The boy, having removed his nondescript cap, was scratching his ear in a way that he always did when puzzled. Then there was a sudden eager light in his red-brown eyes. Replacing his hat, he seized the oars and began to row rapidly back up the shore and toward the row of eight cottages.
Nann was puzzled and voiced her curiosity. “Got to get back to Siquaw in time for the ten-ten train,” was all the information she received.
Since he had said nothing of this when they started out, and had seemed to be in no hurry whatever, Nann naturally wondered about it.
Some light might have been thrown on his action had she seen him, one hour later, as he sat on the high stool at his father’s desk in the general store. He was painstakingly writing, and, when the ten-ten train arrived, Gibralter Strait was on the platform waiting to send to the nearby city of Boston the very first letter that he had ever written.
CHAPTER XVI.
OUT IN THE DARK
All the next day the girls waited and watched, but Gibralter Strait appeared neither on land nor on sea to explain his queer actions. Their hostess asked Dories to read to her and so the morning was passed in that way. Nann, busy at a piece of fancy work she was making for a Christmas present, sat listening. In the afternoon the girls were told to amuse themselves. This they did by climbing to the “tip-top rock,” sitting there in the balmy sun and speculating about the old ruin; about the reason for Gib’s sudden departure for his home the day before, and about the boy and girl who had sailed away on the Phantom Yacht. It was not until a fog, filmy at first, but rapidly increasing in density, began to hide the sun that they thought of returning homewards. As they passed the cabin nearest the rocks, Dories said, “This is the Burton cottage, I suppose. I wonder if Dick is our kind of boy?”
“Meaning what?” Nann wondered.
“O, you know as well as I do. I like Gib, of course. He’s a splendid boy, but he hasn’t had a chance. I merely meant a boy from families like our own.”
“I rather think so,” Nann replied, as she gazed at the boarded-up cabin. Then suddenly she stopped and stared at one of the upper windows. The blind had opened ever so slightly and then had closed again, but of this Nann said nothing. She was afraid that she was becoming almost as imaginative as Dories. Then suddenly she recalled something. Gib had said that his father had seen a light in the old ruin the night before. And what was more, she and Dories knew there had been someone carrying a lantern on the beach near the rocks at least twice since they had been there. What if the lantern-carrier hid in the Burton cottage during the day? He couldn’t live in the old ruin, since it had only one wall standing.
Luckily, Dories had been interested in watching the waves breaking at her feet. Turning, she called, “O, but it’s getting cold and damp. Let’s run the rest of the way.”