The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  One thing Florence remembered distinctly. She had said to Caleb Powell:

  “Mr. Powell, why did those men wish to hold me prisoner?”

  “Miss Ormsby,” he said, and there was no smile upon his lips, “some of our people are what you might call ‘plumb quare’.”

  That was all he had said, and for some time to come that was all she was destined to know about the reason for her mysterious captivity.

  Only one thought troubled her as she neared the whipsawed cabin, and that, she told herself, was only a bad dream.

  That it was more than a dream she was soon to learn. Two days later Mr. Dobson, having dismounted at their cabin, smiled with pleasure when he was told of the successful purchase of Caleb Powell’s coal land. Then for a moment a frown darkened his face.

  “I—I hate to tell you,” he hesitated.

  “You don’t have to,” said Florence quickly. “Please allow me to guess. You were about to tell us that it is necessary to spend a great deal of time looking up records and getting papers signed before you have a clear title to this mountain land, and that we can’t have our money until you have your title.”

  “That puts it a little strongly,” said Mr. Dobson, smiling a little strangely. “As fast as we can clear up the titles to certain tracts my company has authorized me to pay that portion of the commission. I should say you ought to have your first installment within four months. It may be six, however. Matters move slowly here in the mountains.”

  “Four months!” exclaimed Marion.

  “Not sooner, I fear.”

  “Four—” Marion began, but Florence squeezed her arm as she whispered; “It’s no use. We can’t help it and neither can they? There must be some other way. Besides, we haven’t yet elected our trustee.”

  CHAPTER V

  SAFE AT HOME

  That night, for the first time in many days, Florence found herself ready to creep beneath the hand woven blankets beside her pal. Ah, it was good to feel the touch of comfort and the air of security to be found there. What did it matter that after all the struggle and danger she had found her efforts crowned only by partial success? Time would reveal some other way. New problems beckoned. Let them come. Life was full of problems, and solving them is life itself.

  The whipsawed house in which the girls lived had been built more than sixty years before. The heavy beams of its frame and the broad thick boards of its sheeting inside and out had been sawed by hand from massive poplar logs.

  The walls of the room in which the girls slept were as frankly free of paint or paper as when the boards were first laid in place. But time and sixty summers of Kentucky mountain sunshine had imparted to every massive beam and every broad board such a coat of deep, mellow, old gold as any millionaire might covet for his palace.

  Heavy, hand-cut sandstone formed the fireplace. Before this fireplace, on a black bearskin, in dream-robes and dressing gowns, sat the two girls curled up for a chat before retiring.

  Then it was that Marion told of the mysterious stranger who had peered in at the window at dusk.

  “That’s strange,” said Florence as a puzzled look knotted her brow. “Who could he have meant when he said, ‘Hit’s her’? Could he have meant Mrs. McAlpin?”

  “Maybe. She’s been around doctoring people a great deal. He might have seen her somewhere; might even have needed her services for his family and been too timid to ask for it. You know how these mountain folks are. But—” Marion paused.

  “But you don’t believe it was Mrs. McAlpin,” prompted Florence, leaning toward the fire. “Neither do I. I believe it was little Hallie, and I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I,” said Marion with a sudden dab at the fire that sent the sparks flying. “I—I suppose we ought to want her identity to be discovered, want her returned to her people, but she’s come to mean so much to us. She’s a dashing little bit of sunshine. This place,” her eyes swept the bare brown walls, “this place would seem dreary without her.”

  “Marion,” said Florence, “will we be able to elect our trustee?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Al Finley and Moze Berkhart taught the school last year. They taught a month or two; then when it got cold they discouraged the children all they could, and when finally no one came they rode up and looked in every day, then rode home again, and drew their pay just the same.”

  “We wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, we wouldn’t. We’d manage somehow.”

  “Marion,” said Florence after they had sat in silence for some time, their arms around each other, “this building belongs to Mrs. McAlpin, doesn’t it?”

