The Cruise of the O Moo Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII A STRANGE GAME OF HIDE-AND-GO-SEEK

  The next short chapter in the story of the mystery of the bluecandlestick followed closely upon Florence's visit to the new museum.

  It was on the following morning, as she and Lucile were strapping uptheir books preparatory to leaving the O Moo, that they heard a suddenloud rapping on the hull of the yacht.

  "Who can that be?" exclaimed Lucile.

  "I'll see," said Florence racing for the door.

  Much to her astonishment, as she peered down over the rail she foundherself looking into the blue eyes of a strapping police sergeant.

  "Florence Huyler?" he questioned.

  "Ye--yes," she stammered.

  "How do I git up?" he asked. "Or do you prefer to come down? Gotta speakwith you. Nothin' serious, not for you," he added as he saw the startledlook on her face.

  With trembling hand Florence threw the rope ladder over the rail. As theofficer set the ladder groaning beneath his weight, questions flewthrough her mind. "What does he want? Will he forbid us living in the OMoo? What have we done to deserve a visit from the police?"

  Then, like a flash Mr. Cole's words came back to her: "Someone else maywish to talk with you." That someone must be this policeman.

  "Will you come in?" she asked, as the officer's foot touched the deck.

  "If you please."

  "You see," he began at once, while his keen eyes roamed from corner tocorner of the cabin, "my visit has to do with a bit of a curio you foundlately."

  "The blue candlestick?" suggested Florence.

  "Exactly, I--"

  "We really don't know much--"

  "You may know more than you think. Now sit down nice and easy and tell meall you do know and about all the queer things that have happened to yousince you came to live in this here boat."

  Florence seated herself on the edge of her chair, then told in dramaticfashion of her adventures in the old museum.

  "Exactly!" said the officer emphatically when she had finished. "Queer!Mighty queer, now, wasn't it? And now, is that all?"

  "Lucile, my friend here, had a rather strange experience in the SpanishMission. Perhaps she'll tell you of it."

  Lucile's face went first white, then red.

  "Oh, that! That was nothing. I--I went to sleep and dreamed, I guess. Yousee," she explained to the officer, "I had been out in the storm so long,I was sort of benumbed with the cold, and when I got inside I fellasleep."

  "And then--" the officer prompted with an encouraging smile.

  "It won't do any harm to tell," encouraged Florence.

  Stammering and blushing at first, Lucile launched into her story. Gainingin confidence as she went on, she succeeded in telling it very well.

  When she came to the part about the blue face, in his eagerness to drinkin every detail the officer leaned forward, half rising from his chair.

  "Hold on," he exclaimed excitedly. "You say it was a blue face?"

  "Yes, blue. I am sure of that."

  "Blue like the candlestick?"

  "Why, yes--yes, I think it was."

  "Can't be any mistake," he mumbled to himself, as he settled back in hischair. "It's it, that's all. Wouldn't I like to have been there! Allright," he urged, "go on."

  Lucile finished her story.

  "And is that all?" he repeated.

  "All except something that happened the night Florence was caught in theold museum and didn't get home," said Lucile, "but what happened wasn'tmuch. You see, we went out to search for her, and a boy named Mark Pence,who lives in a boat here too, joined us. We couldn't rouse anyone at theold scow where the Chinamen live, so he went in. He didn't find anyone,but when he came out he said it was such a queer sort of place. He saidthere was a winding stairway in it twenty feet high. But I guess hedoesn't know much about winding stairways, because the scow is only tenfeet high altogether. So the stairs couldn't be twenty feet deep, couldthey?"

  The officer, who had again half risen from his chair, settled back.

  "No," he said, "no, of course they couldn't."

  But Florence, who had been studying his face, thought he attached fargreater importance to this last incident than his words would seem toindicate.

  "Well, if that's all," he said rising, "I'll be going. You've shed a lotof light upon a very mysterious subject; one which has been bothering thewhole police force. I'm from the 63d street station. If anything furtherhappens, let me know at once, will you? Call for Sergeant Malloney. Andif ever you need any protection by day or night, the station's at yourservice. Good day and thank you."

  "Now what do you think of that?" said Florence as the officer's broadback disappeared beyond the black bulk of a tug in dry dock.

  "I--I don't know what to think," said Lucile. "One thing I'm awfully sureof, though, and that is that living on a boat is more exciting than onewould imagine before trying it.

  "I wish," said Lucile that night as she lay curled up in her favoritechair, "that I could create something. I wish I could write a story--areal story."

  Then, for a long time she was silent. "Professor Storris," she beganagain, "told us just how a short story ought to be done. First you findan unusual setting for your story; something that hasn't been describedbefore; then you imagine some very unusual events occurring in thatsetting. That makes a story, only you need a little technique. There mustbe three parts to the story. You look about in the story and find thevery most dramatic point in the narrative--fearfully exciting anddramatic. You begin the story right there; don't tell how things come tobe happening so, nor why the hero was there or anything; just plungeright into it like: 'Cold perspiration stood out upon his brow; a chillran down his spine. His eyes were glued upon the two burning orbs offire. He was paralyzed with fear'."

  Florence looked up and laughed. "That ought to get them interested."

  "Trouble is," said Lucile thoughtfully, "it's hard to find an unusualsetting and the unusual incidents.

