“We’ll know in mighty short order now, for I can see lights out ahead there in the mist and I guess they come from the shanties on the Point. Some of their houses are built pretty well down on the beach,” said June.
Jack and Ray looked out past the bulging jib and saw tiny specks of yellow through the gray darkness. Others saw these pin points of light too, for a murmur went ’round the boat and the lads could hear the men gathering their clubs and mallets together. As for Jack, he had armed himself with a weighty cudgel which he had found in Mr. Williams’ woodshed and as the boat approached the beach he took a firm grip upon this formidable weapon. Ray had equipped himself in a similar manner, while June carried a stout looking hickory ax-haft.
Fortunately the boats approached Frenchman’s Point on the bay side and consequently there were no breakers to make landing difficult. Indeed, Old Mitchell ran the Betsy Anne head on for the beach and grounded her without making the slightest noise. Milliken’s boat arrived a moment later and in less than five minutes the entire posse was ashore and ready for action.
But few moments were wasted in getting the lay of the land, for most of the men knew Frenchman’s Point well enough to make any building there in any kind of a mist. That being the case, Warden Williams took the lead and in a jiffy the men were trudging through the sands as silently as so many specters. As they moved on up the beach the lights became more numerous and now and then the little band passed within a stone’s toss of one of the many dilapidated shanties that made up the colony.
Soon Jack found that they were proceeding down what appeared to be a street. There were shacks and shanties on either side and in one place there were strips of bark and pieces of old timber. This was evidently meant to serve as a sidewalk, but sand had blown up and covered it completely in many places. No one appeared to be awake about the place, for the men did not encounter a single person. Indeed, the only signs of life were the sparks of yellow light that glimmered through the mist and the muffled voices in the distance.
It was toward the point from which the voices sounded that Warden Williams led his followers. The lights of Fred King’s hang-out soon became discernible, and when they did the men proceeded more cautiously, some of them crouching low and moving along with stealthy tread, although there was no reason for such caution since the sand muffled their footsteps.
Once more Jack thrilled with the primitive instinct of the hunter. It did not take much of an imagination to conjure up feathered head-dresses instead of the so’westers the fishermen wore, and tomahawks and spears instead of clubs and mallets. Indeed, for the moment he felt exactly as if he had been transported back a century or more and was a member of an Indian raiding party about to swoop down upon a log cabin filled with settlers.
But he could not afford to give such thought playroom in his mind very long, for presently Mr. Williams halted the party and pointed out a low building not fifty feet distant. Light was glowing from its windows and above the shouts of laughter and the loud talking could be heard the discordant jangle of a dance hall piano.
“There’s Fred King’s place and from the noise I calc-late there’s a full house an’ plenty doin’,” said Mr. Williams. “Now, boys, surround the building and lie down in the sand until you hear things begin to happen. I’m goin’ to take four or five with me an’ kick my way into the place. Who wants to come along?”
Jack and Ray crowded forward with several others while the rest of the party started to surround the building.