The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  “Can’t tell, Alf,” Jimmy said. “Looks like quite a ravine down ahead; but this whole region isn’t very high and it probably dams up into some other little lake. Come on.”

  “Wait till I go back after the rope, Jim,” said Alf. “We may need it, if we climb down by the falls.”

  Alf picked his way back the short distance to the canoe and brought the rope. They followed the curving shore toward the left, where the waters that swept past the point went wildly on in the wider channel to fall over—somewhere.

  Jimmy, with the rope over his shoulder, stood still; Alf thought it might be better to strike through the trees and avoid the rocks on the edge. Jimmy surveyed the water at his feet, the scattered rocks washed by the current, and looked upstream just in time to see Brook’s face as Brook saw the falls ahead.

  “Alf!” Jimmy yelled, horrified. “Look there! It’s Brook!”

  Only a moment did Jimmy stare. He slipped the loop already made over his head and tightened it about his waist. Alf needed no directions. What they had to do must be done quickly. They both started running to a point that would bring them nearer to Brook’s course.

  “Brook—Brook!” they kept shouting. “This way!”

  Brook did not hear them, but just at that moment his pale face turned toward the boys and he saw them.

  “This way! This way!” cried Jimmy, beckoning. If Brook could only get out of that awful central current—but maybe it was all current!

  “He can’t come this way! I’ve got to throw him an end of the rope.” As Jimmy spoke he was busy tying a stone on the end of the rope to weight it. What a risk it was! Jimmy was wading out to a great rock, in a shallow where the shore curved. This was no game. He must not miss.

  Alf waded after Jimmy to help him hold on to the rope. There was still a good chance, if they were successful, to rescue Brook. It was some distance to the falls, but now the canoe Brook was in seemed to be coming faster.

  Now. Jimmy threw, and Jimmy had not played ball for nothing. Brook did not catch the rope, but weighted by the stone it fell into the canoe and Brook grasped it before it could slip back. Now his paddle was whirling out of sight. Brook was standing up in the canoe, with the rope tied around him, ready to jump.

  Alf braced himself, and Jimmy held the rope tightly just in front of where it was around him and drew it taut as Brook leaped. The rope drew in easily at first. Then came the tug against the current. Jimmy leaned against the rock to brace himself.

  It was all over in a few anxious moments. Brook had bruised himself among the rocks, but he swam, crept upon a rock, leaped to another, found himself in quieter waters and was helped to his feet by two fast-breathing boys who could scarcely speak.

  “How—did you get here?” gasped Brook as they helped him ashore.

  “That’s the question we would like to ask you,” answered Jimmy after a brief silence during which they examined Brook to see if he had any broken bones.

  “I’ll tell you about it,” Brook said shamefacedly. “I—I’m awfully sorry, Jimmy. I hope the canoe will come through all right, but I don’t see how it can. I’ll make it good, Jimmy, I promise you.”

  “We’ll see about that later,” returned Jimmy. “The point is, are you all right?”

  “I—guess so,” Brook said sheepishly. “Got some bruised shins, I think. It didn’t do me any good.”

  “I’ll say not!” Jimmy grinned a little and took Brook’s arms, working them up and down, one after another. “Swallow any water?”

  “Lots.” Brook was glad of that grin and he sheepishly grinned back. “My arms are all right, only sore. I’ll be black and blue from that rock I hit first. But I guess I deserve it.”

  “Sure you do,” Jimmy said with a chuckle. “And to think I thought you were at the hut with Pat. Gosh, are we ever lucky! I guess none of us listened too carefully when Pat told us to be sure not to go off by ourselves. We’re guilty of the same thing you are, Brook,” he admitted. “Well, this has been a lesson we’ll never forget and I would say we’ve gotten off pretty cheaply if it just cost us the canoe. Let’s get back to Pat right away and tell him we’re all right.”

  Alf and Jimmy helped Brook, who was white and wretched after his narrow escape, and when they got to their canoe they made rapidly for camp.