  "After you've done two or three hundred words of thrill," she went on,"then you keep the hero in a most horrible plight while his mind runslike lightning back over the events which brought him to this dramaticmoment in his career. Then you suddenly take up the thrill again andbring the story up to the climax with a bang. Simple, isn't it? All youhave to do is do it; only you must concentrate, concentrate tremendously,all the while you're doing it."

  For a long while after that she lay back in her chair quite silent, sosilent indeed that her companions thought her asleep. But after nearly anhour she sprang to her feet with sudden enthusiasm.

  "I have it. Three girls living in a yacht in dry dock. That's an unusualsetting. And the unusual incident, I have that too but I shan't tell it.That's to be the surprise."

  The other girls were preparing to retire. Lucile took down her hair,slipped on a loose dressing-gown, arranged a dark shade over her lamp,then, having taken a quantity of paper from a drawer and sharpened sixpencils, she sat down to write.

  When she commenced it was ten by the clock built into the running boardat the end of the cabin. When she came to an end and threw the lastdulled pencil from her it was one o'clock.

  For a moment she shuffled the papers into an oblong heap, then, throwingaside her dressing-gown and snapping off the light, she climbed to herberth and was soon fast asleep.

  But even in her dreams, she appeared to be experiencing the incidents ofher story, for now she moved restlessly murmuring, "How the boatpitches!" or "Listen to the wind howl!" A moment later she sat boltupright, exclaiming in a shrill whisper, "It's ice! I tell you it's ice!"

  Marian was the first one up in the morning. It was her turn for makingtoast and coffee. As she passed Lucile's desk she glanced at the stock ofpaper and unconsciously read the title, "The Cruise of the O Moo."

  Gladly would she have read the pages which followed but loyalty to hercousin forbade.

  "To-day," said Lucile at breakfast, "I am going to have my story typed,an
d next day I shall take it to the office of the Literary Monthly."

  "I hope the editor treats you kindly," smiled Marian. "You must remember,though, that we are only freshmen."

  But Lucile's faith in her product, her first real "creation," was not tobe daunted. "I did it just as Professor Storris said it should be done,so I know it must be good," she affirmed stoutly.

  That night Lucile spent an hour working over the typewritten copy of herstory. Tracing in a word here, marking one out there, punctuating,comparing, rearranging, she made it as perfect as her limited knowledgeof the story writing art would permit her.

  "There now," she sighed, tossing back the loose-flung hair which tumbleddown over her shapely shoulders, "I will take you to ye editor in yemorning. And here's hoping he treats you well." She patted the manuscriptaffectionately, then stowed it away in a pigeon-hole.

  If the truth were to be told, she was due for something of a surpriseregarding that manuscript. But all that lay in the future.

  Florence and Marian were away. They had gone for a spin on the lagoonbefore retiring. She was alone on the O Moo. Tossing her dressing-gownlightly from her she proceeded to put herself through a series ofexercises such as are calculated to bring color to the cheek and sparkleto the eye of a modern American girl.

  Coming out of this with glowing face and heaving chest, she threw on herdressing-gown and leaped out of the cabin and into the moonlight whichflooded a narrow open spot on deck.

  Away at the left she saw the ice on the lake shore stand out in irregularpiles. Here was a huge pile twenty feet high and there a single cake onend. There was a whole forest of jagged, bayonet-like edges and hereagain pile after pile lay scattered like shocks of grain in the field.

  "For all the world like the Arctic!" she breathed. "What sport it wouldbe to play hide-and-go-seek with oneself out there in the moonlight."

  She paused a moment in thought. Then, clapping her hands she exclaimed,"I'll do it. It will be like going back to good old Cape Prince of Wales,in Alaska." Hastening inside, she twisted her hair in a knot on the topof her head, drew on some warm garments, crowned herself with astocking-cap, and was away toward the beach.

  Since the O Moo was on the track nearest to the shore, she was but amoment reaching the edge of the ice which, packed thick between twobreakwaters, lay glistening away in the moonlight. Here she hesitated.She was not sure it was quite safe. The wind had been blowing on shorefor days. It had brought the ice-packs in. Under similar conditions inthe Arctic, the ice would have been solidly frozen together by this time,but she was not acquainted with lake ice; it might be treacherous.

  "Pooh!" she exclaimed at last. "Wind's still onshore; I'll try it."

  Stepping out upon the first flat cake, she hurried across it to dodgeinto the shadow of a towering pile of broken fragments.

  "Catch me!" she exclaimed joyously aloud. "Catch me if you can!"

  She had reverted to the days of her childhood and was playinghide-and-go-seek with herself. First behind this pile, then that, sheflitted in the moonlight like a ghost. On and on, in a zigzag course, shewent until a glance back brought from her lips an exclamation ofsurprise: "How far I am from the shore!" For a moment she stood quitestill. Then the startled exclamation came again.

  "That cake of ice tips. It moves! I must go back."

  Springing from the cake, she leaped upon another and another. She hadjust succeeded in reaching a spot where the rise and fall of the ice inresponse to the swells which swept in from the lake, was lessening, whensomething caused her heart to flutter wildly.

  Had she seen a dark form disappear behind that ice-pile off to her right?

  In an instant she was hugging the shadow of a great, up-ended cake. No,she had not been mistaken. Out of the silence there came the pat-pat offootsteps.

  "What can it mean?" she whispered.

  Locating as best she could the position of the intruder, she sprang awayin the opposite direction. She was engaged in a game of hide-and-go-seek,not with herself, but with some other person, a stranger probably. Whatthe outcome of that game would be she could not tell.