“Pile in any old way and make yourselves as comfy as you can,” said Billie, from the chauffeur’s seat, while seven boys and girls packed themselves into “The Comet” as tightly as sardines in a box.

“Ben, I look to you to take good care of my girls,” called Miss Helen Campbell, from the front door steps of her home. “And all of you promise me three things: Don’t go too fast; don’t stay too late, and don’t go too far.”

“We promise,” came eight voices in a chorus.

“Good-by, Cousin Helen, dearest,” called Billie, kissing her hand affectionately to the little lady who was fast coming to fill an aching void in Billie’s heart.

“Good-by, Miss Campbell,” called the others, while she smiled and bowed and waved her handkerchief like a favorite actress before an enthusiastic audience.

What a difference the young people had made in her life, she thought, as the carload of boys and girls flashed down the street and the sound of their talk and laughter, growing fainter and fainter, floated back to her like a pleasant memory.

It was a real seaside October day. Nothing could have been bluer than the bay, unless it was the sky. A warm, dry land breeze swept over the moors about West Haven. Wild asters and golden rod colored the roadside, and the stillness of Indian summer pervaded the whole country.

“There was no need of the top to-day,” observed Billie, looking up at the cloudless sky. “I am glad we decided not to put it on. We might as well have left the rugs and wraps behind, too. They take up room and won’t be used, I am certain.”

“I hope not,” answered Ben. “I see only one cloud on the horizon and that’s no larger than a man’s hand; but clouds do grow.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Rain-in-the-Face,” exclaimed Percy. “The last time you looked into the future we had a fire.”

“All right, dummy,” answered his friend. “I am not predicting anything. I only mentioned the possibilities of a very small cloud. And the night of the Shell Island fire I said what certainly proved to be perfectly true—that the hotel was a regular fire trap.”

“Are you really a good weather prophet, Ben?” asked Billie anxiously. She did not like to have her parties turn out disastrously.

“He—he’s the poorest ever,” cried Merry.

“Don’t go on what he says, Billie,” put in Percy. “The last camping trip we went on, he predicted fair weather and it rained for a week.”

“Well, just to prove that I know what I’m talking about,” cried Ben, “I predict that it rains before night.”

This unpopular prophecy was greeted by hoots of derision from the others.

“What makes you think so, Ben?” asked Elinor. “It’s as clear as a bell now.”

“Certain signs,” he answered.

“Now, Ben Austen,” ejaculated Nancy. “Don’t go spoil our day before it’s begun. You know just as well as I do that it’s Indian summer, and it never rains in Indian summer.”

“Never, Miss Nancy-Bell?” repeated Ben, smiling. He minded as little being teased by his friends as a big, good-natured dog minds the antics of a lot of puppies.

“All right, Big Injun Ben,” said Merry, “let it rain before night. We’ve got a good many hours to enjoy ourselves in and get home, too, before dark. We’ll be at the ferry-boat landing in an hour, and if we’re lucky enough to catch the boat, we’ll reach Seven League Island by eleven o’clock. That will give us plenty of time to eat everything in sight, see Smugglers’ Cave, and all the other sights, and get home by seven o’clock.”

“Of course, we can,” replied Ben. “I was only teasing Percival Algernon St. Clair, because he hates the rain worse than poison. I never saw a finer day in my life.”

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Billie, in tones of relief. She really had great faith in Ben’s judgment about most things.

Seven League Island, a rocky strip of land some twenty-one miles long, was one of the most romantic places in the vicinity of West Haven. It was three miles from the mainland and, during the season when the summer resorts and camps which clustered on its shores were open, several ferry-boats carried passengers back and forth from the mainland to the island. In winter the place was almost deserted. The land was too poor for farming and few people cared to remain on that lonely, mournful island, where, in stormy weather, the waves thundered through the caves in the cliffs, and the wind in the pine trees made a mournful sound like the wail of a lost soul.

To-day, however, it was as serene and smiling as the Islands of the Blest. The southwest wind stirred the pine needles gently, making a pleasant quiet song. The tiny waves, as they lapped the sides of the ferry, gave out a “cloop, cloop” sound that still water makes against the bow of a canoe.

