The Black Dog Mystery (29 page)

“Sure,” answered Billy.

“Well, then, why don’t you go that way?” asked Djuna, pointing south. “They’re out there, aren’t they? Seems to me we went that way, when I was in her motorboat.”

Billy laughed. “Sure, you did,” he said. “But then you weren’t in a sailboat. A sailboat can’t sail right straight toward the wind. This wind is blowing north, so we can’t sail straight against it. We have to go zigzag. We can sail southwest for a while, and then we have to put the boat over and sail southeast. We zigzag like that until we get there. That’s what you call tacking.”

“Oh, is that the way?” said Djuna, a little puzzled. “And what do you do when you put the boat over? Does that mean you upset it?”

“My gosh, no!” laughed Billy. “That just means turning the rudder, so that the boat turns. I’ll tell you, before I do. I’ll yell, ‘Coming about!’ And when I yell, you duck your head as quick as you can, or else you’ll get a whack on the head from the boom—that’s this pole the sail is fastened to. You see, when I turn the boat, the wind hits the sail from the other side, and makes it swing across the boat, and, believe me, you have to duck under it mighty fast!”

In the next mile, Billy “tacked” twice, each time showing Djuna how it was done, and Djuna began to feel that he was learning something about sailing. Suddenly they heard the noise of a motorboat coming from behind them. They looked around. The motorboat was heading toward them, and traveling twice as fast as they were.

“That’s Harvey Bohnett and Bonehead,” said Billy, glancing back at them. “I hope they don’t come too close, or they’ll shake the mast out of this boat. We’ve got the right of way, though, because we’re under sail. They’re supposed to go astern of us.”

But they didn’t. As they came rushing up, instead of turning and going behind Billy’s boat, Harvey Bohnett swung the wheel so that their boat circled in front of Billy’s, throwing up a wall of water that made Billy’s boat rock dangerously. As they tore past, the two brothers laughed and waved a mocking salute.

“You see what I meant when I said they’re always doing something fresh?” exclaimed Billy indignantly, as he fought to keep the boat from rocking too violently. “They think they’re awful smart!”

“Gee, they might have upset us!” exclaimed Djuna, staring after the motorboat as it rapidly drew farther and farther away.

“Oh, they wouldn’t dare to!” said Billy scornfully. “They know my dad would knock their ears off if they got too fresh. Besides,” he added proudly, “it would take more than that to upset
this
boat!”

Champ sent a defiant bark ringing across the water after the two men.

But both boys were too busy in handling their boat to waste much thought on the Bohnett brothers just then. Djuna had never realized before how much there was to learn about sailing. He had had a mistaken notion, like other people who had never sailed a small boat, that there would be nothing to do except sit in the boat and let the boat do all the work. Now he found that there was never a second in which he did not have to be alert and busy—especially when steering, when one had to watch the sails every instant to see that they were catching the breeze as they should. His respect and admiration for Billy Reckless, who seemed to know everything there was to know about a sailboat, increased with every minute.

For another full hour they sailed on, steadily drawing nearer to the distant islands, and Champ began to grow very restless, squirming around in the limited space of the forepeak, and occasionally venturing to put both forepaws on the gunwale and peer across the water as if he were Christopher Columbus himself, in black whiskers.

When they had come so close to the two islands that they seemed about to pass them, Billy sent the boat sharply into the wind. The sails flapped uselessly and the boat drifted slowly. Quickly the two boys lowered the sails, and then Billy got out the oars and fitted them into the oarlocks.

“Now watch,” he said, “and I’ll show you our secret harbor.”

It was “slack” tide, by now, and the water was scarcely moving. Billy rowed the boat into the narrow channel between the two islands, and then, pulling hard on his left oar, he sent the boat shooting into a still narrower channel which cut through the low sandy beach of Haypenny Island. This inlet passed between two rocky boulders which were so close together that there was barely room for the boat to pass. But when they had passed these rocks, Djuna saw to his surprise that the inlet widened a little, forming a tiny cove which was hemmed in on three sides by the curving base of a big rock which towered high above their heads. They were completely hidden from view, and floated motionless on the surface of the dark still water of the pool.

“Oh, boy!” exclaimed Djuna, looking around him in wonder. “What a swell secret harbor!”

“Isn’t it a dandy?” asked Billy. “Only trouble with it is that you can’t stay here more than a couple of hours. When the tide runs out, the whole cove is empty, and if your boat got caught in here, then you’d have to wait till the tide filled it up again.”

“Well, gee, it’s a wonderful harbor, anyway,” insisted Djuna. “Just room enough for one boat, and that’s all!”

“You could get a bigger boat in here,” Billy pointed out, “but not two at a time, and that’s a fact. Come on, let’s go ashore, shall we?”

Using the oars as paddles, they pushed the boat close to shore, scrambled out, and fastened it to some sturdy bushes which grew at the foot of the rocks. Champ gave a jump which landed him safely on dry ground, and at once gave a bark of relief. Immediately he started on an exploring trip, and the boys followed.

“Aren’t you going to call Alberto?” asked Djuna innocently.

Billy shook his head. “We’d better leave him on board, to guard the boat,” he said seriously. “You stay there, Alberto, do you hear?”

There was no answer, but Billy seemed satisfied. “He won’t let any stranger put his foot on board,” he said proudly, as they started on.

