The Blue Envelop, St Nicholas, 1922/Chapter 1

the middle of a circular bay, forming a perfect horseshoe, with a sandy beach at its center and a rocky cliff on either side, two boys were fishing for shrimps. The taller of the two, a curly-haired, red-cheeked fellow, was rowing. The other, a short and sturdy lad, now and again lifted a pocket-net of wire-screening, and, shaking a score or more slimy, snapping creatures into one corner of it, seized them and tossed them, still alive, into a kettle of boiling water, which is simply the least cruel and regular way of handling shrimps; cook them on the spot and eat them some time afterward.

Both boys had the clear, ruddy complexion which comes from clean living and frequent sallies into the out-of-doors. Hugh Clarkston, the tall youth of the curly hair, was something of a student; his cousin. Booth Tucker, had been born for action and adventure.

"Look—look!" exclaimed Hugh, suddenly. "What's that out at the entrance of the bay—bit of drift or a seal?"

"Might be a seal. Watch it bob. It moves, I'd say."

"Take a pot-shot at it." Hugh lifted a light rifle from the bow and passed it to his cousin.

Booth stood with one knee braced on the seat and steadied himself for a shot.

"Dum boat rocks so!" he grumbled, "More waves out there, too. Watch the thing bob!"

"It's gone under!"

"No, there it is!"

"Try it now."

Catching his breath. Booth put his finger to the trigger. For a second the boat was quiet. The brown spot hung on the crest of a wavelet. It was a beautiful target; Booth was a sure shot.

Just as his finger touched the trigger, a strange thing happened—a something which sent the rifle clattering from nerveless fingers and the cold perspiration springing to his forehead.

"Who—who—where d'you suppose he came from?" he was at last able to sputter.

"Who knows?" said Hugh, scanning the sea. Never a mist nor a cloud obscured the vision, yet not a sail nor coil of smoke of nearby craft. "What's more important is—we've got to help him," he said, seizing the oars and rowing vigorously. Booth, having hung the shrimp-trap across the bow, drew a second pair of oars from beneath the seats and joined his cousin in sending the clumsy craft toward the brown spot still bobbing in the water.

The truth was that the brown spot was neither driftwood nor brown seal, but a human being. By some freak of circumstance, the swimmer had chanced to throw a white fore arm high out of the water just as Booth was prepared unwittingly to send a bullet crashing into his skull.

Realizing that this person, whoever he might be, had drifted in the water and was doubtless exhausted, the two boys now bent their backs to the oars in an effort to reach him.

The beach and cliffs back of the bay in which the boys had been fishing were part of the shore-line of a small island which, on this side, faced the open Pacific Ocean, and on the other, the waters of Puget Sound off the coast of the State of Washington.

Nestling among a group of giant yellow pines on a ridge well up from the beach, two white tents gleamed. There was no one about the tents at this moment. The two girls, who but a half-hour before had tidied up the place, had gone for a stroll across a narrow point of land and were at this time separated by a narrow tamarack-filled gully. Marion Norton, the older of the two, had gone back into the woods in search of a particular flaming red flower, which she needed to complete a collection she had been sketching in water-color. Lucile Tucker, her companion, had crossed the point and had come down to the beach. They were to meet on the beach some distance beyond. Lucile was Booth's sister. Marion and Hugh were cousins to the Tuckers and to one another. Marion had lived all her life in the North—for the most part in Nome, Alaska. She had there displayed an unusual talent for art, and had been sent down to the States that she might be taught some of the bewitching secrets of palette and brush. The others had always lived in Anacortes, Washington. "Burl" Tucker, father of Lucile and Booth, was a hard-fisted old seaman, who had turned his mind to codfish and salmon. A small portion of the fortune he had made had been paid for this island, which had always been known as Mutineer's Island. Another small sum had been expended in purchasing a motor-boat. That boat now lay a short way up a narrow stream, which ran from the island into the sea.

The four young people had come to the island for a two weeks' outing. Strange to say, not one of them had ever been here before, and, as far as they knew, they were the only persons on the island. Swept as it was by the furious storms which came tearing in from the open sea, this island would never have become a popular summer camping-place, even had Burl Tucker encouraged it, which he decidedly did not. The island was thickly wooded. This timber, with the price of lumber steadily mounting, was worth a fortune. He could not afford to risk losing it by a fire scattered by careless campers.

