CHAPTER XXVII.
RANSACKING THE OLD RUIN
It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron, smiling brightly at her friend. “Good, there are the boys!” she exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed with their tams and sweater-coats.
“We’ve put up a lunch,” Nann told the newcomers. “Miss Moore said that we might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested.” They were walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.
Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. “Say, Miss Dori,” he exclaimed, “Miss Moore’s been here sech a long time, like’s not she knew ol’ Colonel Wadbury, didn’t she now?”
“No, she didn’t know him,” Dories replied. “He was such an old hermit he didn’t want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter’s return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn’t here the year of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she really doesn’t know any more than we do.”
“We didn’t start coming here until after it had all happened,” Dick put in.
“I’m so excited.” Nann gave a little eager skip. “I almost hope the pilot of the seaplane has not found the deed and that we may find it and give it to him.”
“So do I!” Dick seconded. Over the rugged point they went, each time becoming more agile, and into the punt they climbed when Gib, barefooted as usual, had waded out and rowed close to a flat-rock platform. The tide was in and with its aid they floated rapidly up the channel in the marsh. “Shall we enter by the front or the back?” Nann asked of Dick.
“The front is nearer our landing place,” was the reply. “Let’s give the old salon a thorough ransacking. I feel in my bones that we are going to make some interesting discovery today, don’t you, Gib?”
“Dunno,” was that lad’s laconic reply. “Mabbe so.”