“The fellow who slipped on the rock in the woods!” Joe guessed. “I wonder where he is.”
“One of us ought to hide here to see who comes for the shoes,” said Frank. “Suppose we all paddle off, so if he’s around here now, he won’t be suspicious. One of us can sneak back through the woods.”
Joe volunteered. At a bend in the river, he hopped ashore and carefully retraced his way to the lean-to.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by. Merely sitting and waiting behind a large tree began to irk the restless boy. He decided to do a little scouting.
“But which way?” he wondered.
While Joe stood trying to decide, his nostrils caught the scent of wood smoke. He knew he was too far from the boys’ camp for smoke to be detected. Turning slowly and sniffing the air at intervals, he finally concluded it was coming from a direction at right angles to the river.
Keeping an alert watch for anything suspicious, Joe headed inland. The scent grew stronger. It was not long before he came to a small clearing, in the center of which smoldered a campfire. Nobody was in sight.
The young detective remained in concealment a few minutes. Then he examined the ashes. The heat they still radiated was mute evidence that somebody had been there within the past few minutes. Was he the person who used the lean-to?
“Maybe he went back there,” Joe thought. “I’d better find out.”
As he started through the woods again, a gleaming object on the ground caught his eye. It was a heavy trap, half-concealed by a frond of ferns, its steel jaws set for prey. Joe’s foot had just missed it!
He bent down to examine the trap. Judging from the condition of the rabbit-meat bait, it must have been set recently.
Suddenly Joe had the eerie feeling that he was being spied upon. He glanced ahead just in time to see the head of a man duck out of sight in a nearby thicket. The stranger had light-colored hair and sharp eyes. Though Joe had caught only a quick glimpse of the face, he knew that he had seen it before.
“The salesman at the Mortons’ farm!” he muttered.
Joe raced after the retreating man. Realizing that it might be foolhardy to assume the chase alone, Joe gave a bird whistle that the Hardys often used as a signal.
Frank and Chet, farther upstream, heard the whistle and answered with a similar signal.
But so intent were they in trying to locate Joe’s direction that they did not notice a ledge of submerged rock until it was too late. The jagged ledge tore a gaping hole in the canvas a few feet behind the prow of the canoe. Water came pour. ing in.
His foot just missed the trap!
Frank strained at the crude paddle to drive the canoe ashore. Despite their efforts, water was halfway to the gunwales when the bow scraped the pebbly bottom of the left bank.
“Whew! Just made it!” Chet exclaimed.
“Wait here!” Frank said, then dashed downstream along the bank. The whistle sounded again!
Within a few seconds Frank found himself at a sharp bend in the river. Joe was nowhere in sight. Frank whistled. There was no reply.
“Where’d he go?” Frank murmured.
He hoped his brother was not in danger. But where to look for him was a puzzle.
Frank decided to go back to Chet. Joe might have headed in that direction.
“Didn’t you find Joe?” Chet asked, wide-eyed.
“Not yet. The sound seemed to come from both sides of the stream,” Frank replied, perplexed. “I hope it doesn’t mean somebody was imitating our bird call.”
Chet mopped his brow. “Gosh, if that happened, then the fellow who left the warning must be on our trail!” he exclaimed, glancing anxiously at the woods about him.
Suddenly his eyes were attracted by something rising above the treetops.
“Frank! Pigeons!”
Two white birds rose high, circled for several seconds, then headed south. A startling thought struck Frank. Were these pigeons from the same covey as the ones sent to the Hardy home? If so, then the kidnappers might have their hideout near this very spot!
Maybe Joe had stumbled upon the men by accident and run into trouble!
As the two birds disappeared from view, another pair of pigeons came into sight. Like the others, they started to circle when suddenly a blast cut the forest stillness and echoed and reechoed through the trees.
“A shot!” Frank exclaimed.
Chet cried out, “One of the pigeons must have been winged!”