It had been only after countless pleadings that his son and daughter, together with his favorite nephew and niece, had prevailed upon him to permit them to spend their vacation here. In the mind of this man of the sea there appeared to exist a lurking feeling, perhaps of dread—one scarcely could tell what—regarding this island.

As Lucile, his daughter, now strolled along the beach, she shared something of this dread. She was thinking of stories her father had told—wild tales of earlier days. The island had earned its name,—Mutineer's Island,—for in those early, rough days on Puget Sound, when a man, or group of men, became unmanageable aboard a fishing-craft, they had been dumped with little ceremony on this island, supplied with a box of pilot-bread and a side of bacon, and left here for an indefinite period to repent at leisure.

Lucile shivered as she remembered the tales her father had told her. As she shrank back into the dark depths of a clump of tamarack growing down to the very shore of the sea, she seemed to hear the complaining groan of an oarlock, as a dory drew toward shore. She seemed to see the square-rigger ride the waves on the horizon, and then, close in, the faces of men. Blear-eyed, with faces bruised and gashed from beatings too honestly earned, she saw them land; saw the pilot-bread and bacon tossed on the shore; heard the oarlocks groan again on the return to the ship.

A cloud passed over the sun. The shadows took on the inkiness of night. A shiver shot down her spine. Her brain suddenly seemed paralyzed with fear. Wild imaginings controlled her mind. Her father had been a roaring tyrant in the day when roaring tyrants were considered necessary on the sea. Were the deeds of that father to be visited on his daughter? Why had she induced the others to join her in this wild and deserted retreat?

She knew the answer in a second. It was because Mutineer's Island had always held for her a curious and weird fascination. This fascination had at last drawn her to its shores. Now a vague premonition seemed to tell her that strange adventures awaited her here. As she stepped once more out upon the beach she was surprised that the creatures of her day-dreams were mere phantoms of imagination.

On the beach she saw nothing, but as she shaded her eyes and gazed out to sea, she beheld a strange sight: the two boys of her party were lifting a third figure into their boat. The distance was great. They were but dimly outlined against the sky, yet, even so, she caught the gleam of the sun reflected from the body of the person being rescued, and realized that he was without clothing.

She scanned the horizon for a sail. There was none. She turned to look up the beach and encountered the gaze of her cousin Marion.

"Look!" she said, a wild gleam of terror in her eyes; "they are more cruel now than in those other days. They used to put them ashore with clothes and food, but now they throw them into the sea and allow them to save themselves if they can."

"What utter nonsense!" exclaimed Marion. "What in the world are you talking about?"

For answer, Lucile pointed toward the boat. A moment later she drew her cousin into the shadows and, sitting down on a moss-covered log, told her all the wild thoughts that had sped through her mind.

"Cheer up, dear," and her cousin threw an arm about her, "these shadows and the wild stories about the place have unnerved you. You'll be all right after a good supper. As for that unfortunate chap out there, he probably was caught in a squall while out in a canoe."

"Canoe!" exclaimed Lucile; "there isn't a camp nor a cottage within fifteen miles!"

"Anyway, he's had a mishap and may be ill from the overstrain and exposure. The boys may need us when they get him to camp. Come on!"

The girls had wandered a long way from camp. Arriving there finally, quite out of breath, they found the boat drawn up on the beach. Hugh was adding fuel to the open fire, over which a kettle was already beginning to steam. Booth was hastily plucking the feathers from a Chinese pheasant, while the stranger lay rolled in a blanket with his face to the fire.

"Going to make him some broth," explained Booth, tossing a handful of feathers to the wind; "must be mighty weak. He swam a long way from somewhere, I'd say."

Lucile stole a glance at the stranger's face. She started.

"Why, he's only a boy!" she whispered.

"Something like that," Booth mumbled. "You don't have to be so careful to whisper, though. His Nibs doesn't speak our language, it seems, nor any other that we know anything about. Mighty curious, I'd say."

"Jap trying to smuggle in?"

"Maybe."

