The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  “Why! Come to think of it, we couldn’t really make much use of him.” Florence laughed a merry laugh. “Must weigh twenty pounds.”

  “And if you put him in the boat he might bite you,” Jeanne argued.

  “Or break a leg with his tail.” Florence laughed once more.

  She flipped the line. The red and white spoon shot to right and left. She did it again. The fish turned. A third time the spoon rattled. There was a swirl of white waters, then darkness closed in upon the spot where the fish had been.

  “He—he’s gone!” Jeanne gasped.

  “Yes. I gave him his freedom.” Florence lifted the red and white spoon from the water to send it rattling to the bottom of the boat. “But think of the picture he would have made! ‘Pike caught by girl in Duncan’s Bay on Isle Royale.’ Can’t you just see it?

  “But after all,” she mused as the darkness deepened, “I don’t think so much of that kind of publicity. If we could only have our pictures taken with some innocent wild creature we have saved from destruction, how much better that would be.”

  There was about this last remark an element of prophecy. But unconscious of all this, Florence took up the oars and prepared for a moonlit row back to the camping grounds.

  “Listen!” She suddenly held up a hand for silence.

  Across the narrow bay there ran a whisper. Next moment the glassy surface was broken by ten million ripples. At the same time a cloud covered the moon, and the world went inky black.

  Directing her course more by instinct than sight, Florence sent her boat gliding right to the bottle necked entrance to the bay. Then the moon came out.

  For some time they sat in their tiny craft and stared in amazement. Beyond the entrance to Duncan’s Bay lies a mile of jagged, rock-walled shore line. Against this wall waves were now breaking. As the two girls watched, they saw white sheets of foam rise thirty feet in air to spray one section of rocky wall only to rush on and on out to sea until it ended in a final burst of fury far away.

  “Well,” Florence sighed, “we’re here for the night, whether we like it or not.

  “I wonder—” her tone changed. “Wonder if Greta’s back.”

  Greta was not back. As they grounded their boat on the sandy beach, no dancing sprite came to meet them. Florence cupped her hand for a loud “Whoo-hoo!”

  “Whoo-hoo,” came echoing back from the other shore. After that the woods and waters were still. Only the distant sound of rushing waters against rocky shores beat upon their ears.

  “We’ll build a rousing campfire,” Florence said as she sprang ashore. “If she’s lost her way she’ll see the light.”

  A small, dead fir tree offered tinder. The scratch of a match, then the fire flamed high. Larger branches of poplar and mountain ash gave a steadier blaze. “She’s sure to see that,” Florence sighed as she settled down upon a log.

  There was not long to wait. Greta had indeed caught sight of that bursting flame. She had not, however, been lost. Truth is, she had never been lost in her life. There are those who have the gift of location; they always know where they are. It was so with Greta.

  “Girls! Oh, girls!” She came bursting through the bush. “The strangest thing! A violin! A phantom violin! I’m sure it was a phantom. Who else could be playing so divinely up there on that ridge at this hour of the night? Such music!” She drew in a long breath. “Such music you never heard!”

  She began a wild dance about the fire that surely must have equaled any performance there in the brave days of long ago when only Indians came to pitch their tents on this narrow camping ground.

  “Now,” said Florence as a broad smile overspread her face, “tell us what really happened up there on the ridge.”

  Greta did tell them. With the light of the fire playing upon her animated features, she told her story so convincingly that even Florence was more than half convinced that Greenstone Ridge truly was haunted by the ghost of some violinist of enduring fame.

  “And after that, one more strange thing,” Greta went on. “I went racing headlong down the trail until I almost pitched myself into the antlers of a giant moose who hadn’t heard me coming. That frightened me. I went head first down the ridge to tumble against a tree. When I picked myself up I was at the top of one more rocky cliff.

  “I stood there panting,” she took in a long breath. “I listened for the moose. They don’t chase you, do they?”

  “Not often, I guess.” Florence threw fresh fuel on the fire. “Well, this one didn’t. But I was afraid he might. So I waited and listened.” Greta paused.