  “Go limp, Brook,” said Jimmy, “and tell us all about it.”

  Brook grinned, and said he was “limp all right,” and briefly told how he had tried to explore the little rapids that looked so easy, completely forgetting that there were falls in the vicinity. He also related the incident of the coat and pulled out a wet wad from his pocket.

  “I was going to dry this,” said he, “and see if I couldn’t read a little of it. Maybe I might as well throw it away.”

  “Maybe we can dry it yet,” suggested Alf, interested. “Perhaps it’s a map to a treasure.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t,” laughed Jimmy, but he caught Brook’s hand as he was about to toss the letter overboard. “Wait. It’s still pretty flat in the envelope. We’ll dry it out and see. How long were you there when you found this?”

  “Oh, about ten minutes or so.”

  “Well, that ten minutes saved your life, kid,” Jimmy grinned. “Alf and I must have left right after you did and passed you. I wonder if you would have made it over the falls if we hadn’t come along. I’d like to go down later and see what it looks like over the brink!”

  “So would I, Jimmy,” Brook said.

  Jimmy snorted. “You’re going to lie around this afternoon, Brook, after we fix you up.”

  Back at camp they found that Pat was just beginning to get worried. He had kept their lunch warm for them and looked rather cross as they beached the canoe. Then he caught a glimpse of Brook’s white face.

  “Well, out with it,” Pat said, frowning. “What happened to you, lad? You look like a drowned rat.”

  “I’m worse than that,” Brook said ruefully. “I’m battered and bruised, too.”

  As they all explained what had happened, interrupting each other constantly, Pat carefully examined Brook to make sure he was not badly hurt. “Just a strained ligament,” he said, smiling reassuringly. “We’ll have that shoulder strapped up in no time.”

  He went into the hut for his first aid kit, and soon Brook was eating as hungrily as the other boys. But after lunch he didn’t argue when Pat said:

  “Now, lad, you’re to take it easy the rest of the day.”

  The next morning Brook reported that outside of a few bruises, he felt fine. Then they all went back to see the falls.

  “They’re pretty,” Brook said, musingly, “and rocky, but not very high after all.”

  A deep pool lay below, and there was the canoe, bobbing around aimlessly near the edge of the pool. It had a big gash in its side, but was not beyond repair, Jimmy reported. He towed it up on the shore with the aid of the trusty rope and a hook they made with some wire.

  “Maybe I could have swum out,” Brook ventured, “but I’m certainly glad I didn’t have to try it. And most of all, Pat, I’m glad you didn’t make much of my disobedience of your order. Believe me, it won’t happen again.”

  “I know,” said Pat. “Forget it—it merely was a bit more excitement on a very pleasant trip.”

  After their return from the falls, Brook remembered the dilapidated letter and got it out. Everyone gathered round him and they all tried to read it. It was badly torn, obviously a good part of it was missing and what little was left was hardly discernible. They managed to make out the words buried and shed.

  Suddenly Jimmy’s face lighted up. “Say, do you remember last week, the day we finished the shower, Marjorie showed me a scrap of paper she said she and Judy had found in a bottle on the beach?”

  Alf nodded. “So what? They didn’t find it in any old bottle. They manufactured the whole story just to kid us.”r />
  “That’s what I thought,” Jimmy said, rather shamefacedly. “But now I think differently. This piece looks as though it had been torn from the scrap they found.”

  “Holy cow!” Brook stared at him. “And the girls couldn’t have followed us and planted this part of it in the pocket of that old coat.”

  “Of course not,” Jimmy said, grinning, “although if either of them could drive a car I wouldn’t have put it past them. Besides, you said the footprints you saw leading to and from the coat were made by a man’s shoes.”

  Jimmy stopped suddenly. “Footprints,” he repeated. “Say, Brook, can we get to the place where you found the coat by walking?”

  “Sure,” Brook said. “It would take twice as long as it would in a canoe, but,” he added ruefully, “it would be twice as safe.”

