“No he ain’t,” says Link. “He’s gone down below.”
We shot through the hole right after Link. We found ourselves on a downgrade, getting darker and darker. But we ran on.
“Oh lord,” says Link, “I believe he found it.”
“Found what?” I asks, as we ran.
“The opening to Cave River,” says Link.
We ran faster, but Jerry, poor old clumsy Jerry Moore, missed one of the big rock steps, and down he went. Me and the Skinny Guy went back to pick him up.
“I ain’t hurt,” he says. “Go on, don’t let him get away.”
We started again. Down, down, down. Seemed like it would never end. Then I heard water flowing.
“It’s Cave River,” I says.
“You got it,” answers Link.
Then, with the next ten steps, we stood stock-still. We heard the chug-chug-chug of a motorboat. We saw the light come streaming through the opening in the rocks about twenty feet below.
“We are too late!” says Link. “There he goes!”
We watched the gray launch shoot out of the opening and speed into the middle of the river. Then it turned upstream, and we couldn’t see no further from the place where we stood. I looked at Link. He looked awful disappointed.
“He slipped through our fingers,” says Link. “We can’t take a ride now.”
“No,” I answered all out of breath. “But we won’t be bothered for a while anyhow; let’s go back and hold our meeting and figger out a new way to catch this gray ghost.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 9
The Houseboat Fire
MONDAY.—Us boys was sitting up on a high cliff, flying a big kite over the river. It was a kite what Little Frankie Kane’s papa made, and the kite was bigger than Frankie. So Frankie got us to fly it for him. His pop made him a nice, big, strong kite winder to go with it, but dern if it didn’t take a lot of cord string to fly that kite.
Up there on the cliffs the wind is so strong it would blow a cow down, and believe me if we had a kite any bigger than this one we would have to tie a steamboat rope to it. We got it up fine and let out almost all the string we had on the kite winder, and then it took four of us kids to hold it. Golly! I never knew the wind to pull so strong before. We had a dickens of a time winding it in, and a couple of times I thought the kite would pull us all off the cliff. When we got it back to us again, we noticed that there was a purty big hole in the kite, and we got some more paper and some paste to patch it up.
While we was working on it Bill Darby says, “Look what’s coming down the river.” We all looked and saw a sailboat, coming fast.
I says, “It’s Stoner’s Boy, as sure as you live.”
Dick Ferris says, “Get back against the rocks here, out of sight; don’t let him see us up here.”
Jerry says, “I ain’t afraid of him; what I want to hide for?”
Dick says, “No, we ain’t afraid, but if he sees us he won’t come down; he will turn his boat and go back.”
So we all got back against the wall of the cliffs and lay down on our stomachs and peeped over the edge. We saw the sailboat come near our bank, and then we could see the gray figger of Stoner’s Boy in the long overcoat and cape; he had his gray hand-kachif over his chin and mouth.
“WE ALL LOOKED AND SAW A SAILBOAT, COMING FAST.”
He landed down in the cove of still water below the Skinny Guy’s houseboat. He jumped out and run up the bank, and we couldn’t see no more from where we was.
“What’s his game now?” asked Jerry Moore.
I says, “Come on, let’s go down and take a look at his sailboat.”
We all went down the path on the side of the cliff. When we got down to the water’s edge there wasn’t a sign of Stoner’s Boy.
“I am going up to the houseboat,” says Jerry. “He might be there.”
I shook my head. “No use,” I says, “he won’t go near that in the daytime.”
So we walked down to the cove, where he left his sailboat. The Skinny Guy was there, looking at the boat. He put his fingers to his lips when he saw us coming. “Don’t make any noise,” he says. “Stoner is near here somewhere.”
We all stood silent, looking at the sailboat. It was a short boat, painted gray, with a red stripe running all around the edge. It had its name on the front, Gray Gull. The sail was made of cotton cloth, but it was made neat and tight, and anybody could see that Stoner’s Boy knew something about sailboats.
“Gray Gull,” says Skinny Link, “of course it has to be something gray. He wears gray clothes, everything about him is gray; wonder what for.”
