Mystery on Graveyard Head. Edith Dorian
She eyed the crate on the wheelbarrow interestedly. “Is that the weapon that clouted Waity yesterday?”
Steve nodded, “and if it had been handy, I’d probably have bounced it off his skull again this morning,” he admitted. “The easiest way to handle Wait Webber is to have him out flat counting stars. He roared around like a walrus cussing the weather from six o’clock on.”
“Then I hope he did some for me,” Linda said plaintively. “The first morning I’ve ever spent in Maine and what do I get? Visibility unlimited—clear to the end of my nose!”
She twisted around to study the wet white blanket outside the window, and Steve glanced appreciatively at her profile. He had seen plenty of worse views. In fact, this morning in charcoal dungarees and a red flannel shirty Linda Cobb was likely to improve any scenery he’d met. Parking lazily on the nearest crate, she watched him pry off slats until he happened to look up again and smile. Then she reached for the hammer.
“Oh, all right. You shame me into it. I’ll pull the nails out of these things while you pry off the rest. I suppose you want them stacked in that wood basket, too, while I’m at it!”
She buckled to work energetically, but now and then her eyes wandered to the window for another look at the weather.
“It’s positively spooky outside,” she exclaimed. “Why, anything could happen in weather like this. Look at that fog drift into queer shapes. I almost saw pirates landing gold a minute ago, or maybe they were smugglers loaded down with jade!”
Steve grinned at her. “Keep right on seeing things,” he said. “That’s all the excitement you’re likely to get around here. If you wanted Indians and buccaneers, you should have dropped in a couple of hundred years ago. Kidd cruised in the Bay, and a lot of others buried gold on the Islands. My grandfather ued to tell us about a Bailey Island man who dug up twelve thousand dollars’ worth of Spanish doubloons.”
“When do we dig?” Linda demanded, and Steve laughed.
“We’re a hundred years too late for that, too. Everybody else beat us to it. Of course, Dad says things got pretty lively again in rumrunning days, but Harpswell’s turned respectably dull. My brother Bob’s an ensign on one of the two coast guard cutters that get assigned to the Bay in case of trouble, and we haven’t even seen the Yakatak’s stern since he’s been aboard.”
Linda wagged her head sadly. “Another one of those realists,” she said. “They’re always taking the fun out of life. Go ahead and play it your own way. I’ll keep my weather eye out for sinister ships and suspicious characters. When I’m sniffing on the trail of the treasure, you’ll eat your words.”
“I won’t have time then,” Steve said promptly. “I’ll be too busy streaking past you with my shovel!”
Still laughing, Linda was tossing her armful of slats into the wood basket when voices outside shouted for Steve, and Captain Pel and Dr. Cobb hurried into the room.
“I need you, Steve,” his father explained. “Some radio ‘ham’ picked up an SOS from a cruiser off Haddock Rock. Ed Randall just phoned in from the store. Let’s get going. Ed’s notifying the Coast Guard we’ll take over with the Abenaki.”
Steve was already on his feet, grabbing his jacket, but he stared at his father in surprise. “The Abenaki? With Waity laid up? What’ll you do if I have to get aboard the cruiser?”
“Make out,” the captain told him. “Dr. Cobb’s volunteered to come along. We may be shorthanded on her, weather like this, but Ed says the cruiser’s a seventy-footer. The Maquoit couldn’t touch her with a sea on.”
He turned impatiently to the door, anxious to get started, but Linda ran after him.
“Would I just be in the way, Captain Pel?” she asked. “Because I’ll come if you think I’ll do.”
His hand on the knob, the captain regarded her quizzically. “Ever get seasick, young lady?” he demanded, and Linda shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she told him. “At least, I never have when Dad’s taken me out on lab boats.”
“Then you’re signed on,” he said, and led the way rapidly down to the wharf.
3 • The Delight Makes Port
MRS. PURCHAS was already on the float, stowing boxes of sandwiches and a couple of quart thermos bottles of coffee in a skiff when Captain Pel and his crew came down the gangplank.
“Enough for lunch and plenty to spare if the people on the cruiser need it,” she told them briskly. “And the barometer’s rising, Pel. Perhaps the fog’ll lift by the time you get outside the harbor.”
She pulled off her slicker, nevertheless, and wrapped it around Linda. “Good luck,” she called as they shoved off. “Good hunting.”
Linda, seated in the stern, turned her head to smile, but Purchas Landing had faded into the fog behind them as quickly as Steve’s oars dipped in the lobsterman’s short, choppy strokes. With a dozen more, her bearings were gone completely. We could be rowing in circles for all I’d know, she thought, and Steve Purchas acts like a homing pigeon! Another dozen or two and the Abenaki was practically dead ahead of them. Linda could already see a vague green hull, shrouded in mist.
“Tie the skiff on the mooring, Steve, and cast us off,” his father ordered as they drew alongside. “We’ll take care of the anchor.” He climbed aboard and leaned hastily over the rail. “Here, Linda, let me give you a hand up. Steve’ll be along in a minute with instructions.”
He and Dr. Cobb strode toward the stern, leaving her stranded amidships until Steve hit the deck five minutes later. But he was beckoning even before he headed for the engines, and she trailed willingly at his heels.
“Your father gets this engine job, once the anchor’s up,” he explained. “Dad’ll take the wheel. You and I draw the towing gear.” His hand on the throttle, he listened to the rattle of chains from the stern, waiting for his father’s signal. “We’ll be working back there, too,” he said. “We only have to stick around here till your father takes over.”
Finally a bell sounded from the wheelhouse forward, and Steve got the engines moving. Then Dr. Cobb was at hand to check briefly with Steve before he assumed his responsibilities, and the younger members of the crew headed aft to tackle their own job. Working together, they opened up stern lockers and began to ready gear. “Boat hooks, too, Linda,” Steve said, and went on dragging, out heavy coils of cable as she hunted them up. Though he hadn’t taken time off to say so, he thoroughly approved of having her along. For the second time in two days Linda was coming in handy in an emergency.
Often a crewman from the rescue ship was needed on a disabled craft, and Steve knew that he might have to return aboard their tow. Linda was no Wait Webber in a crew; still, without her on the way back, Dr. Cobb might have been saddled with the winch and the towing gear, in addition to the engines. A man could manage a lot of things simultaneously when he had to, of course, but it might have been strenuous. Towing cables had parted before this.
Hawk-eyed, Steve examined every inch of the cables before he shoved two aside in case of trouble, and turned back to Linda.
“We’ll thread a couple on the winch,” he told her. “This cruiser’s heavy and we’ll probably need them both. Can you hang on to this stuff and feed it to me?”
Linda nodded, and they struggled with the salt-stiffened cables, not evey trying to talk, their thoughts on the cruiser somewhere ahead of them in the fog. But the barometer really had meant business, the girl decided, when Steve made her take a minute off to rest her hands and she had a chance to look around. She could see half a dozen boats on their moorings, in the harbor now and make out the blurred outlines of the long wharf where the Casco Bay Line’s Aucocisco docked on her trips to and from Portland. Back in Purchas Basin all that she had been able to