Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morganand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
[Frontispiece: _On all sides there were deserted adobe houses invarying degrees of ruin._]
THE PHANTOM TOWN MYSTERY
By CAROL NORTON
Author _of_
"The Phantom Yacht," "Bobs, A Girl Detective," "The Seven Sleuths' Club," "The Phantom Town," Etc.
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY Akron, Ohio New York
Copyright MCMXXXIII The Saalfield Publishing Company _Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
I Lucky Loon 7 II The Ghost Town 15 III The Missing Friends 24 IV "Desperate Dick" 32 V Poor Little Bodil 40 VI The Evil-eye Turquoise 48 VII Middle of the Night 56 VIII Singing Cowboys 64 IX A Vagabond Family 72 X A Lonely Mountain Road 80 XI The Skeleton Stage Coach 88 XII A Narrow Escape 95 XIII A Sand Storm 103 XIV "A.'S and N. E.'S." 111 XV In the Barn Loft 119 XVI Searching For Clues 127 XVII A Wooden Doll 135 XVIII A Strange Hostess 143 XIX A Gun Shot 151 XX Introducing an Air Scout 160 XXI A Possible Clue 168 XXII An Interesting Arrival 176 XXIII A Silver Plane 184 XXIV A Long Night Watch 192 XXV A Cry for Help 200 XXVI Is It a Clue? 208 XXVII It Was a Clue 215 XXVIII A New Complication 222 XXIX An Old Letter 230 XXX Secret Entrance to the Rock House 238 XXXI A Wonderful Secret Told 246
THE PHANTOM TOWN MYSTERY
CHAPTER I LUCKY LOON
A whirl of gleaming sand and dust on a cross desert road in Arizona. Thefour galloping objects turned off the road, horses rearing, riderslaughing; the two Eastern girls flushed, excited; the pale collegestudent exultant; the cowboy guide enjoying their pleasure. A warm,sage-scented wind carried the cloud of dust away from them down into thevalley.
"That was glorious sport, wasn't it, Mary?" Dora Bellman's olive-tintedface was glowing joyfully. "Wouldn't our equestrian teacher back inSunnybank Seminary be properly proud of us?"
Lovely Mary Moore, delicately fashioned, fair as her friend was dark,nodded beamingly, too out of breath for the moment to speak.
Jerry Newcomb in his picturesque cowboy garb, blue handkerchief knottedabout his neck, looked admiringly at the smaller girl.
"I reckon you two'll want to ride in the rodeo. I never saw Easternersget saddle-broke on cow ponies as quick as you have." Then his gray eyessmiled at the other boy, tall, thin, pale, who was wiping dust from hisshell-rimmed glasses. "Dick Farley, I reckon you've ridden before."
Dick flashed a radiant smile which made his rather plain face momentarilygood-looking. "Some," he said, "when I was a kid on Granddad's farm justout of Boston."
Jerry, a little ahead, was leading them slowly across soft shimmeringsand toward a narrow entrance in cliff-like rocks.
Dora protested, "Mary _ought_ to know how to ride a cow pony since shewas born right here on the desert while I have always lived on the HudsonRiver until two weeks ago."
"Even so," Mary retaliated brightly, "but, as you know, I left here whenI was eight to go East to school and since I have _never_ been back, Ihaven't much advantage over you."
The cowboy turned in his saddle and there was a tender light in his eyesas he looked at the younger girl. "I'm sure glad something fetched youback, Mary, though I'm mighty sorry it was your dad's illness that didit."
Dora, glancing at the pretty face of her best friend, saw the frank,friendly smile she gave the cowboy. To herself she thought,--"Jerrycertainly thinks Mary is the sweetest thing he ever saw, but _she_ onlythinks of him as a nice boy who once, long ago, was her childhoodplaymate."
They had reached the narrow entrance in the wall of rocks. It was amysterious looking spot; a giant gateway leading, the girls knew notwhere. On the gleaming sand near the entrance lay a half-buried skeleton.It looked as though it might have been that of a man rather than a beast.The girls exchanged startled glances, but, as Jerry was ridingunconcernedly through the gateway, they silently followed.
"What a dramatic sort of place!" Dora exclaimed in an awed voice as shegazed about her.
They were on a floor of sand that was circled about by low mountains,grim, gray, uninviting. Here and there in crevices a twisted dwarf treeclung, its roots exposed. There was a death-like silence in the place.Even the soft rush of wind over the desert outside could not be heard.
Mary shuddered and rode closer to the cowboy. "Jerry," she said, "_why_have you brought us here? Is there something that you want to show us?"
The cowboy nodded. "You recollect that Dora was saying how she wishedthere was a mystery she could solve--" he began, when he was interrupted.
"Oh, Jerry," Dora's dark eyes glowed with anticipation, "is there_really_ a mystery here--in this awfully bleak place? What? Where? Idon't see anything at all but those almost straight up and down cliffsand--"
There was an exultant exclamation from Dick Farley. Perhaps his strongspectacles gave him clearer sight.
