CHAPTER XIX
IN THE CAVE
Afterwards, when our adventure had come to an end and I was home again, with my stomach crammed full of Mother’s grand cooking and my left foot done up in arnica bandages, Dad asked me if I was the one who had thought up the ghost trick. I could tell from the tone of his voice that the trick didn’t stack up very high in his estimation, so I hastened to tell him the truth about the matter.
“I rather thought it was Scoop’s work,” he grunted. “Why do you always let that crazy kid do your thinking for you?” he followed up, “Why don’t you do your own thinking?”
“He has more ideas than any of the rest of us,” I explained lamely.
“Is this a sample of one of his most brilliant ideas?”
I didn’t say anything.
“If I had been your leader,” Dad proceeded, “I wouldn’t have aroused the whole camp with a crazy ghost trick. Instead, I would have quietly concentrated on the two kids in the big tent.”
I still didn’t say anything.
“The four of you,” the speaker went on, “could have handled Bid and the other kid without a particle of trouble, keeping them from sounding an outcry. But I don’t suppose you ever thought of such a commonplace scheme as that.”
“No,” I admitted.
In looking back I can truthfully agree with Dad to the point that our ghost trick was somewhat of a crazy mess. And the wonder to me is that it worked as well as it did. I don’t believe that any boy could fool me with a shallow trick like that. Still, a fellow should be slow to brag on himself ahead of time. For, in all truth, as I have found out from experience, it is hard to always foretell what one is liable to do if caught unprepared. And if I had been in Bid Stricker’s boots, so to speak, it isn’t improbable that I would have lost my head as completely as he did.
Anyway, to sum up, I have no regrets that we took the more exciting course of recovering the buried treasure as considered against the safer course. For we had fun … up to the point where the snapper got a whack at me. What we did that night makes better reading, I think, than what Dad would have done. So, as I say, with the interests of my story in mind, I am glad that Scoop, and not the elder, was the leader.
Well, as I left off in the preceding chapter, the snapper and I did a sort of spirited loop-the-loop down the sandy side of the hill. And having successfully skinned four noses and eleven elbows and seven ears, all of which belonged to me, we landed in a sort of tangle at the foot of the incline.
In the rough-and-tumble descent the snapper had cheerfully gagged up my leg, probably of the opinion that life in my company was much too exciting for one of its staid temperament. And as I sort of untwisted my arms and legs from around my neck, I was treated to a sight of my late toe crusher stiffly retreating to the water on long brisk legs. Its whole expression was one of outraged indignation. And I doubt not that to this day it tells its gaping grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren a pitiful story of how a sort of demonic combination of legs and arms and white nightshirt and rope hair tried to fiendishly murder it by stomping on it and rolling on it and stuffing its eyes full of scenery and sand burs. And in the times when I am abroad in the canal it isn’t improbable, in fancy, that I am the unknown target of many pairs of venomous young-snapper eyes, whose hard-shelled clannish owners haven’t forgiven me for what I did in cold blood to “poor old grandpop.”
But I should worry about “poor old grandpop.” For he certainly did a plenty to me.
As can be imagined I had made a much livelier and hence quicker descent of the hill than Bid Stricker and his galloping followers. And having been able to keep my senses in a bundle in the time that I was skidding through the sand burs, first on one ear and then on the other, I wasn’t more than a handful of seconds getting to my feet when I arrived, so to speak, at the end of the car line.
Somewhere on the whirling hillside, between me and the spinning moon, the enemy was shouting and pounding their way through the hazel brush. In view of their very determined and businesslike actions, it plainly was important to my safety, I decided, to do some brisk leg stretching in the direction of the rowboat.
But where was the blamed boat? I had lost all sense of directions. The moon, now sensibly quieted down, was the only thing within range of my eyes that was properly in place. Certainly the hill that I had just separated company with had turned itself around. I had accompanied the snapper down the east slope, yet here I was at the foot of the west slope—or was it the north slope? No matter, I wasn’t to be fooled. The hill had turned around and I knew it.
