The Adventure League

by Hilda T. Skae

CHAPTER II

THE PIRATES' DEN

'Neil, old fellow,' Allan was saying, 'I wonder how much longer these people are going to keep us waiting.'

The two were in a boat that was bobbing up and down upon the waves. The shore close by was low and sandy, with some seaweed-covered stones forming a convenient landing-place. On one side the bay swept round in a curve ending in a rocky headland; and on the other arose low cliffs with brambles and sea-pinks growing in the crevices. A breeze was blowing shoreward; and the waves curled and broke upon the beach with a pleasant sound.

'Nothing more found out about the robbery yet, I suppose?' said Allan, after they had waited a little longer.

'Nothing at all,' said Neil. 'It iss a most extraordinary affair, for there iss not a man on the island one could effer be suspecting of doing such a thing; and if it wass a stranger, the wonder iss how he will be managing to come and go without being seen. The letter-box wass broken into from inside the house, and whoever will be doing it must have got in after MacAlister and his wife wass gone to bed. It iss a wonder they will not have been hearing anything.'

'There's the MacGregors' pony-cart at last,' said Allan, 'with Marjorie and Hamish in it. Let's bring the boat to the landing-stones. They will leave the trap at Mrs. MacMurdoch's cottage until we come back.'

A man came out of the cottage and held the little shaggy pony while Marjorie and her brother took a variety of miscellaneous articles out of the cart.

'Hulloa, Allan! hulloa, Neil!' they cried; 'where are the others?'

'Don't know,' said Allan, 'they are dawdling somewhere, and we'll never get off at this rate. What's all this that you've got with you?'

'Things for the hiding-place,' said Marjorie; 'and a nice lot of trouble we've had to bring them all this way without breaking any of them. The pony was particularly tricky, not having been exercised. You'll get a basket of crockery, Allan, if you'll go and take it out of the trap. Hamish is carrying some provisions and a tablecloth, and I've got some knives and forks, and just look at this!—It's a girdle for making scones with.'

'All right,' said Allan; 'chuck them into the boat, and get in yourself. But won't it be a little too civilised, bringing all these things with you?'

'Not at all,' said Marjorie; 'wait till we show you what a jolly place we're making. We can spend whole days there without ever coming home, and we must be able to cook dinner and tea for ourselves. We've had no end of trouble to get all these things out of the kitchen without Elspeth seeing us. She's so mean, you know, about letting us carry away anything that doesn't belong to us.'

'All right,' said Allan; 'but when are Reggie and Tricksy going to turn up? It would serve them jolly well right if we went off without them.'

'There they are in the distance,' said Hamish; 'at least, these seem to be the dogs.'

'That's certainly Laddie,' said Allan, standing up and looking, 'and that little black speck seems to be Carlo; but surely those can't be Reggie and Tricksy with them?'

All stared at two curious figures that looked like animated bundles of hay coming along the road.

'It is Reggie and Tricksy,' said Neil, whose sailor's sight enabled him to see farthest; 'and they're carrying something.'

'Carrying what?' said Allan, more and more puzzled.

'Perhaps they're bringing straw for bedding,' suggested Marjorie.

'Then if they are, they're not going to fill up the boat with it on this trip,' said Allan decidedly. 'We shall be heavily enough loaded already, with all of ourselves; and they're bringing both the dogs.'

As they came nearer the two walking bundles proved to be indeed Reggie and Tricksy, carrying enormous bundles of ferns. Reggie's face peeped, hot and perspiring, round one side of his bundle, which he clasped with the utmost extent of his arms; and Tricksy, with a smaller burden, looked with a long-suffering expression over the fronds which tickled her little nose. Beside them Laddie stepped lightly along, his tail curling over his back; while in the rear a small King Charles spaniel waddled painfully along upon his little short legs; his tongue hanging out, and his long ears sweeping the dust of the road.

'Well,' said Allan; 'whatever are they up to now?'

Reggie came down to the shore, picking his way cautiously over the stepping-stones.

'You might hold the boat steady for me,' he said in a half-stifled voice; then, stepping on to the thwarts, he lost his footing and fell forward, load and all, into the boat.

Promptly he struggled to his feet and wiped his forehead, looking around with a self-congratulatory smile.

'There,' he said, 'these will be a great improvement to the place. Got them up, roots and all.'

Meanwhile Hamish had relieved Tricksy of her load, and Neil was helping the little girl over the stones.

