CHAPTER XIII
PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS
Rockman's Wharf was the center of the fishing activities of the town.To it, each day, the small fishermen came in their dories with theirday's catch. From it motor boats chugged off to the bigger boats mooredin the bay, some schooner was always tied to the gray piles waiting tobe overhauled or to be chartered for deep sea fishing. There was alwayssomething to watch on Rockman's, or someone to talk to. The fishingfolk spent their leisure hours loafing in the shadow of the long shed,smoking and talking; often the artists boldly pitched their easels andstools in everyone's way and painted a gray hull and a pink-gray sail,checkered with white patches, or a dark-skinned Portuguese bending tothe task of spiking shiny cod from the bottom of a dory and throwingthem to the wharf to be measured and weighed.
Sidney never failed to thrill to the changing scenes that Rockman'soffered. She had become, like Mart and Lavender and a score of otheryoungsters, a familiar figure on the old wharf. With the ease of a CapeCoder born she talked to the Portuguese fishermen and to the men whoworked in the shed and to Captain Hawkes, who when he was not on the_Mabel T_ sat on a leaning pile smoking and waiting for tourists toengage him. She knew the fishermen and their boats by name and was asinterested in how much old Amos Martin got for his beautiful catch asAmos himself. Rockman's knew her as "that summer gal of Achsa Green's.""She beats all for askin' questions," it agreed, smilingly. "Ain'tanything misses _that_ gal!"
Sidney certainly did not intend anything should. She had to make up forall the years she had not lived in Provincetown and if she watched andlistened closely she might some day catch up with Mart and Lavender.She sat on the wharf late one afternoon, dangling her bare legs overits edge, and watched the sails and the circling seagulls andeverything within sight and waited for Mart and Lavender to join her asthey had agreed. Lavender was running an errand for Cap'n Hawkes andMart had gone to Commercial Street for some candy.
It was too early in the day for the fishermen to come in. Sidney knewthat. For that reason a dory approaching Rockman's caught her eye. Init were two men, in oilskins and rubber boots. As it came near to thewharf a thickset fellow stepped out from the shed. Sidney had nevernoticed him before. And her eyes grew round as she observed that inplace of one hand he wore an iron hook. Like a flash there came to hera confused memory of stories she had read of high piracy andbuccaneers. She looked at the ugly hook and at the man and then at theapproaching dory and every pulse quickened and tingled. Without movinga muscle she leapt to attention.
Partly concealed as she was by the pile of old canvas the man did notsee her. Nor did the two in the dory notice her. As the dory bumped itsnose against the wharf one of the men threw a line to the man on thedock who caught it dexterously with the iron hook. He had evidentlybeen waiting for the dory. Then one of the two in the boat sprang tothe wharf while the other busied himself in shutting off the engine.
"'Lo, Jed. Good catch?"
"Yep. Good catch."
Not unusual words for Rockman's wharf but they rang with strangesignificance to Sidney, athirst for adventure. Why, there were not anyfish in the dory! And the man with the hook had called the other Jed!Jed Starrow! _It was Jed Starrow._ She peeked cautiously around the oldsails. Jed Starrow was tall and very dark and had just the rightswagger. If he had worn a gay 'kerchief knotted about his head,earrings, and a cutlass in his sash he would have been the pirate true;as it was easy for Sidney to see him like that in spite of hiscommonplace oilskins and his cap.
The two men walked slowly up the wharf, Jed Starrow a little in advanceof the other. The man in the dory, having shut off the engine, loungedin the bow of the boat and lighted a pipe.
Sidney sat very still until Jed Starrow and his companion were out ofsight. Then she climbed to her feet, slipped along the side of the shedand ran up the wharf until she could jump down on the beach. Here shewaited Mart's return.
Mart and Lavender came almost at the same moment, Mart with a bulgingbag of assorted and dreadful-hued candies. Mysteriously Sidney beckonedto them to join her in the seclusion of the beach.
"Whatever's happened?" mumbled Mart her mouth full of candy. "You actlike you were struck silly."
"I've found something out!" Sidney spoke in a sepulchral whisper thoughtheir voices could not have been heard by anyone on the wharf. "Lav,_who is Jed Starrow_!"
Lav stared at her in wonder.
"Why--why--he's Jed Starrow. That's all. Fellow 'round town. Owns the_Puritan_, that new schooner."
"I believe--" Sidney spoke slowly. "I believe Jed Starrow is a--pirate!"
At this Lav and Mart broke into loud laughter. But Sidney stood herground, not even flushing under their derision.
"You can laugh. But I know--I know--instinctively. I sometimes do knowthings like that. I guess it's an occult power I have. And, anyway,Cap'n Davies hinted as much."
"Oh, Cap'n Davies--he's always snoopin' round for trouble. We haveplenty of rum-runners and I guess lots of things get smuggled--but_pirates_--"
"Captain Davies distinctly _said_ pirates--" insisted Sidney who hadnot sufficient experience to properly classify rum-runners andsmugglers. Anyway, pirates sounded more exciting.
