Norton Carol
The Phantom Town Mystery

CHAPTER X
A LONELY MOUNTAIN ROAD

While the four young people ate the delicious chicken sandwiches which Mrs. Newcomb had prepared for them and drank creamy milk poured into aluminum cups from a big thermos bottle, they sat gazing silently about them, awed by the terrific majesty of the scene, the girls not entirely unafraid. Below them was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to a desert floor which was most uneven, having been cut up by torrents, which, during each heavy rain, were hurled down the mountain sides.

The effect of the desert for miles beyond was that of a little “Grand Canyon.” Dora, thoughtfully gazing at it, said, – “In a few centuries, other girls and boys will stand here, perhaps, and by that time those canyons will be worn deep as the real Grand Canyon is today, won’t they, Jerry?”

“I reckon that’s right,” the cowboy replied.

Then Mary asked, “Jerry, is this old dangerous mountain road the very same one that the stages used to cross years ago?”

Jerry nodded, but before he could speak, Mary, shining-eyed, rushed on with, “Oh, Dora, I know why the boys have brought us here! This is the road where the three bandits held up the stage that Sven Pedersen and poor Little Bodil were riding in.”

“Of course it is!” Dora generously refrained from telling her friend that she had been convinced of that fact ever since they began climbing the grade.

Glowing blue eyes turned toward the cowboy. “Oh, Jerry, have you any idea where the exact spot was; where the bandits shot the driver, I mean, and where the horses plunged over the cliff and where that poor little girl was thrown out into the road?” Excitement had made her breathless.

Jerry’s admiring gray eyes smiled down at the eagerly chattering girl. “I reckon I know close to the spot. Silas Harvey said it was just at the top of Devil’s Drop, and – ”

Mary interrupted, horror in her tone, “Oh, Jerry, what a dreadful name! What is it? Where is it?” She was gazing about, her eyes startled. The road disappeared fifty feet ahead of them around a sharp curve. For answer Jerry started the motor, then, joltingly and with cautious slowness, the small car crept toward the curve. Unconsciously the girls were almost holding their breath as they gazed unblinkingly out of staring eyes at the wall of rock around which the road was winding.

When they saw “Devil’s Drop,” a bare, granite peak, up the near side of which the old road climbed at an angle which seemed but slightly off the perpendicular, Mary, with a little half sob, covered her eyes.

Jerry, terribly self-rebuking, wished sincerely that he and Dick had come alone. He was sure that the road was safe, for he and his father had crossed it since the last heavy rain. Mr. Newcomb had a mining claim which could be reached by no other road. So it was with confidence that Jerry tried to allay Mary’s fears. “Little Sister,” he said, “please trust me when I tell you that the grade looks a lot worse than it is. I’d turn back if I could, but it wouldn’t be safe to try.”

Mary, ashamed of her momentary lack of faith in Jerry’s good judgment, put down her hands and smiled up into his anxious face.

“Jerry,” she said, “I’m going to shut my eyes tight until we are up top. You tell me, won’t you, when the worst is over?”

Dora had made no sound, but Dick, glancing at her, saw that she was staring down at the hamper at her feet as though she saw something there that fascinated her. He, also, feared that the girls should have been left at home. Nor was he himself altogether fearless. Having spent his boyhood in and around Boston, he was unused to perilous mountain rides and he was glad when the car came to a jolting stop and Jerry’s voice, relief evident in its tone, sang out, “We’re up top, and all the rest of our ride will be going down.”

Mary opened her eyes and saw that the road had widened on what seemed to be a large ledge. Jerry climbed out and put huge stones in front and back of the wheels, then he held out his hand.

“Here’s where we start hunting for clues,” he said, smiling, but at the same time scanning his companion’s face hoping that all traces of fear had vanished.

Dora and Dick went to the outer edge of the road. “Such a view!” Dora cried, flinging her arms wide to take in the magnitude of it.

“Describe it, who can?”

“I’ll try!” Dick replied. “A bleak, barren, cruel desert lay miles below them like a naked, bony skeleton of sand and rock.”