'Why, Tricksy,' said Marjorie, as the little girl took her seat, 'you have got yourself into a state!'

'I know, but I couldn't help it,' said Tricksy, looking ruefully down at her little black hands and muddy frock. 'Reggie wanted the ferns for our garden, and we've been digging away with pieces of wood in the banks of the burn. Some of them had roots ever so deep down, and we couldn't help making ourselves muddy. I'll wash my face and hands in the sea.'

'Why ever did you bring that thing with you?' said Allan in disgust, pointing to the little dog who was standing on the shore. Already Laddie had sprung on board and was lying curled up on the stern seat, confident of his welcome. 'We'll have to leave him in one of the cottages until we come back.'

'No, no!' cried Marjorie and Tricksy; 'Carlo must come too.'

'Let him come,' said Hamish; 'he won't be in the way.'

The little dog, who had been frisking about and wagging his tail, sat up and begged, looking from one to the other of the young people with a beseeching whine.

'You darling,' cried both the girls; and Tricksy sprang out of the boat and lifted him in.

Allan looked contemptuous as he pushed off; but Laddie gave a little yelp of satisfaction, and the little spaniel curled himself cosily in Tricksy's lap, while Marjorie leaned over and petted him when the boys were not looking.

The steady strokes of the rowers brought the boat rapidly through the water, while the herring gulls flew screaming around, and a small island in the middle of the firth came nearer and nearer.

Presently the sea became shallower, and the boat shot up on the beach.

'Here we are,' said Marjorie, springing out first; 'now you must see what we've made of the place, Allan. Haul up the boat, Hamish; and Reggie, you might hand out some of these things. Take care you don't drop any of them. Every one take something, and let's come.'

Laddie waited impatiently while the articles were distributed among the party, and then followed his young friends with an anticipatory bark. Carlo was lifted out by Hamish, and immediately set off to chase a gull which sailed majestically out to sea, and left him barking on the shore.

'Now, Allan,' said Reggie, his dark eyes twinkling; 'you are going to see what we've been about.'

The island consisted of a beach, rocky on the one side, sandy on the other, enclosing a stretch of grass and heather. A tiny hill rose by a deserted shepherd's hut, and a miniature burn trickled down to the sea. The place had once been used as a grazing ground for a few sheep, but of late years had been entirely uninhabited.

'Now look, Allan,' said Reggie, as they stood by the bit of dyke which protected the windy side of the cottage.

'Wh-e-ew,' said Allan; 'you have made a jolly place of it!'

'Rebuilt the cottage, which had been falling to ruins,' said Reggie. 'That was mostly Neil's doing, and Hamish and I helped. Filled up the holes in the thatch with fresh heather. We all worked at that part of it. Then you see we've made a bit of a garden and thrown up the turf for a dyke on the side where the stone one was broken down. The shells on the path were brought up from the beach of this very island. Isn't it jolly?'

'Awfully fine,' said Allan. 'Have you given the place a name yet?'

'Why,' said Marjorie, 'it's our Pirates' Den, and we mean to have all kinds of fun in it all through the summer. The boat is called the Pirates' Craft now, and we are going to have no end of fine doings, particularly if Neil has time to join us.'

Allan shoved his cap to the back of his head, and looked about him again with brightening eyes.

'Awfully jolly,' was all that he could say. 'Neil, you are a fellow for hitting upon good ideas.'

'Now come along and see the inside,' said Reggie, leading the way.

'This fine strong door was made by Neil,' said Marjorie; 'a fine time we had getting it over in the boat. We haven't got glass for the windows yet, and I don't suppose we ever shall; but it doesn't matter. What do you think of our kitchen?'

Hamish pushed open the door, and they all crowded in to see how Allan would look.

'Well,' said Allan, 'you have done a lot to the place!'

The clay floor had been swept dean and had been repaired in places; the hearth had been cleared out, and a kettle hung from a hook in the wide chimney. Some gaily-coloured pictures had been nailed up over the damp stains on the walls, and there were some rough chairs and a somewhat rickety table. Altogether it was a fairly comfortable little cottage.

'You must have worked very hard at this,' said Allan.

'Indeed we have,' said Marjorie. 'We've been gardening, and hammering, and carpentering all our spare time since you left; Tricksy and all of us. We'd never have stuck to it as we did if it hadn't been for Neil.'

'Good old Neil,' said Allan, giving the elder lad a friendly pat on the shoulder. 'Well, I must say it's an awfully jolly place, and I wish I'd been here while you were working on it.'

