The Secret Of Skeleton Island Part 5

"No, it's yours all right, you found it on the open sea bottom. But the people around here are treasure happy! They know in their hearts that there isn't any gold on Skeleton Island, but if word got round that you'd found something, the treasure hunters would be swarming over the island in no time. They'd ruin any chance we have of ever getting that movie finished!"

Mrs. Barton has Suspicions

THE BOYS were ready for bed early that night. Pete and Bob were weary from their diving, and Jupe was feeling very droopy because of the cold he was catching.

Mr. Crenshaw came to Mrs. Barton's home and had dinner with them. He was worried about the progress of the work on Skeleton Island.

"That story of the phantom of the merry-go-round is all around town!" he exclaimed angrily. "Tom Farraday has been telling people the truth, but they'd rather believe in a ghost than the truth. Oh, well, we'll make out somehow. I'll see you boys in the morning. Have to go now and try to line up a couple of new carpenters."

After he had left, they went to their room. They examined the gold doubloon repeatedly. It was very exciting to have a piece of pirate treasure in their hands, even knowing they'd probably not see any more. Then Pete put it under his pillow and they turned in.

They all slept soundly until Mrs. Barton called them for breakfast.

"Come and get it, boys!" she sang out up the stairs. "Pete, your father is here. He wants to see you all before he gets started."

They scrambled into their clothes and hurried downstairs. Mr. Crenshaw was waiting, looking rushed.

"Boys," he said, "you'll have to be on your own today. I have some workmen coming so I'll be very busy. And there can't be any more diving until we get our plans straightened out. Anyway, Jeff tells me you have a cold, Jupiter, and can't dive for several days."

"Yes, sir," said Jupiter and sneezed explosively. "I'm sorry, sir." He blew his nose, which was red. "I couldn't help it."

"No, of course not." Mr. Crenshaw examined him keenly. "Boy," he said, "you stay quiet for a day or so. Go over this morning and see the doctor. Name's Doctor Wilbur.

Fine fellow. In fact, he's the owner of Skeleton Island. While you're eating, I'll phone him."

The boys sat down at the table, and Mrs. Barton bustled in with pancakes and sausages. Mr. Crenshaw went off to the phone and came back to tell Jupiter that Doctor Wilbur would see him at lunch-time, when he'd have a few minutes free. He wrote down the address of Doctor Wilbur's office and hurried off.

"Gosh, Jupe, it's too bad you're going to be laid up," Pete sympathized. "I was thinking maybe we could borrow the motor-boat and go exploring."

"It will give me time to think," Jupiter said, trying not to act sorry for himself.

"There is much to think about. The secret of Skeleton Island, for instance. I'm sure it does have a secret, but I cannot quite fathom what it is."

"Skeleton Island!" Mrs. Barton exclaimed, as she came in with more pancakes.

"That horrible place! Did you know the ghost was seen riding the merry-go-round again just night before last?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jupiter answered. "Except that there is a perfectly natural explanation." He told Mrs. Barton what had really happened.

"Well, maybe," she conceded, but she didn't look convinced. "But everybody says there's a ghost and I say where there's so much smoke, there's bound to be some fire."

With that she went out again.

Jupiter sighed. "Mrs. Barton is a good example of the difficulty of convincing people to give up a cherished belief," he said.

Just then there was a tap at the window. They turned. A tanned face was peering in at them.

"It's Chris!" Bob exclaimed. He hurried to the door.

"I'm getting ready to go hunting again," Chris said. "You want to come with me?"

"You bet!" Bob exclaimed. "Pete and I can. Jupiter has a bad cold."

"Too bad," Chris said. "But boat is pretty small for four anyway. I see you down at the waterfront. Bring swim trunks!"

He hurried off. When Bob told the others what Chris had wanted, Pete's face lit up.

"Great!" he said. "Maybe I'll find another doubloon! Let's go and get our trunks, Bob."

"Sure," Bob answered. "Golly, Jupe, it's too bad you can't go."

Jupe's face said he thought so, too, but the First Investigator just said stoically, "Well, if I can't, I can't. You two go on. I'll see you later."

"We'll be back for lunch."

Bob and Pete got their swimming trunks from their room. Then they hurried down to the waterfront where Chris had his sailing-boat tied to an old sagging pier. They jumped in, and they were off on their first hunt for pirate treasure!

Left alone, Jupiter sighed a couple of times. Then, deciding to make the best of it, he went up to look again at Bob's notes and the magazine articles about Skeleton Island.

Mrs. Barton was in their room making the beds.

"Just thought I'd slip up and straighten your room while you boys were eating," she said. "I land's sake, what's this?"

She had picked up Pete's pillow, and there was the gold doubloon.

"Land's alive!" the woman exclaimed. "It's an old Spanish gold piece. Treasure!"

She looked at Jupiter with wide eyes. "You boys found it out on Skeleton Island yesterday, I'll be bound. Didn't you, now?"

"Pete found it," Jupiter said. He remembered that Jeff Morton had warned them not to let anyone know of the find. But now the cat was out of the bag.

"He didn't find it on the island, though, but in the water. Quite a way from the island," Jupiter added.

"My, my!" Mrs. Barton clucked, finishing the bed. "On his very first day here, too."

She gave Jupiter a shrewd glance.

"You know," she said, "lots of folks are saying this business about making a movie out on Skeleton Island is just well, just a big story. They say you folks are really hunting for old Captain One-Ear's treasure that was never found. They say you have a new map and everything."

"That might explain why the company is being bothered," Jupiter said thoughtfully.

"If people think there is a treasure map, they might be prowling around hoping to find it. And they might be trying to drive the movie company away in order to look for the treasure themselves.

