Witches Cove / A Mystery Story for Girls

Mystery Stories for Girls
By ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago New York
Printed in the United States of America
Copyright, 1928 by The Reilly & Lee Co. All Rights Reserved
It was night on Casco Bay off the coast of Maine. There was no moon. Stars were hidden by a fine haze. The distant harbor lights of Portland, eight of them, gleaming faintly in pairs like yellow cat’s eyes, served only to intensify the blackness of the water and the night.
Ruth Bracket’s arms moved backward and forward in rhythmic motion. She was rowing, yet no sound came from her oarlocks. Oars and oarlocks were padded. She liked it best that way. Why? Mystery—that magic word “mystery.” How she loved it!
In the stern of the little punt sat slim, black-haired, dark-eyed Betty Bronson, a city girl from the heart of America who was enjoying her first summer on the coast of Maine.
Betty, too, loved mystery. And into her life and that of her stout seashore girl companion had come a little mystery that day. At this very moment, as Ruth rested on her muffled oar, there came creeping across the silent waters and through the black of night a second bit of mystery.
The first mystery had come to them on shore in the hold of a beached three-masted schooner.
Ruth knew the schooner well enough. She had been on board her a dozen times and thought she knew all about her—but she didn’t.
The owner, a dark-skinned foreigner who had purchased the schooner six months before, used her for bringing wood to the islands. There is, so they say, an island in Casco Bay for every day in the year. Each island has its summer colony. These summer folks like an open fire to sit by at night and this requires wood. The schooner had been bringing it in from somewhere—from Canada some said. No one seemed to know for sure.