Being of a bolder nature than the others, having always a consuming desire to see the hold of so ancient a ship, Ruth had led Betty into the very heart of the schooner and had opened a door to pursue her investigation further when a harsh voice called down to her:
“Here now. Come out’a da sheep!”
It was a foreign skipper.
Startled, the girls had quickly closed the door and bolted up the gangway. Not, however, until they had seen a surprising thing. They had seen three bolts of bright, red cloth in that cabin back of the hold. Were there others? They could not tell. The place had been quite dark.
“Looked like silk,” Betty had said a few moments later as they walked down the beach.
“Can’t tell,” Ruth replied. “Probably only red calico, a present for the wood chopper’s wife.”
“Three bolts?”
“Three wood choppers’ wives with seven children apiece,” Ruth laughed.
She had found this hard to believe. There certainly was something strange about those bolts of cloth, and the foreign skipper’s desire to get them away from the cabin.
And now, as they listened in the night on the bay with muffled oars at rest, they caught the creak of oarlocks. The schooner had got off the beach with the tide. She was anchored back in the bay. That the dory had come from her they did not doubt.