away.”

Don and Terry rowed out in the dinghy, while the captain went around to the cove for the dory. Soon the captain caught up to them under power and they arrived at the _Lassie_ at the same time. Jim was overjoyed to see his brother safe and sound, and they all united in thanking the old captain.

“Avast there, stow that stuff!” he protested. “Nothing to thank me for. I never liked the looks of that crew, and I always felt that they had no business on my island. I’ve lived there for twenty years. Now, it’s time we got down to business. We’ve got to get over to Stillwell at once.”

“What for?” asked Don.

“We must make a report to the authorities about these fellows and have that house taken over. Start your engine running. It won’t take us long.”

They started the engine and headed the sloop across the gray water toward the town of Stillwell. Don was starved, of course, and Jim, as soon as his duties permitted, made him a hearty meal. The captain insisted upon taking the tiller and in a few hours they were gliding in beside the long dock at the town. Jim stood at the bow while Don slowly throttled the engine down, and when the bow was close to the dock he leaped ashore, snubbed the rope around a post, and then pushed the bow off with one foot, so as not to allow it to scrape. The _Lassie_ came to a halt, riding quietly up and down.

Stillwell was a town of some importance, and they wasted no time in laying their case before the harbor authorities. The chief was much interested and listened eagerly to their story. When Don had finished the chief pushed a button on his desk.

A man in uniform entered briskly and saluted. The chief directed him to proceed to Mystery Island at once and take possession of the old house there. After the man had gone the chief turned to the boys and the captain again.

“It is always possible that they might go back there for something, and if they do we’ll be able to lay hands on them. But frankly, I’m afraid that they have gone. There is a heavy reward out for them, and I’m rather sorry you weren’t able to hold onto them. But you have done well as it is. I promise you that we’ll bend every effort to catch those fellows and put them behind bars.”

After this interview the boys walked around Stillwell, where they were pretty well known, and made a few purchases. The captain had refused to join them, and when they went back to the sloop they found him sitting on the cabin of the _Lassie_ calmly smoking his pipe, his broad back against the sail.

“What you been doing, captain?” hailed Terry.

“Thinking,” replied the captain. “How’d you fellows like to go in for a beach party tonight?”

“A what?” asked Jim.

“Beach party. Long’s there isn’t anybody on the island now except me, what do you say we go back, build a fire on the sand, eat out there, and if you are agreeable, I’ll spin a yarn or two. What say?”

“I say yes,” voted Don, quickly.

“I second that yes,” cried Jim, and Terry nodded.

The captain got up. “That’s fine. Let’s get back; that parrot of mine’ll think I’m dead or something. There’s a fair breeze, so let’s see you sail back.”

While the captain held the tiller the boys ran up the sails, and soon the sloop was heeling over under a cracking load of sails. The canvas curved out under the force of the breeze until it looked to Terry as though they must burst, but the Mercers and Captain Blow did not seem to mind it in the least. It took them about two hours, and just as the feeble sun was going down they ran past the cove on the island and rounded the point that sheltered the captain’s little bit of land.

The sloop was anchored and they went ashore in the dory. After they had beached the dory the captain led the way to the door of the shack and, after winking at the boys, suddenly began to rap on the door.

Instantly a medley of groans and sobs sounded from the inside of the shack. Jim, remembering the captain’s words when they left the shack, grinned, but the others looked startled. The captain laughed heartily.

“Ahoy, Bella!” he yelled.

The groaning and sobbing ceased abruptly and there was a moment of silence. Then the parrot cried out, “Open the door, open the door!”

The captain opened the door and they went in. The parrot, who had been sitting on top of the cold stove, flew to the captain’s shoulder and perched there.

“Quit that, you lubber,” the captain growled, as the parrot bit him lovingly on the ear. “Well, what about it, old girl? Any visitors?”

“Bella was a good girl!” the polly answered.

The captain hung his hat on a peg. “Well, now, I’m real glad to hear that. It don’t happen very often.” He turned to the boys. “Make yourselves at home, as much as you can in such a little place. I’ll get things together and we’ll tramp up the shore aways.”

The captain began to wrap up beans, fish, bread and butter in a large package. The boys looked over his fishing tackle and some models of sailing ships that he had carved out of wood.

“Where did you ever get this piece of wood, captain?” Jim asked, holding up a small dory carved out of red wood.

“Oh, I get most of my wood right here on the beach. The tide washes it up and I find it. I found that piece about three miles down the shore. Don’t even know what kind of wood it is, and it was tough to whittle.”

It was now beginning to get dark and the captain and the boys left the shack and started down the rough beach. The storm of the evening previous had littered it with driftwood, and they had to watch the sand before them as they walked. When they got to a point about a mile from the shack the captain stopped and placed his bundles on the sand. Terry and Don, who also carried bundles which the captain had given them, did likewise.