Mary, clinging to the cowboy’s arm, joined the others but kept well back from the edge. “Jerry,” she said in an awed voice, “do you think – was this the very spot, do you suppose, where the stage was held up?”

“I reckon so,” Jerry replied, “as near as I could figure out from what Silas Harvey said.”

Dora turned. “Then somewhere along here was where poor Little Bodil was thrown into the road.”

The cowboy nodded. A saw-tooth peak rose just beyond them.

Dora, gazing at it, speculated aloud: “Could a wild beast have slunk around the curve there snatched the child and dashed away with it to its cave?”

“We’ll probably never know,” Dick replied. “That could have happened, couldn’t it Jerry?”

“I reckon so,” the cowboy began, when Mary caught his arm again. “Oh, Jerry,” she cried, “are there wild animals now – I mean living here in these mountains?”

The cowboy glanced at Dick before he replied. “None, Little Sister, that will hurt you. Don’t think about them.”

But Mary persisted. “At least tell me what wild animal lives around here that might have dragged Little Bodil to its lair.”

Jerry, realizing that there was nothing else to do, said in as indifferent a tone as he could, “I reckon there may be a mountain lion or so up here, and a puma perhaps. That’s sort of a big cat, but it’s a coward all right! Gets away every time if it can.” He hoped that would satisfy Mary but instead she looked up at the grim peak above them, her eyes startled, searching. “I saw a picture once, oh, I remember it was in my biology book, of a huge catlike creature crouched on a ledge. It was about to spring on a goat that was on the mountain below it. Underneath the picture was printed, ‘The Puma springs from ledges down upon its unsuspecting prey.’ I remember it because it both fascinated and terrorized me.”

“Mary,” the cowboy took both her hands and smiled into her wide blue eyes, “will it make you feel better about wild animals attacking us if I tell you that Dick and I are both carrying concealed weapons?”

Mary smiled up at Jerry as she said, “You think I’m a silly, I know you do, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to be fearful of anything again today.” Then, as she glanced down the steep road up which they had come, she returned the conversation to the subject from which they had so far digressed. “Jerry, which way do you suppose the three bandits came?”

“I reckon they came around the sharp curve over there. They could hide and not be seen by the driver of the stage until he was almost upon them.”

Anxiously Mary asked, “There wouldn’t be any bandits on this road these days, would there?”

It was Dora who answered, “Mary Moore, you know there wouldn’t be. Jerry told us that this road is abandoned by practically all travelers.” Then turning to the cowboy, Dora excitedly exclaimed, “Why, Jerry, if this is the spot where the stage was held up and where the horses plunged off the road, don’t you think it’s possible something may be left of the stage, something that we could find?”

“That’s what I reckoned,” the cowboy said slowly. “Dick and I were planning to climb down the side of the cliff here and see what we could unearth, but I reckon we’d better give up and go home. Dick, you and I can come back some other time – alone.”

“Oh, no!” Dora pleaded. “Mary and I are all over being afraid. We have on our divided skirts, and, if it’s safe for you to climb down Devil’s Drop, why, it’s safe for us, isn’t it, Mary?”

“If Jerry says so,” was the trusting reply accompanied by an equally trusting glance from sweet blue eyes.

Instead of answering, Jerry beckoned Dick over to the edge of the steep drop. It was not a sheer descent. Every few feet down there was a narrow ledge, almost like uneven stairs. There were scrubby growths in crevices to which the girls could cling. About one hundred feet down there was a wide-flung ledge and then another descent, how perilous that was they could not discern from where they stood.

“We could get the girls down to that first wide ledge easily enough,” Dick said, “if you think we ought.”

Jerry spoke in a low voice which, the girls could not hear. “I’m terribly sorry we brought them. My plan was to have them sit in the car up here in the road while we went down to hunt for a skeleton of that old stage coach, but now that Mary’s afraid of a wild animal attacking them, we just can’t leave them alone. They don’t either of them know how to use a gun. I reckon what we ought to do is go back home and – ”

Dick shook his head. “They won’t let us now,” he said, and he was right, for the girls, tired of waiting, skipped toward them saying in a sing-song, “Verse seven!”

