The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Cruise of the O Moo, by Roy J. Snell

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Adventure Stories for Girls

The Cruise
Of the O Moo

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1922
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE [I A Mysterious Tapping] 7 [II The Blue Face in the Night] 24 [III Lucile’s Quick Action Gas] 36 [IV Trapped in the Old Museum] 51 [V A Catastrophe Averted] 65 [VI The Blue God] 78 [VII The Mystery Deepens] 90 [VIII A Strange Game of Hide-and-Go-Seek] 103 [IX Someone Drops in from Nowhere] 117 [X The Real Cruise Begins] 131 [XI A Mysterious Adventure] 148 [XII The O Moo Rides the Storm] 161 [XIII Land at Last] 177 [XIV “A Phantom Wireless”] 191 [XV The Island’s Secret] 202 [XVI An Unexpected Welcome] 215 [XVII Hot Water and a Ghost] 226

THE CRUISE OF THE O MOO

CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS TAPPING

Lucile Tucker stirred in her berth, opened her eyes drowsily, then half-framed a thought into a whispered: “What was that?”

The next instant she sat bolt upright. She had heard it again, this time not in a dream. It was a faint rat-tat-tat, with a hollow sound to it as if beaten on the head of a barrel.

She strained her ears to catch the slightest sound but now caught only the constant lash-lash of the flag-rope as it beat the mast of the yacht, the O Moo, a sure sign of a rising storm.

She strained her eyes to peer into the darkness to the right of her; she wanted to see her two companions who should be sleeping there to make sure they were still with her. She could not see; the shutters were tightly closed and there was no moon. The place was dark; black as soot.

She stilled her breathing to listen again, but caught only the lash-lash of that flag-rope, accompanied now and then by the drumlike boom of canvas. The storm was rising. Soon it would be lashing the waves into white foam to send them crashing high above the breakwaters. She shivered. A storm aboard ship had always frightened her.

Yet now as she thought of the term, “aboard ship,” she shrugged her slim shoulders. Her lips parted in a smile as she murmured:

“The cruise of the O Moo.”

Suddenly her thoughts were broken in upon by the repetition of that mysterious sound of a rat-tat-tat.

“Like a yellow-hammer drumming on a hollow tree,” was her unspoken comment, “only birds don’t work at night. It’s like—like someone driving—yes, driving tacks. Only who could it be? And anyway, why would they drive tacks into our yacht at midnight.”

The thought was so absurd that she dismissed it at once. Dismissing the whole problem for the moment, she began thinking through the events which had led up to that moment.

She, with Marian Norton, her cousin—as you will remember if you chance to have read the account of their previous adventure as recorded in the book called “The Blue Envelope”—had spent the previous year on the shores of Behring Straits in Alaska and Siberia. There they had been carried through a rather amazing series of thrilling adventures which had not been without their financial advantages, especially to Marian.

Lucile’s father had been, when she had left her home at Anacortes, Washington, a well-to-do salmon fisherman. She had felt no fear of lack of money for further schooling. The two girls had therefore planned to study during this present year, Lucile at a great university situated near the shore of Lake Michigan and Marion in a renowned school of art in the same city.

But fortune plays rude tricks at times. They had returned to find that Lucile’s father’s fortune had been dissipated by an unfortunate investment in fish-traps for catching a run of sock-eyed salmon, a salmon run which failed, and that Marian’s father had grub-staked a “sure-winner” gold mine which had panned out not enough gold to pay for the miner’s “mucklucks” (skin-boots).

So Marian had given up the major portion of the money paid to her by the Ethnological Society for her sketches and Lucile had abandoned all hope of receiving money from her father for a university education. They had not, however, given up their plans for further schooling.

“Have to live carefully and not spend an extra cent,” had been Marian’s way of summing up the situation. “And we can make it all right. Why, just look at the price for rooms at the university.” She referred to a catalogue in her hand. “Twenty-three dollars a term. That is less than two dollars a week. We could pay that. Rooms outside the university certainly can’t be any more—probably not as much.”

Lucile smiled now as she recalled this bit of crude reasoning.

They had hurried on to the university with their little checking accounts. They had had—

But here again Lucile started and sprang half out of her berth. Came again that mysterious rat-tat-tat.

“What can it be?” she whispered. “Marian! Florence! Wake up. Someone is—”

These last words, uttered in a whisper, died on her lips. The other girls slept on. What was the use of waking them? Couldn’t be anything serious. And if it were, what could they do at this mad hour of night? Suppose they routed out old Timmie, keeper of the dry dock, what could he do? It was black as jet out there.

So she reasoned, and, having settled back between her blankets, began again the recalling of events.

They had arrived in the city by the lake to be completely disillusioned. All university rooms had been reserved for months ahead. So too had all outside rooms which might be had for a reasonable price. To pay the price demanded for such rooms as were available had been impossible. They faced the danger of being obliged to return to their homes, and this, to such girls as they were, was a calamity unthinkable.

Just at this critical moment, the O Moo had shown her masts above the horizon. She was a trim little pleasure yacht, thoroughly equipped for living on board. She belonged to a wealthy doctor named Holmes, a life-time friend of Lucile’s father.

“She’s in dry dock down about two miles from the university,” he had told the girls. “You’re welcome to live in her for the winter. Canvas over her now but you can prop that up here and there, I guess. Make a snug place to camp, I’d say. Cabin’s about ten by thirty and there’s everything you’d need, from an eggbeater to an electric range. There’s electric lights and everything; valve-in-the-head motor supplies ’em. Go on; live there if you want to; keep house and everything. Pretty stiff walk to the U. But there’s the lagoon in winter, with good skating a mile and a half of the way. What say—want to try it? Old Timmie, the keeper of the dry dock, will see that nobody bothers you. There’s some Chinamen living in a barge out there, some fishermen in a smack and a young chap in a gasoline schooner. Guess they are all peaceable folks, though. Might get another girl or two to go in with you. Plenty of room. We live on board her two months every summer, two families of us, six in all.”

If the girls had been captivated at once by this novel plan, once they had climbed aboard the yacht, they had been thrilled and delighted at the sight which met their eyes.