“What time does the last ferry go back, Captain?” asked Ben, of the old ferryman, whose face was as weather beaten and seamed as the hide of a hippopotamus.

“Six, in good weather.”

“What time in bad?”

“Depends on the weather,” answered the old man briefly.

“How many other ferry stations are there?” asked Charlie.

“Three.”

“Good,” exclaimed happy-go-lucky Americus Brown. “We’ll take the one that’s nearest when the time comes to go back and ride before the wind, and beat the rain and put old Ben out of business as a weather prophet.”

The ferryman said nothing, but his small eyes twinkled with amusement.

They were the only passengers on the boat that trip, and as the motor whirled up the hard-beaten road from the ferry landing, they noticed that the bungalows and summer cottages along the shore were closed for the season.

“It’s because it’s so hard to get food,” Percy explained. He had once visited some friends at Flag Point, the first settlement, and was to be their guide this morning to the great cave, which had been used, it was said, in the days when smugglers were common in the land.

The others were familiar only with the shore, where they had come on bathing and fishing excursions, and the boys and girls were eager to explore the rocky caverns, the fort, the little inlets, where pirates were supposed to have anchored their ships, and above all the smugglers’ cave, which Percy told them was a great vaulted chamber in the rocks, with an entrance no broader than a narrow door.

“Take the road going to the right,” called Percy, as Billie paused at the top of the cliff for directions. “It’s the best one for motoring and it goes past the old rifle-pit where we can eat lunch. We can leave the car there and climb down to the caves afterwards.”

“The Comet” turned obediently to the right and shot down the interminable expanse of empty white road, like a shooting star on the milky way.

Even Mary, who had been pale and silent all morning, regained her spirits on that glorious ride, when Merry, with head thrown back, began to sing:

“The sailor’s wife the sailor’s star shall be,
Yo-ho, yo-ho-ho, yo-ho, yo-ho-ho!”

and she joined in the chorus with the others, her clear, sweet voice piping out like the notes of a field lark in a chorus of birds.

At last Billie pulled up at the side of the road under a cliff, on top of which was an old grass-grown fort used during the Indian wars.

“This must be it,” she said. “It’s peaceful enough looking now to make a good picnicing ground, but I don’t suppose it was much of a picnic for the people who built it to shoot Indians from.”

“Nor much of a picnic for the Indians, either,” said Ben, helping Billie out while Charlie Clay assisted the other girls to the ground and Percy and Merry unstrapped the luncheon hamper.

“Let’s eat up high,” suggested Billie. “That is, if you can carry the basket up that steep incline.”

“The pack mules are here for that work,” said Ben, pointing to Merry and Percy. “Charlie, you bring the rugs for the ladies to sit on and I’ll help the ladies.”

“Will you listen to Nervy Nat,” cried Percy, as he obediently shouldered his end of the luncheon hamper and followed Merry up the hill.

How they laughed and scrambled and shoved as they clambered up the pebbly path. Once Mary, with a shrill cry, slipped and stumbled back on Nancy who fell against Charlie, who, in his turn, tumbled against Ben, and that pillar of strength, grasping a branch of a pine tree with each hand, supported the whole human weight without a tremor.

It was like picnicing in the tops of the trees, when they finally spread the cloth in the grass-grown enclosure of the fort, and beyond them stretched the entire expanse of the ocean glimmering blue in the sunshine, with an occasional ship outlined on the horizon.

“I hope the ginger ale is still cold,” cried Merry.

“And the mayonnaise hasn’t melted,” said Nancy.

“What, nothing to eat but victuals and drink?” exclaimed Percy.

When they had waded through the piles of sandwiches and pyramids of cake, and drained the last drop of ginger ale, silent Charlie, who had an enormous appetite, remarked:

“How hungry this piney-salty combination does make a fellow!”

“Why, Charlie,” said Billie, “don’t say you are still hungry. You remind me of the elephant in Merry’s song:

“‘The elephant ate all night,
The elephant ate all day,
And feed as they would, as much as they could,
The cry was still more hay.’”