However, vague as I was on the points of the compass, I started off undaunted, following my nose. But unfortunately I wasn’t quite nimble enough to escape to cover ahead of the enemy’s lively eyes. They let out a chesty whoop at sight of me. And down the hill they galloped faster than ever … seven lumbering, baying, brutish hounds, I bitterly thought to myself, chasing one poor gentle fox.
I was in a path now. But it wasn’t, I quickly concluded, the path leading to the boat. It couldn’t be, I told myself steadily. For it was on the wrong side of the hill to be the right path. Nevertheless, thinks I, it is worth penetrating. So on I went with one good foot and what was left of the other one.
Hot dog! A miracle had happened. I was in the right path, after all. For up ahead of me was the entrance to the hermit’s cave.
The path at this point led along a sort of ledge, with a white sandstone wall on the right, into which the mouth of the cave was set. To the left was a drop of possibly twenty feet into a ravine.
Coming to the narrow ledge I slowed down. For I had no wish to lose my footing and end up in the rocky pit of the ravine. A moment later I wished with all my heart that I had gone into the ravine. For what do you know if I didn’t run smack into the killer!
Yes, sir, the warty-nosed piano tuner was in the cave, and when I skidded into the picture, so to speak, he stepped out and nabbed me. I don’t mean that he was rough about it. To the contrary, he was crammed full of oily politeness. But I wasn’t fooled by his smooth manners. For I could see behind his shell of politeness into a twisted mind and a blood-hungry heart.
Boy, was I ever scared! I had frightened Bid Stricker with silly talk about cutting initials on his gizzard. Now I thought to myself, in cold shivers, how about my own gizzard?
“And so,” the killer said softly, smiling into my bulging eyes with a sort of purring-cat expression on his wicked face, “we meet again.”
I didn’t say anything, for, in my scare, I had forgotten how to unhook my tongue.
“I trust,” he added, still purring and feeling of me with his mean eyes, “that you remember me.”
I nodded jerkily, swallowing to keep my heart down. In trying to back up, to get as far away from the other as I could, I pressed so hard against the cave’s white wall that it is a wonder that the stone didn’t crack.
The object of my horrified gaze sort of wound himself up for one of his long-winded speeches.
“In our other brief meeting, as I recall, I was in somewhat of—aw—frivolous talkative mood. That undoubtedly did not escape your attention. And for fear that you might harbor the erroneous impression, along with certain others with whom I have come in contact, that I am a man of idle, silly words and extravagant manners, and nothing else, I hasten, my young friend, in the interests of your continued welfare, to draw an illustrative parallel between myself and that universally treasured pet, the seemingly gentle house cat. The point is,” and his voice was steely now, “that even as the purring cat has hidden claws, so also may I!”
I saw what he meant. He was talking business and he wanted me to know it.
Letting his hidden threat have time to sink in, he added brusquely:
“You know what I want. If you’ve got it, come across with it,” and he held out his hand, rubbing his thumb and finger tips.
As I say, I was scared speechless.
“Well?” he followed up sharply, with a gesture of impatience.
I shook my head.
“You haven’t got the money?”
I gave my head another shake, shivering in the horror of his snaky touch as he quickly felt me over to make sure that I was telling him the truth.
“It embarrasses me,” he sort of hummed in his work, “to appear, in my actions, to doubt your veracity. That, I realize, as an ardent student of the science of psychology, is bad, very bad. However, business is business.… Who has the money?—one of your pals?”
I nodded.
“If I were of a prying nature,” he went on, “I might feel the impulse to press you for an explanation of how you arrived at your knowledge of the hidden money. However, that is neither here nor there.… I notice that you are without pants and hence without pockets.”
I nodded again.
“Is this the lock tender’s nightshirt?”
I answered with another nod.
“Great indeed will be his perturbation when he learns that he has lost a nightshirt as well as a piano leg and three pairs of choice bed sheets! A worthy old gentleman, though a trifle obtuse. Still, he played a most excellent game of checkers.”
At this point the Strickers tumbled into the cave, hot and panting, amazed to find me in the company of a strange man.
But Bid made short work of recovering his nervy gab.
“Hey!” he panted, jabbing his finger at me. “We want him.”
The killer, having eagerly searched the newcomers’ faces in the hope of finding my churns, smiled dryly.
