The Phantom Town Mystery

“I reckon you’re right,” Jerry agreed.

Dick was regarding the gap speculatively. “If a fellow could throw a rope from the top of this leaning rock over to the house and make it secure somehow – ”

Dora teasingly interrupted, “I didn’t know, Doctor Dick, that you could walk a tight rope.”

“Oh sure, I can do anything I set out to!” was the joking reply. “However, I meant to walk across it with my hands.”

“It can’t be done.” The cowboy shook his head.

“Anyhow,” Dick declared, “you all wait here while I see how far up these old stairs I can climb. From the top I can better estimate how big a goat will be required to carry me over.”

“Dick,” Mary laughed, “I never knew you to be so nonsensical.”

Dora tried to detain him, saying, “If you succeed in climbing up to the top of this leaning rock, you might be directly opposite the open door of the rock house.”

“Well, what of it!” Dick was puzzled, for Dora’s expression was serious and almost fearful.

“That Evil Eye Turquoise might look right out at you!”

“Surely you don’t believe that yarn!” Dick smiled down at her from the first step, for he had started to climb. He reached up to catch at a higher step with one hand when he uttered a terrorized scream and fairly dropped back to the ground, his arm held out. Clinging to his coat sleeve, perilously close to his wrist, was a huge lizard, a Gila Monster, thick-bodied, hideously mottled, dull-yellow, orange-red, dead-black. It had a blunt head and short legs that were clawing the air. The girls echoed Dick’s scream. Jerry, leaping forward, gave a warning cry. “Don’t drop your arm!” Then the quick command, “Girls, get back of me!” Whipping out his gun, he fired. The ugly reptile dropped to the sand, its muscles convulsing.

Dora ran to Dick and pulled back his sleeve. “Thank heavens,” she cried, “he didn’t touch your wrist.”

“I reckon you’ve had a narrow escape all right, old man,” Jerry declared, his tone one of great relief. Then, self-rebukingly, “I ought to have warned you. Never put your feet or your hands anywhere that you can’t see.”

“Do you suppose there’s any poison in my coat sleeve?” Dick asked anxiously.

“No, I reckon not,” the cowboy said. “A Gila Monster packs his poison in his lower jaw and he has to turn over on his back before he can get it into a wound he makes.” Then, glancing at Mary and seeing that she still looked white and was trembling, he exclaimed, “Come, let’s go. I reckon it’s too hot in here at this hour.”

Dora, hardly knowing that she did so, clung to Dick’s arm as they waded through the sand to the gate.

“Oh, how I do hope we’ll never, never have to come to this awful place again,” Mary said. “To think that Dick might have lost his life here.”

“Well, I didn’t!” Dick replied. Then, with an effort at levity, he added, “Dora, you won! We did hear a gun shot.”

CHAPTER XX

INTRODUCING AN AIR SCOUT

As they were nearing Gleeson, Dick leaned forward and called, “Jerry, Dora and I were wondering if we ought to tell old Silas Harvey that we have found Little Bodil’s trunk?”

Not until the small car had climbed the last ascending stretch of road to the tableland and had stopped in front of the ancient corner store did he receive a reply. Then, jumping out, Jerry said in a low voice, “Mary and I have been talking it over and we reckon that we’d better wait awhile before telling.” Then to the girl on the front seat, “Shall I get your mail?”

“And mine! And mine!” a chorus from the rumble.

There were letters and papers but one that especially pleased the girls.

“Another bulgy-budget from Polly and Patsy,” Dora exulted.

“They’re our two best friends back East at Sunnybank-on-the-Hudson where I live.” This she explained to Dick as the little car started to rattle up the hill road through the deserted ghost town.

“I can tell you the rest,” Dick recited. “Polly is fat and jolly and eats chocolates by the box. Patsy is clever, red-headed and a boy-hater. Have I got it right? Anyway I’m sure that’s what you said the first time you told me about them. Oh, yes – all together you call yourselves ‘The Quadralettes.’”

“Righto. Go to the head of the class. Although you did draw one minus. Patsy is no longer a boy-hater. She’s met her conqueror. Or at least so their last letter reported. I’m wild to get home so that we may read this.” Then leaning forward, she called through the opening in the old top which covered the front seat, “Jerry, can’t you boys stay awhile? I’d like to share this letter with you and Dick.”

“Oh, yes, please do,” Mary seconded brightly. “I’m sure it isn’t time yet to milk that cow.” This was teasingly added, remembering what Jerry had said soon after the noon hour.