“Now,” said the captain, briskly. “We’re ready to go to work. Gather up a load of dry driftwood. Don’t bother with any of the stuff that came ashore last night, but get good stuff. Jim, you help me with the eats, while the boys get the wood.”

Getting the wood was no task, as the beach was covered with it. While Terry and Don gathered it the captain put beans in a pot, added water from a jug, and as soon as the fire was going, set them to boiling. On a second fire he started to broil fish. Soon the air was filled with the smell of good cooking.

The night was pitch dark and the fire, leaping up into the still air, made a pleasing picture. Far to the south a light flashed out across the water, and Don asked the captain about it.

“That’s the Needle Point Lighthouse,” the captain answered. “Run by a friend of mine, Timothy Tompkins. Rather queer old boy, but a good fellow, once you get to know him. We used to have a scheme that if anything went wrong at the lighthouse he would burn a red light and I would come over to help him, but I haven’t seen him for a year or more, and we never did have any use for that light.”

The captain dug a hole in the wet sand, made a fire of embers and then put the pot of beans on them. “Beans cooked like this are called bean hole beans,” he told them. “It works a lot better when you are out in the woods, though. Well, how’s that fish? We might as well start in.”

That meal was one of the most enjoyable meals the boys ever had. They settled themselves in the sand, listening to the beat of the waves on the beach, and ate the beans and fish with wholesome and hearty appetites. The fire blazed merrily upward toward the sky, and the sand hills back of them seemed to crouch down and ring them around.

When the meal was over the captain filled his pipe and began to tell them stories. He had had a wide career on the sea, and had visited many lands on many ships, so they enjoyed his stories immensely. Stories of storms and staunch old sailing ships, of mutiny on the high seas and the people of the southern seas, of the great old shipping days in Boston, and many others. The boys listened attentively and with respect to their friend as he told it all in his own, vivid way.

It was Don who first interrupted. He had been looking off across the sea and now he said, “I beg your pardon, Captain Blow, but wasn’t your friend to burn a red light if he needed you for anything?”

“Eh?” said the captain, coming abruptly out of a story. “Yes, he was. Why?”

“Because,” answered Don, pointing across the tumbling black waters, “there is some kind of a red light burning from a window in the lighthouse right now!”

_13. The Red Lamp_

The captain jumped to his feet with a startled exclamation and looked in the direction of the lighthouse. Sure enough, a red light was burning high up in a window near the top.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” the captain exclaimed. “It’s the light, sure enough. Let’s get over there and find out what is wrong.”

Leaving everything just as it was on the sand the boys and the captain ran down the beach until they came to the shack and there they piled in the dory. The captain started the engine and headed out to sea toward the south shore and the lighthouse.

“This Timothy is a pretty queer sort of a fellow,” Captain Blow explained, as the dory cut her way into the bobbing waves. “I think so much solitude in that lighthouse has been too much for him. Like as not we’ll find that it is nothing at all. I told him more than once that he ought to get over being so sort of nervous, but he just keeps on his merry way. ’Taint very merry, though. Timothy is just the opposite of merry, but he is a good lighthouse keeper.”

It took them more than a half hour to arrive at the black spur of rock which ran abruptly out into the water and which was named Needle Point. When they got there the captain ran his boat alongside the dock and tied it up securely. The beacon itself stood about a hundred yards away from the dock.

“Come on,” said the captain. “We’ll find out what’s wrong here.”

Led by their friend the boys approached the tall structure of stone and brick that rose high into the air above their heads. It was the first time that they had ever been close to a lighthouse. The base of the light was a regular house, they discovered, with several rooms in it, while the column tapered and became much smaller as it became higher. Just now Captain Blow was at the main front door, hammering with all his might.

“Open up, Timmy Tompkins!” he bellowed. “What in time’s the matter?”

There was no reply to his knock or his question, and after waiting for a moment the captain opened the door and looked in. After hesitating for a brief second he walked in and the boys followed him.

They found themselves in a large room, the central room of the lighthouse. In the center of the room stood a table, faced with a few chairs and an old sofa. The walls of the room, plainly whitewashed, were covered with one or two old prints, some framed official documents, and a large map. The room was in perfect order and the place empty of life. Off this room the party could see the other rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and what appeared to be a storeroom. Led by the captain they visited each room and looked around, without finding anything.

“He isn’t down here,” said the captain. “More than likely he’s up in the tower. You boys ever see a real lighthouse? Well, then come on. You’re going to see one now.”

On the other side of the room an iron ladder led to a trap door in the ceiling, and that door had been pushed open. The captain mounted the ladder and disappeared through the trap, closely followed by the boys. When they stepped through the trap door they found themselves in the shaft of the lighthouse.

