"It certainly was," agreed Betty.
"They seemed afraid--yes, actually afraid of us," put in Grace.
"And there wasn"t the least need of it," laughed Mollie. "I wouldn"t have harmed one of those men--oh, for anything!"
"I guess not!" Amy declared. "I was all ready to run if they headed their boat back this way."
"What in the world do you suppose was the matter?" asked Grace, as they stood looking after the vanishing boat. The boys were no longer in sight, being hidden from view behind a projecting point of land.
"Perhaps this is private grounds we are on," suggested Mollie, "and they didn"t like to see us trespa.s.sing."
"It couldn"t have been that," Grace remarked. "Everyone walks along the beach, and I believe no one is allowed to claim any land below high water mark, so it couldn"t have been that."
"Maybe there are quicksands here!" exclaimed Amy, looking nervously about. "There are such things, you know. The Goodwin Sands, in England, are awful. If you once are caught in a quicksand you never get out."
"Nothing like that around here," a.s.serted Betty. "If there was, you can depend on it, Daddy never would have hired a cottage."
"Besides," added Grace, "if there had been danger the men would not have been in two minds about coming back to warn us. They would surely not have let us run into danger."
"No, it couldn"t have been that," decided Betty. "But the men were certainly divided in opinion about coming back here, and they must have left just before we came in sight. Well, it will never be solved, I suppose, but I don"t know that it need worry us. Though if the boys were here I think they would make quite a mystery of it."
"Will would make quite a fuss about it, if he were here, I guess,"
laughed Grace. "He"d be sure the men were pirates, or something like that, show his new badge and want to question them."
"Then I"m glad he isn"t here!" exclaimed Amy, with such warmth that Grace exclaimed:
"Oh, Amy! I never knew you cared--so much."
"I don"t! That is--yes, of course I care! That is--oh, I wish you"d let me alone!" burst out the blushing Amy, whereas Grace teased her all the more, until Betty put an end to it saying:
"Well, let"s get along. The men don"t seem to be coming back, and mamma may be worried, knowing that we went out when a storm was brewing. Old Tin-Back is sure to tell her that we went off defying the elements."
"Isn"t he a queer old character?" remarked Mollie.
"Yes, but I like him," Betty answered. "He says he has never yet given up hope of finding some treasure washed ash.o.r.e from a wreck. He"s always looking as he walks along the beach."
"And that in spite of the fact that, with all his years of looking, he has found only a pipe," laughed Mollie. "He is very persevering, is Old Tin-Back."
"Most fishermen are," spoke Betty.
"I suppose things _are_ occasionally washed up by the sea," Amy observed. "Let"s look as we walk along the beach."
Hardly knowing why they did so, the eyes of the outdoor girls roamed the beach, which, as the tide had just gone out, was strewn with odds and ends. Nothing of moment, though, it seemed--bits of broken boxes and barrels, bottles and tin cans, probably the refuse from coasting vessels.
"Oh, I"m tired!" suddenly exclaimed Grace. "Let"s see if we can"t find a place to sit down."
"Tired! No wonder, wearing such high-heeled shoes!" objected Betty. "You are violating one of the ethics of the outdoor girls" organization!" she went on. "You can"t expect to walk in those."
"I"m not going to try again," confessed Grace. "Oh, I simply must sit down."
"The sand is so wet," objected Mollie.
They managed to find a broken spar, cast up by the waves, and by putting on it some boards, which they turned over to find the dry side, they evolved a comfortable seat.
"Oh, isn"t this just lovely!" exclaimed Betty, as she gazed out over the bay, now glistening beneath the sun, which had come out from behind the storm clouds.
"It is perfect," agreed Amy.
Mollie was idly digging in the sand behind the spar. She used a sh.e.l.l, and had scooped out quite a hole. Suddenly the sh.e.l.l sc.r.a.ped on something with a shrill sound.
"Oh, don"t!" begged Grace. "You set my teeth on edge! What is it, Mollie?"
Mollie did not answer at once. She was digging in the sand more quickly now. Again the sh.e.l.l sc.r.a.ped on some metal.
"Oh, Mollie!" objected Grace again, putting her hands over her ears.
"What is it?"
"I--I think I"ve found something," replied Mollie in a low voice. "Look, girls, it"s some sort of box."
They leaned over her. Her sh.e.l.l had sc.r.a.ped away the wet sand from the top of a square piece of metal. Mollie tapped it.
"It--it sounds hollow!" she whispered.
"Probably a tin can," said Betty.
"No," spoke Mollie, resolutely.
"Here, let me help you!" exclaimed Amy.
She looked about for something with which to dig. Near where Mollie had uncovered the piece of metal a queerly shaped stick stuck upright in the sand. Amy pulled it out, with no small effort, and at once began digging.
"Oh, it"s some sort of a box--an iron box!" cried Mollie, with eager, shining eyes. "We have really found something."
Mollie and Amy dug until they had wholly uncovered the object. Then, with a quick motion, Mollie put her hands under the lower edges, and with a sudden effort brought up out of the hole in the sand a curious iron box.
"It--it really is--something!" she said.
Instinctively Betty looked out over the bay in the direction taken by the strange, quarreling men in the motor boat.
CHAPTER X
CONJECTURES
Mollie Billette set the black iron box down on the log that had formed the seat for the outdoor girls. A little wind was rapidly drying the dampness. The wind even dried some of the sand on the box, and scattered it in a little rattling shower on a bit of paper on the beach.