'There's plenty to do yet,' said Marjorie; 'we are going to make all kinds of improvements. Mother and Mrs. Stewart can't make out how we manage to spend so much time by ourselves and never come to any harm.'

They stood looking around for a few minutes and then Tricksy's voice broke in, with a little laugh in it, 'Yes, these are very nice chairs, and it's a very nice table; but are we going to get anything to put on it?'

All the others laughed.

'Well,' said Allan, 'now I come to think of it, I am a bit peckish. What do you say, Hamish?'

'Yes,' said Marjorie energetically; 'bustle about, all of you, and we'll have some dinner before we do anything else. Get some peats, will you, Reggie; some of the shepherd's peat-stack is still there, and it comes in very usefully for us.'

A fire was soon burning on the hearth, and Marjorie suggested that the boys should go to the rocks on the farther side of the island and try to catch a few fish while she and Tricksy made scones and boiled the kettle.

The boys scrambled out as far as they could and threw out their lines; and when half-a-dozen rock-cod had been caught they returned to find Marjorie and Tricksy very busy over the fire, while a pile of hot bannocks smoked beside them.

'Take the dishes and set the table,' said Marjorie, rubbing her eyes, which smarted a little with 'peat reek,' for the chimney did not vent very well.

'Where shall we set it?' asked Reggie.

'Outside, of course; what's the good of being in a house when it isn't raining? Besides, it's smoky here.'

A tablecloth was spread on a sheltered piece of turf, and secured at the corners with stones to keep it from blowing away; then the dishes were set out upon it.

'What are the dogs about?' asked Marjorie, coming out of the cottage with a plate of smoking fish.

'Rabbiting, I bet,' said Reggie, and began shouting, 'Laddie! Carlo!'

In a few minutes there was a scamper, and Laddie's head appeared above a ridge, waiting with pricked-up ears to know what was required of him.

'Dinner, Lad!' said Reggie.

Laddie gave a yelp, sprang up and turned a somersault in the air and came running, followed by Carlo, who yapped with excitement, his ears flying behind him and his curly black coat covered with earth and stalks from burrowing in the rabbit-holes.

'Trust, Laddie,' said Tricksy; and the collie lay down obediently with his nose on his paws. Carlo stretched himself beside him, but was unable to restrain his impatience, and sat up more than once and begged, undeterred by warnings from Laddie, who feared that his little friend's disobedience might get him into trouble.

'Isn't it awfully jolly having dinner out-of-doors?' said Marjorie, whose short curly hair was blowing about her face and glistening in the sun, while her blue eyes danced with merriment.

'Much nicer than indoors,' said Tricksy. 'I wish we could live here altogether.'

'Jolly tired you'd get of it,' growled Reggie; 'wait till it rains, and you find yourself shut up with half-a-dozen other people, and both the dogs, in one little smoky room. You'd tell another tale then.'

'What I will be wondering, Miss Marjorie,' said Neil; 'iss why you will all be taking so much trouble to keep every one but ourselves from knowing that you have this place?'

'It is only for a little while,' replied Marjorie. 'Of course we will bring father and mother over here for a picnic some day and give them a surprise.'

'And my father and mother too,' piped Tricksy; 'we wouldn't want to keep a thing from Mummie, except just for a little while, for fun.'

'Then how iss it that you will be finding so much pleasure in having a secret just now?'

Marjorie looked out to sea with a puzzled expression.

'I don't know,' she said at last, with a little laugh; 'except that it's such fun knowing that we've got a secret!'

'I've been thinking,' said Allan, who was lying full length upon a ridge and looking towards Inchkerra, 'while we are having such a jolly time of it over here, what must be the feelings of the man who stole those letters, now he knows that the police are after him!'

The others all looked towards the island, where they could see the low, grey cottages of the little village.

'It seems strange that they haven't got him yet,' observed Marjorie.

'I met MacLean the constable from Stornwell this morning,' said Hamish, 'and he told me that they had no trace as yet, and that they believed it must have been done by some stranger who came over from the mainland, and got away immediately after the robbery.'

'I hope so,' said Allan; 'it isn't nice to think of any of our people being dishonest.'

'If it was a stranger,' said Reggie; 'they may never catch him.'

