Her talk with the hotel-keeper had been most unpleasant. Not only had she made him angry, but she had entangled herself in Ollie Weiser’s affairs. There was nothing she could do now but see the matter through to the end. The magician, too, had irritated her. He was so persistent in his attentions! And now Dave. Why, of all days, must he choose this one in which to become moody?
She was relieved when they drove in at the camp and stopped near the cabin. Dave politely helped her from the car and then vanished.
“What’s become of him?” Kitty inquired, as she came out of the cabin. _“I wanted to ask him to get a bucket of water from the spring.”
“Oh, he’s sulking,” Doris returned with a tired sigh. “Jealous over Ollie Weiser, if you cap imagine that!”
Kitty laughed, but quickly became sober as she observed that her chum was really distressed over the situation.
“Don’t bother about him,” she advised. “He’ll get over it. Sometimes I almost wish I could make Marshmallow a bit jealous.”
Doris smiled at the thought of anyone disturbing Marshall’s serenity, but almost immediately the smile faded.
“You’re terribly discouraged, aren’t you, dear?” Kitty murmured sympathetically. “I know you must have had a disappointing day.”
“I’m all right,” Doris protested. “I just found out I won’t be able to do much about the Estate for a few days.”
“That’s too bad,” Kitty returned, then suddenly brightened. “That will give us a chance to play around. I’ll tell you what! It will serve Dave right, too, for not being more sensible. We’ll slip away tomorrow morning and go fishing. Maybe Mr. Jay will go with us!”
It was not so much the prospect of a fishing trip as it was the thought that the Miser of Cloudy Cove might be induced to accompany them, that made Doris agree to the plan. She had no desire to punish Dave, but she did have a great curiosity to talk once more with the mysterious Mr. Jay.
CHAPTER XVIII
Caught in a Storm
Mr. Jay announced that he would be very glad to accompany the girls on a fishing trip the following morning. Doris and Kitty were abroad shortly after four o’clock. They smiled as they stole quietly by the cabin where Dave and Marshmallow were still peacefully sleeping, thinking how surprised and disappointed the boys would be when they learned that they had been left behind.
Upon reaching the beach they found Mr. Jay waiting for them. He had already unfastened the boat and had put in the fishing tackle and bait bucket.
“Looks like a good morning for fish,” he observed, as they came up.
Kitty and Doris took seats in the boat and the old miser pushed off from shore. Seizing the oars, he struck out for the far shore, rowing with rhythmical ease. The girls drew their jackets closer about them, for the morning chill was still on the cove and an unpleasant mist hung low over the water.
“It’s usually like this early in the morning,” Mr. Jay explained in response to the girls’ questions. “As soon as the sun comes up, she’ll clear away.”
With that he fell silent, paying strict attention to his rowing. Doris and Kitty were too sleepy to chat, so they, too, lapsed into a moody contemplation of the distant shore. Presently Doris became aware that the miser was studying her face intently again. As she turned toward Mr. Jay, he quickly looked away.
“Why does he stare at me so?” she asked herself. “Of whom is it that I remind him?”
Upon impulse she put this thought into the form of a question.
“I—I beg your pardon,” the miser mumbled. “I was just looking—that is, my mind was a blank.”
Doris did not press the matter further, yet she was more firmly convinced than ever that Mr. Jay had been studying her face. Had he not mentioned that she resembled someone he once knew?
She could think of a dozen questions that she would like to ask the man, curious questions about his past and why he had chosen to live the life of a hermit. Yet she felt that the miser’s apparent desire for secrecy must be respected. His past was his own. She had no right to pry into his private affairs.
In spite of Mr. Jay’s appearance, Doris was convinced that he was an educated man. His speech was good and his manners those of a gentleman. She had noticed that the books in his cabin were anything but frivolous.
“Well, here we are,” Mr. Jay announced, breaking in upon her thoughts.
Anchoring off a promising-looking spot, they began to try their luck at fishing. For some reason Doris had lost most of her enthusiasm for the sport, yet it really was a pleasure to her to see Mr. Jay cast with unerring precision.
The sun rose higher over the water and, as the miser had predicted, the mist gradually disappeared. The sky cleared, save for a few dark clouds near the horizon, but the air seemed sultry. Before the party had been out an hour the wind died.
“Fish’ll probably stop biting now,” Mr. Jay complained, scowling at the smooth surface of the water.
After a few minutes he proposed that they change to a new location. As they rowed slowly up the channel, Kitty sat in the back of the boat, gently moving the troll line to and fro. Suddenly she felt a hard tug on the line.
“Stop!” she cried. “The hook’s caught on the bottom!”
“Caught nothing!” Mr. Jay returned. “You’ve hooked a fish. Now land him yourself.”
Kitty gave a squeal of terror, for it was her first fish. At the miser’s command she endeavored to reel in, but it required all of her strength. When at length she brought the fish to the side of the boat, she would have lost it, had not the others come to her aid.
“Mercy me!” she exclaimed as she beheld her catch. “He must weigh all of six pounds!”
“A nice one,” Mr. Jay smiled, “but I’d say it would weigh nearer three.”
“I believe i might get so I’d like fishing,” Kitty went on, not at all crushed by the correction. “That is, if I don’t have to bait a hook or take the fish off.”
After that she was induced to try her luck with a pole, Mr. Jay attending to the unpleasant detail of bait. The morning passed quickly. The girls were so absorbed that they did not notice that the sky had become partially overcast.
“There’s going to be a storm,” the miser observed, scanning the horizon anxiously. “I think we’d better be getting back home, if we don’t want to get wet.”
He pulled up the anchor and slid into his place at the oars. The opposite shore was fully a half mile away, and as they headed for it, Doris wondered if they could beat the storm, for it was rolling up quickly. Already the water had taken on an inky hue.
“Storms come up without much warning here at Cloudy Cove,” the miser muttered, pulling steadily at the oars. “We’ll have a close race.”
The little boat fairly leaped through the water, causing tiny waves to lap high up against the bow. At first Kitty and Doris did not notice that their feet were resting in an inch of water, and when they became aware of it, they assumed that the waves had washed over the side. A few minutes later Doris realized that the water had crept higher in the bottom of the boat.
“The boat’s sprung a leak!” she cried.
The miser nodded grimly.
“I noticed it right off, but I didn’t want to alarm you, if I could help it. The water’s not coming in very fast. We’ll make shore, but I’m afraid you girls will have to