The bird wheeled, then plummeted through the trees, while the other soared away.
“I’m going to find out who’s here,” Frank declared.
“Then I’ll go with you,” Chet offered, and trailed behind Frank.
“That shot sounded no more than a couple of hundred feet away,” Frank whispered. “Easy now.”
As they stepped carefully from tree trunk to tree trunk to avoid presenting themselves as targets, Frank’s attention was attracted to a red cylin der on the ground. He picked it up.
“Look, Chet! A shotgun shell!”
Chet surveyed the woodland with quickening pulse. Perhaps the barrel of a gun was being aimed at them at that very second! He searched the area carefully, but could see no one.
A score of paces farther on, Frank found the pigeon, lying dead on a big boulder.
“It really caught a load of lead,” he observed, lifting the limp, still-warm body of the bird.
There were no bands of identification on the pigeon, nor a message tube. This fact strength. ened Frank’s suspicion that these birds, too, belonged to the criminals who had telephoned the ransom message.
He was relieved by the fact that there had been only one shot. At least Joe had not been under fire.
But presently Frank’s imagination got the better of him. He visualized Joe being hustled off through the woods, his hands high in the air, and a shotgun prodding him in the back. Frank’s reverie was brought to a sudden end by the spine-chilling howl of a dog, and the wild yell of a human being calling for help. Both sounds ended as suddenly as they had started.
“Th-that was Joe!” quavered Chet.
Frank did not reply. With a furious burst of speed he dashed among the trees toward the direction from which the sound had come, unmindful of the brambles that tore at his clothes or the low-hanging branches that stung his cheeks. Chet panted after him as fast as his weight and the pack would allow.
Abruptly Frank found himself on a fairly well-beaten trail. He sped along it.
“Wait! Wait for me!” Chet cried.
The Hardy boy slackened his speed. Chet caught up to him at a spot where the trail cut through a dense growth of bushes.
“Come on!” he urged.
The two boys dashed among the bushes. A second later the ground seemed to drop away from beneath their feet.
Frank and Chet plunged helplessly downward!
CHAPTER X
The Detector
SLOWLY Frank opened his eyes. He was lying in a tangled mass of brush and sod.
“Where am I?” he said half-aloud.
The boy moved his right hand and felt someone lying beside him. Then he sensed a crushing pressure on his legs.
Frank rubbed his hand over his forehead to clear his brain. Memory came back with a rush. He had been running with Chet. Then that awful drop. Now he found himself lying at the bottom of a deep pit.
Summoning every ounce of strength in his body, Frank raised himself up on one elbow. In the gloom of the pit he peered at the body beside him.
“Joe!” he cried in surprise.
His brother lay there, unconscious.
In trying to rise, Frank realized that the weight on his legs was Chet. Frank rumpled the boy’s hair.
“Chet! Chet! Are you all right?”
In a few seconds Chet’s eyes opened. “Where are we? How did we get here?” he asked in bewilderment.
“We plunged into a pit of some kind. Here’s Joe.”
“Joe? How’d he—?” Then Chet realized that Joe wa
s unconscious.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” said Frank.
The pit into which they had fallen was deep and narrow. Frank and Chet had trouble worming their way to a standing position. As Frank bent down to place his hands beneath his brother’s shoulders, Joe stirred. He shook his head dazedly and tried to sit up.
“Attaboy,” Frank said. “Take it easy.”
“Oh, that wolf!” Joe groaned.
“What wolf?” Chet asked.
“The one that chased me.” Joe looked around. In a few seconds his mind cleared completely. “Oh, yes, I fell in here. It’s a good thing you found me.”
“We didn’t find you,” Chet said with a rueful grin. “We fell in, too!”
“Well, let’s get out of here,” Joe pleaded, although he felt pretty unsteady.
“Golly, it’s eight feet deep if it’s an inch,” Chet moaned.
Climb on my shoulders, Chet,” Frank suggested. ”Once you’re topside, you can haul us up.”
