The Slipper Point Mystery

  CHAPTER VII

  THE FIRST CLUE

  It was a discouraged pair that rowed home from Slipper Point thatmorning. Sally was depressed beyond words by their recent discovery, forshe had counted many long months on her "pirate theory" and the ultimateunearthing of buried treasure. Doris, however, was not so much depressedas she was baffled by this curious turn of the morning's investigation.Thinking hard, she suddenly shipped her oars and turned about to faceSally with an exultant little exclamation.

  "Do you realize that we've made a very valuable find this morning, afterall, Sally?" she cried.

  "Why, no, I don't. Everything's just spoiled!" retorted Sally dubiously."If it isn't pirates, it isn't anything that's _worth_ anything, isit?"

  "I don't know yet how much it's worth," retorted Doris, "but I do knowthat we've unearthed enough to start us on a new hunt."

  "Well, what is it?" demanded Sally, still incredulous.

  "Can't you guess? The _name_ of this vessel that the lumber camefrom,--and the _date_. Whatever happened that cave couldn't have beenmade before 1843, anyhow, and that isn't so terribly long ago. Theremight even be persons alive here today who could remember as far back asthat date, if not further. And if this _Anne Arundel_ was wreckedsomewhere about here, perhaps there's some one who will remember that,and--"

  But here Sally interrupted her with an excited cry. "My grandfather!--Hesurely would know. He was born in 1830, 'cause he's eighty-seven now,and he ought to remember if there was a wreck on this beach when he wasthirteen years old or older. He remembers lots about wrecks. I'll askhim."

  Doris recalled the hearty old sea-captain, Sally's grandfather, whom shehad often seen sitting on Sally's own front porch, or down at theLanding. That he could remember many tales of wrecks and storms she didnot doubt, and her spirits rose with Sally's.

  "But you must go about it carefully," she warned. "Don't let him know,at first, that you know much about the _Anne Arundel_, or he'll begin tosuspect something and ask questions. I don't see quite how you _are_going to find out about it without asking him anyway."

  "You leave that to me!" declared Sally. "Grandfather's great on spinningyarns when he gets going. And he grows so interested about it generallythat he doesn't realize afterward whether he's told you a thing oryou've asked him about it, 'cause he has so much to tell and gets soexcited about it. Oh, I'll find out about the _Anne Arundel_, allright--if there's anything _to_ find out!"

  They parted that morning filled anew with the spirit of adventure andmystery, stopping no longer to consider the dashed hopes of the earlierday.

  "I probably shan't get a chance to talk to Grandfather alone beforeevening," said Sally in parting, "though I'm going to be around most ofthe afternoon where he is. But I'll surely talk to him tonight when he'ssmoking on our porch and Mother and Dad are away at the Landing. ThenI'll find out what he knows, and let you know tomorrow morning."

  * * * * *

  It was a breathless and excited Sally that rowed up to the hotel at anearly hour next day.

  "Did he say anything?" demanded Doris breathlessly, flying down to thesand to meet her.

  "Come out in the boat," answered Sally, "and I'll tell you all about it.He certainly _did_ say something!"

  Doris clambered into the boat, and they headed as usual for SlipperPoint.

  "Well?" queried Doris, impatiently, when they were in midstream.

  "Grandfather was good and ready to talk wrecks with me last night,"began Sally, "for there was no one else about to talk to. You know, thepavilion opened for dancing the first time this season, and every onemade a bee-line for that. Grandfather never goes down to the Landing atnight, so he was left stranded for some one to talk to and was rightglad to have me. I began by asking him to tell me something about whenhe was a young man and how things were around here and how he came to goto sea. It always pleases him to pieces to be asked to tell about thosetimes, so he sailed in and I didn't do a thing but sit and listen,though I've heard most of all that before.

  "But after a while he got to talking about how he'd been shipwrecked andalong about there I saw how it would be easy to switch him off to theshipwrecks that happened around here. When I did that he had plenty totell me and it was rather interesting too. By and by I said, justquietly, as if I wasn't awfully interested:

  "'Grandfather, I've heard tell of a ship called the _Anne Arundel_ thatwas wrecked about here once. Do you know anything of her?' And he saidhe just guessed he _did_. She came ashore one winter night, along about1850, in the worst storm they'd ever had on this coast. He was a youngman of twenty then and he helped to rescue some of the sailors andpassengers. She was a five-masted schooner, an English ship, and shejust drove right up on the shore and went to pieces. They didn't getmany of her crew off alive, as most of them had been swept overboard inthe heavy seas.

  "But, listen to this. He said that the queer part of it all was that,though her hulk and wreckage lay on the beach for a couple of months orso, and nobody gave it any attention, suddenly, in one week, it alldisappeared as clean as if another hurricane had hit it and carried itoff. But this wasn't the case, because there had been fine weather for along stretch. Everybody wondered and wondered what had become of the_Anne Arundel_ but nobody ever found out. It seemed particularlystrange because no one, not even beach-combers, would be likely to carryoff a whole wreck, bodily, like that."

  "And he never had a suspicion," cried Doris, "that some one had taken itto build that little cave up the river? How perfectly wonderful, Sally!"

  "No, but there's something about it that puzzles me a lot," repliedSally. "They took it to fix up that cave, sure enough. But, do yourealize, Doris, that it only took a small part of a big vessel likethat, to build the cave. What became of all the rest of it? Why was itall taken, when so little of it was needed? What was it used for?"

  This was as much a puzzle to Doris as to Sally. "I'm sure I can'timagine," she replied. "But one thing's certain. We've got to find outwho took it and why, if it takes all summer. By the way! I've got a newidea about why that cave was built. I believe it was for some one whowanted to hide away,--a prisoner escaped from jail, for instance, orsome one who was afraid of being put in prison because he'd donesomething wrong, or it was thought that he had. How about that?"

  "Then what about the queer piece of writing we found?" demanded Sally.Doris had to admit she could not see where that entered into things.

  "Well," declared Sally, at length, "I've got a brand new idea about ittoo. It came from something else Grandfather was telling me last night.If it wasn't pirates it was--_smugglers_!"

  "Mercy!" cried Doris. "What makes you think so?"

  "Because Grandfather was telling me of a lot of smugglers who worked alittle farther down the coast. They used to run in to one of the riverswith a small schooner they cruised in, and hide lots of stuff thatthey'd have to pay duty on if they brought it in the proper way. Theyhid it in an old deserted house near the shore and after a while wouldsell what they had and bring in some more. By and by the governmentofficers got after them and caught them all.

  "It just set me to thinking that this might be another hiding place thatwas never discovered, and this bit of paper the secret plan to showwhere or how they hid the stuff. Perhaps they were all captured at sometime, and never got back here to find the rest of their things. I tellyou, we may find some treasure yet, though it probably won't be likewhat the pirates would have hidden."

  Doris was decidedly fired by the new idea. "It sounds quite possible tome," she acknowledged, "and what we want to do now is to try and workout the meaning of that queer bit of paper."

  "Yes, and by the way, you said quite a while ago that you had an ideaabout that," Sally reminded her. "What was it?"

  "Oh, I don't know as it amounts to much," said Doris. "So many thingshave happened since, that I've half forgotten about it. But if we'regoing up to Slipper Point, I can show you better when we get there. Doyou know, Sally, I believe I'm j
ust as much interested if that's asmuggler's cave as if it had been a pirate's. It's actually thrilling!"

  And without further words, they bent their energies toward reachingtheir destination.