  “It was dark by that time,” she went on at last. “I looked down where you should be, and saw nothing. I looked back at the ridge. It sort of curves there, and—” Again she took a long breath. “I saw a light, thin, pale green light. It seemed to hover on the side of the ridge. I—it—it frightened me. At first it seemed to move. ‘It’s coming this way!’ I told myself. And you’d better believe my heart danced.

  “But it didn’t move. Just hung there against the rocks. So, pretty soon I climbed back up to the trail and ran, fast as I dared.

  “Now,” she sighed, “what do you think of that?”

  “I think,” Florence chuckled, “you have been seeing things!”

  “And hearing them,” Jeanne added.

  “But you don’t think—” Greta spoke in a sober tone. “You don’t think that music could have been played on the radio? That my ears picked it up?”

  “No,” Florence replied at once. “I think that’s nonsense.”

  But the little French girl was not sure. She had heard of such things. Why doubt them altogether? Besides, here was a beautiful, glorious mystery. What more could one ask?

  “Greta, I envy you!” She threw her arms about the little musician. “You are the discoverer of a great mystery. But we shall unravel this mystery together, you and I. Is it not so? Mais oui! And Florence,” she added, “our big, brave Florence, she shall protect us from all evil.”

  In the end Florence was to have a word or two to say about this. If there were mysteries to solve, she must play some more active part than merely that of policeman.

  CHAPTER VI

  A STRANGE CATCH

  In the meantime there were things to do. The boat must be dragged up and turned over, to afford them a shelter for the night. Balsam tips must be gathered. These are nature’s mattresses. Over these their blankets must be spread. This accomplished, they would think of supper.

  Three pairs of eager hands accomplished all this in a surprisingly short time. Then, over a fire that had burned down to a bed of glowing coals, they brewed strong tea, toasted bread, broiled bacon, and in the end enjoyed a delicious feast.

  After this, with a great log at their backs, they sat staring dreamily at the fire.

  “It’s so good to live,” Jeanne murmured.

  “Just to live,” Florence echoed.

  “And breathe,” Greta added. “You can’t know how it feels to take one long, deep breath of this glorious air, after you have struggled and struggled just for a tiny breath of life.”

  For some time after that they sat in silence. Florence was thinking of the wreck, wondering what might be happening to it in their absence. In her short sojourn there she had come to love the old Pilgrim that would sail no more.

  “A diver,” she whispered low. “He came in search of something. I wonder what? Will I ever know?”

  Jeanne’s thoughts were in far-away France. The glowing coals reminded her of many another campfire that had warmed her on the sloping hillsides of France.

  “Bihari,” she thought, “I wonder where he and his gypsy band are tonight?” He had returned to France. She had left him there. But gypsies seldom remain in one place. “He may be back in America.” She listened to the rustle of cottonwood leaves. They seemed to say, “He is in America; you will see him soon.”

  “But how could this be?” She smiled at her own fancy. “He is a gypsy. I am on an island. Can he drive h
is van across miles of water?” But gypsies, she knew right well, went where they chose. Neither wind, storm nor broad waters could stop them.

  As for Greta, she was hearing again the magic music of the phantom violin. “Some day,” she told herself, “I shall see that violin and the hands that created that entrancing melody.” But would she? Who could tell?

  “Do you know,” Florence at last broke in upon these reveries, “Swen is a fine boy. I wish we could help him with that boat affair he told about.”

  “What boat affair?” Jeanne looked at her.

  “Don’t you remember? He said it would help the whole island. There are many fishermen living all around the island. A boat comes twice a week for their fish. And the captain pays so very little for their fish! In these hard times money is so scarce the fishermen are being obliged to stay on the island all winter. And some of them have no opportunity to send their children to school.

  “Swen says they are trying to charter a boat so they can carry their own fish to market. Not a big boat, but large enough. They’ve got some money pledged. But it is not enough. So there you are.”

  Swen was a fine young fisher boy whose nets were set not far from the wrecked Pilgrim.