It extended straight upward for many feet, a spiral staircase leading up to the room which housed the light itself. The whole shaft was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights spaced along the wall, giving a steady light to the spiral stairs. At intervals along the shaft narrow slits served for windows, through which, in the daytime, sunlight poured into the column. Taking in all these details briefly the boys followed their friend up and around the shaft, step by step, until they came to another trap door, through which they made their way, and so entered a small room.

It appeared to be the keeper’s chief room while on duty. Through it a heavy beam ran straight up to the lamp itself, which was in the room directly above. A metal shaft with a handle came into this room through the floor overhead, and the captain told them what it was.

“This is the room where Timmy stays when the light ain’t working any too well,” he said. “Sometimes the automatic machinery gets out of order and don’t turn the light, and then Timmy has got to sit up all night and work the thing by hand. Not the kind of a job to go looking for, unless you have to.”

“Here is where he placed the light, Captain Blow,” called out Don.

A narrow slit which served as a window had been cut in the east side of the tower and on that small window sill the keeper had placed the red lantern. They crowded around it and examined it with interest and curiosity. It was quite hot and there was no means of knowing how long it had been lighted.

“Got any idea of how long that lamp was there before you sang out?” the captain asked Don.

“Not a bit,” confessed the boy. “But I am sure it wasn’t long. I had glanced at the lighthouse several times during the beach party, in fact, I guess you all did, and it wasn’t there. It was while you were telling your South Sea Island story that I looked over this way and happened to see it burning here.”

“Mighty funny,” muttered the old seaman. “If Timmy isn’t up in the light, I can’t figure what could have happened to him.”

The lamp itself was in the small room above the one in which they were standing and they climbed the short length of iron ladder and entered the room. A terrific burst of heat smote them in the face, and their eyes smarted from the blinding light which beat upon them as the lamp automatically swung toward them. The lamp was a huge affair, of shining brass, polished to the last degree, inside of which a powerful light burned. The light turned away from and then toward a thick plate glass window, and each time it turned toward the window a long arm of brilliant light stabbed out across the tumbling sea.

“He isn’t up here,” the captain said. “Let’s get down and look for him below.”

The boys were glad to leave the heat and the unbearable light and in silence they walked down the spiral steps to the room below. Once there they halted in the main room and looked blankly at each other.

“He seems to be gone completely,” remarked Jim.

“Yes, and that’s bad,” nodded the captain. “Something out of the ordinary must have popped up, or he would never have left the light. That’s against the law, and Timmy knows it. But the funny part is this: he must have known that he was going, because he left a warning light. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Terry, slowly. “Don’t know whether there is anything in it, though.”

“What is it?” asked the captain.

“I was just wondering if the marine bandits had anything to do with it all. You see, they ran away during the storm, and we thought that they ran down the coast, but we don’t really know just where they did go. Maybe we’re just getting in the habit of blaming everything on those fellows, but I was just wondering.”

“Could be,” agreed the captain. “What is that?”

An urgent buzzing reached their ears, and they looked in perplexity around the room. The buzzes came in regular order, and after looking in a distant corner Jim gave a shout.

“It’s the lighthouse telephone,” he said. “The receiver is hanging off the hook.”

The captain went to the telephone which was a wall affair, and which was in a corner. Just as Jim had said, the receiver was hanging off the hook, dangling at the end of its cord. The captain picked it up and shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Hello! Who is this?”

An impatient voice reached him over the wire. “This is the night telephone operator, over in Maplebrook. What in the world is the matter with you people. Your receiver has been hanging off the hook for at least an hour, and I’ve been buzzing my head off. Don’t you know that makes a button on my board light up and a bell ring?”

“Sorry,” explained the captain. “This is Captain Blow, from Mystery Island, speaking. I came over here to answer a distress signal and I find the keeper has disappeared. The receiver’s been off the hook an hour, you say?”

“Yes, about that. I’ve got a special line here from the lighthouse, and earlier in the evening the button lighted up and the bell began to ring. I answered it, but didn’t get anything or hear anything. I thought somebody must have just knocked it off and forgot about it, so I’ve been buzzing every once in a while. You say Timothy is missing, eh?”

“Yup. Guess you’ll have to get the police on the wire and hustle ’em out here. Is there a lighthouse keeper anywhere around that can be sent out here?”

The voice on the other end of the wire hesitated for a second and then replied: “Yes, the retired keeper lives here, and I can get ahold of him. Guess I better get him on the job until Timothy is located, eh?”

“Sure thing,” the captain concluded. “And get the police out here on the jump, will you, bub?”

The night operator agreed to do so at once, and the captain hung up the receiver. He explained the situation to the boys and then proposed that they look further.

“I don’t think he is anywhere around,” he said. “But we’ll look all over the place. No use in missing anything. All I hope is that he hasn’t met with any foul play. I’m going to look through these rooms again. Suppose you fellows look around the grounds, only don’t go too far away.”