“She—she’s a regular little floating palace!” Lucile had stammered.

“Tut! Tut!” Mr. Holmes had remonstrated, “not quite a palace, though comfortable enough, and not floating at all, at the present moment.”

“It will be a cruise—the winter cruise of the O Moo,” Lucile had exclaimed in delight.

Had she but known how real these words would be to her some time hence—“The winter cruise of the O Moo”—she might have shuddered with fear and been sorely tempted not to accept her new home.

The power of divination was not one of her talents, so, with Marian at her side, she had proceeded to lift the heavy canvas which enshrouded the yacht’s deck, and, having crept ...

A truly wonderful cabin it was, all done in dark oak, with broad panels of green canvas along the walls, equipped with heavy oak tables and heavily over-stuffed chairs and lounges. It presented the appearance of a splendidly furnished but rather eccentric living room.

Here at one end the touch of a lever sent an electric range springing up from the floor. A second lever lowered a partition between this suddenly improvised kitchenette and the living room. Two cupboards to the right of this kitchen displayed dishes and cooking utensils. The opposite wall furnished a table which folded up when not in use. Behind this was a fully equipped kitchen cabinet.

“Convenient when in use, out of the way when not needed,” had been the doctor’s only comment.

This kitchen was forward. Aft were to be found four double berths. Modeled after the upper berths of a Pullman sleeper, these gave the maximum of comfort and when folded up occupied no space at all.

“It’s wonderful!” had been the most the girls could say. “And, oh! Doctor Holmes, we’ll pay you rent for it. You surely must allow us to do that,” Marian had exclaimed.

“Nonsense!” the good doctor had exclaimed. “Worked my way through school myself. Know what it means. All I ask is that you pass the good work on to some other fellow who needs a boost when you are through with school and making money.”

So here they were, and had been for two months, all comfortably established in the cabin of the O Moo.

Dr. Holmes had suggested that they might be able to accommodate another girl. They had become acquainted with Florence Huyler, a freshman in the physical culture department, and had decided at once that she was just the girl to join them.

Florence had not waited for a second invitation and here she was sleeping in the berth to Lucile’s right. Just why she should have seemed most fitting as a companion for such an adventure I can best tell you as events progress.

The long hike back and forth to the university and the art school had been a bit tiring at first, but in time they had come to enjoy it. Then winter had come and with it ice on the lagoon. Only yesterday they had had their first wonderful race over its shining surface. Her recollections came slower and slower and she was about to drift off into a dream when there came again that strange rat-tat-tat.

Once more she sat bolt upright to peer into the darkness; once more she asked herself the questions: “What can it be? Should I waken Marian and Florence?”

She did not waken them. To do so would seem, she thought, a trifle silly. The yacht stood upon a car with iron wheels which rested on a track raised five feet above the ground by a stout trestle work. The sides of the yacht towered above this trestle. Altogether the deck of the yacht was fully twenty feet from the ground. They ascended and descended by means of a rope ladder. This ladder, at the present moment, lay on the deck. No one could enter their cabin unless he were possessed of a ladder and any person attempting this would at once be detected and might be arrested for it, so why be afraid?

But, after all, that sound was puzzling. She wanted to know what it meant. For some time she contemplated slipping on her dressing-gown to creep out on deck and peer over the side. But the wind was chill and still rising. The flag-rope was whipping the mast with ever-increasing fury.

“Cold out there,” she thought with a shiver. “Glad the O Moo is in dry dock and not on the water!”

A sudden thought brought a new fear. Of a whole line of schooners and yachts on that track in the dry dock, the O Moo was the one closest to the water. What if she should slip back into the water and be driven out into the lake! Lucile shivered again. Then she smiled. How absurd. Did not a heavy cable hold her in place? Were not the wheels of the car, on which she rested, blocked? How then could she glide back into the lake?

Fortunately, it did not occur to her that this very tap-tap-tapping might be the knocking of a hammer which was driving those blocks from their positions before the wheels of the car.

Since this thought did not come to her and, since the tapping did not come again, she at last snuggled down among the blankets and fell asleep.

Hardly had she wakened in the morning before she recalled this strange incident of the night. Hurriedly slipping into a middy suit and slippers, she raced up the short gangway and across deck, tossing the rope ladder over the side. The next moment she might have been seen walking slowly about the hull of the yacht. She was searching for traces of the strange tapping.

Having passed along the south side, she climbed through the trestle and made her way along the north side. She was about to conclude that the night’s experience had been purely an imaginary one when a white spot near the prow attracted her attention.

She caught her breath as her hand reached for it. It was a square bit of paper held in place by four tacks which had apparently been driven into the hull with great deliberation.

“That explains the tapping,” she whispered to herself. “Sure had their courage right along with them. Thought we’d be afraid to interfere, being just girls, I suppose. Wonder what it is.”

She reached up and pulled the paper free from the tacks. As soon as she had it in her hand she realized that written on it was a message. She read it—read it twice—then stood there staring.

The paper was of a peculiar rice-straw variety. The words were written in a strangely artistic fashion. Fine as the tracing of a woman’s pen, each letter stood out distinct, done in curves of wonderful perfection, the work of a master penman.

But she did not pause to admire the handwriting; it was the meaning of the words that startled her as she read:

“You must not stay here. You shall not stay. I have said it.”

It was signed only with a crosslike figure, a bizarre sketch that might well have represented the claw of a bird—or a dragon, Lucile added with a little intake of breath.

“I must show the girls,” she exclaimed, and nimble as a squirrel, was away over the trestle and up the rope ladder.

When the other girls had heard Lucile’s story and had read the note they were more astonished than alarmed.

“Huh!” exclaimed Florence, gripping an iron rod above her and lifting her full hundred and sixty pounds easily with one hand. “Who’s telling us whether we can stay here or not?”

“I’d say they better not let you get near them,” smiled Lucile.

Florence laughed and, releasing her grip on the rod, sat down to think.

“Doesn’t seem possible it could be anyone living in the other boats,” she mused. “I’ve seen that young man they call Mark Pence, the fellow who lives in the gasoline schooner, just once. He seems to be decent enough.”

