CHAPTER IV
ON SLIPPER POINT
It would be exaggeration to say that Doris slept, all told, one hourduring the ensuing night. She napped at intervals, to be sure, but hourafter hour she tossed about in her bed, in the room next to her mother,pulling out her watch every twenty minutes or so, and switching on theelectric light to ascertain the time. Never in all her life had a nightseemed so long. Would the morning ever come, and with it the revelationof the strange secret Sally knew?
Like many girls of her age, and like many older folks too, if the truthwere known, Doris loved above all things, a _mystery_. Into herwell-ordered and regulated life there had never entered one or even thesuspicion of one. And since her own life was so devoid of thisfascination, she had gone about for several years, speculating in herown imagination about the lives of others, and wondering if mystery everentered into _their_ existences. But not until her meeting with littleSally Carter, had there been even the faintest suggestion of such athing. And now, at last--! She pulled out her watch and switched on herlight for the fortieth time. Only quarter to five. But through herwindows she could see the faint dawn breaking over the river, so sherose softly, dressed, and sat down to watch the coming of day.
At nine o'clock she was pacing nervously up and down the beach. And whenold "45" at last grated on the sand, she hopped in with a glad cry,kissed and hugged Genevieve, who was devoting her attention to herthumb, in the stern seat, as usual, and sank down in the vacantrowing-seat, remarking to Sally:
"Hello, dear! I'm awfully glad you've come!" This remark may not seem toexpress very adequately her inward state of excitement but she hadresolved not to let Sally see how tremendously anxious she was.
The trip to Slipper Point was a somewhat silent one. Neither of thegirls seemed inclined to conversation and, besides that, there was astiff head-wind blowing and the pulling was difficult. When they hadbeached the boat, at length, on the golden sandbar of Slipper Point,Doris only looked toward Sally and said:
"So you're going to show me at last, dear?" But Sally hesitated amoment.
"Doris," she began, "this is my secret--and Genevieve's--and I neverthought I'd tell any one about it. It's the only secret I ever had worthanything, but I'm going to tell you,--well, because I--I think so muchof you. Will you solemnly promise--cross your heart--that you'll nevertell any one?"
Doris gazed straight into Sally's somewhat troubled eyes. "I don't needto 'cross my heart,' Sally. I just give you my word of honor I won't,unless sometime you wish it. I've not breathed a word of the fact thatyou _had_ a secret, even to Mother. And I've never kept anything fromher before." And this simple statement completely satisfied Sally.
"Come on, then," she said. "Follow Genevieve and me, and we'll give youthe surprise of your life."
She grasped her small sister's hand and led the way, and Dorisobediently followed. To her surprise, however, they did not scramble upthe sandy pine-covered slope as usual, but picked their way, instead,along the tiny strip of beach on the farther side of the point where theriver ate into the shore in a great, sweeping cove. After trudging alongin this way for nearly a quarter of a mile, Sally suddenly struck upinto the woods through a deep little ravine. It was a wild scramblethrough the dense underbrush and over the boughs of fallen pine trees.Sally and Genevieve, more accustomed to the journey, managed to keepwell ahead of Doris, who was scratching her hands freely and doingruinous damage to her clothes plunging through the thorny tangle. Atlast the two, who were a distance of not more than fifty feet ahead ofher, halted, and Sally called out:
"Now stand where you are, turn your back to us and count ten--slowly.Don't turn round and look till you've finished counting." Dorisobediently turned her back, and slowly and deliberately "counted ten."Then she turned about again to face them.
To her complete amazement, there was not a trace of them to be seen!
Thinking they had merely slipped down and hidden in the undergrowth totease her, she scrambled to the spot where they had stood. But they werenot there. She had, moreover, heard no sound of their progress, nosnapping, cracking or breaking of branches, no swish of trailing throughthe vines and high grass. They could not have advanced twenty feet inany direction, in the short time she had been looking away from them. Ofboth these facts she was certain. Yet they had disappeared as completelyas if the earth had opened and swallowed them. Where, in the name of allmystery, could they be?
Doris stood and studied the situation for several minutes. But, as theywere plainly nowhere in her vicinity, she presently concluded she musthave been mistaken about their not having had time to get further away,and determined to hunt them up.
So away she pursued her difficult quest, becoming constantly moreinvolved in the thick undergrowth and more scratched and dishevelledevery moment, till at length she stood at the top of the bluff. Fromthis point she could see in every direction, but not a vestige of Sallyor Genevieve appeared. More bewildered than ever, Doris clambered backto the spot where she had last seen them. And, as there was plainly nowno other course, she stood where she was and called aloud:
"Sally! Sal--ly! I give it up. Where in the world are you?"
There was a low, chuckling laugh directly behind her, and, whirlingabout, she beheld Sally's laughing face peeping out from an aperture inthe tangled growth that she was positive she had not noticed therebefore.
