Mr. Ives had not appeared again, nor had they seen anything of Peggy. She, very likely, was more hurt with her fall than she had been willing to admit. Dalton wrote another letter to the lawyer and after learning that one of Bill’s sons had charge of the little village post office, he hired a horse and rode himself to the town at the railroad station, to see it safely on its way. Just why he should be so suspicious of Mr. Ives, he did not quite know, but it was instinctive.
Fishing trips in the rowboat were successful. They were managing to have good meals at slight expense. It was the other part of their undertaking that took the money, Dalton’s boat and the prospective building. But they had no regrets. There would be enough to do it and Dalton told Beth that with her attaining fame from some picture of Steeple Rocks, and his learning to fish and handle a boat, they would be “fixed for life.” It was a great adventure and the lure of Pirates’ Cove brought much speculation to Leslie and Sarita.
“What would it be called Pirates’ Cove for,” asked Leslie, “if no pirates ever went there? It isn’t any worse with rocks than lots of other places around here where we go, and I think that the story of a whirlpool or current is all nonsense!”
“That’s all right, Les,” said Dalton, who was standing by her on the Sea Crest at the time when she made this remark. “Watch your wheel, Sis. There. Turn it that way just a little now. Good girl. But all the same, you keep out of Pirates’ Cove, Leslie. So far as the name is concerned, there are plenty of Pirates’ Coves on this coast. I’ve no doubt. It’s a good name for any rather mysterious place.”
“Yes, it is,” said Sarita, who was waiting her turn at the wheel, “but that is it. When we have a Pirates’ Cove right at our door, so to speak, why not get some good of it?”
Dalton laughed at this and said that they would row around into the Ives’ territory “one of these days. We can see all the rocks closer there.”
“Not I,” firmly said Leslie, not knowing that she would be the first one to go. “It might remind Mr. Ives of our existence, if he should see us. Let’s let well enough alone, folks. When we hear that we have an abstract of title and everything, you can go over to Steeple Rocks, Dal, and tell him so.”
“I’ll begin to cut down a few trees, then,” said Dalton, with a grin. “That will bring him over fast enough.”
But their freedom from Mr. Ives was due to another cause, as they found out at once; for when they came back from this trip, they found Peggy Ives at the camp, in animated conversation with Beth. Beth was showing Peggy their camp and she was admiring the convenience of their “bungalow tent,” when Leslie and Sarita appeared in the door.
“Oh, here is our circus lady,” cried Sarita before she thought. She and Leslie had so dubbed Peggy, but they had not intended to announce it.