“All right, Big Injun Ben,” said Merry, “let it rain before night. We’ve got a good many hours to enjoy ourselves in and get home, too, before dark. We’ll be at the ferry-boat landing in an hour, and if we’re lucky enough to catch the boat, we’ll reach Seven League Island by eleven o’clock. That will give us plenty of time to eat everything in sight, see Smugglers’ Cave, and all the other sights, and get home by seven o’clock.”
“Of course, we can,” replied Ben. “I was only teasing Percival Algernon St. Clair, because he hates the rain worse than poison. I never saw a finer day in my life.”
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Billie, in tones of relief. She really had great faith in Ben’s judgment about most things.
Seven League Island, a rocky strip of land some twenty-one miles long, was one of the most romantic places in the vicinity of West Haven. It was three miles from the mainland and, during the season when the summer resorts and camps which clustered on its shores were open, several ferry-boats carried passengers back and forth from the mainland to the island. In winter the place was almost deserted. The land was too poor for farming and few people cared to remain on that lonely, mournful island, where, in stormy weather, the waves thundered through the caves in the cliffs, and the wind in the pine trees made a mournful sound like the wail of a lost soul.
To-day, however, it was as serene and smiling as the Islands of the Blest. The southwest wind stirred the pine needles gently, making a pleasant quiet song. The tiny waves, as they lapped the sides of the ferry, gave out a “cloop, cloop” sound that still water makes against the bow of a canoe.
“What time does the last ferry go back, Captain?” asked Ben, of the old ferryman, whose face was as weather beaten and seamed as the hide of a hippopotamus.
“Six, in good weather.”
“What time in bad?”
“Depends on the weather,” answered the old man briefly.
“How many other ferry stations are there?” asked Charlie.