The G-man's son at Porpoise Island

THE cabin sloop Water Witch had cleared Centerport harbor and was well out in the bay heading towards the Catlow, or “Off Shore,” Islands when the first strange incident happened which was to start the G-man’s son, Stanley Sandborn, and his lanky, dark-haired chum, John Tallman, off on an adventure which was both bizarre and dangerous. Stanley was the first to notice the swiftly approaching gray runabout speedboat.

“Look at that fellow come!” said Stanley. “He’s doing closer to fifty than forty knots and notice how low he is!”

“Sailing bluebirds, and slices of pickled onion!” cried John Tallman, exploding into one of his characteristic odd remarks. “You can hardly see him for spray!”

“And gray is an odd color for a yacht!” commented Stanley, pushing his mop of sandy hair back from his eyes, the better to study the form and speed of the racing boat which was now sweeping across the bows of the smoothly sailing sloop.

The Water Witch pitched and tossed in a moment or two as the wide “V” of the speedboat’s wake crossed the course of the sailboat. The rigging and sails of the black-hulled boat slatted and swayed drunkenly, then she steadied in the strong southwest breeze sweeping up the bay and continued her easy dip and roll through the waves of the open bay. The speedboat sped off towards the islands, almost silently, save for a low humming.

“More than one thing odd about that boat, John!” Stan remarked. “Extra speed, gray paint, and an underwater exhaust! If this were prohibition times I’d say—rum-runner!”

“Me too. Dunk me in the briny deep and hang me up to dry! Slide over the hamburgers, mates, but I’ve a hunch we haven’t seen the last of that craft!”

“Funny, John,” the G-man’s son said, half aloud, half to himself, “I’m thinking the same thing.”

John Tallman shrugged his shoulders, then laughed as cheerfully as he could.

“Trouble with us, Stan,” he said, “is that we’ve seen so much of speeding boats and water fights that we just jump to conclusions! Because we just spent the last week or so helping capture Dapper Dan Hogan and his gang and those other mobsters, we’ve got detecting and suspicion on the brain! Bluebottle flies and anthill creepers—let’s drop the subject! Me for coffee and doughnuts!”

“Attaboy, John,” laughed Stan. “Stir up some eats. We ought to be close to Porpoise Island by sunset!”

John watched the last white spray of the speedboat disappearing towards that very spot of the barely visible humps of the Off Shore Islands, a perplexed frown upon his lean features, then he ducked down into the cozy cabin of the sloop to dig up a snack of food for the famished boys, for they had been under way for hours now and were very hungry.

The trim and pretty Water Witch rolled along, dipping her lee rail in white water, for she was rather speedy and a good sailor, while Stan, at the wheel, peered across the water towards Porpoise Island where they planned to camp out for the next week or so, cruising betimes among the wooded, lonely Catlow Islands nearby. Certain of the outlying islands on the edge of the ocean were populous summer resorts and winter colonies and had a regular steamer traffic, but Porpoise Island and the close-by islets were rarely visited, if at all, being privately owned and plastered with “Keep-off” signs. The two boys, however, being bent merely on a little harmless pleasure, saw no harm in cruising among them, and perhaps pitching a tent on one of the beaches provided they did not trespass on the land itself.

They were particularly anxious to visit Black Cove, a little known and very snug small harbor which Mr. Sandborn, Stan’s father, had noticed on a chart while the boys and the G-man were poring over the marine maps of the bay and waters around the islands a few nights ago.

“There,” Mr. Sandborn had remarked, “is something to look into. I bet I’ve studied this chart dozens of times in the last ten years, boys, and cruised some about the islands, and I never happened to notice what a perfect little harbor Black Cove should be for a small boat like yours.”

He had pointed to the spot on the chart and shown the boys that the cove had a narrow but comparatively deep channel and that the center of the land-locked little harbor was a good twenty feet deep and had a dark loam bottom. Because of the dark mud and loam under the water there the water itself would seem almost black even on clear days, thus giving the cove its name, no doubt. This Mr. Sandborn surmised from past experiences with small anchorages and different types of sea bottom.

“Sounds mysterious, too,” John had interrupted, excitedly, that evening. “Rally round the saucepan, boys; the cook’s serving soup!”

Mr. Sandborn had been taking a well-earned vacation of a few days after the capture of the notorious gangsters, chiefly represented by Mr. Dapper Dan Hogan, in which event the two boys had had no small part. The Water Witch, you will remember, played a big part in the adventures attendant upon the pursuit and capture of the criminals as did also Stan’s and John’s bow and arrows. And during those few days the boys had been planning the cruise to the Catlow Islands.

It was a cruise they had had in mind ever since acquiring the Water Witch and save for the interference and subsequent capture of Hogan and the other gangsters, the boys would have made the big cruise sooner. Now they were making up for lost time. Below decks were their bows and arrows, cameras, including the special G-man camera Mr. Sandborn had loaned them in case—just in case—they might have use for it; their sleuthing paraphernalia of fingerprint powders, brushes, and magnifying glasses; some adventure books and boys’ magazines; lots and lots of food (for John was a prodigious eater!); charts of the waters they were entering for the first time; and the hundreds of items needed to make the trip an outstanding success. Bit by bit it had been stowed away, a task in itself considering the rather short length and small capacity of sloop. And in all her brave black top sides and green underbody, with the bullet holes from the big battle at Cedar Island all properly plugged and shipshape, the Water Witch had sailed out of Centerport Harbor, pleasure-bound.