Jerry gave a grunt like he always does. “He is a rat, that’s why,” says Jerry. “Rats are his pets, and gray rats, at that, dirty old common rats, and he wears gray to look like the company he keeps, and all his boats is gray.”
“Yeah, you are right,” says Skinny. “His launch is gray; it’s called the Grayhound.”
“You can see for yourself,” says Jerry, “he is a rat, that’s all. He sneaks around at night too, just like a rat.”
“All right,” I says, “but we better be sneaking around right now, or the first thing we know he will be down here and scare us to death.”
Jerry says, “I got a notion to take that sailboat and hide it.”
I says, “Hide it, nothing, and you ain’t going to touch it. We got enough trouble with Stoner’s Boy now; don’t make him any madder than he is.”
We started walking away when we heard a shout, and looking up, we saw two flatboats push off from the Pelham side and come over. We waited till they arrived at the cove.
Briggen had a grin on his face. “Did you get it back for us, Dick?” hollered Briggen.
Dick didn’t answer. Briggen’s flatboat pushed alongside the sailboat, and he jumped into the Gray Gull. Ham Gardner jumped in next. Before we knew what was up, Briggen had grabbed the sail rope and shifted the boat around, and she floated, nice ’n’ purty, out into the river.
“Hey, what you doing?” hollered Jerry Moore.
But Briggen laughed. “Never mind, Jerry,” he hollered back at us. “Your captain told us he would help us get this sailboat back.”
And away went the sailboat. The fellas in the other Pelham flatboat came over and got Briggen’s flatboat and towed it back. Jerry was mad as a wet hen. I guess we was all purty mad about it. But Dick didn’t say a word.
Jerry turned to him and says, “Say, what do you mean by helping them Pelhams get Stoner’s sailboat?”
Dick didn’t flinch. He looked right up at Jerry and says, “What did I do, tell me that, what did I do to help ’em get it?”
Jerry says, “You heard what they said.”
“Yeah,” says Dick, “I heard it, but you saw me standing here. Did I help ’em get it?”
Jerry didn’t answer. He walked away up to our houseboat. Bill Darby and me went over to Dick, and I says, “Listen, Dick, don’t get in a fuss with Jerry over this thing.”
Dick’s eyes were flashing. “No,” he says, “I don’t want any fuss, but this is one time when I ain’t to blame.”
I says, “Come on up; we will fish off Skinny’s houseboat a little while.”
So we threw in a few lines, but we didn’t have any luck. It got dark before we knew it. The Skinny Guy says, “Hawkins, you fellas better go home before Stoner’s Boy comes and finds his sailboat gone.”
I says, “That’s a purty good idea.”
So we went.
TUESDAY.—After school today we went down to our houseboat to hold our regular meeting. The Skinny Guy was waiting for us. He says to me, “Hawkins, Stoner’s Boy was awful mad last night when he found his sailboat gone.”
I says, “Did you see him?”
“Yes,” says Link, “I turned out the lights in my pop’s houseboat and watched out the window, and he come down purty soon and when he seen his sailboat gone he stamped his foot and shook his fist.”
“Who did he shake his f
ist at?” I asks.
Link says, “At our houseboat.”
“Ah,” I says, “he thinks we took his sailboat.”
“Yeah,” says Link, “and he will try to make it purty hot for us now.”
I says, “He can’t do any worse than he has done.”
Link says, “I don’t know about that.”
I says, “Where did he go when he found his sailboat gone?”
Link says, “He went back into the woods; he is somewhere around here now.”
I says, “Link, where do you think that gray ghost stays when he is here?”
Link shook his head. “I couldn’t say that, Hawkins,” he answers, “but I wish I knew.”
I says, “Well, don’t say anything about it. It will only make the fellas get more excited.”
So we went in and held our meeting.
WEDNESDAY.—Today when we come down to our houseboat there was a note stuck to our door. Dick Ferris says, “I am getting awful tired of reading notes from Stoner’s Boy.”
I says, “That don’t make no difference; we better read this one.”
So he hands it to me. “Read it out loud, Hawkins,” he says, “so we all can hear what that gray ghost is gonna do now.”