"I see a house, honest Injun, I do, or something that looks powerfullylike one." He turned questioning eyes toward the cowboy.
"Righto! You're clever, old man!" Jerry Newcomb told him. "Don't tellwhere it is. See if the girls can find it."
For a long silent moment Mary and Dora sat in their saddles turning theirgaze slowly about the low circling mountains.
Dora's excited cry told the others that she saw it, and Mary, noting thedirection of her friend's gaze, saw, high on a narrow ledge, what lookedlike a wall made of small rocks with openings that might have been meantfor two windows and a door. The flat roof could not be seen from thefloor of the desert.
"How perfectly thrilling!" Dora cried. "What was it, Jerry, an Indiancliff dwelling?"
The cowboy shook his head. "Let's ride up closer," he said. He led theway to the very base of the low mountain. The ledge, which had one timebeen the front yard of the house, had been cracked by the elements andleaned outward, leaving a crevice of about twenty feet. There were nosteps leading up to the house. It was, as far as the three Easternerscould see, without a way of approach.
Dick Farley rode about examining the spot from all angles. "
Jerry," hesaid at last, "if it isn't an Indian dwelling, who did live there? Surely_not_ a white family!"
The cowboy shook his head. "Not a family. Only a man, Danish, but he waswhite all right. Sven Pedersen was his name but everyone called him'Lucky Loon.' The name fitted him on two counts. Lucky because he struckit rich so often, and he certainly was 'loony' if that means crazy."
"What did he do?" Mary asked, her blue eyes wide and a little terrified.
"Sven Pedersen had a secret--Dad said--and that was why he took tohoarding all the wealth he got out of his gold and turquoise mines. Myfather was a boy then. He says he hasn't any doubt but that old rockhouse up yonder is plastered with gold and turquoise."
Dora asked in amazement, "Doesn't anybody know? Hasn't anyone _ever_climbed up there to see?"
"No one that I've heard tell about," Jerry said. "No one cared to riskhis life doing it, I reckon." Then, seeming to feel that he hadsufficiently aroused his listeners' curiosity, the cowboy went on toexplain. "As Sven Pedersen grew old, he got queerer and queerer. He tooka notion that he was going to be killed for his money, so after he'dbuilt that rock house, he shut himself up in it, and if any intruder somuch as rode through that gateway in the rocks over there, bang would gohis gun and the horse would drop dead. He was sure-shot all right, SvenPedersen was."
Dick Farley's large eyes glanced from the high house out to the gate inthe wall of rock. "I bet the rider of the dead horse scuttled away mightyquick," he said.
"I reckon he did," Jerry agreed when Dora exclaimed in a tone of horror:"He must have shot a man once anyway. Mary and I saw the half-buriedskeleton of one out by the gate. We were sure we did."
"Maybe so," Jerry went on explaining. "You see no one could tell whetherthe Lucky Loon was in his house or out of it; no one ever saw him in thedoor or on the ledge, but they found out soon enough when they heard hisgun bang."
"How did he get his food and water?" Dick asked.
"Maybe there's a spring on the mountain," Dora suggested.
"Nary a spring," the cowboy told them. "These mountains and the desertaround here are bone dry. That's why there's so many skeletons of cowshereabout. Some reckoned that he rode away nights to a town where hewasn't known. He might have stayed away for days and got back in thenight without anyone knowing."
"But, Jerry, what happened to him in the end? Does anybody know? Did hego away?" Dora and Dick were questioning when Mary cried in sudden alarm,"Oh, Jerry, he _isn't_ here _now_, is he?"
It was Dora who replied, "Of course not, Mary. You _know_ Jerry wouldn'tbring us in here if there was any danger of our being shot."
"I reckon Sven Pedersen's been dead this long time back," the cowboy toldthem. "Father was a kid when Lucky Loon was old. Dad says he and someother kids watched around the gate rocks, taking turns for almost a week.They reckoned if the old hermit _had_ gone away, they'd like to climb upthere and find the Evil Eye Turquoise Sven had boasted so much aboutbefore he shut himself up."
"_Did_ they climb up there?"
"_What_ was the eye?"
"One question at a time, please," Jerry told the eager girls. "No, theydidn't go. Dad said it was his turn to watch one night. There was acutting wind and since it was very dark, he thought he'd just slip insideof the rock gate where the blowing sand wouldn't hit him. Dad got sort ofsleepy, after a time, crouched down on the sand, when suddenly he heard agun bang. He leaped out of the gate, up on his horse and galloped forhome. He laughs when he tells that story. He reckons now that he'ddreamed the shot since Sven Pedersen never _was_ seen again and that wasthirty years ago." The cowboy had looked at his watch. "Jumping Steers!"he exclaimed. "Most milking time and here I'm fifteen miles from theranch. Dick, will you ride home with the girls?"
Jerry had whirled his horse's head and had started for the gateway, theothers quickly following. Dick, at the end, was just passing through thegate when they distinctly heard the report of a gun.