"Come right in!" cried Sally. "And I won't keep it a secret any longer.Did you guess it was anything like this?"
She pushed a portion of the undergrowth back a little farther and Dorisscrambled in through the opening. No sooner was she within than Sallyclosed the opening with a swift motion and they were all suddenlyplunged into inky darkness.
"Wait a moment," she commanded, "and I'll make a light." Doris heard herfumbling for something; then the scratch of a match and the flare of acandle. With an indrawn breath of wonder, Doris looked about her.
"Why, it's a room!" she gasped. "A little room all made right in thehillside. How did it ever come here? How did you ever find it?"
It was indeed the rude semblance of a room. About nine feet square andseven high, its walls, floor and ceiling were finished in rough plankingof some kind of timber, now covered in the main with mold and fungusgrowths. Across one end was a low wooden structure evidently meant for abed, with what had once been a hard straw mattress on it. There waslikewise a rudely constructed chair and a small table on which were therusted remains of a tin platter, knife and spoon. There was also a metalcandle-stick in which was the candle recently lit by Sally. It was astrange, weird little scene in the dim candle-light, and for a timeDoris could make nothing of its riddle.
"What _is_ it? What does it all mean, Sally?" she exclaimed, gazingabout her with awestruck eyes.
"I don't know much more about it than you do," Sally averred. "But I'vedone some guessing!" she ended significantly.
"But how did you ever come to discover it?" cried Doris, off on anothertack. "I could have searched Slipper Point for years and never have comeacross _this_."
"Well, it was just an accident," Sally admitted. "You see, Genevieve andI haven't much to do most of the time but roam around by ourselves, sowe've managed to poke into most of the places along the shore, the wholelength of this river, one time and another. It was last fall when wediscovered this. We'd climbed down here one day, just poking aroundlooking for beach-plums and things, and right about here I caught myfoot in a vine and went down on my face plumb right into that lot ofvines and things. I threw out my hands to catch myself, and instead ofcoming against the sand and dirt as I'd expected, something gave way,and when I looked there was nothing at all there but a hole.
"Of course, I poked away at it some more, and found that there was alayer of planking back of the sand. That seemed mighty odd, so I pushedthe vines away and banged some more at the opening, and it suddenly gaveway because the boards had got rotten, I guess, and--I found _this_!"
Doris sighed ecstatically. "What a perfectly glorious adventure
! Andwhat did you do then?"
"Well," went on Sally simply, "although I couldn't make very much out ofwhat it all was, I decided that we'd keep it for our secret,--Genevieveand I--and we wouldn't let another soul know about it. So we pulled thevines and things over the opening the best we could, and we came up nextday and brought some boards and a hammer and nails--and a candle. Then Ifixed up the rotten boards of this opening,--you see it works like adoor, only the outside is covered with vines and things so you'd neversee it,--and I got an old padlock from Dad's boathouse and I screwed iton the outside so's I could lock it up besides, and covered the padlockwith vines and sand. Nobody'd ever dream there was such a place here,and I guess nobody ever has, either. That's my secret!"
"But, Sally," exclaimed Doris, "how did it ever come here to begin with?Who made it? It must have some sort of history."
"There you've got _me_!" answered Sally.
"Some one must have stayed here," mused Doris, half to herself. "And,what's more, they must have _hidden_ here, or why should they have takensuch trouble to keep it from being discovered?"
"Yes, they've hidden here, right enough," agreed Sally. "It's the besthiding place any one ever had, I should say. But the question is, whatdid they hide here for?"
"And also," added Doris, "if they were hiding, how could they make sucha room as this, all finished with wooden walls, without being seen doingit? Where did they get the planks?"
"Do you know what that timber is?" asked Sally.
"Why, of course not," laughed Doris. "How should I?"
"Well, I do," said her companion. "I know something about lumber becauseDad builds boats and he's shown me. I scratched the mold off oneplace,--here it is,--and I discovered that this planking is realseasoned cedar like they build the best boats of. And do you know whereI think it was got? It came from some wrecked vessel down on the beach.There are plenty of them cast up, off and on, and always have been."
"But gracious!" cried Doris, "how was it got here?"
"Don't ask me!" declared Sally. "The beach is miles away."
They stood for some moments in silence, each striving to piece togetherthe story of this strange little retreat from the meagre facts they sawabout them. At last Doris spoke.
"Sally," she asked, "was this all you ever found here? Was thereabsolutely nothing else?" Sally started, as if surprised at the questionand hesitated a moment.
"No," she acknowledged finally. "There _was_ something else. I wasn'tgoing to tell you right away, but I might as well now. I found thisunder the mattress of the bed."
She went over to the straw pallet, lifted it, searched a moment and,turning, placed something in Doris's hands.