“Who,” he inquired slowly, holding Bid’s eyes, “are ‘we’?”
The leader waggled and gestured.
“He tore our tent down, mister. You can come up the hill and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. We’re camping up there. And he came up on us when we were asleep.”
Jimmy Stricker got his shrill voice oiled up.
“He made us think he was a ghost.”
This gave the killer an explanation of my not ordinary appearance. And his peculiar smile deepened as he looked me over.
“Have you,” he inquired gravely, “been picking on these poor defenseless boys?”
I nodded.
“He said he was Anton Hackman’s ghost,” Jimmy put in.
“And who, may I ask, is Anton Hackman?”
The screechy one let out his neck in surprise.
“Didn’t you ever hear of him?” he countered shrilly. “You know what a hermit is, don’t you? Well, he was a hermit and he lived right here in this cave. Yes, sir, mister, he did. That was years and years ago. Some people tell that he was murdered. Others say he just died of old age and was ate up by the wolves. Anyway, he disappeared.”
The killer, in continuation of his cat-like smile, plucked one of my few remaining rope strands.
“A not bad imitation of hair, at that,” he mused.
Bid Stricker flushed.
“Huh!” he grunted, humiliated in the thought of how cleverly I had fooled him.
“The actions of you boys,” the killer spoke up after a moment, “would suggest to me that you are not the warmest of friends.”
“I should hope not,” Bid spit out, glaring at me. “We hate him.… Let us have him, mister,” he begged eagerly.
But the killer raised a hand in my protection.
“Do you happen to know,” he inquired of the gang’s leader, “if this boy’s companions are on the island?”
“Sure thing,” Bid blurted out. “We saw ’em.”
The killer’s eyes snapped at this information. Gone was the purring smile now. I shivered in the sudden change in the man. For I read his evil mind. He was going to get Scoop.
“I have important business elsewhere on the island,” he told Bid quickly, “and I am going to ask you to stay here and guard this boy until I return. However, much as you would like to do so, I caution you not to lay hands on him to mistreat him. For he is my prisoner. Understand?… I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Bid was on fire with curiosity.
“Who is he, Jerry?” he quizzed, when the killer had passed quickly from the cave.
I didn’t say anything.
“We can make you talk,” Jimmy Stricker put in.
“Seven to one,” I sneered.
The leader’s eyes hadn’t left my face.
“Who is he?” he pressed steadily.
“The King of Ireland.”
“I’ll ‘king’ you,” he darkened.
“Yesterday,” I said, “he was the Sultan of San Francisco.”
“I’d like to punch your head,” raved Bid.
Jimmy was dancing.
“Go ahead; go ahead,” he urged, pushing the leader’s arm.
But Bid, with an uneasy look at the cave’s entrance, shook his head.
“You heard what the man said.”
Jimmy is full of mean tricks.
“Anyway,” he hung on, wanting to work his spite on me, “we’ve got a right, as his guards, to tie him up,” and he came at me with a piece of rope that Scoop had left in the cave.
I tried to fight him off. I would have succeeded, too, if the others hadn’t pitched in and helped him. I was hot, let me tell you. I had no chance against seven. And, as I lay on the cave floor, bound hand and foot, I told myself that they’d get their pay for this.
Then, in the turn of my thoughts, I wondered what was happening outside of the cave. Had my chums been backed into a trap by the killer? Was the money forever lost to us? And had the triumphant thief also made off with the bonds?
I was miserable in the helplessness of my position and in our seeming defeat.
As the minutes dragged along and the killer didn’t return, the Strickers became impatient. One of them went outside to look around.
“Hey, Jimmy.”
“Well?”
“Come out here a minute.”
Bid’s cousin went outside to learn what the other wanted of him. There was an elapse of a minute or two. Then:
“Hib! Come here.”
Hib Milden went out. And pretty soon he called to a fourth one and the fourth one to a fifth. I began to wonder, in mounting uneasiness, what was happening out there where they were.
Leaving the seventh member of the gang on guard over me, Bid himself took a look outside to learn what had attracted his companions from the cave, one after another. And pretty soon he called out:
“Hey, Tom! Come here.”
