The Phantom Town Mystery

“Hark!” Mary whispered, holding up one finger. “Did you hear – ”

Dick plunged in with “a gun shot?”

“Not at all!” Mary flared at him. She ran to the hole and knelt by it and listened. “I thought I heard Jerry call far, far away,” she said as she stood up and went back to stand by Dora.

“Ten minutes.” Dick glanced from his watch to Harry. “Go back a way, will you, and look up at the rock house. If Jerry called, maybe it was from up there.”

Mary, no longer trying to hide her anxiety, ran beyond the leaning ledge and looked up. How her face shone with joy and relief!

“It’s Jerry!” she cried, beckoning the others. “He’s up there standing in the door.”

Harry cupped one hand about his ear. “What say, Jerry? All right. Sure thing.”

“What did he say?” Jerry had disappeared in the house when the others joined Mary and Harry.

“He said there’s an old wire ladder contraption that he’s going to drop down to us,” Harry explained as Jerry reappeared on the ledge. Gradually a wire-rope ladder slid down the steep cliff.

“Dick, you and Harry come on up,” Jerry called. “It’s safe all right.”

“You girls won’t mind being left alone, will you?” Harry asked in his chivalrous way, of all of them, although he looked at Mary.

“No, indeed,” she replied. “Go along.”

The boys went up the swaying ladder so easily that Mary, usually the less courageous one of the two, said to Dora, “I’m going up. Catch me if I fall.”

The three boys were in the rock house and did not know that the girls had climbed the ladder until they saw them standing near the open door.

Jerry leaped toward them. “Little Sister,” he said, “what if you had fallen?”

Dora thought complacently, “Well, I guess that lover’s misunderstanding is patched up all right. It didn’t matter, evidently, whether or not Etta fell, and as for Dora Bellman – ” she laughed and shrugged her broad, capable shoulders.

Mary was asking, “Has anyone seen the Evil Eye Turquoise?”

“Not yet. Come, let’s look for it,” the cowboy called, adding, as he turned to his neighbor, “Etta, I didn’t tell you that part of the story, did I?”

Smilingly, and evidently untroubled by the recent by-play between the cowboy and Mary, she replied in the negative. So, standing near the open door, they all told parts of the tale to the interested listener.

“But if something terrible always happens when that turquoise eye looks at an intruder,” Etta said, “aren’t you afraid something terrible will happen now?”

“I reckon I would, if I believed the yarn,” Jerry replied. “Let’s see! Where was it?”

“In the back wall, gazing straight out of the front door,” Mary reminded him.

“Well, it isn’t there now anyway.” Harry fearlessly had crossed the small bare room to investigate.

“But it must have been there,” Dick insisted. “Don’t you remember that Smart Aleky fellow who did climb up and who really did fall over the cliff, paralyzed, when he saw the Evil Eye?”

“I reckon we do,” Jerry agreed. Having found a stout stick cane in one corner, he poked it into the sand that covered the floor.

“Hi-ho!” he cried. “I see what’s happened. The Eye fell off of the wall and is buried here in the sand.”

“Bully for you!” Dick shouted, and before any of them could stop him, he had seized the fateful stone and had turned the flashlight full upon it. Mary screamed and clutched Dora, but they had all looked at the Eye and it had looked at them, yet nothing had happened.

Dora, secretly proud of Dick’s courage, asked, “What is it made of?”

“You impostor!” Dick hissed at the Eye. “You are only adobe with a blue stone in your middle.” Then calmly he pocketed it as he grinningly announced, “Nobody objecting, I’m going to keep it for Lucky Stone and a paper weight.”

“Ugh!” Mary shuddered. “You’re welcome to it.”

Dora was asking, “Where do you think we’d better look for the money?”

“In the old codger’s tomb, I should say.” Harry was greatly enjoying his share in this rather uncanny adventure.

They all agreed that the walled-in tomb would be the most likely place to find the treasure.

Jerry looked anxiously at the three girls who stood close together watching, wide-eyed. “I reckon you all ought to have stayed down below,” he told them.

Dora replied courageously, “Oh, don’t mind us. Open up the tomb if you want. There won’t be anything but a skeleton, and we see those every day on the desert.”

Harry and Dick, prying around, discovered a large stone that was loose, but when it was lifted out, they found only a small niche. In it was an iron box which the boys removed. Then they replaced the stone. After all they had not needed to open up the tomb.

When they all had descended the wire-rope ladder, they left it hanging, believing that some day they might want to revisit the rock house.

“Now,” Jerry said, “let’s take the box to Sister Theresa.”

CHAPTER XXXI

A WONDERFUL SECRET TOLD

The boys took turns carrying the heavy box back to the cars and the girls walked three abreast, laughing joyfully in their efforts to keep each other from stumbling in the sand. They whispered together just before they passed through the rock gate and when the boys turned toward them, after having stored the box safely under the seat of the Deputy Sheriff’s car, Mary made a bow and said, “We’ve forgotten what verse it is, but we’ll sing for you anyway.” Then merrily Dora and Etta joined her:

“Three girl sleuths you now beholdWho have helped you find the gems and gold.Come, come, coma,Coma, coma, kee.To Phantom TownFor a cup of tea.”