The boys went out of the door as the captain once more looked through the rooms of the station. Jim and Don walked out to a shed in the back of the lighthouse grounds and Terry walked away alone, toward the end of the rock upon which the lighthouse stood. He was soon lost in the darkness and Don and Jim forgot him in their interest.

A single shed, in which they found a rowboat and some canvas and rope, was at the back of the lighthouse and the boys made a thorough search of the place, but found no clue. They followed the spur of rock back toward the mainland until they came to low and marshy ground. Then, remembering the captain’s warning, they walked back toward the lighthouse, skirted it and walked out on the point of rock where it ended abruptly in the ocean.

Several minutes later the captain, standing in the middle of the floor of the bedroom, heard them enter. Don poked an anxious head in the doorway.

“Say, Captain Blow,” he said. “Isn’t Terry in here?”

“No,” answered the captain. “He’s outside somewhere.”

But Don shook his head. “He isn’t. We just went over the whole point, and he isn’t around. I’m afraid Terry has disappeared, too!”

_14. Terry’s Adventure_

Upon leaving the two boys Terry wandered down a path that led to the other side of the narrow strip of dirt and rock which formed the needle-like point. He had no definite object in mind other than a hazy idea that each foot of the place must be gone over in the search for clues. So he headed for the side of the point directly opposite to that upon which they had arrived.

Although the underlying surface of Needle Point was of solid rock, the top, for a depth of a foot at least, was composed of soft soil, and Terry began to scan it for footprints. He had no difficulty in finding them, and when he did he was more than interested. Evidently two persons had passed from the north side of the point to the lighthouse and when they had gone back again their feet had made deeper prints in the earth. It occurred to him that they might have been carrying someone, and he had no doubt that it had been the keeper. Deeply intent on the tracks Terry followed them down to the shore and there paused.

There was a single rock there that formed a natural landing place, though no dock had been constructed of wood. Here the prints of the men’s footsteps stopped and it was evident that they had taken to a boat. Where had the boat been? Terry looked out across the water as far as he could see but there was no craft of any kind in sight, except a very small rowboat that bobbed up and down a few feet away, tugging at the painter which held it captive to a stake which had been driven in the ground.

Terry glanced back at the lighthouse. He wondered if he should tell the others of his findings immediately or wait until he could find something else. After all, he had found out so little, and he wanted to push his search a little further before he told anything. Off to his right stretched the shore, a low-lying, swampy mass of mystery, bound up in a heavy fog which rose from the ground. He wondered if there might be some creek there which might shelter a small boat, and deciding to investigate, he pulled the small rowboat to him and got in.

“Won’t be gone but a minute,” he decided, remembering the captain’s warning. He found the boat a trifle wet, but making the best of it all, he bent to the task of rowing. The boat was light and he sent it toward the misty shore with swift, sure strokes.

His idea was to press close to land and examine the mouth of any little inlet that he might find, so, quickly gaining the shore, he began to row more slowly, watching carefully. There were a few openings, he discovered, but none large enough to hide anything of importance, and so he kept moving onward, fascinated with the search he was conducting. In time the lighthouse got further and further away and he came at last to a point of land, shaped like Needle Point and jutting out into the water in the same manner. Realizing that he was getting quite some distance from his friends, Terry determined to round the point and give one sweeping look, and then, if he found nothing, to row back to the lighthouse.

Accordingly, he rounded the point rapidly, and almost ran into a long, low black cruiser which seemed to crouch beside the reedy shore. As soon as the boy saw it he knew from the way it was drawn up beside the bushes that it was there for no good. Hastily backing water with his oars, so as not to run into it, Terry sat motionless in the rowboat, looking at the cruiser which loomed not ten feet away from him.

He had feared at first that someone might see him, but no one was on the deck, although a light stabbed the darkness from a side cabin window. The cruiser itself had light, fast lines, with a sharp bow, narrow cabin with a foot of deck space on each side of it, and a small after deck, from which the pilot operated the wheel and the motor. Terry’s first thought was to row the boat silently to the side of the cruiser, stand up and look in the window of the cabin; but fearing to make a noise which might betray him, he decided not to do it. But he was more than anxious to see what was in there, and he considered the possibility of boarding the craft and looking in from the narrow deck.

At first he rejected the thought. The better thing was to row back, get the captain and the boys, and come back in a body, trusting to luck that the cruiser would be there. But there was always the chance that there was nothing wrong with the cruiser and he would be wasting time. If the cruiser should sail away while he was gone he would never know for sure if it had belonged to the men they sought or not. No, he must find out at once and alone, so carefully pulling in his oars he quietly paddled the boat nearer to the cruiser, cautiously using only one oar.