Witches Cove Read online

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  _Mystery Stories for Girls_

  Witches Cove

  _By_ ROY J. SNELL

  The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago New York

  _Printed in the United States of America_

  _Copyright, 1928 by_ The Reilly & Lee Co. _All Rights Reserved_

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I Mysteries of the Night 11 II Sculling in the Night 23 III In the Dungeon 34 IV The Face in the Fire 42 V Three Gray Witches 58 VI Off for Further Adventure 80 VII Some Lobsters 84 VIII From Out the Fog 109 IX Off Black Head 121 X The Tilting Floor 137 XI The Wavering Red Light 149 XII The Little Man of Witches Cove 170 XIII Under Fire 178 XIV The Passing of Black Gull 193 XV The Searching Pencil of Light 200 XVI The Old Fort 212 XVII Secrets Told 221 XVIII Kidnapped 230 XIX A Fire on the Beach 241 XX The Chase 245 XXI On Air and Sea 254 XXII The Story Told 261

  WITCHES COVE

  CHAPTER I MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHT

  It was night on Casco Bay off the coast of Maine. There was no moon.Stars were hidden by a fine haze. The distant harbor lights of Portland,eight of them, gleaming faintly in pairs like yellow cat's eyes, servedonly to intensify the blackness of the water and the night.

  Ruth Bracket's arms moved backward and forward in rhythmic motion. Shewas rowing, yet no sound came from her oarlocks. Oars and oarlocks werepadded. She liked it best that way. Why? Mystery--that magic word"mystery." How she loved it!

  In the stern of the little punt sat slim, black-haired, dark-eyed BettyBronson, a city girl from the heart of America who was enjoying her firstsummer on the coast of Maine.

  Betty, too, loved mystery. And into her life and that of her stoutseashore girl companion had come a little mystery that day. At this verymoment, as Ruth rested on her muffled oar, there came creeping across thesilent waters and through the black of night a second bit of mystery.

  The first mystery had come to them on shore in the hold of a beachedthree-masted schooner.

  Ruth knew the schooner well enough. She had been on board her a dozentimes and thought she knew all about her--but she didn't.

  The owner, a dark-skinned foreigner who had purchased the schooner sixmonths before, used her for bringing wood to the islands. There is, sothey say, an island in Casco Bay for every day in the year. Each islandhas its summer colony. These summer folks like an open fire to sit by atnight and this requires wood. The schooner had been bringing it in fromsomewhere--from Canada some said. No one seemed to know for sure.

  Being an old schooner the wood-carrying craft must be beached from timeto time to have her seams calked. They beached her at high tide. Low tidefound her stranded. The return of high tide carried her off again.

  In this there is no mystery. The mystery began when Ruth and Betty, alongwith other girls and boys of the island, swarmed up a rope ladder to thetilted deck of the beached schooner.

  Being of a bolder nature than the others, having always a consumingdesire to see the hold of so ancient a ship, Ruth had led Betty into thevery heart of the schooner and had opened a door to pursue herinvestigation further when a harsh voice called down to her:

  "Here now. Come out'a da sheep!"

  It was a foreign skipper.

  Startled, the girls had quickly closed the door and bolted up thegangway. Not, however, until they had seen a surprising thing. They hadseen three bolts of bright, red cloth in that cabin back of the hold.Were there others? They could not tell. The place had been quite dark.

  "Looked like silk," Betty had said a few moments later as they walkeddown the beach.

  "Can't tell," Ruth replied. "Probably only red calico, a present for thewood chopper's wife."

  "Three bolts?"

  "Three wood choppers' wives with seven children apiece," Ruth laughed.

  She had found this hard to believe. There certainly was something strangeabout those bolts of cloth, and the foreign skipper's desire to get themaway from the cabin.

  And now, as they listened in the night on the bay with muffled oars atrest, they caught the creak of oarlocks. The schooner had got off thebeach with the tide. She was anchored back in the bay. That the dory hadcome from her they did not doubt.

  "Where are they going?" Betty asked in a faint whisper as the sound ofrowing grew louder, then began to fade away in the distance.

  "House Island, perhaps."

  "There's nothing over there."

  "Only an abandoned house and the old fort. No one living there. Strange,isn't it?"

  "Really mysterious," Betty agreed.

  "We'll row around the _Black Gull_, then we'll go home," said Ruth.

  Visiting the _Black Gull_, an ancient six-master that had lain at anchorin the harbor months on end, was one of Ruth's chief delights.

  Steam and gasoline, together with the high price of canvas, high wagesand demand for speed, had brought this slow going craft to anchor forgood.

  So there she stood, black and brooding, her masts reaching like bare armstoward heaven, her keel moving with the tide yet ever chafing at themassive anchor chain that was never drawn.

  Night was the time to visit her. Then, looming out of the dark, sheseemed to speak of other days, of the glory of Maine's shipping, of freshcut lumber, of fish and of the boundless sea.

  It was then that Ruth could fancy herself standing upon the deck, withwind singing in the rigging and setting the sails snapping as they boomedaway over a white-capped sea.

