FullReads

“‘Going out to my–‘ He stopped. I s’pose the truth choked him. ‘I was going to Provincetown,’ he went on. ‘Got any gasoline?’

“‘What in the nation you starting to Provincetown in the middle of the night for?’ I asks, innocent as could be.

“‘Oh, thunder! I had business there, that’s all. GOT ANY GASOLINE?’

“I made my skiff’s painter fast to a cleat on the launch and climbed aboard. ‘Gasoline?’ says I. ‘Gasoline? Why, yes; I’ve got some gasoline over on my power-boat out yonder. Has yours give out? I should think you’d filled your tank ‘fore you left home on such a trip as Provincetown. Maybe the pipe’s plugged or something. Have you looked?’ And I caught hold of the handle of the cabin-door.

“He jumped and grabbed me by the arm. ”Tain’t plugged,’ he yells, sharp. ‘The tank’s empty, I tell you.’

“He kept pulling me away from the cabin, but I hung onto the handle.

“‘You can’t be too sure,’ I says. ‘This door’s locked. Give me the key.’

“‘I–I left the key at home,’ he says. ‘Don’t waste time. Go over to your boat and fetch me some gasoline. I’ll pay you well for it.’

“Then I was sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked, but not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was bolted ON THE INSIDE.

“‘All right,’ says I. ‘I’ll sell you the gasoline, but you’ll have to go with me in the skiff to get it. Get your anchor over or this craft’ll drift to Eastham. Hurry up.’

“He didn’t like the idee of leaving the launch, but I wouldn’t hear of anything else. While he was heaving the anchor I commenced to talk to him.

“‘I didn’t know but what you’d started for foreign parts to meet that Newport girl you’re going to marry,’ I says, and I spoke good and loud.

“He jumped so I thought he’d fall overboard.

“‘What’s that?’ he shouts.

“‘Why, that girl you’re engaged to,’ says I. ‘Miss–‘ and I yelled her name, and how she’d gone abroad with his folks, and all.

“‘Shut up!’ he whispers, waving his hands, frantic. ‘Don’t stop to lie. Hurry up!’

“”Tain’t a lie. Oh, I know about it!’ I hollers, as if he was deef. I meant to be heard–by him and anybody else that might be interested. I give a whole lot more partic’lars, too. He fairly shoved me into the skiff, after a spell.

“‘Now,’ he says, so mad he could hardly speak, ‘stop your lying and row, will you!’

“I was willing to row then. I cal’lated I’d done some missionary work by this time. Allie’s guns was spiked, if I knew Barbara Saunders. I p’inted the skiff the way she’d ought to go and laid to the oars.

“My plan had been to get him aboard the skiff and row somewheres– ashore, if I could. But ’twas otherwise laid out for me. The wind was blowing pretty fresh, and the skiff was down by the stern, so’s the waves kept knocking her nose round. ‘Twas dark’n a pocket, too. I couldn’t tell where I WAS going.

“Allie got more fidgety every minute. ‘Ain’t we ‘most there?’ he asks. And then he gives a screech. ‘What’s that ahead?’

“I turned to see, and as I done it the skiff’s bow slid up on something. I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and tilted; a wave caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me and Allie and the skiff was under water, bound for the bottom. We’d run acrost one of the guy-ropes of my fish-weir.

“This wa’n’t in the program. I hit sand with a bump and pawed up for air. When I got my head out I see a water-wheel doing business close along-side of me. It was Allie.