“Look out for snipers,” Joe warned.
Chet climbed to Frank’s shoulders and stood on this teetering perch, with Frank grasping the boy’s ankles to steady him. Chet peered around. Seeing no one, he wriggled over the top.
“Ready?” he called down.
“Okay.”
As Frank braced himself again, Joe sprang up. In a moment he, too, was out of the pit. With Joe helping Chet keep his balance, the stout boy pulled Frank from the hole.
The three of them sprawled on the ground to get their breath back and to take stock of their injuries. They were relieved to find that aside from a few minor scratches and bruises all were unhurt.
“What were you doing way off here?” Frank asked his brother.
Joe told about the steel trap in which he had nearly caught his foot, then of spotting the man who had probably set it.
“I’m certain that he’s the same guy who followed you from the newspaper office and who posed as a salesman that morning at Chet’s farm.”
“Ow-ee, I don’t like this,” Chet said. “Where’d he go?”
“When he saw me, he started to run. He sure led me a chase across the river and back.”
“What was it you said about a wolf?” Chet asked. “We heard one howl.”
“And what a howl!” Joe said. “I yelled for help!”
He added that just before he had pitched into the hole, the ferocious beast had come crashing through the woods and raced after him.
“One of the wild dogs of North Woods!” Chet exclaimed.
“It was a close race,” Joe said. “Maybe it was a good thing I fell into this hole!”
“Holy crow!” Frank exclaimed as a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Do you realize this hole was covered with brush when we fell in?”
“N-never thought of that,” Chet said. “Then somebody sneaked up after Joe was trapped and covered it up again!”
“Right. Maybe the idea was to catch all three of us and then ...”
“He may be coming back to capture us right now,” Chet said, struggling to his feet. “Let’s leave, pronto.”
The boys needed food and rest before they would be able to continue their search for the missing rifles and to find out what mischief the pseudosalesman was up to and why everybody was so determined to scare them out of the North Woods.
As they made their way back to the canoe, Chet told Joe how it had rammed a rock. Suddenly a grim thought struck him. “I’ll bet the canoe and pack are gone!” he said.
Fearing that Chet’s dire prediction might be true, the Hardys quickened their pace.
“It’s a long hike back to the other fellows,” Chet moaned. “It would be dark before we could get to camp, and these gangsters—”
Just then the boys reached the bank of the stream and Joe called out: “Chet, you were wrong. The canoe is still here!”
“Whew!” breathed Chet, vastly relieved.
The boys quickly patched the canoe. “Not bad!” Joe said approvingly.
“If we don’t hit any more rocks, I guess we can make camp.”
They shoved off, taking the same positions as they had on the trip up. It was easier traveling with the current. Keeping a sharp lookout for underwater rocks, the Hardys deftly steered the canoe while Chet sat relaxed in the bottom, his hands behind his head.
“How large was the wolf that chased you, Joe?” he asked.
“About four feet long.”
Joe said he had a hunch that the wolf might belong to the blond man, who probably called him off after seeing Joe fall.
Frank recounted his and Chet’s experiences, ending with the pigeon episode.
“At least one thing seems certain,” he said in conclusion. “The thieves who stole Chet’s truck were also my kidnappers—or at least they’re in cahoots with them.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Joe said, “if their hideout isn’t far from here.”
Chet winced. Then suddenly he beamed. “Hey, fellows, I see camp!” he announced. A tantalizing aroma filled the air. “Food!” he exclaimed as the canoe grounded on the shore close by the camp.
Biff and Tony, seeing their friends’ bruises and disheveled clothes, fired questions in rapid succession, growing more amazed as each was answered.
“Those men sure must want to keep people away from North Woods,” Tony remarked.
“You might have been killed,” Biff said.
As they ate, the boys conjectured about what underhanded schemes the pit digger might be carrying on, but could figure out nothing except that for one reason or another he wanted to prevent people from entering a certain section of the woods.
