FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>  
were an ally of Logan Black's, just as you believed me to be his ally, and as he believed you and me to be working together. It may interest you to know that smuggling has been one of his side lines. There is, somewhere hereabouts, a cave in which smuggled goods are stored. These coasts have a sinister history, Mr. Cleggett. It is possible that your canal boat--I beg your pardon, your schooner, Mr. Cleggett--played some part in their smuggling operations. At any rate it is evident that Logan Black transferred to the hold of this vessel the incriminating evidence against him, contained in that oblong box, when he learned that my agents were watching Morris's. The Jasper B. has been lying in her present position for a long time. In the event that a sudden get-away from Morris's became necessary, it was an advantage to Logan Black to be able to leave without being hampered with this matter. No one, for many years, had paid any attention to the Jasper B., with the exception of the old truck farmer, Abernethy, who used sometimes to fish from her deck, and----" "Truck farmer!" cried Cleggett. "Abernethy?" "Truck farmer," repeated Wilton Barnstable. "Is not Abernethy an old sea captain?" asked Cleggett. "Why, no, I believe not," said Barnstable. "At least I never heard so. He is well known as a small truck gardener in this neighborhood. It is true that he comes of a seafaring family--indeed, it is his boast. But, in a community where nearly everyone knows a little about boats, I believe that Abernethy is remarkable for an indisposition to venture far from shore." "I can scarcely believe it," breathed Cleggett. "He does not understand boats," said Barnstable. "That is the reason, I take it, why he has always fished in the canal from the deck of the Jasper B." "Abernethy is a gallant man," said Cleggett, rather sternly. "And even although he may have had little actual seafaring experience, the instinct is in him! The inherited love of a nautical life has been latent in him all along. And at the first opportunity it has come out. He has shown his mettle aboard the Jasper B." "I do not doubt it, if you insist upon it," said Wilton Barnstable, politely. And from revolving his thumbs benignly towards himself he began to revolve them urbanely from himself. The reversal was imitated at once by Barton Ward, but Watson Bard was slower in putting this new coup into execution. "The resemblance between th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>  



Top keywords:
Cleggett
 

Abernethy

 

Barnstable

 

Jasper

 

farmer

 
seafaring
 
Morris
 

Wilton

 
believed
 

smuggling


understand

 

reason

 
fished
 

actual

 
experience
 

instinct

 
gallant
 
sternly
 

breathed

 

community


family

 

working

 

inherited

 

venture

 

indisposition

 

remarkable

 

scarcely

 

latent

 

Barton

 

imitated


revolve

 
urbanely
 

reversal

 

Watson

 

execution

 
resemblance
 

slower

 
putting
 

opportunity

 
nautical

neighborhood
 

mettle

 
aboard
 
politely
 

revolving

 

thumbs

 
benignly
 

insist

 
stored
 

present