"Some surprise party, eh Mark?" asked Lester.
"Yer could knock me down with a feather," the old fisherman replied.
"An" me a-rackin" my old noddle as ter how I was goin" ter giv" ye anythin" but fish."
"You"re not going to taste of fish to-night," stated Teddy.
"Waal, that won"t be no loss," grinned Mark delightedly. "I eat so much fish that I"m expectin" almost any minnit I"ll be sproutin" fins an"
gills."
"This treat is all on us," affirmed Fred, "and all you have to do is to fill up on what you see before you and tell us what you think of our cook."
"I"ll do that right enough," said Mark, "an" ef it tastes as good as it smells an" looks, there ain"t one of you youngsters that will stow away more than I kin."
They installed him at the head of the table in the one chair that the cabin boasted, while they disposed themselves around on boxes and whatever else would serve as seats. Their surroundings were of the rudest kind but the fare was ample and their appet.i.tes keen and there was an atmosphere of mirth and high spirits that made full amends for whatever was lacking in the way of what Teddy called frills. Mark renewed his youth in the unaccustomed company of so many young lads, and ate as he had not eaten for many a day or year.
They did not broach the object of their visit until the meal was finished and the remnants cleared away. Then they adjourned to the beach in front of the cabin, where Mark filled his pipe and tilted back in his chair against the front of the shack, while the boys threw themselves down on the sand around him.
"Well, Mark," began Lester, when, with his pipe drawing well, the old fisherman beamed on them all in rare good humor, "I suppose you"ve been wondering what we mean by coming down and taking you by storm in this way."
"I"d like ter be taken by storm that way a mighty sight oftener than I be," returned Mark. "But sence yer speak of it, I am a leetle mite curious as ter what yer wanted with an old fisherman like me."
"It"s about something that happened nine or ten years ago," went on Lester. "Do you remember the time you picked up a man in an open boat off this coast somewhere?"
Mark was attentive in an instant.
"I"ll never forgit it," he declared emphatically. "I never was so sorry fur a feller-bein" in all my life as I was fur him."
"This is his son," said Lester, indicating Ross.
CHAPTER XXI
BITS OF EVIDENCE
If Mark had received a shock from a galvanic battery he would not have been more startled.
"What"s that you say?" he demanded, bringing his chair down from its tilted position and looking around upon the group in a bewildered way.
"Lester is right," said Ross, who had risen to his feet and stretched out his hand. "My name is Ross Montgomery, and I want to thank you with all my heart for what you did for my father. I"ve never had the chance to do it before."
His voice was shaken with emotion at this meeting with the man who had played so large a part in the tragedy of his family so many years before.
Mark grasped the extended hand and shook it warmly.
"So it was your pa that I picked up that day," he said. "I hed a sort of feelin" to-day that I had seen you somewheres, an" I s"pose it"s because you favored him some. You have the same kind of hair an" eyes, as near as I kin rec"lect."
"Of course I was only a little chap when it all happened," said Ross, "but I"ve often heard mother tell how kind you were to him after you found him adrift."
"Oh, pshaw! that was nothin"," replied Mark deprecatingly, as he resumed his seat. "I only did fur him what any man would do fur an" unfo"tunit feller-man. He was nearly all gone when I come across him. The doc said he would "a" died ef he"d floated around a few hours longer."
"Do you remember anything he said to you while you were taking care of him?" asked Lester.
"Oh, he said a heap o" things, jest like any man does when he is out of his head," was the answer. "I didn"t pay much attention like. I was too busy holdin" him down when he got vi"lent, as he did pretty often the first few days. After that he kind of settled down an" only kep"
a-mutterin" to himself."
"Yes, but didn"t he say anything that would give you a hint of what had happened to him and how he came to be adrift?" asked Fred.
Mark ruminated for a full minute, evidently doing his best to tax his memory.
"I ain"t got the best memory in the world," he said apologetically, "an"
I couldn"t make out fur certain all he said. But I got the idee thet there"d been a fight of some kind an" thet he"d lost a pile of money. He kep" a talkin" of "gold" an" some "debts" he owed. Course I thought it was only the ravin"s of a crazy man an" I didn"t take much stock in it."
"Wasn"t there anything else?" prodded Fred.
"N-no," replied Mark hesitatingly, "nothin" thet I remember on. Oh, yes," he went on, as a sudden flash of memory came to him, "I do rec"lect he kep" sayin": "It"s where the water"s comin" in." But of course there wasn"t no sense in that."
The boys sat up straight.
"Say that again, won"t you?" asked Teddy.
"It"s where the water"s comin" in," repeated Mark. "He said that over and over. I s"pose it was the feelin" of the spray thet came over him in the boat. I don"t rightly know what else it could have been."
As the boys themselves turned the phrase over in their minds, they could not see how it bore on the object of their search. They filed it away in their minds to think about later on.
For the next two hours they discussed the matter with Mark, trying to get from him any little shred of evidence that would be of help, and yet at the same time guarding carefully against revealing the real object of their questioning. He, for his part, set it down to the natural curiosity they felt in an event that touched the life of one of them so nearly, and did his best to cudgel his memory. But nothing more came of it than they had already learned, and it was with a sense of depression and failure that they finally gave up the cross examination that they had come so far to make.
"Well, Mark," said Lester at last, when several long yawns had shown that the old man was tired and sleepy, "we can"t tell you how much obliged we are to you for all you"ve told us. But I guess we"ve tired you out with all our questions."
"Not a bit of it," denied Mark valiantly, though his drooping eyelids belied his words.
"I was just a-wonderin" where I was goin" to put all you boys for the night," he went on. "There"s only one bed in the cabin, but I kin spread some blankets on the floor, ef that"ll do yer."
"Don"t worry at all about that," said Fred cheerily. "You go right in to bed and we"ll bunk out here on the beach. It"s a warm night, and we"d as soon do it as not."
As there was really nothing else to do, Mark, after making a feeble protest, said good-night and went inside, while the boys moved down the beach until they were out of earshot and prepared to camp out.
"We didn"t get much out of the old chap after all, did we?" said Bill rather despondently.
"After coming all this way too," added Teddy, even more dejectedly.
"The only thing we"ll have to show for the trip will be the shark, I guess," said Lester.
"Well, that would be enough if we hadn"t gotten anything else," declared Fred. "But I"m not so sure that we came on a fool"s errand after all."
"What makes you think we didn"t?" asked Bill. "What do we know that we didn"t know before?"