CHAPTER XIV THE MYSTERY SHIP
When Ned Blake and Dick Somers arrived at the Coleson house the nextafternoon, they listened to a tale beside which Sam’s story wascolorless by comparison. Dave Wilbur, who had brought the relief guardin his convenient flivver, was inclined to be skeptical.
“Use your bean!” he urged, as Beals and Rogers set forth the details oftheir terrifying experience. “You two are getting as loony as Sam! Youprobably heard something that scared you and then imagined you saw awhole lot in one flash of lightning!”
“I’ll bet you five dollars that you don’t dare stay here alone tonight!”rasped Charlie Rogers, wrathfully.
“Can’t do it,” drawled Dave. “I’ve got half a day’s work to do yetbefore sundown. Hop in here now, you bewitched watchmen! Let’s getgoing!”
Left to themselves, Ned and Dick carefully examined the ground where hadoccurred the alleged ghostly happenings so vividly described by Bealsand Rogers.
“It’s mighty funny that if there actually was somebody out here betweenthe house and the woods, he or she or it didn’t leave a single track ofany kind,” mused Ned as he surveyed the open space with puzzled eyes.“Here’s over thirty yards of sand from the house to the hard ground nearthe woods and not a mark on it, except our own tracks!”
“Well, if the same thing happens again tonight, we’ll try to have abetter look at it than Red and Fatty could get in one flash oflightning,” declared Dick. “I’m hoping it stays clear after the mooncomes up.”
Dick’s wish was granted only in part, however, for after climbing abovethe line of trees, the moon was covered much of the time by driftingclouds, through which it peeped at infrequent intervals. The boys haddecided to pass the night outside the house, as this would allow them toobserve a much more extensive part of the premises than could be seenfrom inside. The spot selected for their sentry post was a thicket ofoak, from which they had an unobstructed view of the stretch of sandbetween the end of the house and the woods. At intervals one or theother crept from this leafy covert and scouted entirely around thebuilding, moving with caution and scanning every possible approach tothe house. Returning from one of these rounds, Dick reported the lightsof a vessel out upon the lake.
“Let’s take a look at her,” suggested Ned, and together they walked downto the beach.
The vessel seemed to be moving in a southwesterly direction, and theycould see the ruddy gleam of her port light.
“She’s some freight boat making for Cleveland,” guessed Dick, but evenas he spoke, the green starboard light flashed into view and it wasevident that the boat had altered her course and headed in shore.
For a time the boys watched the strange craft as it drew steadilynearer, when suddenly her lights winked out, leaving her a black hulkwhich loomed dimly in the darkness.
“Well, what the deuce does _that_ mean! What is she up to now?”exclaimed Dick.
As if in reply to his question, a long, thin finger of light reached outfrom the vessel’s bow and played along the shore, not twenty yards fromwhere the boys stood.
“Down! Quick! Don’t let ’em see us!” cried Ned, flinging himself flatupon the sand.
Dick dropped beside him and together they watched with fascinated gazethe small circle of light as it crept toward them along the ground.Nearer and still nearer it came, but just as it seemed about to settleupon them the spot lifted suddenly and touched instead the wall of thehouse, which it slowly swept from end to end.
“That’s the light we saw Saturday night,” whispered Dick. “A searchlightthat shot through the window when you opened the shutter!”
“Yes, and I think I know what they are searching for,” replied Ned inthe same low tone. “Look!” and seizing Dick’s arm he pointed to thewhite mark now clearly illuminated as the circle of light came to restupon the chimney of the house.
“The ranges!” Dick’s voice rasped in his throat. “She’s picking up theold range marks!”
In a moment the top of the tall whitened stake at the water’s edge wastouched by the thin beam of light and it was evident that the mysteriouscraft was creeping shoreward in line with stake and chimney. And nowthere occurred something that brought a gasp of astonishment from thetwo watchers lying prone and motionless upon the sand. A hundred yardsor more from shore and just ahead of the oncoming vessel, the quietsurface of the water was suddenly agitated into ripples which silveredas the moon poured its rays through a great ragged break in the cloudsand disclosed a small dark shape that seemed to rise from the depths andfloat upon the surface. Instantly the searchlight was extinguished andthe darkened vessel drifting slowly shoreward came to a stop beside thefloating object.
“That thing is a marking buoy,” muttered Ned under his breath. “Nowwe’ll see what’s going on here!”
In this, however, the boys were doomed to disappointment. Heavy cloudsagain blotted out the moon, and although the watchers crept to thewater’s edge, they could see nothing except the dark hull of the vesselas it lay motionless.
“They’re probably coming ashore in a small boat. Be ready to run if theyland near us,” warned Ned.
But no boat was lowered from the mysterious stranger and, except for anoccasional faint splash, no sound reached the eager ears on shore. Anhour passed and then it was seen that the vessel was in motion.Gradually her dark form grew dimmer till it melted from sight amid theshadows that lay black upon the broad lake. Again for a brief moment theclouds parted and the brilliant moonlight whitened the sands and tippedthe tiny ripples with its radiance. Every rock and bush along shorestood revealed with startling distinctness, but on the silvered surfaceof the lake nothing was to be seen. The buoy—if such it was—hadvanished.
“I suppose that boat took it away,” suggested Dick.