"He doesn't seem exactly Oriental," said Lucile, looking closely at his face.

With his eyes closed as if in sleep, the boy did not, indeed, seem to resemble perfectly any of the many types Lucile had chanced to meet. There was something of the clean brown, the perfect curve of the classic young Italian; something of the smoothness of skin native to the Anglo-Saxon; yet there was, too, the round face, the short nose, the slight angle at the eyes which spoke of the Oriental.

"He looks like the Eskimo we have on the streets of Nome," suggested Marion, "only he's too light-complexioned. Couldn't be, anyway."

"Fine chance!" laughed Booth; "come two thousand miles in a skin kayak to be spilled out in a calm sea. Fine chance, I'd say."

"Whoever he is, he's some swimmer," commented Hugh. "When we reached him, he was a mile from any land, with the sea bearing shoreward, and there wasn't a sail or steamer in sight."

The four of them now busied themselves with preparing the evening meal, and for a time forgot their strange, uninvited guest.

When Lucile next looked his way she caught his eyes upon her in a wondering stare. They were at once shifted to the kettle, from which there now issued savory odors of boiling fowl.

"He's hungry all right," she smiled.

When the soup was ready to serve they were treated to a slight shock. The bird had been carefully set on a wooden plate to one side. The strange boy was offered only the broth. This he sniffed for a moment, then, placing it carefully on the ground, seized the bird and, holding it by the drum-sticks, began to gnaw at its breast.

"I'll say he's hungry," grinned Booth; "don't know as a full meal is good for him, but here goes."

He set a plate of boiled potatoes before him. The boy paused to stare, then to point a finger at them, and exclaimed:

"Uba canok!"

"Bet he never ate 'em!" exclaimed Hugh, suddenly. "What sort of chap must he be?"

He broke a potato in half and took a taste.

At once a broad smile spread over the brown boy's face as he proceeded to add the potatoes to his bill of fare.

"I see where you girls will have to start all over getting this meal," grinned Booth; "our guest has turned into a host."

When at last the strange boy's hunger was relieved, Booth took him to his tent and outfitted him with a pair of khaki trousers and a blue-checked shirt. These were much too large, but by dint of much turning up at ankles and wrists were made presentable.

Two blankets were given him, and motions made to indicate that he might sleep in the tent. To this he paid no attention. Wandering back to his old place beside the fire, he wrapped the blankets about him, and, with hands crossed over his ankles, with face drooped forward, he slept.

"Queer sort of chap!" exclaimed Booth. "I'd say he was an Indian, if Indians lived that way; but they don't, and haven't for some generations. Our little brown man appears to have walked from out another age."

That night, before she fell asleep beside her cousin in their tent, Lucile pondered long about the stranger who had come into their camp. The island they were on was her father's island; the boat they had come in, her boat. It was her party. She, more than the others, was responsible for the boy. If an attempt was being made to smuggle him into the country, and the attempt was rendered successful through their actions, she could blame no one but herself. Yet he did not look entirely like an Oriental; he did not act the part of one. What should be done? How had he come in the sea? Where were those who had brought him? All at once she shivered. "Were they in danger from other strangers?" She thought of rising and asking the boys to set a watch; yet that seemed foolish. There was only that silent figure by the fire, and he was wrapped in deep sleep.

In time she too fell asleep. How long she slept she could not tell. She awoke with a start, half conscious of the fact that she had heard a muffled shout.

Lifting the flap of the tent, she stared at the place by the fire. It was vacant! The brown boy was gone!

"Hugh! Booth!" she cried loudly, "Hugh! Booth! He's gone. The brown boy's gone!"

"Let him go. Who wants him?" Booth growled sleepily.

At that instant Lucile's keen ears caught the groan of oar-locks, and her wild day-dream flashed once more before her mind's eye.

"But I hear oars," she whispered hoarsely. "They've come for him. Some one has carried him away. I heard him try to cry for help. We must stop them."

At once the camp was in commotion.

"Think we better try to follow 'em?" said Hugh, as he struggled into his shoes, wrapping the laces round and round his ankles for the sake of speed.

"Don't know. Pretty tough lot, probably. Mighty mysterious. Better take our rifles."