"What's started all this?" asked Lavender.
Sidney told of the landing of the dory and the man with the iron hookfor a hand.
"Oh, that's only Joe Josephs. He's a wrecker."
Mart was catching something of Sidney's spirit; in truth Mart wasunconsciously catching a great deal from Sidney these days.
"Well, he's certainly doing something _besides_ wrecking. It's been anawful poor season for wrecks and gran'ma says Joe Josephs' wife's beento her sister's at Plymouth and got a new coat and hat for the trip andshe hasn't had a new thing since Letty Vine give her her blue sergedress and that wasn't new."
"You see--" cried Sidney, exulting, "Joe Josephs has divided thespoils!"
"Oh, you girls are crazy! Why everyone in the town knows Jed Starrow.Don't you think everyone 'ud know if he was a pirate? He's lived hereever since he was born, I guess."
"But, Lav, it was so _funny_ for them to say just alike 'good catch'when they didn't have any fish at all! It was a password. Piratesalways have passwords."
"Prob'bly a code," jeered Lav, rocking with laughter. "You watch thesky anights; mebbe they use rockets to signal one another, too."
Sidney was still sufficiently stirred by the whole incident as to beable to tolerate Lav's stupidity.
"Of course I know pirates--even these days--wouldn't use rockets andcodes. I'm not as ignorant as all _that_. And I _am_ going to watch,day and night. It'll be easy for me to watch 'cause I'm a girl and noone will suspect what's in my head."
"I should say they wouldn't! Gee!" and Lav permitted himself a lastlong laugh.
"And you may change your tune yet," cried Sidney, really vexed, "WhenMart and I discover something."
"We'll both keep our eyes open!" Mart agreed, admiring Sidney'simagination even though she could not always follow it. "But we oughtto keep quiet 'bout our suspicions, hadn't we?"
Sidney hesitated. She _did_ want to tell Mr. Dugald about the "goodcatch." But Mart went on convincingly.
"If we told anyone we were on, y'see it might get to Jed Starrowhimself."
"That'd be the biggest joke in town," Lav warned, with a chuckle.
Sidney ignored him. "Of course we must not breathe a word of oursuspicions to a soul," she averred. "And if either of us finds outanything she must tell the other at once. I think we _will_ findsomething, too, for two heads are better than one."
"Say, are you going to leave me out of your fun--just 'cause I laughed?"
Sidney did not want to leave Lavender out but she did want to punishhim a little. She pretended to consider his question.
"If you find it all so highly amusing you might be tempted to tellsomeone--"
"What'ya mean? That I'd squeal on you? If you think _that_, well, Idon't wa
nt to be in on it--"
"Oh, Lav, of course I know you wouldn't squeal," cried Sidney,relenting. "And we _will_ need you to help find things out. Oughtn't weto have some sign or a word or something to sort of signal that one ofus knows something to tell the others? What'll it be--"
Mart scowled down at the sand. For the moment she was possessed with anenvy for Sidney's agile imagination, a disgust at her own stolidfaculties. Why couldn't _she_ think of things right offhand the waySidney could?
But it was Lavender who suggested the "signal."
"Hook!" he offered and Sidney clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, grand! No one would ever guess. And it sounds so shivery! Why,that man with the iron hook just _has_ to be a pirate!" Then shesuddenly grew embarrassed by her own enthusiasm. "It's different withyou two," she explained, "you've lived here all your lives and youdon't know what it's like to have to be a po--" She broke off,startled. One breath more and she would have revealed the truth toLavender and Mart. "Middletown is the pokiest town--there's nothingexciting ever happens there."
"I don't know as much exciting happens here. I s'pose enough happens,only you have to have something inside you that makes you _think_ itexciting, I guess." Which was Mart's initial step into any analysis ofemotion, but not her last.
Lavender turned toward the wharf. "I got to go and hunt up Cap'nHawkes," he announced regretfully. "So it'll be 'hook,' will it? Well,I swear from henceforth I'll watch every citizen of Provincetown to seeif he has a cutlass at his belt or a tattoo on his chest. Come on,girls--sleuths, I mean--"
"I do hope," sighed Sidney as she and Mart wandered homeward over thehard sand, "that one of us'll have to say 'hook' soon. Don't you?"
But in her heart Sidney had an annoying conviction that neither Martnor Lav took her pirate suspicions quite as seriously as she did. Atsupper Lav deliberately kept the conversation on Jed Starrow and hisactivities with a disconcerting twinkle in his eyes. Mart assumed thesame lofty tolerance of their secret game as she showed to their playon the _Arabella_--as though it were a sort of second-best fun.
"Well, I don't care," Sidney declared stoutly. To think of Jed Starrowas a wicked buccaneer and Joe Josephs, the wrecker, as his accomplicein piracy, satisfied her craving for adventure. For the next many daysshe let it color everything she saw, every word she overheard; theconnecting links she forged from her own active imagination.