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

by Julia K. Duncan

  Once again she crept under the blankets to the warm spot at Florence’s side.

  They had come far that day, with pack on back over rough moose trails. The stalwart Florence had carried the heaviest load. Now, oblivious to all about her, she slept the deep sleep of one possessed of a clear head and a healthy body.

  The spot they had chosen for their night camp was down from the very crest of Greenstone Ridge but a dozen paces.

  Greta was very weary. They had traveled farther that day than had been their intention. There were no fit camping places along the moose trail. At last, just as shadows were falling, they had decided to climb to the crest, a hard task for the day’s end. They had made it, for all that. And on the far side of that ridge they had discovered the very spot. A flat rock, some twenty feet across, offered support for an improvised hearth of stones. A mossy bed above this invited them to sleep.

  “Plenty of wind. No rain tonight,” had been Florence’s prophecy. “We’ll just make our bed beneath the stars.”

  And so, here they were, and here was Greta, sitting up, wide awake, dreaming in the night.

  Florence had known Greta for only a short time. The true nature of this dark-eyed girl was for the most part as yet to her a veiled secret. She did not know that the nature of these slender, black-eyed ones often drives them unflinching into places of great peril, that roused by anger or intrigued by mystery they will dare all without one backward look.

  The story Swen had told Florence could not have frightened Greta from taking a part in this great adventure. Truth was, she knew it all, and more. She treasured a secret all her own, did this dark-eyed girl. She was thinking of it now.

  “He called them white flares,” she murmured low. “Said if we were in grave danger or needed help in any way, to light one of them. He would see the white light against the sky and come. Vincent Stearns said that.”

  She had met Vincent Stearns, a sturdy, sun-tanned young man, a famous newspaper camera man, at Tobin’s Harbor only two days before. Swen had taken her to the Harbor in his fishing boat. On the way he had told her of the mysterious someone who, he was sure, lived on Greenstone Ridge. She had repeated the story to Vincent Stearns.

  “Yes,” the photographer had said, “I’ve heard the story myself. So you are going up there on a camping trip—just two girls?” He had arched his brows.

  “Oh, but you should see Florence!” Greta had exclaimed. “She’s big as a man and strong! You can’t know how strong she is.”

  “All the same,” he had insisted, “you may find yourself in need of help. Take these. They are white flares. If you need help, set one on a flat rock atop the ridge and set it off. I use ’em for taking pictures of moose at night. It can be seen for miles, that white light.

  “I’m going to be hunting moose with a camera on the lakes near the far end of Rock Harbor. Wherever you are, if I see that flare I’ll come.”

  Greta had accepted the white flares. They were in her kit bag now. “Not that we’ll need them. But then, you never can tell.”

  After listening a long time for the return of the bewitching phantom music, she cuddled down and fell asleep.

  * * * *

  It was at about this same hour that Jeanne, looking from her porthole in the Ship of Joy, watching the brown old lighthouse tower that stood all dark in the moonlight, saw at one of the windows a wavering light. This was followed by a steady yellow gleam.

  “Who is it?” she asked herself. “Is that truly Swen’s home? And has he returned? Or is that the head hunter making himself comfortable for the night?”

  One more problem returned to her before she fell asleep. The bear had been to the mainland. Doubtless he had missed her and had followed by swimming. He had not, however, returned for some time. What had he done there on land?

  “Probably nothing,” she told herself. She could not be sure, however.

  In the morning she was to learn much and wonder still more.

  * * * *

  Greta had not slept long before she found herself once more wide awake, staring up at the fleeing clouds. “Something must have disturbed my dreams,” she murmured. “What can it have been?”

  Then, as minds have a way of doing, her mind took up an old, old problem and thought it all through again. This problem had to do with her future. A very rich woman had heard her playing the violin in a very small concert. She had, as she had expressed it, been “charmed, charmed indeed,” by Greta’s modest efforts. She had offered to become her good angel, had this very rich and rather pompous lady. “You shall study at my expense, under the very great masters,” she had said. “No expense shall be spared. And in time—” her bulging eyes had glowed. “In time you shall have the world at your feet!”

  Greta had not said “I will do it.” Instead, she had replied, “I must talk it over with my mother. I will see.”

  She was still “seeing.” This was one of the problems yet to be solved. She did long to study under great masters. And yet, she loved her own family. She wished that they might do for her all that was grand and glorious. “To invite a rich stranger into one’s life,” some wise person had said to her, “is often to shut one’s humble friends out.”

  “The world at my feet,” she repeated, then laughed softly to herself. Beneath them, rolling away like billows of the sea, was the glorious green of that primeval forest; and beyond that, black and mysterious in the night, lay the waters of Lake Huron.

  “The world at my feet! I have that tonight!” she murmured. “I—”

  She sat straight up to listen. The wind had changed. It was rising. The right side of their tent was sagging. Borne in on this wind, the sound that had puzzled her before came sweeping in like the notes of some long forgotten song.

  “Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana!” Her astonishment knew no bounds. Surely there was someone on Greenstone Ridge! Someone who played the violin divinely.

  “And yet,” she thought more soberly, “in this still air sound carries far. May be on some boat out there on the black waters.”

