The launch was now close to the shore, and the exhaust ceased popping. Enos Quibb, the Blackport constable, stood in the bow boathook in hand, scowling threateningly at the group above him.
CHAPTER II.
IN STOLEN PLUMAGE.
"My, my!" murmured the only member of the camping party who seemed to take the visit of the constable with any degree of composure. "He seems savage enough to eat nails."
"Now, don't, Horrors!" begged Ben Comas. "Don't make it worse!"
"Better be smooth with him, old man," urged Kirby.
"See if you can pacify him," groaned Pudge. "I worked like a dog helping Joe get this camp fixed."
Their leader chuckled as he walked down to the natural dock where the two canoes, in which the party had reached Storm Island, were moored. The view of the sound, the rugged, well-wooded and scantily-inhabited mainland in the distance, expanded before his gaze. For several miles in either direction this mainland, as well as Storm Island itself, was either owned or leased by the Manatee Lumber Company. On the mainland the timber was properly policed by the company's guards; but Storm Island, far off shore, was considered secure from invasion by irresponsible fishing parties and the like, by the trespass signs posted upon its beaches. Blackport, the nearest town, ten miles from the western point of the island, was hidden from it by the wooded and rocky "crabclaw" sheltering Blackport Cove.
There was scarcely a habitation to be seen from the spot where the boys' camp had been established. There were fish-weirs visible at several points along the shore; but the catches gathered from these traps were, as a usual thing, taken to Blackport to be cleaned and iced, and then shipped to Portland or Boston by train. The locality was, therefore, as deserted as any spot along the entire stretch of the Maine coast.
Enos Quibb caught his boathook in the exposed root of one of the two great trees at the landing, drew the launch closer, and moored it. Then he sprang ashore. He was not a very big man save in his sense of importance. Being of a sandy complexion, his innumerable freckles were painfully yellow and prominent. His large, high-bridged nose was of a cold blue color even on this hot summer's day.