'I heard father say that he would be traced by the money-orders,' replied Allan. 'It seems that there were several post-office orders in a registered letter addressed to father, and that is one of the letters that is missing. Father says that the thief is sure to try to make use of the orders sooner or later, and they have sent the numbers to every post-office in the kingdom.'

'And then the man will be caught!' said Tricksy in an awestruck tone.

'That will be the best chance of getting him,' replied Allan.

'The fellow will find himself in the wrong box then, won't he, Neil?'

'I suppose he will,' replied Neil, rather absently.

'I hope it won't turn out to have been some one on the island,' said Reggie.

'I hope not,' said Marjorie, looking over to the green fields and brown heather moors of Inchkerra. 'Isn't it dreadful to think that it may have been some one whom we know; some one we have spoken to quite lately?'

'Well, Miss Marjorie,' said Neil, 'do you not think we had better be getting the table cleared and the things put away? We have plenty of work before us, if we are to plant all Reggie's ferns; and we must not stay too late, for it iss anxious about you that Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. MacGregor will be.'

'Not they,' said Tricksy; 'no one is anxious when they know that you are with us, Neil.'

Neil looked gratified, and the young people began to collect the dishes.

'Now, don't you bother about this piece of work,' said Marjorie, when the boys had carried the plates into the cottage; 'you go and amuse yourselves out-of-doors while Tricksy and I wash the dishes.'

'I wonder why you don't let them do their share of the disagreeable work, Marjorie,' said Tricksy a little discontentedly, when the boys had vanished.

'Pooh,' said Marjorie, with her arms in the hot water; 'what's the good? They'd only hate it, and besides, boys always do these things badly.'

When the dishes and cooking utensils had been arranged upon the shelves, Marjorie and Tricksy went out into the garden, their eyes somewhat dim with peat smoke.

'Come along and help, you two,' cried Reggie; 'must get these things in this afternoon, or they'll be dead before we come back again. Bother it, though; we haven't enough tools to go round.'

'Here, Miss Tricksy,' interposed Neil; 'you take this little spade. This sharp piece of wood will be doing just as well for me.'

'And I've got a pointed piece of slate; I can scrape holes with that,' said Allan. 'Take this old trowel, Marjorie; it hasn't a handle, but I don't suppose you'll mind.'

For a long time the young people worked with a will. The sun beat down upon the unshaded island, and the breeze blew in from the sea, bringing a salt taste to the lips and blowing the girls' hair about. The waves babbled round the shore, and the gulls sailed overhead and screamed.

When the sun's rays began to slant, and the pile of ferns was diminishing, Neil kept glancing over his shoulder to watch the tide.

'There now, that's done,' said Reggie, pressing the earth round the roots of the last fern and then rising; 'it's a jolly long time it has taken us. What shall we do next?'

'I think we ought to go now,' said Hamish. 'What do you say, Neil?'

'It is high time we wass making a start,' said Neil. 'The tide iss rising fast, and the beach iss half covered already.'

'What a pity,' said Tricksy regretfully; 'we've had such a jolly day of it, haven't we, Marjorie?'

'Awfully jolly,' replied Marjorie; 'but we'll come again soon.—You'll come too, won't you, Neil?'

'I will be coming as soon as I can be sparing the time, you may be sure of that, Miss Marjorie,' replied the lad with a smile.

The dogs were recalled from the rabbit-holes and came, their faces covered with sand, and the boat was pushed off from the shore.

Half-way across the firth, Marjorie turned and looked back regretfully.

'What a pity we have to go home,' she said. 'It would be awfully jolly to spend all night in the cottage.'

'Look to your oar, Marjorie,' sang out Allan, for the boat was beginning to turn round.

In a short time they reached the landing-stones, of which the lower ones were already submerged.

'Won't you all look in and see Mother before you go home?' suggested Neil, after the boat had been drawn up and secured to the mooring-chain. 'She'd be pleased if you'd come and say good evening to her; and Miss Tricksy, you would be seeing the little puffins that Hamish gave you; Mother tells me that they're coming along finely.'

Mrs. Macdonnell's cottage was not far distant, and the young people accepted Neil's invitation.

'I'll just tell Mother that you're here,' said Neil, lifting the latch and vanishing in the interior of the cottage.

'I wonder who Mrs. Macdonnell has with her,' said Allan, in an undertone. 'I hear voices inside. Perhaps we had better not go in this evening.'

They waited for some time; but still no one came to bid them enter.

'This is strange,' said Marjorie. 'I wonder whether Neil has forgotten us.'