The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
to trace her route to the dunes. Probably she landed over there where the inlet curved and the marshes and the sands were divided by a narrow stream.
He slipped down the shifting flank of the dune and turned towards the marshes. The mounds became smaller and less frequent. Then he passed the last of them. He found that the narrow stream which emptied in the inlet was near at hand. Beyond it the marshes stretched away interminably—a green desert with a few distant clumps of trees which cut into a cloudless sky.
Miller faced straight to the north. There, too, the prospect did not at first vary. As he gazed, however, he thought there was a slight difference. A straight black line against the sky, which he had taken for a dead tree, might be the mast of a boat. Keeping to the sand, he paralleled the course of the stream. Very soon he became convinced that he did, indeed, see a mast ahead.
The marsh straggled now along his side of the stream. It forced him nearer the dunes. As the mast grew sharper and larger and he could see the cords stretched from it, he left the open altogether and sought the shelter of the mounds.
As he had approached unobserved the other morning towards the girl on the beach, so now he crept closer to this boat, apparently secreted among the marshes. He believed he was about to see one of those camps of the oystermen. He remembered Anderson had quoted Bait as saying these men lived in thickets, had the appearance of savages, and were united by some queer, secret organisation.
Miller continued stealthily, answering to a profound curiosity. He could make out now a thicket of stunted cedars and laurel bushes. It hid the boat and the mast for a third of its height.
He chose his path with more care. He tried to keep out of the range of any eyes that might be watching from the thicket at the foot of the mast
The bushes fell away. He paused, examining from behind the shelter of a dune the picture at last uncovered for him.
The dwarf growth twisted from a sandy bank which sloped upwards from the stream and invaded the marsh for a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. Miller guessed that it arranged one of the few shelters offered by the marsh itself for human occupancy.
The boat had been hauled close to the bank. The rough stakes to which it was moored gave the camp a permanent air.
The boat was sloop-rigged. It was squat and, probably, flat-bottomed for traffic in these channels. Unpainted and dirty as it was, it lacked that abandoned appearance of the fisherman’s hulk in the inlet.
There was, moreover, life to be observed here. Miller held his breath and studied it.
Three men sat around a smouldering fire on the bank. Bait had been right. They had the semblance of savages. Nor, Miller realised, had he much exaggerated when he had spoken to the coroner of uncivilised oystermen.
The faces of these men were covered with matted hair. It straggled in long wisps from beneath cloths wrapped about their heads in place of hats. Trousers and jackets, torn and stained, clung to their lanky figures. Their sea-boots were the only apparel which appeared to be whole.
Only once while Miller looked did he hear a voice. Now and then one communicated with another by means of a quick gesture, but for the most part they stared from eyes, reddened and narrowed by the wind, into the ashes of the fire. Behind them a rough lean-to, open at the front, and constructed of cedar stakes and palmetto, raised a primitive background. Empty oyster shells and tins littered the bank.
Miller was glad he had approached from the shelter of the dunes. Yet he felt a strong desire to expose himself now, to question these strange men whose habits were, to all appearances, aboriginal. He weighed the question. If he had only brought his revolver he would not have hesitated. It would be scarcely wise, however, to walk unarmed into this gathering since it scarcely lacked the characteristics of an ambush.
He was not blind to the fact that his caution might be an injustice. The appearance of these men, their very moroseness, might be borrowed from an occupation which chained them almost perpetually apart from the basic decencies of life. They might, indeed, welcome him as a diversion from their monotonous and degrading routine.
As Miller hesitated one of them arose and stepped from the bank to the boat. For the first time a voice broke the silence, hitherto disturbed only by the lapping of the water about the stakes and the hull.
“Come,” the man said. “High time we was off.”
His voice, like Tony’s, was harsh as if from disuse, but it was more guttural, more unpleasant, accustomed, one might have said, to a strange language.
The others got to their feet and joined the one on the boat. They raised the sail, cast off the moorings, and, lifting long poles from the deck, pushed their way, with motions timed to odd grunts, northward through the narrow stream.
CHAPTER XIV
MILLER PREPARES TO FIGHT
Miller stared after the oystermen until the marsh grass had hidden everything but the sail which scarcely stirred in the light breeze.
He walked closer then, but the bivouac disclosed no more than it had at first. So he turned and went back through the dunes to the Dart.
What he had seen added materially to his worry. He felt he had made a mistake in urging the girl to return to the sands. It was not safe for her to cross at the upper end of the inlet since these men were so near. She had intimated, however, that the excursion was a common one for her. Perhaps, then, the oystermen never ventured nearer the evil island than their camp. Yet that view would presuppose fear, must definitely remove them as a factor in the situation.
When he had reached the Dart he questioned Tony. The native knew there were a number of oystermen working the banks to the north. Once or twice in the past he had had glimpses of them, but he had never communicated with them intimately. They sold their oysters and what fish they caught, he said, in Sandport.
“They’re not a pleasant looking crew,” Miller said. “What kind of a reputation have they—for instance among the inhabitants of Sandport?”
Tony showed a little surprise.
“Some,” he answered, “have families—friends in Sandport.”
“Then you don’t think there’s anything wrong with these fellows I saw? I must say they looked like pirates.”
Tony shook his head.
“Have you ever heard of any secret organisation among them?”
Tony’s face was impassive. Miller could not be sure his denial was whole-hearted.
“I don’t know.”
At least Miller understood he could get no more satisfaction from Tony, He brought a book from the saloon and stretched himself in the steamer chair.
But he could not read. His dejection annoyed him all the more because it was so at variance with his natural character. Yet, try as he might, he could not throw it off.
Morgan went by towards noon, displaying a string of fish.
“Why don’t you fish, Tony?” Miller asked. “I expect to spend the night on the island with the Andersons. Since you feel as you do there’s no necessity of your coming with me. Row me ashore after luncheon and take the rest of the day and the night to yourself.”
Tony shook his head. -His attitude was intensely disapproving, but, through devotion or the fear of being left alone on the Dart, it was clear that he would share the adventure. Miller did not attempt to reason with him now. Tony had too much on his side.
Shortly after luncheon he went down to his stateroom, threw a few things in a bag, and directed Tony to place it in the dingy. He hesitated for a moment, then took a revolver from a drawer, saw that it was loaded, and slipped it in his pocket.
“Row over to the sphinxes