  “Surely. She bought it.”

  “And everything inside belongs to her?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Old Jeff Middleton’s gold—if it’s here?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then, if we found the gold we could use it to buy repairs for the schoolhouse, couldn’t we?”

  “Yes,” laughed Marion, “and if the moon is really made of green cheese, and we could get a slice of it, we might ripen it and have it for tomorrow’s dinner.”

  “But preacher Gibson thinks it’s hidden somewhere about here. He saw it, over sixty years ago. When Jeff Middleton came home from the war he came from Georgia driving a white mule hitched to a kind of sled with a box on it, and on the sled, along with some other things, was a bag of gold. Not real coins, Preacher Gibson said, but just like them; ‘sort of queer-like coins,’ that’s just the way he said it. There wasn’t anything to spend gold for back here in the mountains in those days. He built this house, so he must have hidden the gold here. He lived here until he was killed. The gold must still be here.”

  “Sounds all right,” said Marion with a merry little laugh, “but I imagine the schoolhouse windows will have to be patched with something other than that gold. And besides—” she rose, yawning, “we haven’t even got the positions yet.”

  “You don’t think they’d refuse to hire us? Just think! Those boys who tried to teach last year couldn’t even do fractions, and there wasn’t a history nor a geography in the place!”

  “You never can tell,” said Marion.

  In this she was more right than she knew.

  A moment later Florence crept beneath the home-woven blankets. A little while longer Marion sat dreamily gazing at the darkening coals. Then, drawing her dressing gown tightly about her, she stepped to the door and slipped out. Like most mountain homes, the door of every room in the cabin opened onto the porch.

  Stepping to the edge of the porch, she stood there, bathed in moonlight. The night was glorious. Big Black Mountain, laying away in the distance, seemed the dark tower of some clan of the giants. Below, and nearer, she caught the reflection of the moon in a placid pool on Laurel Branch, while close at hand the rhododendrons wove a fancy border of shadows along the trail that led away to the bottom lands.

  As the girl stood drinking in the splendor of it all, she gave a sudden start, then shrank back into the shadows. Had she caught the sound of shuffled footsteps, of a pebble rolling down the steep trail? She thought so. With a shudder she stepped through the door, closed it quickly, and let the heavy bar fall silently into place. Then, without a word, she crept beneath the covers. As an involuntary shudder seized her she felt her companion’s strong arms about her. So, soothed and reassured, she rested there for a moment. She and Florence had been pals for many long months. Strange and thrilling were the mysteries they had solved, the adventures they had experienced. What would the morrow bring? More mystery, greater adventures? At any rate, they would face them together, and with these thoughts her eyes closed in dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER VI

  CONFEDERATE GOLD

  “So you’re thinking of going into politics?”

  Ralph Cawood, a frank-faced college boy of the mountains, who had become a friend of the two girls, brushed the tangled locks from his eyes and laughed a merry laugh as he repeated, “Going
into politics! You two girls!”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Marion with a frown and an involuntary stamp of her foot. “Teaching school isn’t going into politics, is it?”

  “You just better believe it is! Anyway, it is if you’re to teach here in the mountains and draw your pay from the State. You’ll have to elect you a trustee, that’s what you’ll have to do. It’s always done. And believe me, that calls for a right smart of a scrap!”

  “But Ralph!” Marion exclaimed. “Don’t you know we’ve nearly finished college, that we are better qualified than most of the teachers in the Mountain Academy at Middlesburg, and that the teachers they’ve had before scarcely knew how to read and write?”

  “Yes,” said Ralph, his face suddenly growing sober, “they know all that, and more. But think of the money! This school at the mouth of Laurel Branch pays over seven hundred dollars. Last year Al Finley was head teacher. He paid his assistant twenty dollars a month. School lasts six months. That left him nearly six hundred for six months work, and he didn’t work half the time at that. If he’d worked at freighting, logging or getting out barrel staves, he couldn’t have earned that much in two years.”

  “But the children!”