I was now left all alone in the cave. Two—three minutes passed as I struggled with my bonds. Then a chuckle penetrated my anxious ears. It was Peg!
“Hi, Jerry,” old hefty grinned, coming into the cave. Whipping out his pocketknife he cut my bonds.
I got quickly to my feet.
“The Strickers are outside!” I cried in warning, expecting any moment to have the enemy rush into the cave.
Peg gave an easy laugh.
“Sure thing the Strickers are outside. Red and I have been having the fun of our lives roping and gagging them, one after another. Crickets, Jerry, I wish you could have been in on it! Red called them out and I took them in hand and held them while he put on the ropes and gags. Teamwork, eh?”
Here freckle-face strutted into the cave.
“Did Peg tell you?” he grinned at me.
I nodded, sort of dizzy in the whirl of things.
“Where’s Scoop?” I gasped, mindful all of a sudden of our leader’s absence.
“Collecting,” Peg said broadly, grinning.
“ ‘Collecting’?” I repeated, staring at him. “Collecting what?”
“Rowboats,” he added, in the same broad way.
I didn’t understand.
“It wouldn’t do us any good to escape from the island,” he explained, “if we left a boat behind. For the killer would then take after us.”
“You’ve seen him?” I cried.
“Sure thing,” Red put in.
“We saw him land in his boat,” Peg picked up. “And, as you hadn’t come into sight, Red and I followed him, to help you in case he tackled you. We saw him switch you into the cave. And we would have rushed to your rescue if the Strickers hadn’t come into sight. While we were debating what to do, the man came out of the cave and disappeared in the direction of his boat. Now was our chance, we said. And we got busy.”
“Guess we worked it pretty slick, hey?” Red bragged on himself.
“I’ll tell the world you did,” I cried. “But let’s get out of here,” I added quickly. “For the killer is liable to be back at any moment.”
Outside I was treated to a sight of the enemy, each one gagged with his own handkerchief and tied, wrists and ankles, with the ropes of the flattened tent.
“How do you like it?” I purred, looking down at Bid in warm triumph.
“Um-m-m-m-m!” he returned, chewing his gag.
“Untie the handkerchiefs,” Peg directed, starting to work. “For we should worry how loud they yell now. Our work’s done.”
While he and Red removed the gags I ran up the hill. For it had come to me suddenly that I had dropped my borrowed pants at the spot where the turtle had nabbed me.
“I don’t know whose pants they are,” I told the Strickers upon my return, “but here’s a nightshirt for the unlucky one. So long, Biddie ol’ dear! The next time you see a ghost you want to talk pretty to it and then it won’t harm you.”
Well, we scooted in the direction of the south shore, where it had been arranged that the leader was to wait for us with his collection of rowboats. On the way to the water I more than half expected to have the killer jump on us. But we saw nothing of him. Nor have we, for that matter, seen anything of him to this day. The Strickers tell the story that he came back to the cave, setting them free. Then he vanished. And it was well for him, I might add, that he did vanish. For the law was on the lookout for him the following day.
Scoop, in waiting for us off shore, had a string of four rowboats, the girl’s, which he and its owner were in, the Strickers’ two and the killer’s one, which we learned later was the lock tender’s. Anchoring the three towed boats a thousand feet or so from the island, where they would be discovered in the daylight, we started for home.
Coming to the channel we heard, behind us, the echoing beat of a gasoline engine. A boat was coming down the canal from the direction of the lock where we had been held prisoners. At first we detected nothing distinctive in the engine’s sounds. But it wasn’t many seconds before our red-headed engineer tumbled to the truth of the matter.
“It’s the Sally Ann!” he yipped, crazy.
The Sally Ann! Peg and I and Scoop stared at one another in stupefaction. It couldn’t be our boat, we said.
But it was.
We waited, in trembling suspense, until the scow overtook us. At sight of the tillerman I gave a gasp. The white-haired thief! The man who had tried to murder his wealthy brother!
Was he the “friendly ghost”?
“Grandfather!” the girl cried, standing up in the rowboat and stretching out her hands to the aged man at the tiller. “Grandfather!”