“I’d like to see a tin-mounted can of gasolene,” grunted Roy. Nevertheless after seeing to the engine of the aeroplane he was willing enough to set out with the others to explore this little spot of land in the Sound.
It was so small that it did not take them long to reach the summit of the low peak into which it rose in the centre.
“Oh, there’s a little hut!” cried Peggy, suddenly.
Sure enough, below them, and half overgrown with tall weeds and scrub growth, was a half ruined hut. It was doubtless the relic of some fisherman who had once used the island as headquarters. But it had, apparently, long lapsed into disuse.
Hardly had they spied it before Roy made another discovery. Drawn up in a miniature cove not far from the hut was a trim and trig white motor boat, seemingly, from her long narrow shape and powerful engines, capable of great speed.
Here was a discovery! A motor boat meant gasolene and companionship.
With a soft cry of joy Peggy was dashing forward toward the hut, from which they could now hear proceeding the hum of human voices, when Roy suddenly checked her. From the doorway there had suddenly issued the figure of Morgan, the Bancrofts’ butler. He gazed about him with a look of half alarmed suspicion on his flabby face. The young aviators instinctively crouched back behind a screen of green brush. They felt a suddenly aroused premonition that everything was not as it should be.
“H’its nothink,” said Morgan, addressing someone within the hut, after he had gazed about a little more without seeing anything to further alarm his suspicions.
“All right, if that’s the case come back in here,” came another voice from inside the hut.
“Giles!” recognized the astonished Peggy. But another and a greater surprise was yet in store for them when they heard another voice strike into the conversation. There was no mistaking the tones for any others than Fanning Harding’s.