“And the old fishermen,” put in Marian, “I hired two of them to pose for some sketches last week. Nice old fellows, they are; a little rough but entirely harmless. Besides, what difference could it make to them whether we live here or not?”

“There’s the Chinamen who run a little laundry in that old scow,” said Lucile thoughtfully, “but they are the mildest-mannered of them all, with their black pajama suits and pigtails.”

“And that’s all of them, except Old Timmie and his wife,” said Florence, rising and pressing the lever which brought the electric range into position. “And as for Timmie, I’d as soon suspect my own father.”

“We’ll tell him about it,” said Lucile. “He might help us.”

They did tell Timmie, but he could throw no light on the subject. He appeared puzzled and a little disturbed, but his final counsel was:

“Someone playing a practical joke on you. Pay no attention to it. Pay no attention at all.” The girls accepted his advice. Indeed, there was nothing they could do about it.

“All the same,” was Lucile’s concluding word, “I don’t like it. Looks as if someone in this vicinity were doing something they should not do and were afraid we’d catch them at it. I for one shall keep an eye out for trouble.”

The other two girls agreed with her, and while they did not alter their daily program in the least, they did keep a sharp lookout for suspicious characters who might be lurking about the dry dock.

CHAPTER II
THE BLUE FACE IN THE NIGHT

Lucile need not have kept an eye out for trouble. Trouble was destined to find her and needed no watching. As she expressed it afterward: “It doesn’t seem to matter much where you are nor what you are doing, if you are destined for adventures you’ll have them.”

But the thing which happened to her on the following evening, though doubly mysterious and haunting in its character, appeared to have no connection whatever to the incident of the note.

The storm which had been rising all night had lulled with the morning sun, but by mid-afternoon was raging again with redoubled fury. Sending the spray dashing high above the breakwaters, it now and then cast a huge cake of ice clear of the water’s tallest crest and brought it down upon the breakwater’s rim with the sound of an exploding cannon. Carrying blinding sheets of snow before it, the wind rose steadily in force and volume until the most hardy pedestrian made headway against it with the greatest difficulty.

When Lucile left the university grounds to face east and to begin forcing her way against the wind to the yacht, night had fallen. “Dark as it should be at seven—woo! what a gale!” she shivered, as buttoning her mackinaw tightly about her throat, she bent forward to meet the storm.

For a half hour, her body beaten and torn by the wind, her face cut by driving sleet, she fought her way onward into the night. She had reached the shore of the lake and was making her way south, or at least thought she was. So dense was the darkness that it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept her directions.

“Wish—wish I had tried getting a place to stay nearer the university,” she half sobbed.

As if in answer to these words, the storm appeared to redouble its fury. Seizing her with its whirling grip, it carried her in a semicircle, to land her at last against a stone wall. So great was the force of her impact that for the moment she lay there at the foot of the wall, only partly conscious of what was going on about her.

When at last she was able to rise, she knew that she had completely lost her way.

“Might as well follow the wall,” she thought desperately. “Little more sheltered here. Bring me to some place after a time.”

The fury of wind and snow continued. At times she fancied she felt the spray from waves dampen her cheeks. She heard distinctly the break of these waves—“Against the wall,” she told herself, shuddering as the thought came to her that she might suddenly reach the end of this wall and be blown into the lake.

“Anyway I can’t stay here,” she muttered. “Too cold. Face is freezing, I guess.”

She paused to remove a glove and touch her cheek. The next instant she was rubbing it vigorously. “Frozen all right. Have to get in somewhere soon.”

Just at that moment her heart leaped wildly. For a moment the drive of snow had slackened. In that moment, a great, black bulk loomed up at her right.

“Some building,” she thrilled, and at once doubled her efforts to escape from the storm and reach this promised shelter.

As, still hugging the wall, she came closer to the looming structure, she saw that it showed not a single gleaming light. The next moment her lips parted in an exclamation of dismay:

“The old Spanish Mission! No one there—hasn’t been for years.”

Once she had forced her mind to sober thought, she realized that she had no reason to hope for anything better. There were but four structures on that mile of park-front on the lake all deserted at this time of year: a broad, low pavilion; a huge, flat bath-house; a towering castle, relic of a great fair once held on these grounds, and this Spanish Mission, which never had been a real mission, but merely a reproduction of one dating back into other centuries, a huge wooden hull of a thing.

Resembling a block-house, with its narrow windows and low doors, it had always stirred Lucile’s curiosity. Now she was about to seek shelter in it, or at least in the lee of it. It was deserted, empty, fast falling into decay, a mysterious, haunty place. Yet, so buffeted by the storm was she, so frightened by the onrush of the elements, that she felt quite equal to creeping through some opening into its vast emptiness should an opening appear.

And an opening did offer her opportunity to test her nerve. It was a window, the glass shattered by the storm. Her heart beating wildly, she squeezed through into the inky blackness. On tiptoe, she made her way down the wall to the right. She was obliged to feel for every step. There was not a ray of light.

“Some big hall,” she decided. After she had moved along for a space of forty feet or more she whispered: “The chapel!” Her heart skipped a beat. “Imagine being in a deserted chapel on such a night!”

Suddenly overcome with the thought that she might stumble into an altar or a crucifix, she halted and stood there trembling. She had always felt a great awe for such things.

She stood there until her legs ached with the strain of holding to one position. Then she pushed on slowly. Suddenly she brushed against something. Recoiling in fright, she stood there motionless.

At last she had the courage to bend over and put out a hand. To her intense relief, she found that she had come upon a bench standing against the wall. Having tested its strength, she sat down. Leaning back, she rested.

“That’s better,” she breathed. “The storm will soon be over. Then I’ll get out of here and go to the yacht.”

The drive of the wind, the chill of the storm had made her drowsy. The night before her sleep had been disturbed. As she sat there her head drooped more and more. It began nodding, then suddenly came up with a jerk.

Again she was awake! She would not fall asleep, she told herself. Would not. Would not!

Yet, in three minutes she was nodding again. This time her chin sank lower and lower, until at last it rested on her breast, which moved slowly up and down in the rhythmic breathing of one who sleeps.

How long she slept would be hard to tell. So natural was her awaking that she did not realize that she had been asleep at all.

