earn tell of how you city chaps didn't know much, but I did
s'pose you knowed more'n that!" cried the man. "You'll be kerried off if
you go down to Devil Island and try to chase the critter there. You'll
disappear, an' you'll never be heard of ag'in."

"We'll take our chances."

"Say, I want ter tell you something. We don't say much about it round
here, but most ev'rybody knows it. There was a man kem here this spring
from Boston. He heard about Devil Island being haunted, and he was jest
darn fool enough to want to go down there and see the spook. He went. He
got some lobster ketchers to set him ashore and wait for him. They
wouldn't go ashore with him, but they stayed in the boat reddy to take
him on when he got reddy to leave. He never left!"

"What happened to him?"

"Who knows? 'Bout half-a-nour arter he went ashore there was the
awfullest screech of agony come from somewhere on the island. Seemed
jest like a man givin' a death yell. It scart them lobster ketchers so
they rowed off a piece, but they waited till dark. He never come. Then
they rowed off, and nothing of that air man has ever bin seen sence."

"Didn't anybody go down to the island to see if they could find him? A
tree may have fallen on him, or something of that sort."

"There was six men went down from here two days arterward, an' whut do
you s'pose they found?"

"The man from Boston."

"Didn't I tell ye he hadn't never been seen sence! They found a new-made
grave!"

"What was in the grave?"

"They didn't wait to see, but they saw whut was at the head of the
grave."

"What was that?"

"A new granite headstone."

"Yes?"

"True's I'm here. It was cut out nice an' clean, an' on it was chiseled
some words."

"What were the words?"

"'Sacred to the mem'ry of Rawson Denning.'"

"Who was Rawson Denning?"

"That was the name the man from Boston sailed under!"

The cock-eyed man whispered the words, his effort plainly being to make
them as impressive as possible.

"Now," said Merriwell, "you have awakened my curiosity so that nothing
can keep me away from Devil Island. I wouldn't miss going down there for
anything. I simply dote on mysteries, and this seems to be a most
fascinating one. I am going to lay claim to it, and I'll wager something
that I solve it. Hereafter the mystery of Devil Island belongs to me
till I make it a mystery no longer."

"Waal, you are a fool!" snarled the cock-eyed man. "I told you this for
your own good