“You don’t have to plead, Little Sister,” Jerry smiled down into the eager, upturned face that looked so fair to him; “if it was time to milk the cow, I reckon I’d let the calf do it. We only need milk enough for the family and this morning Bossie was extra generous.”

When the Moore house was reached, Mary, anxious to see her dad, hurried indoors and went directly to his room. He had just awakened from his nap and looked so much better that Mary exclaimed gladly, “Dad, you’ll be sitting out on the porch next week. I’m just ever so sure that you will.” Then, to the nurse who had entered, “Oh, Mrs. Farley, isn’t Dad wonderfully improved? Don’t you think he’ll be well enough to go back East with me in October when school opens?”

“I’m sure of it!” the kind woman replied, then, dismissing the girl, she added, “It’s time for the alcohol rub, dearie. Come back at four and you may read to your dad until supper time.”

“Oh, I surely will.” For a long moment Mary’s rosebud cheek pressed the thin wan one she so loved, then she slipped away.

Dick had spoken with his mother a brief moment when Mary had first gone in and she had been pleased to see the deepening tan on his face. The boy had not told her of his recent narrow escape, as Jerry had called it when the Gila Monster had set its cruel jaws on his coat sleeve. Brave as he was, Dick could not recall the terror of that moment without experiencing it all over again. He was sure he would have nightmares about it for a long time to come.

When Dora tripped down from upstairs where she had been to tidy up, she found Dick waiting for her in the lower hall.

“Where are the two Erries?” she asked, then laughed as he looked mystified. “Mary and Jerry. Of course if it were spelled Merry, it would be better.”

“In the kitchen,” Dick replied. “I was told to guide you thence.”

They heard spoons rattling in glasses. “Oh, good!” Dora exclaimed. “That sounds like a nice, cool drink.”

Nor was she wrong. There at the table in the shady corner of the kitchen stood Mary mixing fruit juices she had poured from cans which Jerry had opened.

“Yum! Yum!” Dora exclaimed in high appreciation. “What is better than pineapple and strawberry juice and cold water from the spring cellar?”

“Sounds good to me,” Dick said, smacking his lips with anticipatory relish.

Mary called over her shoulder, “Dora, fetch some of Carmelita’s cookie snaps.” Then, as she placed the four tall glasses around the table, she added, “Sit wherever you want to. When the party is over, we’ll read the letter.” The refreshment lived up to its name and tasted even better than it looked. Dick, being on the outside, cleared away the things and Dora opened the letter.

The languid scrawl which so fitted Polly’s indolent personality was first in evidence, “Dear Absent Ones,” Dora read aloud —

“Greetings from Camp Winnichook in the Adirondacks – (so cool that we have to wear our sweater coats) – to the sizzling sands of desert Arizona.”

Then Patsy’s quick, jerky penmanship interrupted. “Crickets, just reading that made me wipe my freckled brow. Ain’t it awful? Those reddish brown dots that were so piquant on my pert pug nose have soared to my brow, spread to my ears, and dived to my chin. But, even with my beauty thus blemished, H. H. thinks I’m – ”

Big sprawling words cut in with, “It must be a case of love them and leave them then, for his winged lordship is about to fly away.” There was a blot of ink at that point as though there had been a struggle over the pen. Evidently Patsy had won, as her small scratchy penmanship followed. “Since H. H. is my friend, I consider it my sacred right to reveal all. Harry Hulbert, surely you remember all about him and his perfectly spiffy silver plane, which honestly looks like a big seagull. Oh, misery! I’m getting all tangled up. What I’m trying to say is that we had told you that he’s studying to be a pilot and that when he got his papers, he was to fly West and be an air scout. Well, he’s had ’em and he’s done gone! The whole object of this epistle is to introduce you to Harry before he drops down upon you. Heavens, I hope he won’t do it literally. Wouldn’t it be awful to have an airplane crash through your roof?”

Dora paused and looked glowingly across at Mary. “This flying Apollo is coming to Gleeson, I judge.”

Mary replied, “I’m terribly disappointed. Of course I knew it couldn’t happen, but I did wish, if he came, he could bring Patsy and Polly along with him.”

Jerry asked, “What’s this flying seagull going to do when he gets here?”

“He’s going to be attached to the border patrol,” Mary replied. “When there’s been a holdup, of a train or a stage, I suppose, Harry Hulbert is to fly over that region and watch for the escaping bandits.”

“Jolly!” Dick ejaculated. “That sounds like a great kind of an adventure to me. Jerry, let’s welcome him like a long lost brother; then, at least, he’ll take us up in his Seagull.”