 
“Two cowgirls whom nothing can stop
Are now going over the Devil’s Drop.
Come, come, coma,
Coma, coma, kee.
You may come along if
You’re brave as we.”
 

“Great!” Dick laughed, applauding.

“Well, only down as far as the wide ledge,” Jerry told them. “That will be easy going, I reckon, and safe.” He held out his strong brown hand to Mary, and, leading the way, he began the descent.

CHAPTER XI
THE SKELETON STAGE COACH

Mary, slender, light of foot, sprang like a gazelle from step to step feeling safe, since Jerry towered in front of her. The firm clasp of his big hand on her small white one made her feel protected and cared for and she was really enjoying the adventure.

Dora, athletic of build and sure-footed, refused Dick’s proffered aid, depending on the scraggly growths in the crevices for support until they reached a spot where only prickly-pear cactus grew.

“Now, Miss Independent,” Dick laughingly called up to her, “you would better put one hand on my shoulder and let me be your human staff.”

This plan proved successful until, in the descent, they came to a spot where the ledge below was farther than the girls could step. Jerry held up his arms and lifted Mary down. That was not a difficult feat since she was but a featherweight. Dora, broad shouldered for a girl and heavily built, was more of a problem. The boys finally made steps for her, Jerry offering his shoulders and Dick his bent back.

Dora, flushed, excited, glanced at the ledge above as she exclaimed, “Getting up again will be even more difficult.”

“We won’t cross bridges until we get to them,” Dick began, then added, “or climb mountains either. Going down at present requires our entire attention.”

But the narrow ledge-steps continued to be accommodatingly close for about fifteen feet; then another sheer descent was covered by repeating their former tactics.

“There, now we’re on the wide ledge,” Mary said, “and we can’t see a single thing that’s beneath us.” Then she cried out as a sudden alarming thought came to her. “Oh, Jerry, what if our weight should cause a rock-slide, or whatever it’s called, and we all were plunged – ”

“Pull in on fancy’s rein, Little Sister!” the cowboy begged. “You may be sure I examined the formation of this ledge before I lifted you down upon it.” Then, turning to Dora, he said, “I reckon you and Mary’d better stay close to the mountain while Dick and I worm ourselves, Indian fashion, to the very edge where we can see what’s down below.”

“Righto!” Dora slipped an arm about Mary and together they stood and watched the boys lying face downward and wriggling their long bodies over the flat, stone ledge.

Dora noticed how slim and frail Dick’s form looked and how sinewy and strong was Jerry.

The edge reached, the boys gazed down, but almost instantly Jerry had whirled to an upright position and the watching girls could not tell whether his expression was more of terror than of exultation. Surely there was a mingling of both.

Dick, who had backed several feet before sitting upright, was frankly shocked by what he had seen.

For a moment neither of them spoke. “Boys!” Dora cried. “The stage coach is down there, isn’t it? But since you expected to find it, why are you so startled?”

Jerry was the first to reply. “Well, it’s pretty awful to see what’s left of a tragedy like that. I reckon you girls would better not look.”

“I won’t, if you don’t want me to,” Mary agreed, “but do tell us about it. After all these years, what can there be left?”

Jerry glanced at Dick, who, always pale, was actually white.

“I’ll confess it rather got me, just at first,” the Eastern boy acknowledged.

Dora, impatient at the slowness of the revelation, and eager to see for herself what shocking thing was over the ledge, started to walk toward the edge, but Dick, realizing her intention, sprang up and caught her arm. “Let us tell you first what we saw, Dora,” he pleaded, “and then, if you still want to see it, we won’t prevent you. It won’t be so much of a shock when you are prepared.”

“Well?” Dora stood waiting.

The boys were on their feet. Jerry began. “When the horses reared and plunged off the road, they must have rolled with the stage over and over.”

“That’s right,” Dick excitedly took up the tale, “and when the coach struck this wide ledge, it bounded, I should say, off into space and was caught in a wide crevice about twenty-five feet straight down below here.”