Charlie pulled out his mouth organ and began to play such a rollicking dance tune that the boys and girls, almost before they knew it, were two-stepping over the grass as madly as a lot of wild young colts. Then Charlie, seizing Mary about the waist and still playing vigorously on his “harp,” as it was called in that section, joined the dancers himself.

If they had not all of them been so absorbed in executing the Dutch twirl, or racing over the ground like Cossack dancers on the Russian Steppes, they would have been somewhat disturbed to have seen a man peering down at them from the top of a mound. He had crawled up the steep incline and was lying flat on his stomach in the tall grass. His face is familiar enough to us by now, for he had only one eye, but that one, like the eye of the three mythological witches, gleamed brilliantly and wickedly and nothing escaped its range. He smiled as if he rather enjoyed watching the dancers, and especially his one wicked eye followed the movements of Ben and Charlie and Billie Campbell. Presently when the whirling couples had tumbled breathlessly on the grass, fanning themselves with their hats and Ben had called out: “We’d better be getting along now,” the man slipped away as silently as a snake and disappeared somewhere below.

“To the caves,” cried Percy, as they gathered up the rugs and cushions and hastened down the cliff to the motor.

“I suppose it’s safe to leave ‘The Comet’ here without any one to look after him,” Billie had observed, and the others had agreed that it was.

“As safe as on any other desert island,” Ben had answered.

It seemed impossible that anything could happen in that lonely, quiet place, which was like a deserted paradise to the girls and boys that beautiful afternoon. There was nothing about the locality or the weather to arouse uncomfortable suspicions. The patch of sky, which was revealed to them just overhead between the tall, straight pine trees, was like a beautiful deep blue canopy. Even the watchful Ben could not have told that the cloud, so short a time ago no larger than a man’s hand, now stretched itself across the horizon in a long, thick line of black.

“The caves are the most fun of all,” said Percy, leading the way to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. “There are dozens of them, some little and some very large. The lower ones fill up at high tide, but the upper ones are safe enough.”

The cliff was honeycombed with small rocky chambers, and as they clambered, Indian file, along the narrow path which nature had so thoughtfully cut in the rocks they heard the boom of the incoming tide thundering through the caves on the beach.

“I suppose people could live in these little caverns,” Percy continued, “if it wasn’t so all-fired lonely and inconvenient; but wait until you see Smugglers’ Cave. It has as many natural conveniences as a real house built by human beings.”

“Here it is,” he cried at last, to the others who had run all the way down a steep embankment to see this romantic place.

Certainly it might well have been a favorite spot for smugglers and robbers on the high seas. Too high for the tide to reach and still well hidden from above by a thick growth of scrubby pine and oak trees, the cave was as secret and safe a place as could be imagined. Rock-hewn steps led up from the smooth pebbly beach below and the curve of the coast made a charming little haven for ships and a natural landing place for small boats. The eight friends stood in a row on the beach.

“This is called ‘Pirates’ Cove,’ you know,” went on Percy. “They say the pirates used to anchor their ships in this little haven and come ashore and have pirate tea parties on the beach.”

“Here comes a sea rover now,” called Merry, scanning the entrance to the harbor where a ship could be seen outlined against the blue.

“Oh, she isn’t coming this way, Old Tar,” answered Percy. “It’s too late in the season, for yachts and ships rarely come in here unless there is a storm. There’s nothing to come for and it takes them out of their course.”

“She’s headed this way,” continued Merry, not taking any notice of Percy’s interruption, while he scanned the ship with his far-seeing sailor’s eyes. “She’s a brigantine, and she’s making for this cove.”

“Oh, well, what of it?” put in Billie. “Perhaps she is coming here for the rest cure. But she doesn’t interest me half as much as Smugglers’ Cave. Let’s not waste any more time here,” and she ran up the steps, followed by the others.

The entrance to the cave had been as cleverly concealed as if nature had conspired with the outlaws to provide them with a safe hiding place for their contraband goods. The steps appeared to lead to nothing more than a blank wall, but, following Percy around the edge of an enormous rock which, in ages past must have slipped its fastenings above, they presently came to a narrow opening between the rock and the side of the cave, just large enough for a man to go through.

