"Well, this ghost was timid, you see," Jack proceeded. "He fell over just as soon as I called out about my gun."
"Look here, you mean something by that, sure you do!" remarked Herb.
"Fellers, he"s hinting that it was a job set up on us-that"s what Jack means," declared Nick.
"Out with it, Jack. Don"t you see that we"re all in a blue funk over this queer deal? If you know anything, share it with your pards," said Herb.
"That"s it," observed Josh, who had by now somewhat recovered from his fright; "put us wise old commodore. What d"ye think it was, now?"
"I"ll tell you, boys," Jack said, impressively. "In my opinion, honest Injun, now, somebody was trying to frighten us away from here."
"Say, it did wave its long, bony arm, all right!" exclaimed Josh.
"We all saw that," Herb put in; "but what do you suppose anybody would want to make us move our anchorage so much as to go to all that fuss and feathers to scare us?"
"Well," answered Jack, "that"s a thing I can just tell-yet! You all admit it did keep waving its arms. And you heard those lovely groans stop just at the same time the thing disappeared. I thought I heard a sound like something falling to the ground. Did anybody else get that?"
"I heard some noise," admitted George. "But, Jack, you certain must have some little suspicion about who engineered this silly game, if it was a set-up job?"
"Well, Josh saw a boat," calmly remarked the one addressed.
"Listen to that, would you?" exclaimed Nick. "He means that it was Clarence who got up that cute game right now-Clarence, our old friend of the baseball diamond. And perhaps the ghost that groaned was only Bully Joe. Fellers, it sound good to me."
"Well, it would be just like Tricky Clarence, as sure as you live!"
admitted Herb, who had possibly been the least alarmed of the five.
"But why should he want us to vacate?" demanded Josh, who disliked very much to give up his pet illusion, and believe that the ghost was only the result of a clumsy trick on the part of some person or persons unknown.
"Perhaps he wants this fine little cove himself," suggested George.
"That hardly fills the bill," Jack went on. "He might think to get even for some of the times we"ve won out in the past. I tell you right now I"m bothered to understand it."
"Do we clear out in the morning, then?" asked Herb.
"I hope you won"t say yes to that, fellows. In the first place, it goes against my grain to be chased away by Clarence Macklin or anybody else, who has no right to order us around. And then again, there are some things I"d like to look into connected with this queer affair."
When Jack talked like that he knew the others would fall in with his wishes; for they had long ago come to look upon him as a leader.
"Oh! we"ll stick it out if you say so, Jack," declared George. "But you ought to tell us anything else you"ve got on your mind."
"There was one thing that puzzled me," Jack continued. "It happened while Josh was dozing, or else looking somewhere else, for he didn"t seem to notice it. And I didn"t say anything, because there was no use waking the rest of you up then."
"But what was it, Jack?" questioned Kick.
"Why, we settled it in our minds that the old island was uninhabited, didn"t we boys?" asked the other.
"That"s so," several hastened to declare.
"Well, about half an hour ago, as I chanced to turn my head and look that way, I caught sight of a dim light moving along near the ground. It would disappear, and then come in view again, all the while moving."
"Now, I"ve seen just such a funny light, when a man with a lantern was walking through the woods," burst out Herb.
"Just what I settled it in my mind that was," chuckled Jack. "But it wasn"t so strange that some one should be ash.o.r.e, and I didn"t let it bother me any. After what has happened, though, you can see it must have meant something."
"That"s a fact," admitted George. "And, fellows, I"m coming around to Jack"s way of thinking. I just bet Tricky Clarence was behind that show."
"Oh! well, let"s try to forget it for tonight," Jack observed; "and as it"s now just one o"clock, George and Nick will have to take their turn on guard."
"Sure," replied Buster, cheerfully. "Sleep and me have parted company for the rest of this night, after what I saw. So it"s me for a four hour stretch; Herb, you can snooze right along till sun-up, if you want."
"Oh! can I? Thanks," laughed the one addressed, with a touch of skepticism in his voice; for he knew only too well what a difference there was between Buster"s promises and the keeping of them; he always meant well, but found the flesh weak.
And it proved just as wise Herb supposed would be the case; when the time came for George to go off duty he found Nick fast asleep; so that Herb had to be aroused by repeated calls and punching of the side of the _Comfort_.
Then daylight came; but according to Jack"s arrangements no one was aroused until the hour of five, when the sun was well up. July days are long indeed in this northern clime, and the twilight lingers until nearly nine in the evening.
"Who"s going to try the fishing today?" asked Jack, as they were partaking of their bacon and egg breakfast, a supply of the hen fruit having been obtained on the previous day from a Canadian farmer, near whose place the little fleet of motor boats had stopped.
"Why, Herb and myself talked of going, if so be you"d post us about the best trolling ground," George remarked.
"Tell you all I know about it," replied Jack, readily enough. "But if you are lucky enough to strike a big musky like the one I got, you"ll have your hands full. Better take the gaff hook along. I wished many times yesterday I had it."
"Will we, George?" asked Herb, in a vein of sarcasm.
"Catch me putting my hand on a pirate like that while he"s got an ounce of fight left in him," the other declared. "Why, one snap of those jaws and he"d take your whole paw off, sure. Yes, give us the gaff hook, or we don"t go."
"Then you don"t intend to keep us company?" asked Herb of Jack.
"I think I"ll just hang around here this morning, boys."
"Oh! all right. I can see with half an eye that you"ve got something up your sleeve, Jack; but post us when the show comes off, won"t you?"
George remarked, laughingly.
An hour later, long after the two ambitious fishermen had departed in their little rowboats for a siege of trolling along the lonely sh.o.r.es of the island, Jack quietly stepped into his own d.i.n.ky, and paddled ash.o.r.e.
"Now what can he be up to?" Nick asked Josh, as they looked after the other.
"Give me something easy, will you?" replied that worthy. "But all the same, I noticed that Jack was careful to take his gun along."
"But he can"t shoot any game now; the law is on nearly everything, you know. And up here the wardens are always on the lookout for poachers,"
Nick continued.
"Oh, shucks!" Josh complained, "you don"t see through a millstone, even when it"s got a big hole in it. Can"t you understand that Jack is bent on looking up that ghost business? Wonder if it was Tricky Clarence at the back of it. Gee! but when I first set eyes on the same I really thought it was a dead sure spirit of some old Injun chief come back from the Happy Hunting Grounds to warn us away."
"Huh! I noticed that you hung on to that same idea to the bitter end,"
Nick continued pugnaciously. "Right now, I bet you believe deep down in your silly heart, it was a regular hobgoblin. Oh! I know you all right, Josh Purdue; and you"ve got a scary heart all right. But I saw, just as soon as Jack spoke up, how we"d been fooled by Clarence. Wait till he comes back, and he"ll prove it."
"I"d like to know how?" demanded Josh. "Expect him to interview that _thing_, and get a written confession? I"m just wondering what we"ll run up against if we"re bound to stay here in this cove another night."