Before the cowboy could reply Dora had continued reading, “Polly has told you that I’m goofy about H. H. but don’t you believe a word of it. I picked him out for you, Mary, so take him and be grateful.”

Dora wanted to look up at Jerry, but was afraid it would be too pointed, so she turned a page and exclaimed with interest, “Aha, here we have him in person. The Seagull’s photograph no less.”

It was an amusing snapshot. Under it was written, “Patsy Ordelle introducing Harry Hulbert to Mary Moore and Dora Bellman – also the ship.”

A pert, pretty girl with windblown hair and laughing eyes was pointing toward the youth at her side, who, dressed in flying togs, stood by his ship. He was making a bow, evidently to acknowledge the introduction, and so his face was not fully revealed. This was remedied by another snapshot of the boy alone standing with one hand on his graceful silver plane. Although not good looking, really, he had a fine, sensitive face, was slenderly built and had keen alert eyes.

“Now I’ll turn the mike over to Polly,” the pert handwriting ended. The languid scrawl took up the tale.

“Guess I was wrong about Pat’s being dippy about the silver aviator. He’s been gone two days and she’s been canoeing with ‘The Poet’ from ‘Crow’s-Nest-Camp’ up in the hills from dawn till dark and even by moonlight. For a once-was boy-hater, she’s going some.

“Well, say hello to Harry for us. He really is a decent kid. Write us the minute he lands. Wish I’d thought to send you a batch of fudge I’d made. Nuts are just crowded in it. Oh, well, up so near the sun it would probably have melted. Tra-la for now.

From Poll and Pat.”

Mary looked thoughtfully at, Jerry. “If Harry Hulbert left the Atlantic coast two days before this letter started, he must be in Arizona by now.”

“I reckon so. A mail pilot makes it in less than three days.”

Dora thought, “Poor Jerry, I ‘reckon’ he didn’t like that part about H. H. being donated to his Mary, but he isn’t going to say so, not Jerry!”

A small clock on the kitchen shelf back of the big stove made four little tingling noises. Mary sprang up. Holding out her hand to the cowboy, she said, “Stay for supper if you think the calf can milk the cow. I’m going to read to Dad for an hour. Then I’ll be back again.”

CHAPTER XXI

A POSSIBLE CLUE

At five, which was the invalid’s supper hour, Mary emerged from the living-room and heard excited voices from behind the closed door of her father’s study across the hall.

Dora, who had been listening for her friend’s footsteps, threw the door wide. Her olive-tinted face told Mary that something had happened even before Jerry exclaimed: “Little Sister, come here and see what Dick has found. We think it’s a clue.”

“A clue about Little Bodil here in Dad’s study?” Mary’s voice was amazed and doubting.

“Oh, it’s something Dick himself brought into the house. Don’t tell,” Dora implored the boys. “See if Mary can guess.”

The fair girl gazed thoughtfully at the other three. Dick, beaming upon her, was holding something behind his back.

“Hmm. Let me see.” Mary put one slim white finger against her head, as though trying to think deeply. Then she laughed merrily. “I’d like to seem terribly dumb and drag out the suspense for you all, but, of course, it’s as plain as the sun on a clear day. Dick only kept one thing from the trunk, and that one thing was a small carpet slipper. But I don’t see how that could possibly be a clue.”

“Very well, my dear young lady, we will show you.” Dick handed the slipper to her. “First, thrust your dainty fingers into its toe. Do you find a clue there?”

“No, I do not.” Mary was frankly curious.

“Now, turn the slipper over. What do you see?”

Mary turned the small worn slipper wonderingly and reported, “A loose patch.” Then, gleefully, “Oh, I know, Dick, that patch is some kind of coarse paper and on the inside of it, there’s writing. Is that it? Have I guessed right?”

“Well,” Dick confessed, “you know now as much as we do. We were just about to remove the patch when you came in. Jerry, let me take your knife. I left mine on a fence post over at Bar N.”

The four young people stood close to one of the long windows while Dick cut the coarse thread that held the patch.

“Oh, do hurry!” Dora begged. “Your fingers are all thumbs. Here, let me do that.” But Dick shook his head, saying boyishly, “It’s my slipper, isn’t it?”

“One more stitch and we shall know all,” Jerry said, then, smiling across at Mary, he asked, “What do you reckon that we will know?”

“I can’t guess what’s in the letter, of course,” that little maid replied, “but it can’t be anything that will tell us whether the child was eaten up by wild animals or carried off by bandits.”