“The smugglers must have had to do up their bales of silk pretty flat to get them through here,” said Ben, measuring the opening with his handkerchief, as he stooped to keep from bumping his head on the top.

“How beautiful! How wonderful!” cried the four girls, when their eyes had become used to the change from the brilliant sunlight outside to the semi-twilight of the great vaulted chamber where they now found themselves.

“Now, I’ll show you what a jim-dandy architect nature is,” said Percy. “Here’s the bathroom. No hot water, of course, but a perfectly good tub and cold water always on tap.”

He pointed out a natural basin, probably worn in the rocks by the constant dripping of water from a spring that trickled down the wall of the cave.

“Here’s the bedroom, that nice, comfortable shelf over there. Here’s your easy chair,” he continued, showing them a curious formation of rocks really resembling a big armchair with a high back.

“It’s a rocky chair and not a rocking chair,” observed Charlie, taking a seat and rising quite suddenly. “Nature is as mischievous as a little boy if she is a good architect. Look at this,” and he pointed to a very sharp, almost needle-like, piece of stone in one corner of the seat.

The others laughed gayly as they hurried after Percy and a hundred reverberating echoes startled them into silence.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I have saved the most interesting sight for the last. You are about to see the store-room of the smugglers.” He led the way down two steps into another chamber.

“By Jove!” he cried suddenly and stopped short.

“What is it?” exclaimed the others, peering over his shoulder into the darkness.

“Don’t you see?” he said, in a low voice. “They are still using it for a store-room.”

They blinked their eyes with amazement, when presently there loomed up in the shadows a pile of long, flat packing boxes.

Ben lit a candle, which he had thoughtfully brought along in his coat pocket, and they examined the boxes, which crowded one entire end of the smugglers’ store-room.

“Will you look at this?” he called. “Elinor, you are in this.”

Ben held the candle high and pointed to a sign on the nearest box, which read: “Automobile Supplies—Butler Brothers—West Haven——”

“Why,” cried Elinor, “you surely don’t suppose Uncle Tom and Uncle Richard could be storing their goods here, do you?”

No one answered her for a moment. Their thoughts were busy searching for an explanation to this strange discovery.

“Elinor,” said Mary presently, “don’t you remember what those men who borrowed Billie’s automobile said about killing every Butler in the county who interfered?”

“Yes,” said Elinor, in a frightened voice, “but what could these boxes have to do with it?”

“They may have a great deal,” said Ben. “Those men are probably smuggling your uncles’ auto supplies out of the country. The boxes are smuggled up to this cave by degrees, I suppose, and then loaded on some ship when they have got enough to make it worth while. And, if it’s the same man we had dealings with that night, he is a pretty desperate kind of an individual.”

“I don’t want any more fights,” exclaimed Billie. “Both of those men carried pistols and knives; I suppose all first-class smugglers do, but I don’t propose that my party is going to be ruined by any bloodshed. It is getting late, and we had better be going.”

They quite agreed with Billie, although the boys would have liked to linger in the Smugglers’ Cave for a while.

The outer air seemed very warm and oppressive after the cold damp atmosphere of the cave. They blinked their eyes and shivered as they hurried along the path which led to the road and in the change from dark to light they did not at first notice that the sun was hidden by a great cloud, as black as ink, which stretched from horizon to horizon. A hot, heavy wind stirred the pine needles and that sense of impending trouble which always comes before a great storm sobered the spirits of the boys and girls.

Nobody spoke of the cloud. It seemed to be a question of honor with them not to mention it, but they hurried on silently, and in a few minutes reached the automobile.

With a sigh of relief, the four girls were about to jump in, while Ben cranked up, when suddenly Nancy gave a little, pent-up scream.

“Look!” she cried, pointing to a piece of paper stuck on the cushion of the back seat.

This message was printed with a lead pencil on the paper:

“He laughs best who laughs last.”

“It was that man,” said Billie, examining the tires ruefully, each one of which had been slashed with a sharp knife.