“Oh, Jerry,” Mary cried, “is the driver or the horses – ”

The cowboy nodded vehemently. “That’s just it. That’s the terribly gruesome part. The skeletons of the horses are hanging in the harness and that poor driver – his skeleton, I mean, still sits in his seat – ”

“The uncanny thing about it,” Dick rushed in, “is that his leather suit is still on his skeleton, and his fur cap, though bedraggled from the weather, is still on his bony head.”

“But his eyes are the worst!” Jerry shuddered, although seeing skeletons was no new thing to him. “Those gaping sockets are looking right up toward this ledge as though he had died gazing up toward the road hoping help would come to him.”

Suddenly Mary threw her arms about Dora and began to sob. Jerry, again self-rebuking, cried in alarm, “Oh, Little Sister, I reckon I’m a brute to shock you that-a-way.”

Dora had noticed that in times of excitement Jerry fell into the lingo of the cowboy.

Mary straightened and smiled through her tears. “Oh, I’m so sorry for that poor man, but I must remember that it all happened years ago and that now we are really bent on a mission of charity.” Then, smiling up at Jerry, she held out a hand to him as she said, “That’s the big thing for us to remember, isn’t it? First of all, we want, if possible, to find out if poor Little Bodil is alive and if we’re sure, oh, just ever so sure, that she is dead, we want to get the gold and turquoise from Mr. Pedersen’s rock house for the Dooleys.”

Her listeners were sure that Mary was talking about their good purpose that she might quiet her nerves. It evidently had the desired effect, for, quite naturally, she asked, “If there is nothing beneath this ledge but space, how can you boys get down to the stage coach to search for clues? That’s what you planned doing, wasn’t it?”

Jerry nodded and gazed thoughtfully into the sweet face uplifted to his, though hardly seeing it. He was thinking what would be best for them to do.

“Dick,” he said finally, “you stay here with the girls. I’m going back up to the car to get my rope. I reckon if you three will hold one end of it, I can slide down on it to that crevice and – ”

“Oh no, no, Jerry, don’t, please don’t!” Mary caught his khaki-covered arm wildly. “You would never get over the shock of being so close to that ghastly skeleton and if the rope should slip – ” she covered her eyes with her hands. Then, as she heard the boys speaking together in low tones, she looked at them. “Jerry,” she said contritely, “I’m sorry I go to pieces so easily today. Of course I know you would not suggest going if you weren’t sure that it would be absolutely safe. Get the rope if you want to. I’m going to try hard to be as brave as Dora is.” Then she added wistfully, “Maybe if you weren’t my Big Brother, I wouldn’t care so much.”

Sudden joy leaped to Jerry’s eyes. How he had hoped that Mary cared a little, oh, even a very little, for him, but usually she treated him in the same frank, friendly way that she did Dick.

Dora, watching, thought, “That settles it. Jerry will not go. The Dooleys and Little Bodil are nothing to him compared to one second’s anxiety for his Sister Mary.”

And it did seem for a long moment that Jerry was going to give up the entire plan. Dick, realizing this, plunged in with, “I say, old man, I know how to go down a rope. That used to be one of my favorite pastimes when I was a youngster and lived near a fire station. The good-natured firemen would let us kids slide down their slippery pole but we had to do some tall scurrying when the alarm sounded.”

Jerry looked at his friend for several thoughtful seconds before he spoke. What he said was, “I reckon you’re right, Dick, but my reason is this. I’m strong-armed and you’re not. Throwing the rope and pulling cantankerous steers around, gives a fellow an iron muscle. And you’re lighter too, a lot, so I reckon I’d better be on the end that has to be held. Now that’s settled, you stay here with the girls while I go up to the car and get my rope.”

CHAPTER XII
A NARROW ESCAPE

The long rope with which Jerry had captured many a wild cow was dropped over the outer edge of the wide ledge. Since the distance was not more than twenty-five feet, the lariat reached nearly to the crevice. Looking around, Jerry found a projecting rock about which he wound the upper end of the rope, but he did not trust it alone. He threw himself face downward and grasped the knot that was nearest the edge in a firm clasp. He told the girls he would not need their assistance at first, but that, if he shouted, they were to both seize the rope near the rock and pull with all their strength.