  “Then let’s go,” Jimmy yelled. “I want to have a look at the footprints you found in the clearing.” He turned to Pat. “Okay if we go?”

  Pat nodded. “As long as you all stick together this time.”

  As they hurried through the brush with Brook in the lead, Jimmy explained. “A few days before you came, Alf,” he said, “we had a lot of excitement. I told you how Penny fell down into the old well, but I didn’t tell you that somebody came snooping around the place that night.”

  Alf stared at him. “You certainly didn’t. What’s the idea of keeping secrets from one?”

  Jimmy grinned. “The truth of the matter is that I forgot all about it. First we figured it was a tramp, and then when we realized that he must know his way around our property pretty well, we decided it must have been one of those dopey villagers who think there’s buried treasure on the place.”

  Brook stopped to turn around and glare at Jimmy. “What do you mean ‘dopey’? If you don’t believe in that buried treasure, why did you lure us into helping you dig up every spot that didn’t have something growing on it?”

  Jimmy’s dark eyes twinkled with laughter. “I believe in the treasure all right, but I wouldn’t be dopey enough to trespass on other people’s property at night trying to find it. You can get a bullet through your head very neatly that way.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” Brook said, completely mollified. He started off again at a fast trot. “Was your night prowler a dopey villager?”

  “We still don’t know,” Jimmy admitted. “He’s never come back.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t?” Alf demanded.

  Jimmy groaned, clutching his dark hair in mock dismay. “Will you guys puh-leeze let me try to explain to you why I want to look at the footprints in the clearing? Of course we don’t know for sure,” he said sourly to Alf, “that our snoopy friend didn’t come back. We only watched out for him that first night. But with all the people who are at the Lodge now I feel certain one of us would have heard a night prowler.”

  “I’m not at all sure of that,” Alf said stubbornly. “We all sleep like logs. After a day with a slave driver like you I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to get undressed and topple into bed.”

  “Shut up, Alf,” Brook said over his shoulder. “Let the slavedriver tell us why we’re taking this long trek through the thickest part of the woods.”

  “Footprints,” Jimmy said in exasperation. “After Phil and Pat fired a couple of shots in the air, the prowler scrammed. Then we went down to have a look at the shed. And sure enough, somebody had been there since we had left. Right near the spot where Penny fell through the rotten wall, some floor boards had been ripped up and there was a footprint in the dirt staring us in the face.”

  “That guy was dopey,” Alf muttered. “If he had to go around leaving footprints all over the place, why didn’t he at least put the floor boards back so you wouldn’t find them?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “I figure he sneaked out from the village to dig around near where we found the well. But just as he got started he realized that we might not yet have gone to bed. In that case one of us might have seen the flashlight he must have been using. So he slipped up to the house to have a look-see. And then Penny saw him.” He chuckled. “After that he didn’t have time to think about covering up his traces.”

  Brook stopped again and mopped his brow. “I’m beginning to see that there’s a method in your madness. If the footprints I saw in the clearing match the one you discovered under the shed floor, then we’ll know that the same man left the old coat out on the point.”

  “Your reasoning, my dear Watson,” Jimmy said, grinning, “is excellent. I will elucidate further. The same man is the owner of the scrap you found in the pocket of said old coat. And since said note contained the two words ‘buried’ and ‘shed’ my guess is that the rumor about buried treasure is more truth than poetry!”

  “What are we waiting for?” Brook demanded.

  “You,” Jimmy returned. “‘Lead on, Macduff.’”

  After that they saved their breath and hurried silently through the mud and underbrush until at last they emerged into a little clearing.

  “This is it,” Brook said. “Get out your magnifying glass, Sherlock.”

  Jimmy sank down on his knees and examined the footprints carefully. “Rubber heels,” he mumbled triumphantly, “and made by the same manufacturer! See that crescent with a circle around it? It’s a trademark.”

  “Golly!” Alf and Brook yelled in one voice.

  Jimmy stood up. “There’s only one hitch in the whole deal. I’m sure now that there’s something buried under the old shed, but Phil will never let us dig for it as long as we need the shed for a garage.”

