The Mercer Boys' Cruise in the Lassie

by Capwell Wyckoff

He was moving from counter to counter, picking out fresh and canned goods with a critical eye to their fitness, when a woman came into the store. At the time the place was unoccupied except by Don and the storekeeper, and she imitated Don in picking out her own goods. Don had glanced idly at her when she came in, and then looked away, his mind busy with his shopping. But as he waited for the storekeeper to wrap up butter he looked once more at the woman.

“Now, where in the world have I seen that woman?” the boy wondered. He looked searchingly at her sharp face, the plain black hat and the long musty looking coat. “It can’t be—jeepers, it is!”

He turned his face away swiftly, his heart beating more rapidly as the recognition came to him. It was indeed the woman who had been in the house at Mystery Island, the one from whom he had tried to buy the eggs. Don could not help regarding the circumstance as a wonderful piece of luck. If the woman was in the neighborhood it was more than likely that the marine gang was there too. Of course it was always possible that they might have split up and she might be living here in the town, but Don believed that through her some clue might be found which would prove worth while.

He was careful to keep his face away from her during the remainder of the time that he was in the store and when his purchases were all made he left hurriedly. He feared that if the woman looked at him closely she would recognize him and be on her guard, but apparently she did not, for when he left the store she was busy selecting articles and paid no attention to him. Securely hidden behind a large tree on the other side of the street Don watched until the woman came out of the store and then began to follow her.

He at once marked her manner as she came out. In the store she had been free and easy, paying no particular attention to anyone who went by or to Don himself. The boy felt sure that she was not known to the storekeeper, for as he had gone out he had heard the man say, “What else do you want, lady?” Don felt sure that had the storekeeper known the woman he would have called her by some name, in the manner of most country storekeepers, but he had not done so, and Don felt that she was a stranger in the town. It was possible that the bandits’ boat was near and that she had landed to buy provisions for the men.

Her first move, after looking all around the crooked street, was to go to the tobacco store and remain there for two minutes. When she came out she had a good-sized bundle, and Don was sure that she had bought a good supply of the cigars and cigarettes for the men. She had now apparently made all the purchases that she intended to, for, after another sharp glance about, she took the road leading away from the town and toward the beach.

Don was now sorry that he had such a large bundle with him, and after thinking it over for a moment he ran across the street and back into the store, where he asked the man in charge if he might leave the bulky package there. Permission was readily granted and when he had deposited the bundle behind a counter Don hastily left the store and took the road to the beach. He hurried on, fearing that he would lose the warm trail which he had been fortunate enough to stumble across, but when he topped a small rise he saw her below him, still hurrying along, looking from side to side and making for a particularly deserted spot on the beach.

Don was on a rise of ground which made it unnecessary for him to go any further. There were few houses below him and no part of the beach or sand dunes which could hide the woman, and he realized that it would be foolish to go any further. He crouched down behind some bayberry bushes and watched the woman, and a minute later he was glad that he had done so. The woman was glancing back of her now and she would surely have seen him had he been standing up.

Arriving at the beach the woman waved her hand, and from the arm of the land which formed one side of the little bay a rowboat shot out. Don was now on the other side of the bay and could not see his own boat nor indeed any of the few craft which were tied up at the Scarboro dock. He was now overlooking a stretch of the beach and ocean which they had not yet seen from the Lassie, that stretch which they intended to examine in the morning. The only object in view on the water, beside the little rowboat, was an old wreck of a three-masted schooner, which lay on a sand bar a mile to the south of him.

The boat came up to the shore, and the man who was rowing took the packages from the woman and placed them in the boat. Next he handed her in and then resumed his place at the oars. With long, sweeping strokes he sent the rowboat along the shore.