“Possibly, but I’m not sure,” replied Ned. “We saw it appear and maybesometime we’ll find out where it came from and where it went. Theredoesn’t seem to be anything that we can do here. Let’s get back to thehouse; it’s almost two o’clock.”
Retracing their steps, the boys had reached the scrub oak when theyhalted with one accord and stared through the leafy screen.
“What did you think you saw?” demanded Ned, sharply.
“Why, why, it might have been a firefly,” stammered Dick, “but just foran instant I fancied it was a—”
“You thought maybe it was the tail light of an automobile going intothat old wood-road,” interrupted Ned, grimly. “That’s what youthought—and I guess maybe you were right.”
“Can we follow it?” asked Dick.
Ned shook his head. “There’s no use chasing out there in the dark. Evenif it was an auto, we’d have no chance of catching up with it. We’d besttry to get a little sleep and wait for daylight.”
Rolling themselves in their blankets, the boys lay for a long time,talking over the exciting events that had transpired since they firstbegan work on the Coleson house. Instead of clearing up, the situationwas growing more and more complicated, and after racking their brains infruitless efforts to solve the puzzle, they at last fell asleep.
The sun shining through the oak leaves above his head roused Ned Blake,and sitting up, he looked at his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock.
“Wake up, Dick!” he cried, pulling the blanket from his companion’sshoulders. “It’s late! We ought to have been on the job hours ago!”
Dick struggled to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, andfollowed Ned, who was hurrying through the bushes in the direction ofthe old wood-road. Quickly but thoroughly the boys examined every footof ground between the entrance to the road and the house. Broken weedsand crushed leaves showed where some vehicle had passed along the stonyway, but not until the boys were close to the house did they come uponan unmistakable sign. On the hard earth amid the scrub oaks, a blacksplotch caught Ned’s eye.
“Here’s where an auto was standing only a few hours ago,” he declaredpositively. “This is oil th
at dripped from the gears.”
“It’s oil sure enough,” agreed Dick, poking at the black mass with astick, “but isn’t it possible that it came from one of the cars thatwere out here Saturday night?”
“If it had been here since Saturday night, that heavy thunder showerwould have washed it into the ground,” objected Ned. “No, this is freshoil and we know there was no car here up to midnight.”
“Which means it was run in here while we were watching that boat down onthe shore,” growled Dick, disgustedly. “What rotten luck!”
“Yes, one of us should have kept watch up here,” admitted Ned. “We losta good chance to get a look at our mysterious visitors, but we’ll knowbetter next time.”
Dave Wilbur, chief of transportation, was not expected till afternoon,but he appeared soon after eleven o ’clock. And he came alone.
“Wat Sanford and Jim Tapley are drafted for tonight’s guard duty, butWat funked the job and Jim won’t come without him,” explained Dave.“Wat’s naturally superstitious anyhow and Red and Fatty have fed him upwith that bedtime story of theirs, till he’s so jumpy he’d see Colesonor Coleson’s great-grandmother if you hollered boo at him!”
“Well, he’d have seen something queerer than any of the Coleson family,if he’d been here last night,” declared Dick, proceeding to give anaccount of the night’s happenings.
“So while you two were watching some tub out on the lake, a car ran inhere and out again,” remarked Wilbur dryly. “Well, ‘when the cat’s away,the mice’ll play,’ but take my advice,” he continued more seriously, “nomatter what you saw—or what you _thought_ you saw—don’t say a word tothe boys about it. If Wat gets another jolt, he may refuse to come outhere Saturday night, and a jazz orchestra without a trap-drummer wouldbe about as jazzy as a church picnic. Tip off Red and Fatty if you like,but make ’em lay off Wat Sanford with their ghost stuff.”
As there was nothing to be accomplished by remaining longer at thehouse, it was decided to return to town without delay. Charlie Rogersand Tommy Beals were waiting in the Wilbur yard when the three drove in.
“Did you fellows see anything out there last night?” asked Rogerseagerly, as he and Tommy followed the car into the garage.
Ned paused to close the garage doors against possible intrusion and thenproceeded with a more or less detailed account of what had occurred.
“Then you didn’t get a sight of that—that creature; that big, shapeless,humpbacked-looking thing that Red and I saw standing between the end ofthe house and the woods?” asked Beals.
“Oh, you needn’t look so darned wise, Dave!” snapped Charlie Rogers, hispeppery temper flaring at sight of Wilbur’s ill-concealed grin. “Fattyand I saw it—even if it was only for an instant. If Ned and Dick hadstayed up at the house, they might have seen it also!”
“That is quite possible,” interposed Ned, quickly, “and although wedidn’t actually catch sight of a person or anything that looked likeone, we saw enough to make us sure that there’s something mighty queergoing on out there. We’ve got to find out what it is, but until we _do_solve the mystery, let’s not say much about it—especially to Wat orJim.”
“You talk about solving the mystery,” began Tommy, doubtfully. “Have yougot any idea, Ned?”
“No, I haven’t,” admitted Ned, “but I’d like to investigate that oldwood-road. We might stumble onto something.”
“How about it, Dave? Will you run us out there?” asked Rogers, who waseager to begin the proposed search.
“Sure thing,” grinned Wilbur. “I’d like nothing better than to get alook at some of this ghost stuff with my own eyes.”