  Peering into the night she strained her eyes in a vain attempt to discover a light on the lake. There was no light.

  She had just snuggled down in her warm corner once more when every muscle of her supple form stiffened in terror. She sprang to her feet. From some distant spot, yet startling in its distinctness, had come one wild, piercing scream.

  “Wha—what could that have been?”

  Gripping at her heart to still its mad beating, she sank back in her place.

  “Boo! How cold!” She drew the blankets about her.

  Her mind was in a turmoil. Who had screamed? That it was a person, not some wild creature, she could not doubt. But who?

  Should she waken Florence? Her hand was on the big girl’s shoulder. “But why?” she asked herself. “We are two girls. What can we do in the night on a ridge we do not know? Fall into a crevice. No help to anyone.”

  Once again she crawled down beneath the blankets. Once more she caught the notes of that mysterious music. It had not stopped. Plainly that person was not associated in any way with the scream.

  The wind began whispering in the pines. The sound blended with that strange music. Together they became the accompaniment to a dream. She slept. And still at her feet lay the glorious little world that is Isle Royale.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE CAVERN OF FIRE

  Not until her courage had been strengthened by a steaming cup of coffee brewed over a fire before the tent was Greta ready to tell her companion of the mysterious sounds in the night.

  “Only a crazy old loon,” was Florence’s prompt solution.

  “A loon may be a bright bird,” Greta said laughingly, with the light of day terror had vanished, “but I’ve never known a loon that can play the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana.”

  “You know what I mean.” Florence threatened her mockingly with her sheath knife. “It was a loon that screamed. They’re very human at times.”


  “Not as human as that cry in the night,” the slender girl affirmed with conviction. “I’ll never rest until I’ve solved the mystery of that cry.”

  Florence scrambled to her feet. “In that case, we’d better get at its solving at once.”

  “Florence!” Greta’s tone was sober. “What would be your reply if right out of the blue a very rich woman would say to you: ‘You have a wonderful future. I will help you, give you money, all you need. You shall study under the great masters. In time you shall be greater than them all.’ What would you say?”

  “Why—I—I’d probably say ‘Yes.’”

  “But suppose you felt that accepting such an offer would put you in her power. Supposing you had always wanted to be free—free as a bird?”

  “I don’t know.” Florence spoke slowly. “Of course in a way I know what you mean. I am just a physical director. All day I put boys and girls through their exercises, teach them to play basketball and handball, instruct them in swimming and all that. Very useful. Makes ’em strong. But not quite like music, don’t you see? Perhaps a musician truly must be free.”

  “Yes, I see. We must think our problems through for ourselves, I guess.”

  “Guess that’s right. But come on! We’re off in search of a scream.” Seizing a stout walking stick, Florence prepared to lead the way into the great unknown.

  “You said there are greenstones to be found right up here in the rocks.” Greta studied a massive boulder of greenish hue.

  “Yes.” Florence produced a chisel and a small hammer. “Swen gave me these. They chisel the stones right out of the rocks. I saw one a lady down at Tobin’s Harbor had set in a cameo ring, a beauty. Worth quite a lot, I guess. Well, I hope to find a number as good as that. What grand Christmas presents they’d make!”

  “Florence!” Greta came to a sudden halt. “Swen said someone took an emery wheel for grinding greenstones from his store. Do you suppose someone is up here hunting greenstones? And do you think he could have fallen off into a chasm or something last night? Was it his scream I heard?”

  “So Swen told you all about that?” Florence exclaimed. “And yet you wanted to come!”

  “I—wanted to come?” Greta stared at her. “Surely! Why not? More than ever!”

  “Brave little girl!” Florence put a hand on her shoulder. “But that idea of yours about the scream seems a bit fantastic. You never can tell, though. But if he did fall in a crevice, we’d never find him, not up here.

  “Look at that ledge!” She pointed away to the right. “Hundred feet high, half a mile long.

  “And look down there.” Her gaze swept the tangled forests that lay below the narrow plateau on which they stood. “Just look! Trees have been fighting for their lives there a thousand years. Twisted, tangled, fallen, grown over with bushes and vines. How is one to conduct a search in such a place? Might as well forget it.”

  “Guess you’re right.” Greta sighed. Nevertheless, she did not forget.

  “Do you know,” she said a moment later, “I believe I’d rather sit by our campfire and think than to go prowling round this ridge today.”

  “You’re not afraid? Afraid of meeting some—someone?”

  “Of course not! Just footsore and weary after yesterday.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are. Sorry.” Florence’s tone changed. “As for me, I’m used to it. If you don’t mind, I’m going on. I don’t admit the possibility of anyone ever having been here before us. I mean to be an explorer. Were there any celebrated women explorers?”

  “Not many, I’m afraid. There’s one in Chicago who goes across Africa once in a while.”

  “Well, I’m going to explore. You watch me!” Florence laughed as she marched away into the bush. Soon enough she was to discover that her statement that no one had been here before them was not well founded. A rough and ready manner of discovery it was to be, too.

  Left to herself, Greta wandered back to camp, found a few live coals which she fanned into flame, added fresh fuel, brewed herself a cup of black tea, then sat down to think.