First of all, they climbed the rock. Its slope was steep, and if it had not been for the little bushes growing in the cracks and seams of the great gray boulder, which gave them handholds and footholds, it would have been a difficult job. It was fully twenty feet high. But when they had got to the flat top of Eagle Rock, they gave a shout of joy.

Stretched out in front of them was the immense blue sea, its wind-ruffled surface glittering in the sun. So big it was that Djuna thought it must be the ocean itself. Far in the distance, wisps of trailing smoke came from passing steamships, so far away that the ships themselves could not be seen. White sea gulls perched upon the rocks at their very feet. The salty breeze ruffled the boys’ hair.

“This is the first time I ever saw the ocean!” exclaimed Djuna.

“Well, you haven’t seen it
yet
,” said Billy calmly. “This is just what they call the Sound. But it’s really part of the ocean. It joins the ocean over there, off that way.” And he pointed eastward.

“Aunt Patty told me her great-grandfather was the captain of a ship,” said Djuna, with his eyes fixed on the farthest blue horizon. “Do you suppose it was a steamship? Do you suppose he crossed the ocean?”

“They didn’t have steamships that long ago,” said Billy. “He must have been captain of a square-rigger, a sailing ship; probably a whaler. There used to be a lot of whaling ships here at Stony Harbor, my father says. Sure, he crossed the ocean, if his ship was a whaler. Whaling ships used to sail all around the world, my father says.”

The nearest point of land they could see to the eastward was a very narrow strip of white sandy beach that extended westward from the mainland, toward the islet on which they were standing. It was about half a mile from them, across the water.

“What is that beach called?” asked Djuna, pointing at it.

“That’s Pinetree Point,” said Billy. “There’s a Coast Guard station over there. The channel from here to Pinetree Point is called Pinetree Channel. That’s where the old whale ships used to go, when they started off from Stony Harbor to go to the South Pole, almost, to hunt for whales.”

“Pine tree?” repeated Djuna. “I don’t see any pine tree over there. Was there a pine tree there once?”

“Not that I ever saw,” said Billy. “It’s just sand and marsh grass—hey, look at there! Look at that big bird!”

Djuna followed his excited upward gesture just in time to see a tremendous dark-feathered bird, three times as big as any crow, diving straight down from the sky overhead. It hit the water with a splash of spray and rose again almost instantly, its broad wings flapping. In its claws was a big fish, shining silver as it struggled.

“That’s an eagle!” exclaimed Djuna. “Look, he caught a fish!”

“That isn’t an eagle, that’s a fish hawk!” said Billy, just as excitedly. “I saw one last summer! An osprey, that’s what it is! Boy, look at him climb!”

Fascinated, they watched the big bird rising swiftly, the fish firmly clutched in its claws, up, up, into the air.

Then, they never knew exactly from where, but from far overhead, a dark thunderbolt shot downward.

Out of the blue sky it fell, at terrific speed, straight down toward the fish hawk which was flying upward.

Seeming twice the size of the fish hawk, it was a bird that dropped out of nowhere, down from unknown heights, hidden by the sun.

Almost too late, the osprey saw its danger. Desperately, it changed its upward flight and darted off to one side, still clinging to the fish it had caught.

Its attempt to save its food was useless. The huge bird above it instantly checked its downward dive and, with a single stroke of its mighty wings, swerved and followed the frightened fish hawk. For a few seconds the two great birds zigzagged back and forth, the smaller one desperately trying to escape, while the boys held their breath in excitement, and then the hunted osprey opened its claws and let the fish drop. Its pursuer instantly dived for the fish and caught it in mid-air, before it had time to strike the water. Then, beating its huge wings, it came flying straight for the boys!

The two boys gasped. “Down!” whispered Djuna. They dropped to the ground. The low bushes on top of the great rock were just high enough to hide them. They lay flat, their hearts beating, scarcely daring to breathe. There was a swish of great wings, and they peered through the bushes just as the mighty eagle alighted at the other end of the flat rock, thirty feet away.

It was an eagle, and no mistake. As its claws, still clutching the fish, touched the rock, it shook its mighty wings above its head, spreading them as wide as a man’s outstretched arms, then lowered them to its sides, and gave a scream of triumph. “Cac-cac-cac-cac!” it screamed, the cry ringing out over the water. The boys had only time to glimpse its dark-brown body, almost black, and its snow-white head, its fiercely gleaming yellow eyes and its cruelly hooked beak, when there was a scuffling in the bushes beside them, and Champ came snuffling up the slope.

The shaggy little black terrier saw the eagle at the same instant that the great bird turned its head and, for the first time, saw the intruders on its lonely rock. Champ growled and started straight for the angry eagle. With one impulse, both boys rose to their knees and flung themselves on him, tackling him before he had got past them. “Stop it, Champ!” panted Djuna, as they struggled to hold him back.

But the eagle had no intention of losing the dinner he had already seized. Again his great dark wings flapped, and he launched himself into the air angrily. Up and up he rose, with each beat of the mighty wings. The boys, on their knees now, watched him with open mouths. Only Champ, still struggling to get at him, hurled defiance after him.

Higher and higher rose the majestic bird, and the boys’ heads tilted farther and farther backward as they watched him in awed silence, until at last the sun blinded them and they could see him no more.

Only then did they find their voices. “Gosh!” said Djuna, in an awed whisper. And, from Billy, came the equally reverent whisper: “Oh, boy, was he
somethin’!
”

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