Yet she sensed that something about the place was different. A vague uneasiness stole over her.

Once she had opened her eyes, she knew what it was. There was light—a strange light, somewhere in the room; a dim, almost imperceptible illumination pervaded all.

As she turned her head, without moving in her seat, she with difficulty suppressed a scream.

At the far end of the room was an apparition, or so at least it seemed.

“A blue face! A face of blue fire. It can’t be.” She rubbed her eyes.

“And yet it is.” Her mind did all the talking. Her lips were numb. It is doubtful if she could have spoken had she dared to. But this was no time to speak.

She did not believe in ghosts, yet there was a face, an illumined face; an ugly face, more fiendish than any she had ever seen. Appearing alive, it rose from the center of a decaying table standing before an altar. Beside the altar, revealed by the pale, bluish light which the face appeared to shed about it, were two tarnished candlesticks and back of it, against the wall, hung a crucifix.

Completely paralyzed by the sight of this blue face in the night and by its awesome surroundings, she sat there quite motionless.

The light of the blue face appeared to wax and wane, to come and go like the faint smiles that often pass over a child’s face.

Lucile was suddenly seized with the notion that the face was looking at her. At the same time there came the question: “Is there light enough to reveal my face?” She glanced down to the floor, then breathed a sigh of relief; she could not see her own feet. Silently drawing her scarf over her face, covering all but her eyes and hiding her hands beneath her coat, she sat there hardly daring to breathe.

She did not have long to wait for, out of the darkness into the pale blue light, there stole three figures. Whether these were men or women, monks, nuns or devils, she could not tell, so closely were they enshrouded in robes or coats of black cloth.

They knelt before the blue face and remained there motionless.

To quiet her nerves, Lucile began to count. She had reached one hundred, when, for fear she would lose all control of herself and scream or run, she closed her eyes. She had counted to one thousand before she dared open them again.

When she did so she found another surprise awaiting her. The kneeling figures were gone. Gone, too, was the face; or at least, it was no longer illumined. The place was dark as a dungeon. Strangely enough, too, the wail of the storm had subsided to a whisper. Only the distant boom of breakers told her that a terrific blizzard had passed over the lake.

Rising without a sound, she tiptoed her way along the wall. Reaching the window, she leaped out upon the ground and was away like a flash. With knees that trembled so they would scarcely support her, she ran for a full half mile before she dared slow down and look back. The snowstorm was over, the moon half out. She could see for some distance behind her, but all she saw was a glistening stretch of snowy landscape. Then she made her way thoughtfully to the dry dock.

Once on board the O Moo she told the other girls nothing of her adventures; merely said she had been delayed by the storm. But that evening as she attempted to study, she would now and then give a sudden start. Once she sprang up so violently that she upset her chair.

“What in the world is the matter?” Marian demanded.

“Nothing, just nerves,” she said, forcing a smile, but she did not attempt to study after that. She went and curled up in a huge, upholstered rocker. Even here she did not fall asleep, but sat staring wide-eyed before her until it was bedtime.

They had all been in their berths for fifteen minutes. Florence had dozed off when she was suddenly wakened by a hand on her arm. It was Lucile.

“Please—please!” she whispered. “I can’t sleep alone to-night.”

Florence put out a strong hand and drew her up into the berth, then pulled the covers down over them both and clasped her gently in her arms.

Lucile did not move for some time. She had apparently fallen asleep when she suddenly started violently and whispered hoarsely:

“No! No! It can’t be; I—I don’t believe in ghosts.”

At the same time a great shudder shot through her frame.

“Tell me about it,” whispered Florence, holding her tight.

Then, in halting, whispered sentences, Lucile told of the night’s adventure.

“That’s strange!” whispered Florence. “Reminds me of something an aged sailor told me once, something that happened on the Asiatic side of the Pacific. Too long to tell now. Tell you sometime though. Doesn’t seem as if there could be any connection. Surely couldn’t be. But you never can tell. Better turn over and go to sleep.”

Relieved of half her fear by the telling of the story, Lucile fell asleep and slept soundly until morning.

CHAPTER III
LUCILE’S QUICK ACTION GAS

You must not imagine (and you might well be forgiven for doing so, if you have read the preceding chapters) that the experiences of the three girls whose lives are pictured here were a series of closely crowded thrilling adventures. It was not the case that no sooner was the curtain run down on one mysterious happening than the stage was set for another. Few lives are like that. Adventures do come to us all at times and we face them for the most part bravely. Some amuse and entertain, others startle and appall, but each teaches in its own way some new lesson of life.

Adventures taken from the lives of others bring to us the greatest ratio of entertainment, but it is our own exciting and mysterious adventures that we speak of most often when we are clustered on the deck of some vessel or gathered about a camp fire.

While not many pages of this book may be devoted to the everyday school life of these girls, they had it just the same. Florence and Lucile strolled the campus as other girls strolled. They cut classes at times. They passed difficult examinations with some credit. They reveled in the grandeur of the architecture of the buildings of the university. They thrilled at the thought that they were a part of the great throng that daily swarmed from the lecture halls, and were somewhat downcast when they came fully to realize their own insignificance when cast into such a tossing sea of humanity.

Marian, the artist, also had her everyday rounds to make. She caught the 8:15 car downtown five days in the week to labor industriously with charcoal and brush. She saw her Alaskan sketches, which had been praised so often and so highly, picked to pieces by the ruthless criticism of a competent teacher, but she rallied from her first disappointment to resolve for better work in the future. She began to plan how this might be accomplished.

Florence, Marian and Lucile were plain, ordinary, normal girls, yet in one respect they were different from others; at least Lucile and Marian were from the first, and Florence, being the strongest, most physically capable of them all, soon caught their spirit. They had about them a certain fearless outlook on life which is nearly always found in those who have spent many months in the far North—an attitude which seems to say, “Adventure and Trouble, I have met you before. I welcome you and will profit by and conquer you.”

Two or three rather ordinary incidents in their life on board the O Moo prove that the life they lived there was, on the whole, a very simple, normal life, yet they also illustrate the indisputable fact that the simplest matters in the world, the casting of a tin can off a boat for instance, may be connected with some interesting and thrilling adventure.