"Ye-ah."

In a moment the boys were racing for the beach. They were followed by the girls. As they paused, out of breath, to listen, they heard no sound. Either the intruders had rounded the point or had stopped rowing. Booth threw the circle of his flash-light out to sea.

"Stop that!" cried Hugh, in alarm. "They might take a shot at us."

"Let 'em," growled Booth, now thoroughly out of humor. "What's it all about, anyway?"

"Boys, look!" cried Lucile, suddenly; "Our boat's gone!"

Hastening down the beach, they found it was all too true; the row-boat had disappeared.

"There weren't any men!" exclaimed Hugh, with sudden conviction; "That chap's taken our boat and skipped!"

"Yes, there were men," insisted Lucile. "We saw their tracks in the sand, didn't we, Marion?"

"Yes, boys; come back here and you'll see."

An inspection of the sand showed three sets of footprints leading to the water's edge, where the stolen boat had been launched.

"There's one queer chap among them," said Hugh, after studying the marks closely; "he limps; one step is long and one short, also one shoe is smaller than the other. We'd certainly know that chap if we ever saw him."

"Listen!" said Booth, suddenly. Out of the silence that ensued there came the faint pop-pop-pop of a motor-boat.

"Behind the point," said Hugh.

"Our motor-boat!" whispered Booth.

Instantly there was a rush down the beach, then up the creek. Tripped by creeping vines, torn at by underbrush, swished by wet ferns, they in time arrived at the point where the motor-boat had been moored.

"Gone!" whispered Lucile.

"Framed, as I live!" hissed Booth, savagely. "Framed by a boy—a half-breed at that. He was a plant. They left him swimming in the sea so we'd find him. That's why he slept by the fire. As soon as we were asleep, he sneaked out and towed the schooner down the river, then he flashed a signal and the rest came in for him. Probably Indians and half-breeds. Dirty dogs! Might have left us a row-boat, at least."

With early dawn streaking the sky, the four of them sat down to consider. They were on a deserted island with, perhaps, two weeks' provisions. Fish and game might lengthen this out a bit. They were to have remained here a month; buying provisions at a fishing-town fifteen miles away. Now what was to be done?

"We'd better go down the beach with our rifles, you and I," said Booth to Hugh. "They might have engine trouble, or something, and be obliged to land; then perhaps we could catch them off their guard."

"It's the only thing we can do," said Hugh. "It's a good thing we had the rifles in our tent, and the grub too, or they'd have stripped us clean."

"Speaking of grub," said Booth, "I'm half-starved. What say we eat?"

By the time the morning sun had set the sea a-glimmering, the two boys were away along the beach in the direction from whence had come the pop-popping of their motor-boat.

Coming at last to the place where sandy shore was replaced by ragged boulders, they began making their way through the tangled mass of underbrush, fallen tree-trunks, and ferns, across the point of land which cut them off from the next sandy beach.

"This would be great, if it wasn't so darn serious," said Hugh, as they at last reached the crest of the ridge and prepared to descend. "Always did like roaming about in an unexplored wilderness. Look at that fallen yellow pine, eight feet through if it is an inch—and the ferns are almost tall enough to hide it; and look at those black knights, the tamaracks, down in that gully. Wouldn't they make a picture?"

"Ow! come on," exclaimed Booth, who already had his fill of this jungle. "Let's get down to the beach and see what's there. When we get there, don't go whoopin' out into the open. There's a long stretch of beach, I think, maybe half a mile. We might discover something. Who knows?"

To descend a rock-ribbed hill, overgrown by tangled underbrush and buried in decaying tree-trunks, is hardly easier than the ascent. Both boys were thoroughly fagged as they at last parted the branches of a fir-tree and peered through to where the beach, a yellow ribbon of sand, circled away to the north.

"No chance," whispered Hugh.

"What's that two thirds of the way down, at the water's edge?" asked Booth.

"Don't know. Rock, maybe. Anyway, it's not our motor-boat."

"No, it's not. Worth looking into, though. Let's go."

Eagerly they hurried along over the hard-packed sand. The tide was ebbing and the beach was like a floor. Their steps quickened as they approached the object. At last, less than half conscious of what they were doing, they broke into a run. The thing they had seen was a boat. And a boat, to persons in their position, was a thing to be prized.