  He it had been, who pointed out to them what a wonderful summer home the wreck might become. For a very little pay he had assisted them in fitting up their rooms. He had rented them a boat and had thrown in much equipment besides.

  “He’s a fine boy,” Florence repeated. “When hard times came he was planning to enter college. Now—”

  “Now if we only could help him!” Jeanne put in eagerly. “He might go!”

  “They live in a lighthouse,” Greta said, “he and his people do. He told me.”

  “How romantic!” Jeanne hugged her knees. “We should see him in his lighthouse tower.”

  “But most of all I wish we could help him,” Florence said. “All we need—” she prodded the ground with a sharp stick. “All we need is a barrel of gold. Greta wants a fine music teacher. I’d love to travel. Swen wants a boat for his people. And you, Jeanne, what is it you want?”

  “I?” Jeanne laughed. “Only happiness for all my good friends.”

  “A barrel of gold,” Florence repeated dreamily. “And perhaps it is right beneath us, in this very soil.”

  “Beneath us?” Greta stared.

  “Why not? A very small barrel, even a tiny keg. This spot, the only level ground on the shores of this bay, has been a camping ground for countless generations. The Indians came to Isle Royale to pound out native copper from the rocks. They built their campfires right here. Swen says if you dig down you will find the remains of those campfires still.”

  “How thrilling!” Greta’s eyes were large with wonder. “Suppose we dug down and found some treasure—a barrel of—. But then, Indians didn’t have barrels, not even kegs.” Her dream faded.

  “The voyageurs did,” Florence encouraged.

  “Who were they?”

  “The traders who came after the Indians. They camped here on their way across the lake. Can’t you see them?” With outstretched hands, the big girl stared into the darkness that is Duncan’s Bay at night. “Great, stalwart men, muscles like iron bands, faces browned by the sun, eyes ever looking forward to fresh fields of adventure, the voyageurs!

  “Perhaps—” her voice dropped to a low note of mystery, “perhaps they camped here one night with a great bag of gold. Perhaps they were expecting an attack by Indians and, thrusting their gold in their water barrel, buried it here, never to return.”

  “Yes,” Jeanne smiled doubtfully, “perhaps they did. Anyway, you are right on one score. It’s a barrel of gold we need.”

  “Just now,” Florence laughed, “what we need most is a good night’s sleep.”

  Their balsam-scented bed at last called them to rest. They went reluctantly.

  Greta and Jeanne were weary. After listening for a time to the constant rush of water against the rocky shores of Blake’s Point and staring at the ribs of their boat just over their heads, they fell asleep.

  Florence did not fare so well. Lying there in that narrow bed beneath their boat, she found her mind going over the events of the day and of those days that had gone before.

  The adventure with that great pike had excited her beyond belief. Ever a child of nature, she had experienced in this event a return to the wild desires of her early ancestors. They had been wanderers, adventurers, hunters, fishermen, explorers. The world had changed. Her people were now city dwellers.

  “And yet—” she felt her splendid muscles swell, “adventure has not passed from the earth. There still are adventures for those who desire them, clean, clear adventures. One—”

  She broke short off to sit straight up. The stretch of level land on which they were camped was hardly a hundred feet wide. Back of that was a sloping hillside where the spruce, balsam and pine of a primeval forest battled for a place in the sun. From this forest she had caught some faint sound, the snap of a twig, the click of some hard object against a stone.

  “Could be men,” she whispered. “Just over that ridge is Tobin’s Harbor. Many people there. But such a trail! Straight up! And on such a night. They—”

  There it was again. She clenched her hands hard to prevent crying out. A loud click had sounded out in the night. “Like the raising of a rifle’s hammer,” she told herself.

  But was it a rifle? She must see. Lying flat down, she pushed the covers quietly aside, rolled over twice and found herself beneath the dark night sky.

  The moon was still shining. Her eyes soon accustomed themselves to the light. Still lying flat on the damp earth, she listened with all her ears. What she heard set her blood racing. “Footsteps,” she whispered, “in the night.”

