eard the ominous sound of some monster bellowing in
anger.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BIG SPOON ISLAND.

The next morning our young friends prepared for a three days' trip on
their little sloop. For a week they had discussed it and had carefully
considered when it was best to go.

"I want to wait till the moon fulls," Frank had said, "for then the
weather will be better, and as our friend Manson is in a romantic frame
of mind, he will enjoy it all the more."

Everything likely to be needed was put on board their boat; provisions,
water, extra clothing, guns, fishing gear, and also, it must be said, a
bottle of good old whiskey, for on such a trip it might be even more
needful than food.

"We will take along the banjo," Obed said, for he was quite an expert
with that cheerful instrument, "and evenings we can have some darkey
songs."

"What is the program?" asked Manson, when everything was stowed, the
sails set, and with Frank at the helm they were gliding out of the
little island harbor. "Where are we going?"

"Well," replied Frank, "I think we will run to Big Spoon Island first
and try for mackerel. There is a nice little harbor there if it comes on
to blow, and two miles out are some good cod grounds. I suppose you
would like to visit Pocket Island?"

"I would like to just call there," said Manson, "for you have excited my
curiosity. I have a weakness for ghost hunting, you told me once, and
now you must gratify it, you see."

There is, perhaps, no pleasanter way for three or four young men to
spend a day or two than to have a tidy little yacht all to themselves,
and sail her away off among the Maine coast islands, with a summer day
breeze and clear skies to cheer them.

To feel themselves just lifted over the broad ground swells, ruffled by
a light wind that smells sweet and crisp; to watch some distant green
island gradually coming nearer, or the seagulls lighting on the water
just ahead, or the white clouds in the blue sky, and with no sense of
danger, but only the care-free buoyancy of youth and good spirits, is to
many the very acme of enjoyment. At least, it was to Manson, to whom
such an experience was entirely new. When they reached Spoon Island he
went into raptures over it, for it was a rarity, even among the many
beautiful ones he had visited. As its name implied, it was shaped like a
spoon, about five hundreds rods long and formed of white sand, with a
growth of green sedge grass all over it.