"Ahoy there, young ladies! Your folks want you to come back. I told "em I"d tell you if I saw you as I come along, and I done it."
"What were you looking for--treasure?" asked Grace, with a mischievous smile at Amy.
"Treasure? Humph, no, miss. I was looking for some of my lobster pots. A lot of them dragged their moorings in the last storm, and they get cast upon the beach sooner or later."
"Did you ever find any treasure on the beach?" demanded Betty.
"Wa"al, no, not exactly what you could call _treasure_!" was the slow and cautious answer, "but I did find a pipe once, an" it lasted me for quite a while. Found it jest after I lost my corncob, too. So, in a manner of speakin", I did find suthin"."
"But never gold, or diamonds or _real_ treasure, washed up from a wreck?" asked Amy, eagerly.
"No, miss."
"Are there ever wrecks?" inquired Betty.
"Oh, yes, once in a while, though not usually this time of year. In the winter the sea"s altogether different, miss. It"s terrible cruel and cold. Then we have wrecks. Why, right off there, two year ago," and with a gnarled finger he pointed though at no particular object as far as the girls could see, "right off there a three-master went down one night in a January, and all hands--eleven of "em--was drownded."
"Didn"t anyone try to save them?" asked Grace.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD LOBSTERMAN PEERED THROUGH A BATTERED SPY-GLa.s.s.
"THAT"S HER," HE ANNOUNCED.--_Page 51._
_The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View._]
"Oh, yes, they tried, miss, but they couldn"t launch the boat, and the wind was blowin" so they couldn"t shoot a line over. The boat went to pieces on the bar, and the bodies washed ash.o.r.e next day."
He told it simply, and was silent for a s.p.a.ce.
"Does anything ever wash ash.o.r.e from the wrecks?" asked Mollie.
"Oh, yes, once in a while, but not what you could rightly call treasure.
Once a banana steamer got on the bar, and they had to throw over lots of cargo to lighten her. Folks here made quite a tidy sum collectin" them bunches of green bananas."
"But no boxes of gold or diamonds--mysterious, locked boxes?" asked Amy, still hopefully.
"No, miss, nothin" like that," and Old Tin-Back looked as though he was not altogether sure whether or not he was being made fun of.
The days pa.s.sed at Ocean View, sunny, happy days. Each one brought new pleasure and delight to the outdoor girls, and they lived up to their name, for they were seldom in the house. They bathed and rowed in the bay, or paid visits to the quaint little town, where Grace discovered an old French woman who made delicious taffy.
"So Grace"s happiness is a.s.sured for the summer," declared Mollie.
Then came a day when, as the four went down to see Old Tin-Back set off from the little dock in his dory to take up his lobster pots, they saw a motor boat heading into the bay.
"Oh, if that should be the boys!" exclaimed Grace, hopefully. "They wrote they might come this week; didn"t they?"
"Yes," answered Betty.
"What boat ye lookin" fer?" asked Tin-Back.
"The _Pocohontas_," answered Amy.
The old lobsterman peered through a battered spygla.s.s he took from a locker-box in his dory.
"That"s her," he announced.
And so it proved. The big motor boat swung up to the dock and Will, Roy, Henry and Allen smiled at the girls.
"Well, we"re here, you see!" announced Grace"s brother. "This is the first real stop of our cruise. Been having a fine time these last five days. But we"re glad we"re here."
"And we"re glad to see you!" responded Betty. "Do come up to the cottage. Mamma will want to see you. How long can you stay?"
"Oh, a week--two weeks--a month in a place like this with--ahem! such nice girls!" remarked Roy.
"Oh, what"s that? You scratched me!" exclaimed Grace as she suffered her brother to imprint a sort of half-way kiss on her cheek. His coat blew open, disclosing something shining through an armhole of his vest.
"Oh, that"s my--badge!" he announced.
"Your badge? What are you, a pilot?" demanded Amy.
"Ahem! At your service!" exclaimed Will, with a low bow, as he extended a card to his sister. Grace fairly grabbed it from him, and read her brother"s name, while, in a corner of the pasteboard, under a monogram device, were the letters "U. S. S. S."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"That"s the secret," Will explained. "I have joined the United States Secret Service, sister mine!"
"Secret Service!" repeated Grace. "What does it mean?"
"It means I"m out for smugglers, counterlaws. So beware!"
CHAPTER VII
THE STORM
For a moment or two the girls did not know whether or not to accept as truth the statement Will had made in such a dramatic manner. Then his sister Grace burst out with:
"Oh, Will, is it really true? Is that the secret you were going to tell me?"
"That"s the secret, Sis! Isn"t it a good one, and didn"t I keep it well?"
"You certainly did, but I didn"t expect it would be that. I thought it would be about--about--er----"
She paused in some confusion.
"She thought it would be about a _girl_!" broke in Mollie. "Why wasn"t it, Will?"