  “Yes, I know,” said Ralph still more soberly, “but nobody thinks of them; at least not enough. I never got much good out of country school. Nobody expects to. My brother, who’d been outside to school, taught me.”

  “But why shouldn’t they get good out of it? What do they think the school is for?” Marion’s brow was knit in a puzzled frown.

  “For drawing the State’s money, I guess. Anyway, that’s what it’s always been for. But you just go ahead,” he added cheerfully. “Try it out. See if you can elect you a trustee. Ransom Turner is for you from the start, and he counts for a lot. A good many folks believe in him.”

  “We’ll do it!” said Marion. Her lips were set in straight lines of determination. “If we must go into politics in order to do the right thing, we will!”

  It was a daring resolve. Life surely is strange at times. Very often the thing we did not want yesterday becomes the one thing we most desire today. It was so with Marion and the winter school. There had been a time when it took a hard fight to bring her mind to the sticking point where she could say: “I’ll stay.” Now she suddenly resolved that nothing but defeat could drive her away.

  And yet, as she sat quietly talking to Florence a half hour later, the whole situation seemed incredible. It seemed beyond belief that men could be so selfish as to draw the money that rightfully belonged to their children and to their neighbors’ children, with no notion of giving any service in return for it.

  If the girls lacked proof that there would be a fight, they were not long in finding it.

  “We’ll go down to Ransom Turner’s store, and ask him about it,” said Florence.

  “Yes, he’ll tell us straight.”

  Before they reached Ransom’s store they learned much. News travels fast in the mountains. This was mill day. All the mountain folks were at the mouth of the creek with their grist of corn to be ground into meal for corn bread. Some on horse back, some on foot, and one or two driving young bullocks hitched to sleds, they came in crowds. One and all talked of the coming school election and how Al Finley and his political backer, Black Blevens, were likely to have a race worthy of the name. Ralph had told someone of his talk with Marion. That person had told two others; these others had carried the news to the mill. Now all knew and already they were lining up, on this side or that, for the coming battle.

  As the girls passed through group after group, they felt that the very atmosphere about them had changed. It was as if a threatening storm hung over the mountain top. Everyone smiled and spoke, but there was a difference. One could scarcely tell what it was; perhaps an inflection of the voice, perhaps the tightening of the muscles about the mouth. Whatever it was, Marion, who was a keen student of human nature, felt that she could say almost to certainty: “That one is for us; this one against us.”

  There were few doubtful ones. Mountain folks are quick to make decisions and slow to change them.

  A little lump came to Marion’s throat as she realized that the people they passed were about evenly divided.

  “And to think,” she whispered with a little choke down deep in her throat, “only yesterday they were all so cordial. They praised us for the education we were giving their children. They’ve all asked us out to dinner many times. ‘Come and stay a week’—that’s what they said.”

  “Yes,” Florence smiled without bitterness, “but this summer we have been teaching their children for nothing. We are about to ask them to let their State pay us the money coming to them for teaching their winter school. Black Blevens has always controlled that. He’s unprincipled, but he’s rich and powerful as mountain folks go. He’s given work to many of these people when they needed it badly. Many of them are kin to him—belong to his clan. As they would say, they are ‘beholden’ to him. Whatever his battle is, they must fight it. They’re living back in the feudal days. And that,” said this big strong girl, swinging her arms on high, “is what makes me love it. I’d like to have been born a knight in those good old days.

  “‘Scotts wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,

  Scotts wham Bruce has aften led,

  Welcome to your gory bed,

  Or to victory!’”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “I’m going to get out my ‘Lady of the Lake’ and my ‘Lays of the Last Minstrels’ tonight. And in the fight that lies before us I’m going to live over those days of old.”

  “‘What! Warder Ho! Let the portcullis fall’,” Marion murmured with a smile. “Here’s Ransom Turner’s store. ‘Dismount, and let’s within’!”