Arrived at its side, they looked it over for a moment in silence.

"Not much of a tub, but seaworthy," was Booth's verdict.

"It's theirs. Thought it wasn't worth risking a stop for." "But how'd they get into our camp? We haven't seen their tracks through the brush."

"Probably went up one small stream and down another."

The boat they had discovered was a wide-bottomed, heavy affair, such as is used by fishermen in tending pond-nets. It was equipped with two pairs of stubby oars.

"We'll follow round the beach in this boat," said Booth; "might catch them yet."

For two hours they rowed steadily. Point after point, each with its little circle of beach, they passed, with no sign of a boat drawn up on the shore. They had begun to despair of the search when, on rounding a point, Hugh dropped an oar and, gripping Booth's arm, pointed toward a distant beach.

"It's her; our schooner!" he exclaimed.

Fifteen minutes of hard rowing brought them in behind the point, where they anchored the boat. An hour of struggling through the underbrush, and they came into view of the beach. Footprints on the sand, some of them made by the man with the deformed foot, told them they were on the right trail. There was no sign of life about the motor-boat, which was still some distance away.

"Maybe they're asleep," whispered Booth. "We'd better sneak up through the brush."

When at last they peered through the last brush screen, they saw that the men were worse than asleep; they were in a drunken stupor. The empty bottles about them told that.

"We'll get the boat and skip," whispered Booth. "They'll find their own boat soon enough."

They were gliding past the men, who lay sprawled out upon the ground, when one of them half rose on his elbows.

Hugh gasped. It was the strange boy of the previous day. He would cry out. The game was up.

But the boy did nothing of the kind. He merely bobbed his head in a strange set of gestures. Then it was that Booth noticed that he was bound hand and foot.

"Lucile was right," he whispered. "He's not a rascal, but a captive."

A moment later his knife flashed. His bonds cut, the boy leaped to his feet and led the way to the beach. Five minutes later they were pop-popping round the point. "Now what do you think of that?" exclaimed Booth, at last.

"I don't think," said Hugh.

They found the two girls anxiously waiting their arrival.

"Now we have him again," said Booth, "I suggest that we pack up and take him to Port Townsend, where he can be classified; then we can hunt up a safer camping-ground."

The suggestion was acted upon, and a short time after, they found themselves nearing the port.

Much to their surprise, they found a large steamer tied up at the wharf. It proved to be a revenue cutter that had just returned from her trip to Alaska. On the wharf a broad-shouldered, sun-tanned man walked up and down. As the brown boy sprang ashore from the motor-boat, this man shot him a question in a strange tongue. With a broad grin, the boy answered him in the same language. For some time the two carried on a rapid-fire conversation.

At last the stranger turned to the four young people.

"Mighty queer case," he smiled, "this boy was shanghaied by the crew of some whaler. I can't make out where he came from—north of Russia or somewhere. They treated him so badly that he at last, in desperation, leaped overboard, intending to swim ashore. He tells me that you rescued him and were very, kind to him, that he was then recaptured by two members of the crew sent to search for him, but that you found and saved him; very commendable action, I should say and I congratulate you."

"'Twasn't much," said Booth, speaking for them all; "just a bit of good adventure, that's all."

"I," said the stranger, "am an anthropologist. I study the origins of the types of men. I have just returned from the North. I had hoped to persuade a native to return with me so that I might present him to my fellow-students and use him as living evidence in a set of lectures I have prepared. This boy tells me that since it will be impossible for him to be returned to his home before next spring, he is willing to go with me. I will pledge to return him to Cape Prince of Wales in June. He can doubtless find his way home from there. What say? Do I get him?"

Out of deference, he had turned to the girls.

"He—doesn't belong to us," smiled Lucile. "I'm sure it will be all right."

So it was arranged. Soon the motor-boat was carrying the four of them to a quiet camping-ground.

"I wonder," said Lucile, "if we shall ever see our 'Man Friday' again."

Had she known under what strange circumstances and in what an unknown land she and Marion were, many months later, to see him, the smile on her happy face might have been more doubtful in its expression of joy.