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The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune
The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune
CHAPTER I. – ON BRIG ISLAND
The sharp bow of Zenas Daniels’ green and red dory grazed the yellow beach on the west shore of Brig Island, a wooded patch of land lying about a mile off the Maine Shore in the vicinity of Casco Bay. His son Zeb, a lumbering, uncouth-looking lad of about eighteen, with a pronounced squint, leaped from the craft as it was beached, and seized hold of the frayed painter preparatory to dragging her farther up the beach.
In the meantime Zenas himself, brown and hatchetlike of face, and lean of figure – with a tuft of gray whisker on his sharp chin, like an old-fashioned knocker on a mahogany door – gathered up a pile of lobster pots from the stern of the dory and shouldered them. A few lay loose, and those he flung out on the beach.
These last Zeb gathered up, and as his father stepped out of the dory the pair began trudging up the steeply sloping beach, toward the woods which rimmed the islet almost to the water’s edge. All this, seemingly, in defiance of a staring sign which faced them, for on it was printed in letters visible quite a distance off:
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NO TRESPASSING!
Instead, however, of checking the fisherman, it caused old Zenas to break into a harsh laugh as his deep-set, wrinkle-surrounded eyes dwelt for an instant on the inscription. His jaw seemed to set with a snap, and his thin lips formed a narrow, hairlike line as a second later he saw something else. This was a stout wire fence, clearly of recent construction, which extended along the edge of the woods. Apparently it must have encircled the island, for it ran as far as eye could see in either direction.
“Waal, I’ll be dummed-gosh dummed!” snorted Zenas, his thin nostrils dilating angrily.
“Put up a fence now, have they?” he continued. “Waal, if thet ain’t ther beatingest! A passel of city kids ter come hyar and think they kin run things in Casco Bay!”
“I reckon thet fence ain’t goin’ ter hinder us powerful much, dad.”
“Waal, I swan not. Come on, Zeb, look lively with them pots; we’ve got ter git across ther island an’ back ez slippy ez we kin.”
But as father and son resumed their journey, the thick brush suddenly parted and down a narrow path a boyish figure came suddenly into view. The newcomer was a tall, muscular youth, with a face tanned to a healthy brown by constant outdoor life. His clean-cut figure and frank, open countenance formed a striking contrast to Zenas’ crabbed features and the shifty look of his son.