  The low board shack which they entered did little to carry forward the illusion of castles, moats and drawbridges. From within, instead of the clang of armor, there came the sound of a hammer bursting in the head of a barrel of salt pork.

  The man who stepped forward to greet them carried little resemblance to a knight of old. Ransom Turner was a small man, with close cropped hair and grimy hands. And yet, who can judge the strength and grandeur of a soul? There was a steady, piercing fire in the little man’s eyes that was like the even flow of an electrical current through a white hot wire.

  “Heard what you said to Ralph this mornin’,” he said quietly. “Reckon that means right smart of a scrap, but I ca’culate we’ll lick Black Blevens and his crowd this time. Leastwise, it looks thataway. Folks have took to believin’ in Mrs. McAlpin, an’ in you two—took to it a heap.

  “But looka here,” he drew them off into a corner. “Don’t you think hit’s goin’ to be easy! Talk about Brimstone Corner! Hit’ll be worse ’an that afore hit’s finished! Gun play, like as not, and people drove off into the hills. Mortgages foreclosed on ’em as don’t aim to vote to suit old Black Blevens. But you’ll stay? You ain’t afeared, be y’?” The fire seemed to fairly shoot from his pale blue eyes.

  “No,” Florence said quietly, “we’re not afraid.”

  “That’s right. You needn’t be. You don’t never need to be. There’s mountain folks, an’ heaps of em’, as would leave their firesides an’ fight for them that comes here to help their children out of the ignorance we’re all in. You believe that, don’t you?”

  “We do,” said Florence. The sound of her voice was as solemn as it had been the day she joined the church.

  As the two girls left the store they felt exactly as they might have done had they been living hundreds of years ago, and had come from a conference with their feudal lords.

  “Do you know,” whispered Florence as they passed around the corner and out of sight, “I believe I’m going to like it. Fighting just because you’re naturally quarrelsome is disgraceful. But fighting for a cause, that you may help those who are weaker than yourself, that’s glorious.” She flung her arms wide, “That—”

  She stopped short. Only by a narrow margin h
ad she escaped enfolding in those outflung arms a curious little old man who had just emerged from a bypath.

  Dressed in loose-fitting homespun jacket and trousers, with shoes that were two sizes too large and hard enough to stand alone either side up, and with a home tanned squirrel skin cap that had shrunken to half its size in the first rain it encountered, this man formed a ludicrous figure.

  The girls did not laugh. This was Preacher Gibson. “Uncle Billie” many called him. He it was who had told them of old Jeff Middleton.

  “Ho-Ho! Here you are!” he exclaimed. “I been lookin’ for you all. I got a notion about that ar gold. Hit war Confederate gold that old Jeff brought back from the war. Reg’lar old Confederate gold hit war fer sure.”

  “But Uncle Billie, how do you know the Confederates coined any gold money?”

  “Pshaw, child!” Uncle Billie looked at her in shocked surprise. “Didn’t Jeff Davis take the mint at New Orleans? An’ waren’t there a power of gold in that there mint? Hain’t there powers of hit in all them mints? In course of reason there are. Hit’s what mints are for.”

  “But Uncle Billie, Jeff Middleton wasn’t a Confederate soldier, was he?”

  “Never hearn that he were,” Uncle Billie’s face fell for a moment. Then his countenance brightened. “But you can’t never tell ’bout folks, kin you? Jeff came home dressed in brown homespun and drivin’ a mule hitched to a sled, the all-firedest kickin’ mule you ever seed, and on that ar sled war that sack of quare gold. Jeff was plum quare hisself. Who knows but he fit the Union arter all, and got that ar gold fer his pay?”

  “That doesn’t seem very likely,” said Marion. “The Confederate soldiers weren’t paid when the war ended. But the gold might have been plunder. Jeff may have been a Union soldier with Sherman on his march to the sea. There was plenty of plunder then.”

  “So he might. So he might,” agreed Uncle Billie.

  He sat down upon a flat rock and appeared to lose himself in deep thought.