"But really, Mrs. Barton, we don't know a thing about any treasure. All we want to do is get a few scenes of a new movie shot. You can tell everybody that."

"Well, I'll do that," Mrs. Barton answered. "But I don't know as they'll believe me.

Once they get an idea in their heads it's a sightly job to shake it out again."

"Yes," Jupiter agreed. "Like they keep on believing in the ghost. Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Mrs. Barton? You've lived here all your life, and you can probably tell me a lot."

"Lands, I don't mind." The woman laughed. "Let me finish this room, then I'll come downstairs and have a cup of coffee and you can ask me any questions you like."

Jupe took Bob's bundle of notes downstairs and read them until Mrs. Barton joined him, sipping a cup of black coffee.

"Now ask away, boy," she said.

"Tell me how Skeleton Island came to be haunted in the first place, Mrs. Barton,"

he requested, by way of getting started. Of course, he had read the story already, but he wanted to see if the local version agreed.

With great animation Mrs. Barton started talking. What she said tallied closely with what Jupe had read. However, the woman had more to add. After Pleasure Park had been abandoned, she said, the ghost stopped appearing. Then suddenly, some years back, it had appeared again not just once, but several times a year.

"These fishermen who saw it," Jupiter asked, pinching his lip, "were they reliable men? People you could believe?"

"Well, now." Mrs. Barton frowned slightly. "I don't know as they were exactly that.

We have some pretty rough elements among our fishermen. But lands, why would anyone make up stories about seeing a ghost?"

Jupiter had no idea. Yet he couldn't help wondering if someone hadn't done just that made up stories.

"About when did this happen?" he asked. Mrs. Barton couldn't remember exactly.

Ten years ago, or maybe fifteen. Somewhere along there. She only knew that ever since, the island had had a very bad reputation, and people rarely went there.

"Until you Hollywood folks turned up, right out of the blue," Mrs. Barton finished, eyeing Jupiter shrewdly. "And the phantom rides the merry-go-round again and one of you boys finds a gold piece and your people talk of thieves taking their equipment and everything. If you ask me, there's something mighty strange going on that we don't know about."

Jupiter agreed with that. All his instincts as an investigator told him something strange was going on. But for the life of him he couldn't figure out what.

Disaster!

THE LITTLE sailing-boat moved briskly along, heeling over under a nice breeze.

The boys had the bay to themselves, with no other boats in sight except far to the south.

Soon they were docking at the pier on Skeleton Island. It was Pete's idea to ask Jeff Morton for permission to borrow two sets of Scuba equipment. They would have borrowed a set for Chris, too, but they knew Jeff wouldn't have agreed. Besides, Chris wasn't experienced in using Scuba equipment.

Jeff said they could take some equipment for practice diving, warned them not to try anything dangerous, and hurried off in the direction of Pleasure Park.

Pete and Bob got their face masks, flippers and other equipment from the locker in the motor-boat. As an afterthought they added two underwater flashlights. Then they rejoined Chris in the sailing-boat. Chris had his own face mask and was confident he could dive as well with it as they could with all their aqualung equipment.

The boys relaxed in the warm sunshine, lulled by the gentle bobbing of the boat.

After a time Bob saw they were heading towards the small island known as The Hand, where they had been so mysteriously marooned on their first night.

The Hand was about a quarter of a mile long and several hundred yards across. Now by daylight they could see that it was rocky and barren, uninhabitable. Bob looked for the spout of water they had seen that first night, but there was no sign of it.

He mentioned it to Chris. The Greek boy explained that the water was too quiet today. It only happened when the wind was blowing and the waves were rolling across the bay.

"Some kind of hole under island," he said. "Waves rush in there, blow out spout.

Like whale."

He sailed up to within a hundred yards of the mid-part of the island. Then he dropped sail and flung a small anchor overboard.

"Have to anchor out here," he said. "Low tide now, rocks are too close to surface.

Only at high tide boat can sail right up to the island."

With the boat bobbing at anchor, Pete and Bob put on their Scuba equipment and Chris produced an old but serviceable face mask. They eased themselves into the water.

Chris swam about fifty feet, then stood up. The water was only knee-deep.

"See?" he said. "Rocky reef here. Come on."

They swam over, found rock under them, and stood on a ledge about five yards wide. On the island side was a little bay with a sandy bottom, about twenty feet deep where they were. The bright sun showed the bottom quite clearly.

"In this bay I find two doubloons at one time last week," Chris said. "The other one I find near where you dive yesterday. Maybe we are very lucky today, find some more here."

They lowered themselves off the reef and Bob and Pete inspected the bottom, while Chris swam on the surface, peering down. They saw seaweed-covered rocks, starfish, and schools of small fish. There were lots of crabs going about their business in curious sideways motion. But nothing that looked like any treasure.

Pete signalled and he and Bob rose to the surface.

"This water isn't very deep," Pete said, removing his mouthpiece. "I don't think we should waste our air here. We may want to try somewhere else later. Let's take off the tanks and just use face masks, like Chris."

Bob agreed. They paddled to sh.o.r.e, stowed their Scuba equipment among the rocks, and swam back out to Chris. Then the three of them covered the entire length of the small bay, peering sharply down for the glint of gold.

They were not rewarded by any exciting discovery, however, and after a time they paddled in to sh.o.r.e to rest, warm themselves in the sun, and talk.

"Today no luck, I guess," Chris said, a bit disheartened. "I sure hope we find something. Father, he is more sick, needs care. Well, I know another place, I find gold piece once a long time ago. We go there and "

He paused, staring at something offsh.o.r.e. Then all three of them became aware of the sound of a powerful motor in the distance.