As to that particular tin can, Marian bought it at a grocery store along with twenty-three other cans, filled with some unknown contents and sold at the ridiculously low price of eight cents per can. The reason that the price was so low and the contents unknown was that the labels had, during the process of handling, been accidentally torn off. The cans had been sent on to the retailer and were sold in grab-bag lots of two dozen each.

“You see,” the obliging grocer had explained, “there may be only corn or peas in them. Very well, they are even then worth twelve cents a can at the very least. But then again there may be blackberries in thick syrup, worth thirty or forty cents a can. Then what a bargain!”

“Well, girls,” Marian exclaimed when she had finished telling of her bargain and they of exclaiming over it, “what shall we have for dinner to-night? Loganberries in thick syrup or sliced pineapple?”

“Oh, pineapple by all means!” Florence exclaimed.

“Good enough for me,” smiled Lucile.

“All right. Here goes.” Marian stabbed one of the unknown quantities with the can-opener, then applied her nose to the opening.

“Corn!” she exclaimed in disgust.

“Oh, well,” consoled Florence, “we can eat corn once. Lucile doesn’t care for it, but she can have something else. Here’s a bowl; pour it out in that. Then open the loganberries. They’ll do.”

Again the can-opener fell. Again came the disgusted exclamation, “Corn!”

Lucile giggled and Florence danced a hornpipe of joy. “That’s one on you, Marian, old dear,” she shouted. “Oh, well, just give us plain peaches. They’ll do.”

“Here’s one that has a real gurgly sound when you shake it,” said Lucile, holding a can to her ear and shaking hard. “I think it’s strawberries.”

When Marian opened that can and had peered into it, she said never a word but, walking to the cabin door, pitched it, contents and all, over the rail and down to the crusted snow twenty feet below. There it bounced about for a time, spilled its contents upon the ground, then lay quite still, a new tin can glistening in the moonlight. But watch that can. It is connected with some further adventure.

“Corn! Corn! Corn!” chanted Marian in a shrill voice breaking with laughter. “And what a bargain.”

“But look what I drew!” exclaimed Lucile, pointing to a can she had just opened.

“Pineapple! Sliced pineapple!” the others cheered in unison. Then the three cans of corn were speedily forgiven. But the empty can lay blinking in the moonlight all the same.

The other affair, which occurred a few days later, might have turned into a rather serious matter had it not been for Lucile’s alert mind.

Lucile had what she styled a “bug” for creating things. “If only,” she exclaimed again and again, “I could create something different from anything that has been created before I know I should be supremely happy. If only I could write a real story that would get into print, or discover some new chemical combination that would do things, that would be glorious.”

From these words one is not long in concluding that Lucile was specializing in English and chemistry.

The yacht afforded her exceptional opportunities to pursue her study of chemistry out of regular school hours, for Dr. Holmes, who devoted much time to delving into the mysteries of organic chemistry, had installed in a triangular space at the back of the cabin a perfectly equipped laboratory. Here, during the days of the summer tour, he spent much of his time. This laboratory he turned over to Lucile, the only provision being that she replace test-tubes, retorts and other instruments broken during the course of her experiments.

Here on many a stormy afternoon, and often long into the night, she worked over a blue flame, concocting all manner of fluids and gases not required by the courses she was taking.

“If only I could create—create!” she whispered to herself over and over. “Memory work I hate. Imitation I like only because it tells me what has been done and helps me to discover what has not been done. But to create—Oh—Oh!” She would at such times grip at her breast as if her heart were paining her at the very excitement of the thought.

On one particular afternoon, she did create something—in fact she created a great deal of excitement.

She had taken down a formula which Dr. Holmes had left in a notebook.

“Looks interesting,” she whispered to herself. She had worked herself up, that day, to a feverish heat, to a point where she would dare anything.

As she read a closely written notation beneath the formula, her eyes widened. “It is interesting,” she exclaimed. “Tremendous! I’ll make it. Wouldn’t dare try it on anyone, though.”

“Better have a gas mask,” she told herself after a moment’s thought. Digging about in a deep drawer she at last took out a strange canvas bag with a windpipe-like attachment. This she hung upon a peg while she selected the particular vials needed.

After that she drew the gas mask over her head and plunged into the work.

“Ten grains,” she murmured; “a fluid ounce; three drams; three fluid ounces; heat this in a beaker; add two drams—”

So she went on mumbling to herself in her excitement, like some witch in a play.

“Too bad! Too bad! Won’t hold it,” she mumbled at last, after waiting for her concoction to cool. “Won’t go in one vial. Have to use two.”

Having filled one thin glass vial and closed it with a glass-stopper, she was in the act of filling the second when the half-filled vial slipped from her hand and went crashing to the tile floor.

“Oh! Help!” she uttered a muffled scream, and, before she realized what she was doing, threw the door leading into the main cabin wide open. Before her, regarding her in great astonishment, were Marian and Florence. For a few seconds they stood there, then of a sudden they began to act in the most startling manner. Jumping up and down, waving their arms, laughing, screaming, they vaulted over tables, knocked chairs end-over-end and sent books and papers flying in every direction.

Having recovered her power of locomotion, Lucile dashed for the outer door. This she flung wide open. Then, watching her chance, she propelled her two delirious, dancing companions out into the open air.

There, for a moment, she was obliged to cling to them lest they throw themselves over the rail, to go crashing to the frozen earth below.

In another moment it was all over. The two wild dancers collapsed, crumpling up in heaps on the deck.

“Oh, girls, I’m so sorry. I really truly am.” Lucile’s mortification was quite complete, in spite of the fact that she was fairly bursting with a desire to laugh.

“What—what—made us do that?” Florence stammered weakly.

“Gas, a new gas,” answered Lucile. Then, seeing the look of consternation on the girls’ faces, she hastened to add, “It’s perfectly harmless; doesn’t attack the tissues; works on the motor nerves like laughing-gas only it gets all the muscles excited, not just those of the face.”

“Well, I’ll say,” remarked Marian, “you really created something.”

“I only wish I had,” said Lucile regretfully, “but that chances to be a formula worked out by Dr. Holmes. I merely mixed it up. The bottle slipped from my hand and smashed on the floor—I didn’t aim to try it out on you.”