  They had rowed to the dark bulk that they knew to be the _Black Gull_ andhad moved silently along the larboard side, about the stern and half waydown the starboard side, when of a sudden a low exclamation escapedRuth's lips. Something had brushed against her in the dark.

  The next instant a gurgling cry came from the bow of the boat. This wasfollowed by a splash.

  "She--she's overboard!" thought Ruth, reversing her strokes and backpaddling with all her might.

  "Ruth!" came a call from the water. "I'm over here! Some-something pulledme in."

  So astonished was the stout fisher girl that for a moment she did notmove. Something had taken her companion overboard. What could it havebeen?

  By the time she had come to her senses, Betty had gripped the gunwales ofthe boat and was calling for help. The next moment, drenched with saltwater, but otherwise unharmed, she sat shivering in her place.

  "Some-something caught me under the
chi-chin," she chattered, "andov-over I wen-went."

  "I felt it," said Ruth. "Let's see what it was."

  Slowly, deftly, she brought the punt about and alongside. Then, with bothhands she groped in the dark.

  "I have it!" she exclaimed. "It's a rope ladder. How queer! There's noone staying out here. There never was a ladder before. It goes up to thedeck."

  "Let's go up," said Betty. "What a lark!"

  "You are drenched. You'll catch your death of cold."

  "B-best thing to d-do," said Betty, beginning to chatter again, "to takeoff my clo-clothes and wring them out."

  "Right!" said Ruth, fumbling for the painter. "Guess it's safe enough.Just tie the boat to the ladder."

  A moment of feeling about and struggling with ropes, then up they went,like blue-jackets, hand over hand. Another moment on deck and Betty wasdoing a wild whirling dance in the dark while her companion's stronghands wrung out her clothes.

  "Boo-oo, it's cold!" shivered the city girl as she struggled to get backinto her sodden and wrinkled garments.

  "Come on," said Ruth. "Now we're here, we might as well explore. There'sa cabin forward--the Captain's. We'll be out of the wind if we get inthere."

  They were more than out of wind in that cabin. They found a great roundstove set up there. With the aid of two matches Ruth examined its flue,and with a third she lighted the fire that was laid in it. The nextmoment Betty and her clothes were drying before a roaring fire.

  "Think of being in such a place at ten o'clock at night!" Betty said witha delighted shudder.

  "Might not be so good," said Ruth. "That ladder wasn't left thereaccidentally. Someone's been here."

  "Tell you what!" she added suddenly. "While you are drying out I'll playI'm the ship's watch, and pace the deck."

  "You don't think----"

  "Don't think anything," said Ruth as she disappeared through the door."It isn't safe to take too many chances, that's all."

  Ruth had not been on deck three minutes before, lost to all sense ofimpending danger, she walked the deck, captain of this great sailingcraft.

  Few girls are more generously endowed with imagination than are thefisher-folk's daughters of the coast of Maine. None are more loyal totheir state and their seaboard.

  As this girl now paced the deck in the dark, she saw herself in slickerand high boots with a megaphone at her lips shouting commands to nimbleseamen who swarmed aloft. Sails fluttered and snapped, chains rattled,rigging creaked as they swept adown the boundless sea.

  But now the scene was changed. No longer was she aboard a great shippingboat, but an ancient man-o'-war. An enemy's sloop threatened her harbor.With bold daring she set the prow of her ancient craft to seaward readyto do battle with the approaching foe.

  Once more, her craft, half fancied, half real, is a cutter, chasingsmugglers and pirates.

  Pirates! How her blood raced at the thought. There had been pirates inthose half-forgotten days, real, dark-faced pirates with cutlasses intheir teeth and pistols at their belts. Not an island on the bay but hasits story of buried treasure. And as for smugglers' coves, there was onenot a mile from the girl's home.

  "Smugglers!" she whispered the word. Rumors had run rife in the bay theselast months. Dark craft, plying the waters, were supposed to besmugglers' boats. A bomb had sunk a revenue cutter. "Smugglers!" thepeople had whispered among themselves.

  She thought now of the three bolts of red cloth in the beached schooner'shold, and of the dory that had passed them in the night.

  "Smugglers!" she thought. Then, "Probably nothing to it. Only a woodhauler."

  Then her heart skipped a beat. She had thought of the rope ladder. What ahiding place for smuggled goods, this deserted six-master, lying alone inthe dark waters of the bay!

  "What if it were used as a smuggler's store room," she thought as herpulse gave a sudden leap. There was a fire laid in the cabin. The ladderwas down. "What if some of them are on board at this very moment."

  She thought of the slim city girl sitting alone there in the dark.Turning, she started toward the cabin when a sudden sound from the waterarrested her.

  The next instant, a few hundred yards from the ship, a light flared up.The sight that struck her eye at that moment froze the blood in herveins.

  For a full half moment she stood stock still. Then with a sudden effortshe shook herself into action to go tip-toeing down the deck and thrusther head in at the cabin door and whisper:

  "Betty! Betty! Quick! Get into your clothes! There's something terriblegoing to happen. Quick! We must get off the ship!"