Dick, making light of the feat he was about to perform, tossed his sombrero to one side, and then, with his hand on his heart, he made a gallant bow to the girls.

Dora and Mary, standing close to the rock around which the rope was twined, clung to each other nervously. They tried to smile encouragingly toward the pretending acrobat, but they were too anxious to put much brightness into the effort.

“Kick off your boots,” Jerry said in a low voice; “you’ll be able to cling to the knots better in stocking feet.”

“Sort of an anti-climax.” Dick’s large brown eyes laughed through the shell-rimmed glasses as he removed his boots. “There, now I do the renowned disappearing act. I’d feel more heroic if I were about to rescue someone.”

“Dick isn’t the least bit afraid, is he, Jerry?” Mary asked in a whispered voice as though she did not want the boy who had gone over the ledge to be conscious of the fear that she felt.

“He’s all right,” Jerry reported a second later. “He’s going down the rope as nimbly as a monkey.”

“Will there be room on the edge of that crevice for him to stand when he does get down?” was Mary’s next question.

There was a long moment’s silence, then Jerry turned his head and smiled reassuringly. “He’s down! Oh, yes, there’s ten feet or more for him to walk on. He’s got hold of the front wheel of the old coach.” The cowboy’s voice changed to a warning shout, “I say, Dick, down there! Don’t try to get aboard! The whole thing might crumble and take you to the bottom of that pit.”

The girls could hear a faint shout from below. Dick evidently had assured Jerry that he would be cautious.

“I wish we could come over where you are, Jerry,” Dora said. “I’d like to watch Dick.”

“Stay where you are, please.” The order, without the last word, would have sounded abrupt. “Er – I may need your help with the rope. Keep alert.”

“I couldn’t be alerter if I tried,” Mary said in a low voice to her companion. “Every nerve in my whole body is so tense I’m afraid something will snap or – ”

“Great Jumping Jehoshaphat!”

Jerry’s startled ejaculation and sudden leap to his knees caused the girls to cry in alarm, “Did Dick fall? Oh! Oh! What has happened?”

Jerry turned toward them and shook his head. “Sorry I hollered out that way. Nothing happened that matters any.”

“But something did, and if you don’t tell us, we’ll come over there and see for ourselves.” Dora’s tone was so determined that Jerry said, “Sure I’ll tell you. When Dick took hold of the front wheel of the stage, he must have jarred the seat, for, all at once, the driver’s skeleton collapsed and toppled off and down into that deep crevice. Well, that’ll be more comfortable for an eternal resting place, I reckon, than sitting upright was, the way he’s been doing this forty years past.” Then he called, “Hey, down there, what did you say? I didn’t hear. Your voice is blown off toward the Little Grand Canyon, I reckon.” Jerry sat intently listening, one big brown hand cupped about his right ear. The girls could hear Dick’s voice coming faintly from below. Jerry showed signs of excited interest. The girls exchanged wondering glances but did not speak until the cowboy turned toward them.

“Dick says there’s a small, child-size trunk under the driver’s seat. Whizzle! I wish I were down there. Together we might be able to get it out.” Leaping to his feet, Jerry went to the rock around which the rope was tied. “That ought to hold all right!” There was a glint of determination in his gray eyes, but it wavered as he glanced at Mary who stood watching him, but saying not a word. “There isn’t anything here to frighten you girls, is there?” He seemed to be imploring the smaller girl to tell him to go. “It’s this-a-way. If there is a child-size box or trunk in the stage coach still, it was probably Little Bodil’s, and don’t you see, Mary, how important it is for us to get it. Why, I reckon a clue would be there all right.”

Mary held out a small white hand. “Go along, Big Brother,” she said, “if you’re sure the rock will hold the rope with your weight on it.”

“Shall we help the rock by holding onto the rope as well?” It was practical Dora who asked that question.

“Yes!” Jerry’s expression brightened. “I wish you would.”