After the cabin had been thoroughly aired, the three girls went back to their work. As Lucile put the laboratory in order she noted the vial containing the remainder of the strange fluid. Having labeled it, “Quick action gas,” she put it away on the shelf, little dreaming that she would find an unusual use for it later.

It was two weeks after Lucile’s mysterious experience in the old Mission building. Things had settled down to the humdrum life of hard work and faithful study. On Saturday night two girls from the university dormitories skated down the lagoon and walked down the beach to spend the evening at the “ship,” as they called it.

They were jolly Western girls. The five of them spent a pleasant evening popping corn, pulling candy and relating amusing incidents from their own lives. At eleven the visitors declared that they must go home.

“Wait, I’ll go a piece with you,” suggested Florence, reaching for her skates.

At the end of the lagoon the three put on their skates. Florence’s were on first, for she wore a boyish style which went on with a clamp.

Gliding out on the ice, she struck out in a wide circle, then returned to the others. Just as they came gliding out to meet her, she fancied she caught a movement in the branches of some shrubs at the left which grew down to the edge of the ice. For a second her eyes rested there, then she was obliged to turn about to join her companions.

It was a glorious night; the skating was wonderful. Keen air caressed their cheeks as they shot over the glistening surface to the tune of ringing steel. Little wonder she forgot the moving bushes in the joy of the moment.

Florence was a born athlete. Tipping the scale at one hundred and sixty, she carried not a superfluous ounce of fat. Four hours every day she spent on the gym floor or in the swimming pool. She was equipping herself for the work of a physical culture teacher and took her task seriously. She believed that most girls could be as strong as boys if they willed to be, and she proceeded to set a shining example.

It was on her return trip that she was reminded of the moving bushes. Catching the distant ring of skates, she saw a person dressed in a long coat of some sort coming rapidly toward her.

The channel where they would meet was narrow. Some instinct told her to turn back, to circle the island and to reach the nearest point to the yacht that way. Whirling about, she set herself going rapidly in the other direction.

“Now that was a foolish thing to do,” she told herself. “Probably someone saving a long walk by putting on his skates, same as I’m doing. Might embarrass him to have me turn about that way.”

She was getting in some long, strong strokes now. There were few who could gain on her when she chose to exert herself.

She rounded the point of the island with a swift curve, then went skimming down the other side. Without further thought of the lone skater, she was nearing her goal and had gone into a long slide when, of a sudden the clip-clip of skates again came to her ears. It was hardly necessary for her to turn about to make sure that the stranger in the long coat had also rounded the island.

For a second she glided on, uncertain what course to take. It was nearing midnight. She was alone on the lagoon, a long way from any habitation. A stranger was following her; why, she could not tell. To throw off her skates and gain the bank before he came up was impossible. She decided, without being greatly alarmed about it, again to circle the island and, if necessary, take a spin the whole length of the lagoon.

CHAPTER IV
TRAPPED IN THE OLD MUSEUM

Florence had little fear for the outcome of this rather amusing adventure. She had been trailed over the ice by possible admirers before. She did not care to allow this one to catch up with her, that was all. She would skim along down to the far end of the lagoon where, a mile and a half away, the dome of the old museum loomed, a black bulk in the dark. She would then make the broad turn which this end of the lagoon afforded. She would have a clear mile and a half in which to put forth her best efforts. Surely she could outdistance the stranger and, with skates off, be away over the slope and down the beach toward the O Moo before he had reached this end of the lagoon once more.

Saving her strength on the down trip, keeping an even distance from the mysterious skater, she glided onward toward the old museum.

Just as she neared the broad end, where she was to make the turn, she glanced back. At that very moment, the flash of a powerful automobile lamp on the park drive a half mile away fell full upon the stranger’s face.

A little cry escaped her lips. This was no mere youthful enthusiast. His was the face of one whom few would trust. At that very moment his visage was twisted into an ugly snarl which said plainer than words:

“Now, young lady, I have you!”

“Why!” she whispered to herself, “that might be the face of a murderer!”

At that same instant, there flashed through her mind the note of warning tacked on the schooner. Perhaps this was the man who had placed it there.

In her consternation, she missed a stroke. One skate struck a crack in the ice; the clamp slipped; the skate went flying; disaster impended.

Florence was not a person to be easily defeated. One instant she had kicked the remaining skate from her foot and the next she was racing away over the glistening ice. She stumbled and all but fell. But, gaining courage from the near-by sloping bank, she plunged on.

Now she was ten yards away, now five. The metal cut-cut of skates behind her grew louder. Redoubling her efforts, she at last flung herself upon the snowy slope, to climb on hands and knees to the crest, then to race across a level space and gain the sheltering shadows of the museum.

It had been a hard struggle. For a few seconds she leaned panting against the wall. One skate was still in her hand. Without thinking why, she tucked this skate into the belt of her coat.

Her mind was in a whirl. What should she do? She was not safe here. For the man to remove his skates and scale the bank required but a moment. They were alone in the frozen park, a mile from any protection she could be sure of. She was not a good runner.

“No,” she whispered, “I couldn’t do it.”

She chanced to glance up, and her lips parted in a suppressed exclamation. There was a window open above her. True, it was some fifteen feet up, but there was an iron grating on the window beneath it.

“If only the grating is not rusted out,” she murmured hopefully, and the next instant she had reached the ledge of brickwork and was shaking the railing vigorously.

“It’ll hold I guess.”

Up she went like a monkey climbing the side of a cage. At the top of this grating there came an agonizing second in which she felt herself in danger of toppling over before she gained her balance on the window ledge above. Her splendid training served her well. She threw herself across the stone casing and, for a few seconds, lay there listening.

Hardly had she dropped noiselessly to the floor, some three feet below, than she heard the thud-thud of hurrying footsteps on the hard-packed snow. Holding her breath, she crouched there motionless, hoping beyond hope that she might hear those footsteps pass on around the building.

In this hope she was disappointed. Like a hound who has lost his scent, the man doubled back, then paused beneath her window.

The girl’s heart raced on. Was she trapped? The man, she felt sure, would, somehow, gain access to the building. Nevertheless, she might escape him.