  “Holy cow,” Alf groaned. “Then that means you’ll find a barrel of gold after we’ve gone back to school.”

  “Just our luck,” Brook said disconsolately. “I’m never around when there’s any excitement!”

  Jimmy threw back his head and howled with laughter. “About an hour ago,” he reminded Brook, “you were the very center of excitement. Cheer up,” he added. “Maybe when we get back and find that the fragment you found fits the one the girls found, we’ll be able to read something that’ll convince Phil and Penny we should do something about the ground under the shed.”

  “Maybe,” Alf said without much hope. “But let’s not stick around here any longer.”

  “Let’s not,” Jimmy agreed. “I vote we go back to camp and tell Pat what we have discovered. He pooh-poohs the idea of buried treasure as much as Phil and Penny do, but when he hears that the footprints match, maybe he’ll take the whole business more seriously.”

  “I think,” Brook said, “that we ought to convince him at least that we should go home right away. I’d rather dig for gold than fish, wouldn’t you?”

  Jimmy arched his dark eyebrows with surprise. “And you were the guy who was complaining a while ago that I’m a slavedriver!”

  Back at camp Pat listened soberly when Jimmy told him that the man who had left his footprint under the shed floor had left other footprints recently in the clearing on the peninsula.

  “Are you sure, lad?” Pat demanded.

  Jimmy nodded. “It’s too much of a coincidence to think that someone else with the same rubber heels had something to do with this piece of paper which looks like it was torn from the one Marjorie found.”

  “You’re right,” Pat said. “Let’s head for home at once!”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE MISSING FRAGMENT

  Shortly after the boys left in the station wagon for their camping trip, Marjorie said to Judy: “Let’s look at that map again. Penny could be wrong. Maybe it does show exactly where treasure is buried.”

  “Let’s,” Judy agreed. “And maybe we held it upside down or something. Maybe the big red cross doesn’t mark the spot where Pat planted his potatoes.”

  They raced into the Lodge and down the hall to the storage room. During the excitement of Peter’s arrival they had left the map, stil
l pasted in the lid of the jewelry box, on one of the old trunks. Again they took it over to the window and studied it thoughtfully.

  “Let’s see,” Judy said after awhile. “When you’re facing north, west is on your left isn’t it?”

  Marjorie nodded. “So there’s no point in looking at this darn thing any longer. If it isn’t a phony, the treasure is buried under the potato hills.”

  “I give up,” Judy said with a sigh. “We may as well go down to the beach and try to find some rare shells. I suppose that’s the only buried treasure I’ll have the luck to find.”

  During the next few days they filled a bucket with shells which they hoped were collectors’ items, but which Phil and Peter told them were worthless.

  “That is the worst about being a girl!” Judy Powell said in a moment of disgust. “The boys will come back with wonderful stories about how many fish they caught and the rapids they ran—and everything!” Judy’s ideas of what the boys were doing ran out.

  Marjorie and Judy were sitting in their favorite spot on the pier, dangling their feet in the water. They wore their bathing suits and had just watched the cruiser take off with a group of the younger guests, exclusive of themselves. They had not wanted to go since Mal had promised to take them on a picnic in the woods. Just at this moment they were in the old familiar throes of not knowing what to do next.

  “Let them rave,” said Marjorie. “We’ve things to tell the boys, too.”

  “They wouldn’t think that we do anything,” said Judy rather crossly.

  “Maybe we could think up something different,” said Marjorie, a little worried. “Aren’t you having a good time, Judy?”

  “My, yes! I didn’t mean that,” Judy said quickly. “I was just thinking what a grand time they must be having. I’d like to shoot rapids.”

  “Come up again next summer and we’ll get Pat and Mal to take us on a canoeing trip.”

  “You probably couldn’t get my mother to say yes.” Judy laughed. “Let’s go back to the house and see if we’re missing anything.” Just as they started back toward the Lodge they heard the loud honking of a car on the drive.