CHAPTER I MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHTIt was night on Casco Bay off the coast of Maine. There was no moon. Stars were hidden by a fine haze. The distant harbor lights of Portland, eight of them, gleaming faintly in pairs like yellow cat’s eyes, serv... Read more

CHAPTER I MYSTERIES OF THE NIGHTIt was night on Casco Bay off the coast of Maine. There was no moon. Stars were hidden by a fine haze. The distant harbor lights of Portland, eight of them, gleaming faintly in pairs like yellow cat’s eyes, served only to intensify the blackness of the water and the night.Ruth Bracket’s arms moved backward and forward in rhythmic motion. She was rowing, yet no sound came from her oarlocks. Oars and oarlocks were padded. She liked it best that way. Why? Mystery—that magic word “mystery.” How she loved it![12]In the stern of the little punt sat slim, black-haired, dark-eyed Betty Bronson, a city girl from the heart of America who was enjoying her first summer on the coast of Maine.Betty, too, loved mystery. And into her life and that of her stout seashore girl companion had come a little mystery that day. At this very moment, as Ruth rested on her muffled oar, there came creeping across the silent waters and through the black of night a second bit of mystery.The first mystery had come to them on shore in the hold of a beached three-masted schooner.Ruth knew the schooner well enough. She had been on board her a dozen times and thought she knew all about her—but she didn’t.The owner, a dark-skinned foreigner who had purchased the schooner six months before, used her for bringing wood to the islands. There is, so they say, an island in Casco Bay for every day in the year. Each island has its summer colony. These summer folks like an open fire to sit by at night and this requires wood. The schooner had been bringing it in from somewhere—from Canada some said. No one seemed to know for sure.[13]Being an old schooner the wood-carrying craft must be beached from time to time to have her seams calked. They beached her at high tide. Low tide found her stranded. The return of high tide carried her off again.In this there is no mystery. The mystery began when Ruth and Betty, along with other girls and boys of the island, swarmed up a rope ladder to the tilted deck of the beached schooner.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.Contents:CHAPTER PAGEI Mysteries of the Night 11II Sculling in the Night 23III In the Dungeon 34IV The Face in the Fire 42V Three Gray Witches 58VI Off for Further Adventure 80VII Some Lobsters 84VIII From Out the Fog 109IX Off Black Head 121X The Tilting Floor 137XI The Wavering Red Light 149XII The Little Man of Witches Cove 170XIII Under Fire 178XIV The Passing of Black Gull 193XV The Searching Pencil of Light 200XVI The Old Fort 212XVII Secrets Told 221XVIII Kidnapped 230XIX A Fire on the Beach 241XX The Chase 245XXI On Air and Sea 254XXII The Story Told 261 Less