The building had once been a museum, the central building of a great world exposition. No longer used as a museum, it stood there, an immense, unused structure, slowly dropping into decay. The floor on which she had landed was really a broad balcony with a rusty railing at its edge. From where she crouched she could see down into the main floor where stretched, twining and inter-twining, mile upon mile of rooms and corridors.

Slipping out of her shoes, she buttoned them to her belt, then stole noiselessly along the balcony. Moving ever in the shadow of the wall, she came to a rusty iron stair. Here she paused.

Would the stair creak, give her away? The man might at this moment be in the building on the ground floor. Yet, on this narrow balcony, she was sure sooner or later to be trapped. She must risk it.

Placing one trembling foot on the top step, she allowed her weight to settle upon it. There followed no sound. Breathing more easily, she began the descent. Only once did her heart stand still; a bit of loose plaster, touched by her foot, bounded downward.

She dared not pause. The die was cast.

Once on the ground floor, she sprang across a patch of light and found herself in the shadows once more.

Moving with the greatest possible speed, yet with even greater caution, avoiding bits of plaster, rustling papers and other impediments in her course, she made her way along a wall which to her heightened imagination seemed to stretch on for a mile.

Once as she paused she thought she caught the sound of heavy breathing, followed by a dull thud. “Must have come in through my window,” she decided, and, indeed there appeared to be no other means of access; all the ground floor doors and windows were either heavily shuttered or grated.

“These shutters and gratings,” she told herself, trying to still the fear in her heart by thinking of other things, “are relics of other days. Here millions of dollars worth of relics, curios, and costly jewels were once displayed. Mounted animals and birds, aisle after aisle of them, rooms full of rich furs and costly silks, jewels too in abundance. They’re all gone now, but the shutters are still here and I am trapped. There’s only one exit and that guarded. Well, perhaps another somewhere. Anyway, I can wait. Daylight drives wolves to their dens. If only I can reach the other balcony!”

She had been in the building in the days of its glory, and had visited one of the curators, a friend of her mother. There were, on this other balcony, she remembered, a perfect labyrinth of rooms—cubbyholes and offices. Once she gained access to these she probably would be safe.

But here was another stair. She must go up.

Only partially enshrouded in darkness, it might betray her.

Dropping on hands and knees, she began to climb. A bit of glass cut her stocking. She did not notice that. A crumpled sheet of paper fluttered away; that was maddening. A broad patch of light from far above her head threw her out in bold relief for a second. For a second only. Then, leaping to her feet, she raced down the balcony and again entered the shadows.

Pressing a hand to her breast to still her heart’s wild beating, she listened intently.

Did she hear? Yes, there could be no mistake, there came a soft pit-pat, the footsteps of a person walking on tiptoes.

“Like one of those mounted tigers come to life,” she thought with a shudder.

Slowly she moved along the wall. If only she could reach a door! If she only could!

But that door was a distance of some fifty yards away. Could she make it?

Stealthily she moved forward. Stopping now and then to listen, she caught as before the stealthy pit-pat of footsteps. Once some object rattled on the floor and she heard a muffled exclamation. Then she caught a creaking sound—was he mounting the stair? Had the banister creaked?

Now she was twenty yards from the door, now ten, now five, and now—now she gripped its casing. Excitedly she swung around, only to find herself facing a rusted square of steel. The labyrinth of rooms was closed to her. She was trapped on a narrow balcony with no way to turn for escape.

As she crouched there trembling, her hand touched something cold—her skate. Here was hope; if the worst came to worst, here was a formidable weapon and she was possessed of the power to swing it.

Cautiously she drew it from her belt, then crouching low, gripping the small end, she waited.

Came again the pit-pat-pit-pat. He was on the balcony, she felt sure of that now. Her hand gripped the skate until the blade cut through the skin, but still she crouched there waiting.

* * * * * * * *

When Florence failed to return, Marian and Lucile might have been seen pacing the floor while Marian pretended to study and made a failure of it.

“I think we should go out and look for her,” said Lucile.

“Probably just a bit overcome by the wonderful skating in the moonlight,” answered Marian, in what was intended as an unworried tone, “but we’ll go down to the lagoon and have a look.”

“Wait just a moment,” said Lucile as she disappeared inside her laboratory. When she returned, something beneath her coat bulged, but Marian did not ask her what it might be.

After dropping down the rope ladder they hurried along the beach and across the park to the lagoon. From the ridge above it they could see the greater part of the lagoon’s surface. Not a single moving figure darkened its surface. For fully five minutes they stood there, looking, listening. Then Marian led the way to the edge of the ice.

By the side of a clump of bushes she had spied something.

“What’s that?”

“Pair of men’s rubbers,” replied Lucile kicking at them.

For a full moment the two stood and stared at one another.

“She—she isn’t down here,” said Lucile at last. “Perhaps we had better go up and look among the boats.”

Silently they walked back to where the hundred boats were looming in the dark, their masts like slender arms reaching for the moon. As they rounded a small schooner, they were startled by a footstep.

“Don’t be afraid. It is only I,” called a friendly voice. “Out for a stroll in the moonlight. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

Marian recognized the young man of the schooner, Mark Pence. She had talked with him once before. He had helped her home with her two dozen cans of label-less fruits and vegetables. Having liked him then, she decided to trust him now, so in a few well-chosen words she confided their fears for their companion’s safety.

“Shucks!” said the boy. “That’ll be all right. She’ll show up all right. Probably went farther than she intended. But—sure, I’ll take a turn with you through our little village of boats. Be glad to.”

They wandered in and out among the various crafts. Scarcely a word was spoken until they came to the great black bulk of the scow inhabited by the Chinamen.

“I’ll rout ’em out. Might know something,” said Mark.

He knocked several times but received no response. He was about to enter when Lucile whispered:

“Wait a minute. Were—were you in the war?”

“A trifle. Not to amount to much.”

“Know how to use a gas mask?”

“Well, rather. Six seconds is my record. Know that old joke about the ‘quick and the dead,’ don’t you? I was quick.”

Lucile smiled. She was holding out an oblong package fastened to a strap, also a small glass bottle.

