"You have seen the rest of our crowd, then!" cried Whistler earnestly, "haven't you, Missus?"
"No, no!" the old hag said, wagging her head. "Old Mag sees strange sights and knows more'n most folks. Oh, yes! Your little steamboat was blowed up by a big bomb in yon channel."
"It was blown up by a Hun mine," declared Whistler bitterly.
The old woman's eyes flashed at him threateningly. "What yo' mean by 'Hun'? Them that put that bomb there is just as good as yo' folks. I ain't got no use fo' Yankees yet."
"You don't call yourself a Southerner, do you?" asked the boy curiously.
"You're German. At least, your folks were," Whistler declared with conviction.
The woman scowled at him and said nothing more. When Whistler had finished helping her he moved his chair back from the fireplace, for the heat from the live coals was intense. He saw a scrap of torn paper upon the earth floor, near his foot.
His suspicions had been aroused now and he covered the paper with his foot until he could get a chance to pick it up without the old woman observing him. Having secured it he moved still farther back to the table. There was a smoky hanging-lamp over the board which gave him light enough to see by. Secretly he examined the torn paper.
It seemed to be part of a letter, and was closely written on both sides of the scrap. On one side was the beginning of the missive, and after a minute Whistler realized that it was written in German script.
At the head of the letter was a line that not alone amazed, but startled the boy. Coincidence often has a long arm, and in this case the adage proved true. The letter was addressed to
Whistler had been assured when he attended the session in the sheriff's office at home, before joining the crew of the _Kennebunk_, that the enemy alien named Franz Linder, who was supposed to have blown up the Elmvale dam, was an influential member of that band of spies that were doing so much harm in the United States.
It was surprising to find this scrap of a letter addressed to the spy in this island cabin off the coast of North Carolina. Yet it smacked of no improbability.
Whistler had heard the spy tell the skipper of the oil carrier, the _Sarah Coville_, that his work was done in that vicinity. Linder, or Blake as he was known at Elmvale, had naturally got well away from the neighborhood of the dam after it was blown up.