The ragged piece of brown paper, which had evidently been torn from a package wrapping, was removed and opened. Although there had been writing on it at one time, it was so blurred that it was hard to decipher. Mary found a magnifying glass in her father’s desk. Dora, Dick and Jerry stood with their heads together back of the younger girl’s chair, and when they thought they had figured a word out correctly, Mary, seated at the desk, wrote it down. After half an hour, they had made out only two words of the message and had guessed at the blurred signature.

“lonesome – write – Miss Burger,Gray Bluffs,New Mexico.”

There were several other words which they could not make out.

Mary took the letter, spread it on the desk before her and gazed intently at it through the magnifying glass. Then, smiling up at the others, a twinkle in her eyes, she said, “This is it – perhaps.

‘Dear Little Bodil,

When you reach the strange place where you are going, you may be lonesome. If you are, do write often to your good friend,

Miss Burger.’”

“Well, I reckon that’ll do pretty nigh as well as anything else,” Jerry said. Then, glancing out of the window at the late afternoon sun, he grinningly announced that since the calf, by that time, had milked the cow, he and Dick would accept Mary’s previously given invitation and stay for supper.

“Oh, Jerry!” Mary stood up and caught hold of the cowboy’s arm. “I know by the gleam in your eyes that you think this bit of paper may be a clue worth following up.”

“Yes, I sure do,” was the earnest reply. “I reckon this Miss Burger, if we got the name right, was a friend to the little girl somewhere, sometime.”

“Shall we write to her now?” Mary dropped back into the desk chair. “If she’s living, she will surely answer.”

“But,” Dick was not yet convinced that it was a helpful clue, “how can Miss Burger know – ”

“Stupid!” Dora interrupted. “Of course Miss Burger won’t know whether Little Bodil was eaten by wild animals or carried off by bandits, but if the child lived, it’s more than likely, isn’t it, that she did write and tell this friend.”

“True enough!” Dick agreed. “But, Lady Sleuth, if Bodil wrote Miss Burger telling where she was, isn’t it likely that Mr. Pedersen also wrote the same woman telling where he was, and presto, his long search would be over. He would have found his child.”

“Oh, of course, Dick! You weren’t stupid after all.” Dora was properly apologetic. Then, she added ruefully, “Since this clue isn’t any good, we got thrilled up over it for nothing at all.”

Jerry spoke in his slow drawl. “I cain’t be sure the clue is no good until we’ve heard from this Miss Burger.”

“Well spoken, old man,” Dick commended. “If we could send a night-letter, we might have an answer at once, if – ”

“That ‘if’ looms large,” Dora commented dubiously. “There isn’t a telegraph office in this ghost town, and, moreover, Miss Burger may not be alive and if she is, wouldn’t she be awfully ancient?”

“Not necessarily,” Mary replied, glancing up at the others thoughtfully. “If Little Bodil is alive, she will be about fifty. This Miss Burger may have been a very young woman.”

“About that night telegram,” Jerry said. “We can have one sent out of Tombstone up to nine o’clock. What, say that we ride over there as soon as we’ve had supper.”

“Great!” Dick ejaculated. “There’ll be a full moon to light us home again.”

Mary sprang up and clapped her hands gleefully. “It will be jolly fun anyway. And it may be a good clue. Come on now, let’s storm the kitchen and help Carmelita. We ought to start as soon as we can.”

* * * * * * * *

It was early twilight when the faithful little car (that always seemed just about to fall apart but which never did) drew up in front of the combination blacksmith shop-oil station on the edge of Gleeson.

Seth Tully, one of the grizzled, leathery old-timers, hobbled out of a small, crumbling adobe building. It was evident that he was much excited about something and eager to have someone to talk to.

“Howdy, folks,” he began in his high, uncertain, falsetto voice, “I reckon as you-all heerd how a freight train was held up last night over in Dead Hoss Gulch.” Then, seeing the boys’ amazement and the girls’ dismay, he went on exultingly, “Yes, siree! Thar was bags of rich ore in one o’ them cars – the hindmost one, an’, time take it, if them thar bandits wa’n’t wise to it. The train allays goes durn slow along that steep grade climbing up out o’ the gulch. Well, sir, what did them bandits do?” The old man was becoming dramatic in his delight at having such thrilled listeners. “Dum blast it, if a parcel of ’em didn’t hold up the engineer and another parcel of ’em cut loose that hind car. Crash it went back’ards down that thar grade, jumped the track and smashed to smithers.”

“Oh, Mr. Tully,” Mary cried, “was anyone killed?”

The old man shook his head. “Nope, the guard wa’n’t kilt, but them bandits reckoned as how he was, ’totherwise they’d have plugged him. He come to, but they’d cleared out, the whule pack of ’em, an’ they’d tuk the ore with ’em.”