“Take—take these,” she whispered nervously. “You can’t tell about those folks. Break the bottle if they go after you, then put on the mask. It’s pretty powerful gas but does no permanent injury.”

Mark smiled as he slipped the strap over his shoulder. “Nonsense, I guess,” he murmured, “but might not be. Just like going over the top, you never can tell.” He drew a small flashlight from his pocket, then pushed the door open.

He was gone for what to the girls seemed an exceedingly long time. When he returned he had little enough to tell.

“Not a soul in the place, far as I could see,” he reported. “But, man, Oh, man! It’s a queer old cellar. Smells like opium and chop-suey. And talk about narrow winding stairs! Why, I bet I went down—” He paused to stare at the scow. “Why that tub isn’t more than ten feet high and I went down a good twenty feet. Rooms and rooms in it. Something queer about that.”

The girls were too anxious for Florence’s safety to give much attention to what he was saying.

“Well, we are greatly obliged to you,” said Lucile, taking her bottle and gas mask. “I guess there’s nothing to do but go back to the yacht and wait.”

With a friendly good-night they turned and made their way back to the O Moo.

CHAPTER V
A CATASTROPHE AVERTED

As Florence crouched in the dark corner of the deserted museum, many and wild were the thoughts that sped through her mind. Could she do it? If worse came to worst, could she strike the blow? She had the power; the muscles of her arm, thanks to her splendid training, were as firm as those of a man. Yes, she had the power, but could she do it? There could be no mincing matters. “Strike first and ask questions after,” that must be her motto in such an extremity. There would be ample opportunity. A beast always hunts with nose close to the ground. The man would be a fair mark. The skate was as perfect a weapon as one might ask. Keen and powerful as a sword, it would do its work well. Yet, after all, did she have the nerve?

While this problem was revolving in her mind, the pit-pat of footsteps grew more and more distinct. Her heart pounded fearfully. “He’s coming—coming—coming!” it seemed to be repeating over and over.

Then, suddenly, there flashed through her mind the consequences of the blow she must strike. The man must be given no chance to fight; one blow must render him unconscious. Whatever was done must be done well. But after that, what? She could not leave him alone in this great, deserted shell of a building. Neither could she await alone his return to consciousness. No, that would never do. She would be obliged to seek aid. From whom? The police, to be sure. But then there would be a court scene and a story—just such a story as cub reporters dote on. She saw it all in print: “Three girls living in a boat. One pursued by villain. An Amazon, this modern girl, she brains him with her skate.”

Yes, that would make a wonderful news story. And after that would come such publicity as would put an end to their happy times aboard the O Moo. That would mean the end of their schooldays, just when they were becoming engrossed in their studies; when they had just begun to realize the vast treasures of knowledge which was locked up in books and the brains of wise men and which would be unlocked to them little by little, if only they were able to remain at the university.

The whole thing was unthinkable. She must escape. She must not strike the blow. There must be another way out. Yet she could think of none. Before her was an iron railing, but to go over this meant a drop of twenty feet. Beyond her at the end of the balcony, towered a brick wall; at her back, an iron door. To her left there sounded ever more plainly the pit-pat of tiptoeing feet.

“I must! I must!” she determined, her teeth set hard. “There is no other way.”

And yet, even as she expected to hear the shift of feet which told of a turn on the balcony, some ten feet from where she cowered, the pit-pat went steadily forward. She could not believe her ears. What had happened?

Then on the heels of this revelation, there followed another: The sound of the footsteps was growing fainter. Of a sudden the truth dawned upon her: The man was not on the balcony. He had not ascended the stairs. He was still on the floor below. Her sense of location had been distorted by the vast silence of the place. She was for the moment safe.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She sank into a crumpled heap on the floor. Reviving, she was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, but, clenching and unclenching her hands, she maintained an unbroken silence. At length, her nerves in hand once more, she settled down to watchful waiting. With eyes and ears alert, she caught every new move of the prowler.

As the sound of his footsteps died away in the distance, she settled herself to calmer thoughts. This place she was in was a vast cathedral of gloom. When the moon went under a cloud, blotting out the broad circle of light which fell from the vaulted dome, the darkness was so profound that she felt she must scream or flee.

Yet there was something magnetic about the place. She might have been held there even though she were not pursued. It was a place to dream of. Some twenty-eight years before a hundred thousand people in a single day had passed in and out along the aisles of this vast structure. That had been in the days of its glory. All—the rich, the poor, the cultured, the illiterate, the laborer, the street gamin—had peered at the marvels displayed between its walls. And now—now two beings haunted its vast corridors, the one pursuing the other. How strange life was!

A whiff of wind sweeping over the main floor sent a whirl of waste paper flying in circles halfway to the ceiling. Two tiny red eyes peered at her at a safe distance—then another and another.

“Rats,” she whispered. “Three of them.”

The pit-pat of feet became distinct again. Putting out her hand to grip the skate, she discovered that her fingers were too stiff for service. She had grown cold without sensing it. Rubbing her hands together, she warmed them. Her limbs too had grown stiff. Rising silently, she went through a series of exercises which sent the blood coursing through her veins.

“Must get out of here some way,” she told herself, “but how?”

Then suddenly she thought of the girls. They would be anxious about her, might come out to seek her, only to fall into a trap.

A trap? She thought of Lucile, slim, nervous. Lucile hovering as she had in the corner of that old Mission on that other night; thought too of the things Lucile had seen there; admired the nerve she had displayed.

But what did it all mean? She could but feel that it all was connected in some way; the note of warning tacked to the schooner; Lucile’s experience in the Mission and her present one, all fitted together in one.

What was it all about? Were they innocently checkmating, or appearing to checkmate, some men in their attempt to perform some unlawful deed? Were these persons moonshiners, gamblers, smugglers, or robbers living in the dry dock? If so, who were they?

Again the sound of footsteps grew indistinct in the distance.

“Ought to be getting out of here,” she told herself. “Getting late—horribly late and—and cold. The girls will be searching for me. There’s an open window over there to my right. Terribly high up, but I might make the ground though.”

She listened intently, but caught no sound. Then stealthily, step by step, she made her way toward the window.