“Which means,” Mary interpreted, “that it’s noon by the sun and I’m sure we’re all hungry. I told Carmelita to make an extra large tamale pie.” Then, before anyone could reply, Mary added mischievously: “Dick, I’m going to ride in the rumble with you.”

Harry chivalrously bowed to the girl nearest him, saying, “May I have the pleasure?” It was Etta and she flashed him a bright smile of acceptance.

“Poor Jerry!” Dora condoned as she took the seat beside the cowboy. “Some imp has got into Mary.” But the glance that he gave her was far more pleased than disturbed.

Carmelita welcomed them at the kitchen door with a beaming smile that revealed her gleaming white teeth. Jerry introduced the air scout who surprised the girls by replying in perfect Spanish.

“I’m green with envy!” Dora told him. “I’m going to study Spanish next fall if it’s taught at our Sunnybank Seminary.”

“So you two are going back East to school this fall,” Harry said as they seated themselves around the kitchen table, cheerful with its red cloth and steaming tamale pie.

“Yes,” Mary nodded brightly. “Dad is well enough to go with me, Mrs. Farley says. Jerry has one more year over at the State University and Dick is going back East to study medicine. Oh, I forgot to say that Mrs. Farley is going to stay with us and help me take care of Dad. We three are going to rent a little house near Dora’s home.”

The conversation changed to the box. “I’m eager to know what is in it,” Mary said.

“I wanted Little Bodil to be the one to open it,” Jerry explained.

“How shall we get it to her?” Etta asked.

“I have a suggestion,” Harry said. “It will end the suspense sooner than any other way.”

“What? Do tell us!” came in eager chorus.

“Guess,” Harry turned to Mary.

“You will take the box in your Seagull.”

“Right you are,” Harry told her. Then to Jerry, “If Etta would like to fly over with me, I’d be glad to have company.”

“Oh, I’d love to fly,” Etta said, “but I ought not to be the one; surely you, Mary, or Dora – ”

“We can all go up later,” said Jerry.

As they were about to start, Jerry drew Harry aside and said: “You understand we want Etta to believe the plan comes from Sister Theresa.”

Harry nodded. When he was in the car, Jerry called: “When you come back, you can land in the barnyard at Bar N. We’ll all be there.”

“Oh, what fun that will be!” Mary flashed a bright smile at Jerry; then taking Dora by the hand, she skipped indoors.

When they rejoined Jerry and Dick, after telling Mrs. Farley where they were going, the cowboy assisted the fair shining-eyed girl up on the front seat and sat beside her.

There was wistfulness in Jerry’s tones when he spoke. “I reckon you’re mighty pleased that your dad’s well enough to go back East.”

Mary’s eyes were glad bits of June blue skies. “Pleased isn’t a joyful enough word.”

When they came to the long road that crossed over the desert for many miles without a curve, she whispered, “Jerry, let’s fly across.”

The cowboy shook his head. “I reckon you’ve forgotten what happened once before – ”

“No, I haven’t.” Then suddenly changing the subject, she asked, “How long before the Seagull will get to Bar N, do you suppose?”

“I reckon soon after we do,” Jerry said. Dick scanned the sky. Far away there was a speck growing larger. Lower and lower the circling Seagull dropped, then landed gracefully and easily. Before the others could reach them, Harry had helped Etta out of the pit. A small boy clambered out without help.

“All is well!” Dora said to Dick. “Sister Theresa has given little Jack to Etta.”

“Oh, it was simply too wonderful for words,” Etta told the girls. “We went so high that the mountain ranges looked like, well, a row of tents, maybe.” Then, as Jackie nestled close to her, she told what had happened. “There was real gold money in that box and Government bonds and beautiful blue gems. Harry took it all to the bank that looks after the convent’s finances, and, oh, I guess you’re wondering why little Jack is here. Sister Theresa asked me if I’d be willing to let him live with us.”

“I’m ever so glad for the little fellow,” Mary hurried to say. “And now,” she added, whirling to look from one to another, “if no one is too tired, I want to ride up to Jerry’s own ranch. I want to look at the view from there before I go.”

Dora and Dick exchanged puzzled glances. They were sure that Mary’s flushed excitement had something to do with her plan, but what? Harry was enthusiastic as they rode in the shade of the trees. “What a place for a summer home,” he exclaimed, “so cool and restful.”

Mary and Jerry were some distance ahead. They reached the far-flung ledge where the cowboy had said he someday planned to build a house. Riding close to him, the fair girl asked, “Big Brother, when are you going to build a house here?”

“Never,” the cowboy said, “unless someday you’ll be willing to make a real home of it.”

Mary put a frail hand on the brown one that held the reins. “Please start the house,” she said in a low happy voice. “I’ll be ready as soon as I graduate next June.”