So I read:
Have the boat back at the place where you took it by ten o’clock tonight, or your houseboat will be burned down.
It supprised us fellas. Nobody said a word when I read that. I waited for somebody to make a remark about it. But none of the fellas opened their mouth. So I says, “Well, we might as well go in and talk this thing over.”
“Yes,” says Dick, “come on in and have our meeting.”
We all went in. When we had our places, Dick Ferris says, “Well, fellas, what are we going to do? Let that Stoner fella burn down our headquarters?”
Clarence Wilks got up and says, “It’s up to us boys to make the Pelhams put that sailboat back where they found it, and somebody wait there till ten o’clock tonight to see that Stoner’s Boy gets it.”
Bill Darby says, “We better do that if we don’t want our houseboat burned down.”
“Well,” I says, “we got to watch, that’s all. Bill Darby has my very fine rifle, and he said he would stay in the shadow of the houseboat, and if any trouble comes up, he would fire off the gun to scare the Stoner fella away, and not try to hurt him.”
Jerry says to me, “Hawkins, we ought to grab Stoner’s Boy as soon as he shows up.”
I shook my head. “No,” I says, “we better wait and see if he has a gun or knife or something, or else one of us might get hurt.”
We waited a long time, but nobody showed up. We got awful tired waiting. At last we heard the clock in the town hall begin to strike ten. We all was shaking; we was that nervous.
“Now he will come,” says Jerry. But no Stoner’s Boy showed up.
“Come on,” says Jerry. “I think it was a big bluff.”
“No,” I says, “it wasn’t a bluff; I will bet on that. But I guess something went wrong.”
So we went down to the cove, where the other fellas was waiting. I says to Lew Hunter, “Did you fellas see anything?”
Lew shook his head. “No,” he says, “there wasn’t a sound around here.”
“Well,” I says, “we better all go home. Something must of happened that spoiled Stoner’s plans.”
We all walked home in a bunch. We felt that sticking together like that didn’t leave us much chance to get hurt.
FRIDAY.—We went down to the houseboat right after school, expecting another note on the door. But there wasn’t anything. Dick Ferris wasn’t there, so I had to sit in the captain’s seat. We talked about new plans to get Stoner’s Boy so he couldn’t burn our houseboat down, and while we were talking in come Dick Ferris, followed by Briggen and Ham Gardner and another Pelham fella I didn’t know.
Dick says, “Fellas, I brought these guys over here to talk about that sailboat. Maybe we can make a bargain with ’em to bring it back.”
Jerry says, “We don’t make no bargains with fellas what swipe things. All we want ’em to do is to bring back what don’t belong to ’em.”
Briggen spoke up. “Hold on there, Jerry Moore,” he says, “wait till you hear our side.”
“All right,” says Jerry, “say it quick.”
Briggen says, “That Stoner’s Boy has been doing lots of mean tricks on us. He got a lot of our things that don’t belong to him, and he beats up our fellas whenever he catches ’em alone at night, and we are going to keep that sailboat for all he done to us.”
Jerry didn’t say nothing. Briggen moved over to Dick. “I don’t want to make no trouble for you, Dick,” says Briggen, “and I hope those guys will see our side of it now, and not blame you, but we ain’t gonna give up that sailboat.”
Then Briggen and his Pelhams walked out.
“Well,” says Jerry, “after that little speech I guess we got to let Briggen keep the sailboat and let our houseboat be burned down for it.”
Dick looked worried. “I wish you would not be so hard-hearted, Jerry,” he says. “Them Pelhams ain’t to be blamed. Stoner’s Boy done them a lot of mean tricks, and stole a lot of their stuff.”
Jerry turned around quick and looked Dick in the eye. “Stoner ain’t done no more to the Pelhams than he has done to us,” says Jerry.
Then he turned and went out. Dick says, “Hawkins, we better come down and watch tonight.”
I says, “I am sick and tired of watching. Purty soon my nerve is going to give out, and I’ll be a’scared of my own shadow.”
“All right,” he says, “me and the Skinny Guy will watch.”
SATURDAY.—There being no school today I was down at the houseboat early. Dick Ferris and the Skinny Guy was inside. I went in. I says, “Did you watch last night?”
