"Yes, and she's heading right over here," agreed Ed.

A little later the red and green lights came nearer.

Then, as the craft surged up to the stalled Dixie, and came to a stop, the engine still running with the clutch thrown out, a voice asked:

"Do you fellows want a tow?"

"Do we?" came in a chorus. "We don't want anything any more."

"Fling us your rope," was the curt order.

Unexpected help had arrived. But it was too late.

CHAPTER XXIV

DENNY'S SOLILOQUY

"What shall we do?" asked Cora, in a whisper.

"It _is_ rather a puzzle," admitted Bess.

The motor girls were standing outside Denny Shane's cabin, looking in on him as he sat at his ease, with the red oar over his knees.

"He doesn't seem to be in any danger," went on Cora.

"No, those men either haven't harmed him, or they haven't arrived yet," returned Belle.

"Oh, but suppose they should come while we are here?" suggested Marita, shrinking against Cora.

"Don't go to supposing such uncanny things," objected Cora, as she put her arm about the other. "Are you afraid?"

"I don't know," was the hesitating answer. "I suppose one ought to be afraid, coming at night to a cabin where some horrible men are expected. And yet, somehow, I don't seem to be," replied Marita. "I know I would have been a few months ago, but since I have met you girls, and seen the things you do, why it's queer, but really I--I rather like it!" and she laughed.

"See what your influence has done," whispered Cora.

They had all spoken in low tones, for Denny was sometimes sharp of hearing, and they did not want to arouse him.

The girls were really puzzled, not only at the peaceful surroundings at Denny's cabin, but at the absence of the boys. Of course they could not know that Jack and the others had been there and gone, not finding Denny at home. Nor did they know anything of the note left pinned to the door.

"Do you suppose it could all be over?" asked Lottie.

"All over? What do you mean?" asked Cora.

"I mean could the men have been here, and been captured by the boys and taken to jail?"

"Oh, it's possible, but not very probable," returned Cora. "They surely would have managed to get some word to us if anything like that had happened."

"But what are we going to do?" asked Bess. "We ought not to stay here."

"No, I suppose not," admitted Cora, slowly. "It might be a good thing, though, just to stop and speak to Denny. Then we'd know, soon enough, what had happened. Suppose we do that?"

The others agreed. They had stepped away from the window for a moment, but now Cora walked toward it again. Denny was still holding the oar, but he must have gotten up, for the window was now partly open, and it had not been so at first.

Denny was talking to himself. He was indulging in a soliloquy, apparently addressing himself to the oar.

"If you could only talk," he said, "if you could only talk, what a tale you could tell. Yes, indeed!" and he sighed. "A tale of the sea and the land--of calm and storms."

"He's very poetical; isn't he?" whispered Bess.

"Hush!" cautioned Cora. "Listen to what he says."

Denny was evidently in a talking mood, and was living the past over again.

"If only Grandfather Lewis were here, what tales he could tell, too,"

Denny went on. "And there's one tale I'd be glad to listen to. He could tell where the land papers were. If only I could find 'em everything would be all right, and the factory men--ha! we could laugh in our sleeves at 'em. Laugh in our sleeves! Ha! Ha! No, we could laugh in their faces, so we could; couldn't we?"

He held up the oar, speaking to it as one might to a favorite dog.

Denny swung it above his head, as though testing its weight as a club.

"'Twas so he swung it the night of the storm--the night he saved my life!" murmured Denny. "My, what a night that was! What a night!"

He seemed lost in recollection for a moment, and then resumed his self-communion.

"'Twas so he held it--held it out to me in the smother of foam and spray when I was goin' under. And what was it he said?

"'Grab holt!' says he. 'Grab holt and I'll pull you in. Don't be afraid, the oar is strong!' And so it is--a grand, strong oar. As strong as old Len Lewis himself. What a grand old man he was! A fine old man!

"But he's gone, and we all have to go. I'll have to go with the rest, I suppose. But before I do go I wish I could find them land papers.

What in the world did Grandfather Lewis do with 'em anyhow?

"They must be around here. He ought to have kept 'em in the bank, or in a strong box; but he was always like that. Hidin' his things away in curious places. He even did it with his tobaccy. A strange man!

"But I'll wager the papers aren't far from the land. That would be his way--to keep the papers near the land. 'A place for everything and everything in its place,' he used to say. What more natural than that he'd have the papers near the land?

"I wonder, though, did he stick 'em anywhere around me cabin? He come over here often enough to sit and chat. Ah, many's the good old talk we used to have--a talk of the old days. Often I'd come in from me boat, and find him here. He might have brought the papers an' hid 'em here when I was out. I wonder if he did?"

Denny looked around his simple cabin. He laid the oar down gently, as a thing revered. He walked about the room, looking in various places.

"No, the papers wouldn't be here," he mused. "I'd have found them before this. And those fellows, who came and upset my place when I wasn't home--they'd have found 'em if they was here. I wonder what Grandfather Lewis did with them papers?"

It was a puzzle that others than Denny Shane would have given much to solve.

Cora and her chums looked at one another in the moonlight outside Denny's cabin. His talk had revealed something to them, but there was no clue to the missing papers which could prove the t.i.tle of Mrs.

Lewis to the valuable land.