Dora, watching the old man’s glittering, pale-blue eyes that were deep-sunken under shaggy brows, thought that he seemed actually pleased about it all, nor was she wrong as his next remark showed.

“Say, Jerry-kid, that thar holdup smacks o’ old times. It was gettin’ too gol-darned quiet around these here parts. Needed suthin’ like this to sort o’ liven us up.” He ended with a cackling laugh that made Mary shudder.

When they were again rattling along the lonely, rutty road which led to Tombstone, the nearest town of any size, Mary, nestling close to Jerry, asked, “Big Brother, is Dead Horse Gulch near here?”

“No, Little Sister, it isn’t, and, as for the bandits, they’re over the border in Mexico by now, I reckon. Don’t you go to worrying about them!”

In the rumble seat, a glowing-eyed Dora was saying: “Dick Farley, what if this should be the same robber gang – oh, I’m trying to say – ”

“I get you!” Dick put in. “You’re wondering if the three bandits who held up the stage and may have kidnapped Little Bodil are in this gang. I doubt it. They’d be old fellows by now. It takes young blood to do deeds of daring.”

Dora’s eyes were still glowing. “Dick,” she said prophetically, “I have a hunch that this robbery is going to do a lot to help us solve the mystery about Little Bodil. I may be wrong, but, you may be surprised.”

CHAPTER XXII

AN INTERESTING ARRIVAL

The road to Tombstone was narrow, rutty and lonesome. Every now and then it dipped down into a gravelly wash, arroyos in the making, that were, year after year, being deepened by the torrents that rushed down the not-distant mountain sides after a cloudburst. Along the banks of these dry creek-beds grew low cottonwood trees, making shelters behind which bandits might lurk if they were so inclined. But the girls, having been assured by Jerry that the train robbers had long since crossed the Mexican border, were not really fearful. For once, even Mary was not using her imagination to a frightening extent.

“Big Brother,” she said, “I was just thinking about that aviator friend of Patsy’s. Don’t you think it must be wonderful to be flying at night up under those lovely white stars? They look so close to the earth here in Arizona as though Harry Hulbert might almost have to weave his way among them.”

Jerry, evidently more desirous of talking of stars than of the aviator of the “Seagull,” stated matter-of-factly, “It’s the clear air here that makes the stars look so large and close – sort of like lanterns hung in a blue-black roof over our heads.”

Just then a huge star shot across the heavens leaving a trail of fire. Mary whirled to call back, “Oh, Dora, did you wish on that shooting star?”

“Nope! Didn’t see it!” was the laconic reply.

“Did you?” Jerry asked in a low voice. How he hoped Mary had echoed his wish, but what she said was, “Yes, I hoped the Seagull would make a safe landing. It must be terribly dangerous landing among so many mountain peaks, or, one might even be forced down in the middle of a barren stretch of desert, oh, miles from water or anyone!”

If Jerry were disappointed, he made no comment. Dora leaned forward to call, “From the top of the next little hill we’d ought to be able to see the lights of Tombstone, hadn’t we, Jerry?”

“I reckon we will, lest be the power plant’s out of commission.”

The rather feeble lights of the rattly old car did little to illumine the well of darkness in which they were riding. The wash they were crossing was wide and deep and the girls were both glad when they climbed that last little hill and were nearer the stars again. From the top, they could see the black wall of mountains to the distant right of them, which Jerry had called “The Dragoons.” A desert valley at its foot stretched away for many miles shimmering in the starlight. Not far ahead of them was a cluster of sand hills – “the silver hills” – on which stood the small mining-town of Tombstone. The power plant was in order, as was evidenced by the twinkling of lights. A friendly group of them marked the main street, and scattered lights, farther and farther apart, were shining from the windows of homes. Down the little hill the car dropped, then began the last long climb up to the town.

On the main street there were unshaven, roughly dressed men, some from the range, others from the mines, loitering about in front of a lighted pool hall. They were talking, some of them excitedly, about the recent train robbery. Jerry drew his car to the curb and leaped out. Three young cowboys called a greeting to him. He replied in a friendly way, but turned at once to assist Mary. Dick and Dora followed the other two into a low adobe building labeled “Post Office.” A light was burning in a small back room. Jerry opened the door and entered. A middle-aged man, whose gauntness suggested that he had come there to be cured of the “white plague,” smiled affably. “Evening, Jerry-boy,” he said. “Wait till I get this message. The wires are keeping hot tonight along of that train robbery.”