“Tomorrow we’ll track him down and find out!” Frank said with determination.
Suddenly the boys realized that Chet had been missing since they had finished eating. After a brief search they saw him on the far side of the pond, a fishing rod in his hands. After he had cast, Frank came up behind him.
“Where’d you get the swell rod?” Frank asked.
“Found it Pretty nifty, eh? Practically new.”
Chet jumped as he realized that under the circumstances this rod meant more than its loss by a careless fisherman. It might be the property of the fellow who had left the warning the night before.
“Any identification on that fishing rod?” Frank asked.
Chet looked. “Say, Frank, this came from Wells Hardware Store! Here’s the name.”
“I’m sure the owner didn’t mean to leave it,” Frank observed as the boys walked back. “You know, Chet, this might be a means of finding out what the thief looks like.”
“How?”
“I’ll bet he was buying this rod when you were in the store. He may have heard you talking to the clerk. Right?”
Chet admitted he had bragged about his big-game-hunter uncle and the rifles. There had been several customers in the store at the time, but he had paid no attention to them.
“Gee, if only I had!” he said ruefully as they returned to camp.
Frank thought there was a good chance the mysterious fisherman would return for the rod during the night, and suggested they stay on watch.
“Anyway, we won’t be in danger of a surprise attack,” Frank said. “After this, we’ll use the sound detector we brought. Good thing you thought of it, Joe.”
“I didn’t know you had one,” Biff said.
“The gadget belongs to Dad, but he let us borrow it,” Joe said.
Frank opened his pack and drew out the detector. It was the size of a cigarette case, but one could plainly hear sounds far beyond the range of the human ear. During the late afternoon and evening the boys took turns listening.
“You could almost hear the guys breathe with this gimmick,” Tony said. “It’s great!”
No sounds of particular interest were picked up, and at nine o’clock Frank put the detector in his pack.
“Think I’ll hit the sack,” he told the others.
“Me too,” said Joe. “Biff, arrange the w
atches, will you?”
After two-hour shifts had been agreed upon, Biff turned on his radio for news of the missing Jack Wayne. The announcer said there was still no clue to the whereabouts of the pilot, although the search was still being carried on over the ocean.
“That means they’ve given up looking around here,” said Joe, wriggling into his bag.
The boys fell asleep, with Biff on guard. Frank took his turn in the early morning. So far there had been no prowlers. Soon a rosy tint covered the eastern sky.
“We should get started on our sleuthing soon,” he told himself an hour later as he prepared three small emergency kits with knives, rope, first-aid articles, and some food.
He roused the others, and it was not long before he, Joe, and Biff had finished breakfast and were ready to shove off in the canoe. Chet and Tony would remain at camp in case anyone should show up for the fishing rod.
When the three boys started off, a light mist hung over the river and drifted among the trees. By the time the sun had burned the mist away, they had reached the spot where Chet and Frank had seen the pigeons the day before.
The boys carried the canoe a hundred feet inland and concealed it in a thicket.
“Let’s start from the pit and work north,” Joe suggested. “That blond fellow I followed was headed in that direction.”
They started forward cautiously. Frank turned on the sound detector and listened intently. He reported bird calls and insect sounds, but no human voices. In a short time the hikers came to the trail which led to the pit. As they neared it, Joe called excitedly:
“The hole’s covered over again!”
Frank put the detector to his ear. No sounds came from it except those of the woodland creatures and the distant murmur of the stream.
Spreading out twenty feet apart, the boys moved along silently. Frank stopped every few seconds to listen.
Then suddenly the youth raised his hand for the others to stop. Biff and Joe came over to him. “I hear something different, but it’s very faint,” he said in a low voice.
Careful not to make any noise, the boys proceeded in the direction of the mysterious sound. A hundred feet farther he halted again.
The Wailing Siren Mystery Page 5