  “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’” she repeated reverently, “‘from whence cometh my help.’”

  What was to come of this venture? Would she, like the prophets of old, find strength and inspiration by her sojourn in the hills?

  The morning had been chilly. A cold wind swept in from black waters. But now the sun was up. Gentle breezes, like fairies’ wings, brushed her cheeks. On a level space beneath her, thimbleberry blossoms lay like a blanket of snow. Away to the right a rocky slope flamed all golden with wild tiger lilies.

  “It—it’s like a fire,” she told herself, gazing into her own half burned out campfire.

  There was something about an open fire that takes us back and back to days we have never truly known at all, the days of our pioneer ancestors.

  To this slender girl on this particular morning the crackle of the fire seemed a call from some long-forgotten past.

  Their camp lay within the shadow of a great rock. The fire whispered of good fellowship and cheer. The day before had been a long one. Her muscles were still stiff from that long tramp. As she sat there gazing into the narrow fiery chasm made by half burned logs, she fell into a state of mind that might be called a trance or half a dream.

  As her eyes narrowed it seemed to her that the fiery chasm expanded until at last it was so high she might step inside if she willed to do so.

  “So warm! So bright! So cheery!” she whispered. “One might—”

  But what was this? With a startled scream she sprang to her feet.

  “Florence! It was Florence!” she cried aloud.

  Then, coming into full possession of her faculties, she stood and stared.

  At that moment, as if the show were ended, the bits of burning wood crumbled into a heap. The chasm of fire was no more.

  But what had she seen there? It was strange. She had seen quite plainly there at the center of the fiery circle the form of her companion, Florence.

  “Florence.” She said the word softly. “Of course she was not there, not even her image was there. And yet—

  “I wonder if it is truly possible to hear another think when she is far away? There are cases on record when this has seemed to be true. Mental telepathy they call it.

  “I wonder if that vision could have been a warning?

  “This place—” she shuddered. “It haunts me. Let me get out into the sunlight!

  “Surely,” she told herself soberly, “if we may not listen to our friends’ thoughts when they are far away, at least God can whisper them in our ear. With Him all things are possible. I must try to find Florence.”

  With that she walked some distance along the slope to at last vanish down a narrow moose trail that passed between two black old spruce trees.

  * * * *

  Bihari and his band, with Petite Jeanne in their midst, were having their breakfast coffee on deck that morning, when a white-haired youth came rowing alongside in a roughly made fishing boat. Two small children rode in the stern.

  “Swen!” Jeanne cried joyously. “So that is your lighthouse! That is your home!”

  “Yes.” Swen grinned broadly. “Anyway, I thought it was. Since—”

  “But Swen!” Jeanne broke in, “you never told me you were married. What beautiful children!”

  The children beamed up at her. But not Swen. He was blushing from ear to ear.

  “Children!” he exclaimed. “My children! I am but eighteen. What could you think? They are not my children. They are my brother’s. Their home is in the cabin by the lighthouse. And my home—” He hesitated, looking from face to face as if trying to read something there. “The lighthouse, it is my home. But someone, it seems, wants to tear it up. What can I think?

  “When I came home last night,” he rushed on, “all is strange. The doorstep is broken. My bench by the door, it is tipped over. There are bits of cloth everywhere. And my axe, it is thrown on the ground. In the tower it i
s no better. The trap door, it is broken, stones are thrown down and my rope, it is gone.”

  For fully a moment, when he had finished, Jeanne stared at him. Then, as in a dream, she murmured, “It was the bear.”

  “No,” said Swen, “it was not the bear.”

  “Come up and have a cup of coffee,” said Jeanne. She had recovered some of her composure. “Bring those beautiful children. We will have a romp with the bear. And then, then I will help you solve your riddle.” She laughed a merry laugh.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ANCIENT MINE

  And what of Florence? For one thing, she had made a marvelous discovery.

  After leaving her companion, she had wandered for two hours along Greenstone Ridge. Here she paused to examine the surface of a greenish wall of rock. There she drew a chisel and small hammer from her knickers’ pocket to drill away on a spot of green. And now, with no thought of rock or greenstone treasure, head down, deep in meditation, she wandered along some moose trail.

  On Isle Royale moose trails are everywhere, so too are wild moose. Protected by law from murderous hunters, they wander at will from shore to shore.

  This girl, who appeared so much a part of this rugged island, knew she might meet a moose at any turn, yet she was not afraid.

  It was during one of these periods of deep thought that she struck her foot against some solid object and all but fell forward on her face.

  “What—what was that?” She turned about. “Only a rock. And—and yet—”

  She bent over to look more closely. An exclamation of joy escaped her lips.

  “A hammer! An Indian hammer!”

  At once she was down on her knees tearing away at the thick moss that on Isle Royale hides many a secret.

  That the history of this interesting island goes far back of the time when the first white trader saw it, she knew right well.

  Back in the dim past Indian tribes fought many a bloody battle over the copper of this strange island. Here, as we have said before, copper in solid masses might be found close to the surface. Rich indeed was the tribe that possessed copper for knives, beads, spear points and arrow heads.