Dora thought, “Mr. Cowboy, I know just what you are thinking. You’re afraid we might go over to the edge and perhaps fall off, but that if you tell us to hold onto the rope here by the rock, you expect we’ll stay put, but you’re mistaken. As soon as I know you’re safely down, I’m going to crawl over the ledge and peer down.”

While Dora was thus planning, she and Mary held to the highest knot in the rope, and Jerry, having removed his boots, went over the edge without the grand flourish that Dick had made.

“Oh, I can’t, can’t hold it!” Mary exclaimed, and then Dora realized that the younger girl had been trying to hold Jerry’s weight.

“Don’t!” she ejaculated. “The rock can hold him. Just keep your hands lightly on the knot and pull only if the rope starts slipping.”

It seemed but a few moments before the girls heard, as from far below, a reassuring call, “All’s well!”

At once Dora let go her hold on the rope and dropped face downward as the boys had done. Mary was not to be left behind. Cautiously, they wormed their way to the edge of the cliff and peered over, being careful to keep hidden. Only their hair and eyes were over the edge, and the boys, intent on examining the skeleton stage coach, did not once glance up.

“Oh-oo!” Mary shuddered. “That black crevice looks as though it went down into the mountain a mile or more.”

“Maybe it does!” Dora whispered. “Jerry said that it’s more than a mile from here to the floor of the desert. The crack in the mountain may go all the way down.”

“Oh, I do wish the boys wouldn’t go so close to the edge of it!” Mary whispered frantically. “Dora Bellman, if Dick or Jerry slipped into that awful place – ”

Dora’s interrupting voice was impatient. “Please don’t start imagining terrible things. Those boys value their own lives as much as we possibly can. Look! See how very cautiously they’re taking hold of the driver’s seat and testing its strength. Blue Moons!” It was Dora’s turn to be horrified. “Jerry is lifting Dick. My, aren’t his arms powerful? Now Dick is resting his left hand on the top of the seat and pulling on that box with his right.”

Mary clutched Dora’s arms, but neither spoke a word as they watched the movements of the boys with startled, staring eyes.

“It’s coming slowly.” Dora’s voice was tense. “Hark! Didn’t you hear a creak as though something about the stage had snapped suddenly?”

“Thanks be!” The words were a shout of relief. “The box is out, but oh, Mary! Not a second too soon! The skeleton stage coach is collapsing! It has dropped right down out of sight.”

The two girls sat up with one accord and stared at each other, their faces white.

Mary was the first to speak. Her tone was reproachful. “And yet you were so sure the boys would do nothing to endanger their lives. If that crash had happened one minute sooner, they would both have gone down with it. Dick couldn’t have leaped back in time, and Jerry would have lost his balance, and you needn’t tell me I’m using my imagination, either, for you know it’s true.”

There was no denying that the boys had had a most narrow escape and Dora willingly acknowledged that they had taken a greater risk than she had supposed they would.

“As though finding that lost Bodil, or even getting money to help the Dooleys, was worth endangering their lives,” Mary continued with such a show of indignation that Dora actually laughed. “Since it’s all over, let’s forget it. I’m terribly thrilled about the box. I feel just as sure as the boys do that there will be something in it that will be a clue, or at least, lead to one.”

“Listen,” Mary said. “The boys are calling to us. See, the rope is swaying.”

Lying flat again, Dora peered over and called, “What do you want?”

Jerry replied, “We’re tying the box to the rope. Can you two girls pull it up? Don’t stand near the edge to do it.”

“Wait!” Dick called. Then he said something to Jerry that the girls couldn’t hear. Dora saw the cowboy laugh and pound on his head. “He’s calling himself a dumb-bell, looks like,” she whispered to Mary. Then Jerry’s voice, “I’ll take back that order. You stand by the rock, will you, and grab the rope if it starts to slip. Dick will climb up and help lift the box. He’s such a light weight, he and the box together won’t be any heavier than I am.”

The girls went back to the rock and saw that the rope held. They knelt by it in readiness to seize it if it slipped. They could tell by the tightening of the rope that Dick was ascending. In another moment, he sprang over the edge, pulled up the box without asking the girls for assistance, then dropped the rope down again. Soon they were joined by a beaming Jerry.