On the broadest part was a
cluster of spruce forming a little thicket and beside this, and entered
by a narrow inlet the tiniest bit of a harbor, just large enough to
shelter a small sloop. The seagulls had also discovered its beauty, for
thousands hovered about it, and the small harbor was alive with them.
The island was a favorite nesting-place for them as well, and their
shrill cries at being disturbed almost obliterated the voice of the
ocean.

"We will anchor under the lee," said Frank, as they drew near, "and try
for mackerel, and then run into the harbor, make everything snug, and
stay here to-night, or"--with a droll look at Manson--"perhaps you would
prefer to go to Pocket Island and have ghosts for company!"

"This is good enough for me," replied Manson, "and I guess the gulls
will be the more cheerful companions!"

When the sloop was at anchor, sails furled, and they were all waiting
for mackerel bites, he said: "What is there so mysterious about this
Pocket Island, and why are people afraid to go there? Tell me all about
it! You have got me so worked up over it, I dreamed I heard a bull
bellowing last night."

"Well," replied Frank, "it's like all ghost stories and spook spots in
the world; all imagination, I guess. I do not take any stock in them,
and dad laughs at the entire batch. The only reality about it is that
the island itself is the most forbidding pile of rock, covered with the
worst tangle of scrub spruce you ever saw, and the shore is full of deep
fissures and cracks. The one mysterious fact is, that strange bellowing
noise that you can't locate anywhere. You may clamber all over the
island and all around the shores and it seems to be just ahead of you,
or just behind; so far as the stories go, well; the queer harbor inside
is said to have been a smuggler's hiding-place years ago, and there are
all kinds of yarns connected with the island, from bloody murders down
to strange sea monsters seen crawling over the rocks. It has a bad name
and is seldom visited; for one reason, I think, because it's impossible
to land there except in a small boat, and then only when the sea is
smooth. The bellowing noise, I believe, is made by the waves entering
some cavern below high-water mark. There is also an odd sort of a story
linked with it about a little Jew who was known to be a smuggler and who
played a sharp trick on a few people ten or twelve years ago. I do not
think he had any connection with the isl