  They seemed very near, those footsteps. But were they human footsteps? She doubted it. And from this came a sense of relief.

  Raising herself on one elbow she peered into the night. At that moment a loud groan sent the chills down her spine.

  Next instant she was ready to laugh. A giant old patriarch of his tribe, a moose with wide-spreading antlers had stepped out into the moonlight.

  “A moose,” she whispered. “Swen says there are a thousand or more on the island, and that they are harmless. But how old and feeble this one seems!”

  She had judged correctly. The moose was nearing the end of his days. His giant antlers were a burden. He walked very slowly and with many a groan. On the island he was known as Old Uncle Ned.

  The girl’s lips were parted in a smile when, of a sudden, the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. A second creature had appeared at the edge of the forest—a great, gaunt wolf.

  At this instant, with one more groan, Old Uncle Ned stepped into the water prepared to swim across the bay.

  The bit of wild life drama witnessed by the girl during the next moment will never leave the walls of her memory. Neither the moose nor the wolf had seen her. The moose, no doubt, smelled fresh water grass on the other side. The wolf was eager for a kill.

  Waiting in the shadows, the killer opened his mouth to show his white teeth, his lolling tongue. But the instant the aged moose was well in the water and, for the time, quite defenseless, with one wild spring his pursuer was after him.

  “He—he’ll kill that moose!”

  Scarcely knowing what she did, in her excitement Florence sprang to her feet, seized the steel casting rod and, racing to the bank, sent the red and white spoon darting toward the swimming wolf.

  The first cast fell short. The reel sang and she rolled in for a second try. All this she had done under the impulse of the moment, without truly willing it.

  Next instant she was awake to reality, for on a second cast the spoon, striking the wolf on the back, slid down to at last entangle the three-pronged hook in the tangled hair of his bushy tail.

  “Jeanne! Greta!” the girl screamed. “Wake up! I’ve caught a wolf!”

  “Wake up yourself,” Jeanne replied dreamily. “You ar
e walking in your sleep. You let that fish free long ago.”

  “No! No!” Florence, quite beside herself, protested. “Get up! Quick! Quick! I’ve caught a wolf. A real wolf of the forest!”

  At the same time she was saying to herself, “Whatever am I to do?”

  CHAPTER VII

  THE LAST PASSENGERS

  Florence had the wolf by the tail, there could be no doubt about that. The three-pronged hook of her trolling spoon was securely entangled in that bushy mat of hair. The line that held the spoon was strong. What was she to do next?

  The aged moose, awakened to his peril by the sound of her voice, threw his head about, took one startled look, then grunting prodigiously, went swimming for the other shore.

  Turning angrily, the wolf began snapping at the hook. “Won’t do to let him take more line,” the girl told herself. “Got to give the poor old moose a chance.”

  At that moment Greta rolled from beneath the boat, leaped to her feet to stand staring, wild eyed, at the scene before her.

  “Florence! It’s a wolf!” she cried.

  “Yes, and I’ve got him!” Florence laughed in spite of herself.

  “Let—let him go! Throw down the rod! Let him go!” Jeanne cried as she came tumbling out from her bed.

  But Florence held tight. When the wolf turned about to snap at the line, she reeled in. When he started away, she gave him line, but not too much. There was the venerable moose to consider. Having started the affair, she was determined to finish it.

  “Let him go!” Jeanne’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “Can’t you see he’s turning? He—he’s coming this way. He’ll eat us!”

  Then, calmed by her sense of danger, she rushed back to the half burned out campfire, seized two smouldering sticks and waved them to a red glow. Rushing forward, she threw one at the gray beast who was indeed swimming toward the camping ground.

  The flaming stick struck the water with a vicious sizzle. Black on the instant, it nevertheless left its imprint on the wolf’s brain. Once again he wheeled about.

  The moose by this time had climbed up the opposite bank and disappeared, as much as to say, “Well, you go ahead and fight it out.”