The sun was dipping lower and lower as the boat covered the last long mile across the bay in the dying breeze. The aroma of delicious hot coffee came drifting back from the galley and John could be heard mumbling and humming an off-key tune. But for snitches of doughnuts as he was preparing the meal, the cook would have been able to sing right out!

At last came the welcome news to the helmsman that dinner, or supper, was ready.

“Call it anything you like, but serve it, Cookie!” Stan rejoined. “I’m about ready to gnaw a chunk out of this wheel!”

“Here you are! Why not lash the wheel, Skipper, and come below for eats?” queried John.

“O.k., be right down!”

With that Stan slipped a bit of roping over the spokes of the wheel and, jockeying the craft a bit to get the right pressure of the rudder, tightened a hitch about a cleat. He had already done the same with the main sheet and the keen little vessel now sailed along by herself on a fairly good course in what was left of the evening breeze while the Captain joined his cook below decks at a meal that was filling and appetizing. Rolls and butter, some canned beef with sauces, plenty of jam, a slice or two of cake, a few doughnuts, coffee, and a liberal glass of milk were enjoyed amidst much joking and fun. John was a “scream,” always thinking of some funny remark and keeping the more serious Stan in general good humor. They were just finishing supper when the Water Witch jolted hard to port, dumping the remains of the meal into John’s lap, for he sat on that side of the small portable table, and pitching Stan half onto his chum!

“Help!” cried John. “Bluebirds and fireflies—and bushels of grape-juice-biscuits! We’re wrecked, Skipper!”

Quickly, even as the Water Witch righted herself and the scraping sounds which had penetrated the interior of the sloop disappeared, the boys were in the cockpit staring wildly about!

Nothing greeted their startled eyes save the unruffled water of the bay, for the last of the breeze had died with the fast setting sun and only an occasional “cat’s-paw” disturbed the surface here and there. The sloop heeled slowly, creaking just a little, to one of these soft puffs of wind now.

“Well, tender chunks of jellybeans—what happened?” John wanted to know, scratching his head and running lean fingers through the dark hair, while his dark eyes pondered and stared.

“John, in the first place, we struck something that was submerged. Might have been a water-soaked log, or almost anything. Let’s take a bearing and see what the chart says. Should have five fathoms along here if my memory serves me!”

The chart showed six fathoms of water and there were no indications of rocks or obstructions of any other kind in the spot where the Water Witch had struck.

“I took a careful bearing from the trees on top of Porpoise Island, Stan,” John pointed out, “and another on the Centerport Watch Hill Tower that we can just see across the bay. The angle is a good one and I’m sure I got it right. Then whatever we struck is a ‘foreign body’——”

“Maybe the upper structure of some sunken ship, John!” Stan interrupted.

“Upper structure or keel, I don’t know, Stan, but—I do know that the last of my coffee soaked my pants!”

John went below to change into something dry and while he was there he quietly inspected the forepeak of the craft where the anchor cable was stored, and the spare sails and lines, and then peered under the cabin floor boards but found no signs of extra water. Evidently the ship had not been damaged by contact with whatever the object had been. In dry attire, John went back on deck and relieved his friend at the wheel.

Stan now went below and studied the charts for some minutes, coming back on deck after a short time and indicating the eastern tip of Porpoise Island. The long low island bore a faint resemblance, when seen from a distance, to the back of a sporting porpoise, hence its name, and the eastern tip was the “snout.”

“Keep clear of the snout there, John, by at least a hundred yards, because of low water and rocks, now that we’re getting in close, and put her on the other tack after we round the point.”

“Righto, Skipper. Blow me down, my hearties, and smack the main brace!”

Both boys peered curiously at the bushes and clusters of cedar trees and the few oaks covering the slopes of the island as the boat sailed slowly, half-drifting, past the snout and they were able to see the seaward or southern side of the island. Black Cove should be about a half mile down that side and the angle of entrance was so sharp that the boys actually sailed past without spotting the opening! It was Stan who first detected their mistake.

“John, we’ve gone past the entrance to Black Cove, I’m sure. It’s getting so dark I can hardly see a thing, anyhow and we’ve sure missed it!”

It was indeed getting dark in spite of the lingering twilight and the Water Witch swung about and back, feeling the strength of a brisk night breeze now springing up. The breeze might last an hour or less and they must make the cove before it died again. Intent, anxious, Stan stood by the mast of the boat, peering sharply ahead as the heeling sloop closed in with the island, risking danger among the scattered rocks, to find the clear, deep entrance to the harbor.

Suddenly Stan cried out and pointed!

A bright light had flickered for an instant or two somewhere on the island and the way in which it had disappeared caused Stan to say, “That light was on the far side of the cove, John, I’m sure, and it was the eastern edge or hill at the entrance that cut it off! Ease off the sheet and head for there!”

John did as Stan said, for he had great confidence in his chum’s ability and hunches, and the Water Witch heeled lively and spryly right between two high banks of woods, through a clear channel into the darkness of the cove!

The light, which had been the cause of their success in finding the entrance, had gone and there was neither sight nor sound in the darkness. The hills seemed to surround the spot and the lighter blue of the sky overhead, now starlit, seemed to rest upon the edges of the hills.

“Pheww!” breathed John, deeply, from the wheel, as the sloop rounded to and the anchor was dropped with a low splash into the deep waters. “This place gives me the honorable creeps! Creeping skeletons, and bleached bones—I’d rather go to live with Blackbeard the Pirate than spend the night in Black Cove!”

“I’m afraid,” said Stan, and his voice was not too steady, “that we’re here to stay for the night—for I can’t even guess where the entrance is now!”