Dick laughed. “There wasn’t any use,” he says.
So we went down in the hollow to play. Bill Darby and the fellas was playing a game of scrub, and it seems like us fellas all got the baseball fever. We had a good game.
It was about three or four o’clock in the afternoon when we heard a shouting, and I says, “Quick, fellas, Jerry Moore is calling us.” We all run up to the houseboat and met Jerry coming.
“Where did he go?” asked Jerry, all excited.
“Who?” I asked.
“Stoner’s Boy,” shouted Jerry. “He run out of the houseboat with a tin box just a few minits ago.”
Dick Ferris hollered, “Quick, beat it for the river. I bet he is going home.” We run as fast as we could for the river.
All of a sudden I hollered, “Turn back, turn back, quick, you guys, our houseboat is burning.”
Oh, boy, it was good I thought of that; we all turned and run back. When we come in sight of the houseboat we seen smoke coming out one of the windows. Lew Hunter had sense enough to grab two buckets and run for water. I rushed in, and Jerry and Dick come right after me, and there was a bundle of newspaper burning right under our table. I turned over the table, and we stamped on that burning paper like we was Alabama dancin’ jiggers. We just got there in time. If we had been a little later, good night, we would not of had any headquarters to meet in.
Just as we was stamping out the last sparks, Lew Hunter splashed a bucket of water all over our shoes and stockings. Jerry got sore, but me and Dick had to laugh. We all shook hands with each other and said we were lucky guys. Gee, we was glad we saved our old houseboat. We was so glad we forgot all about Stoner’s Boy getting away.
When we finished sweeping out the houseboat there come a step on our front porch. It was Briggen. “I hope you are satisfied,” he says. “Stoner’s Boy is gone.”
I says, “I suppose he stole one of our canoes, or one or your flatboats, to go home in, didn’t he?”
Briggen shook his head. “No,” he says, “he found our hiding place; he got his sailboat back. I didn’t care much anyway; I wanted to see Dick Ferris get square with you guys. I am glad it turned out the way it did.”
“Well,” I says, “you come near having our houseboat burned down by keeping that sailboat so long; us guys ain’t got much to thank you for.”
Dick took Briggen’s arm and led him outside so there wouldn’t be no fuss. I says to the fellas, “We better go down and finish our game of ball.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 10
Stoner’s Boy Shows His Face
MONDAY.—Us boys went down to our houseboat right after school today and cleaned it up. The fire that was started in our headquarters by Stoner’s Boy sure did make it look like a pig pen. After we had it all cleaned up, we held our regular meeting, all the fellas being present. Johnny McLaren, him who used to be our captain, got up and says, “It seems to me, fellas, like it is time to stop this Stoner’s Boy from doing all his mean tricks on us. So if we ever hope to catch him, it will be necessary to first see his face.”
I says, “Yeah, Johnny, you tell us how to do it.”
“I am going to do that,” says Johnny, “if you fellas will only stop talking back to me long enough to give me time. Here’s what we must do. We got to write a note where this Stoner’s Boy can find it, and make him meet us.”
Jerry Moore laughed. “Shut up, Johnny,” says Jerry. “You talk like you got sunstroke or something; how you going to make that Stoner fella show himself?”
Johnny give Jerry a nasty look and says, “Well, I don’t think you got sense to know how to do it, but we will do it anyhow; thank goodness some of us fellas got some sense.”
Jerry jumped up and wanted to fight right away. We pushed him back in his seat and told him to keep still. Dick Ferris says, “Let Johnny say his say, and nobody butt in this time.”
So Johnny says, “If we put a note up on our houseboat and ask that Stoner’s Boy to meet us peaceful and talk over this business, maybe we will get a chanst to talk to him.”
“Yeah,” says the Skinny Guy, “and maybe we will see his face.”
“All right,” says Dick Ferris, “I am willing to do this, but to tell the truth I don’t think it will do any good.”
So Dick picked out me and Lew Hunter and Bill Darby to figger out something with Johnny and see what we could do to make Stoner’s Boy show himself.
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