Mile after mile raced beneath the wheels of the convertible as it steadily neared the old battlefield named for the stream Rocky Run. Late in the afternoon they drove through the little town of Centerville. The main street, paved with red brick, was flanked by two rows of huge live oak trees. Behind them, quaint old houses stood in the shade of spreading magnolias.
Farther on, the street led to a square, along which sprawled a handful of stores, a small stately courthouse, and a tall-pillared hotel. A solitary, bewhiskered man sat on the porch of the hostelry, smoking a pipe and rocking.
“Looks mighty sleepy around here,” Chet remarked. “I think I’m going to fit right in with this life!”
“A peaceful old town,” the general replied, smiling. “My place is a quarter mile down the road.”
Frank drove on, and presently the general pointed out a driveway, which cut through a thick hedge of boxwood.
“Here’s headquarters,” the officer said as Frank stopped before a yellow clapboard house with tall, shuttered windows and doors, nestled far back from the road.
“What a swell place!” Chet exclaimed. “I’m going to sit under this big tree and eat and sleep—”
“I thought you were the official photographer on this mission,” General Smith said, his eyes twinkling.
“Correct!” Frank agreed as they carried their luggage into the house. “Hup, two, three, four! Come on, Chet. There’s work to be done.”
The general’s home consisted of a long living room, dining room, library, a kitchen, and three big bedrooms on the second floor. General Smith ushered the boys into the largest of the bedrooms.
“You Hardys will bunk here,” he said. “Chet can have the next room.”
“Pretty fancy bunks,” Frank remarked, eying the two mahogany four-poster beds and the silk hangings at the windows.
“When do we shove off on the offensive?” Joe asked.
“Not until tomorrow morning,” the officer replied. “I’d like you boys to get acquainted with Centerville first.”
“What I want to know,” Chet piped up, “is when chow is!”
“Follow me.” The general led the way downstairs and into the kitchen. He opened the door of a shiny white refrigerator. The shelves were laden with food.
“Wow!” Chet exclaimed. “How did this happen?”
“Centerville’s grocer has a key to my house,” the general explained. “I sent Mr. Oakes a wire instructing him to provide for four hungry fellows.”
The boys set to work preparing the evening meal. When they finished eating, General Smith suggested they set off for a tour of the town.
Evening was casting long shadows on the square when they arrived in Centerville. The general pointed out several large houses which dated from the Revolution, then stopped to talk with two men lounging on the hotel steps. When he returned to the boys in the car, he looked troubled.
“My friend Jeb over there says he’s seen some strangers roaming around town,” the officer began as they drove off. “Maybe Bush. I don’t like it. Few tourists visit town this early in the summer.”
When they returned to the house, General Smith and the boys discussed plans for the following day.
“It seems to me,” Frank said, “that the best way to try locating the missing bandoleer would be to reconstruct the movements of the spy Bingham.”
“Good idea,” the general agreed. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the farmhouse where my great-grandfather had his headquarters. The main part is still intact; it lies just off the battlefield.”
“Is anybody living there?” Joe asked.
“No. It’s now a county museum with an old Negro caretaker.”
Joe, yawning, said he was going to try out the four-poster bed so he could be fresh in the morning. The rest followed him upstairs.
The next morning after breakfast the general, his two young detectives, and their “photographer” drove to Rocky Run. Low, undulating hills spread before them as they approached the battlefield.
“It wasn’t as still and peaceful as this in 1863,” General Smith remarked, surveying the fields and woodlands. “Well, there’s Great-grandfather’s headquarters.”
Frank drove up to the old building and let the motor idle. What remained of the one-story farmhouse was in fair condition, with wisteria vines blotting out parts of the red brick. Off to the left stood two stone pillars, which apparently had supported a porch. On the right could be seen the crumbling remains of a side wing. Two windows stood bleakly on either side of a large door which bore a metal sign Rocky Run Museum.
“We’ll park here,” the general said. “Now, figuring that the spy Bingham left this spot with the bandoleer, which way would he go?”
While Frank and Joe pondered the question, Chet said, “Mind if I get out and walk around?”
“Go ahead,” Frank said. “Maybe you’d like a few pictures of the old place.”
Chet’s thoughts, however, were not entirely on photography. The movements of the spy Bingham intrigued him. This was one Hardy mystery which really had fired his imagination.
The boy circled the museum, then started to climb a little hill toward a clump of trees at the top.
“I bet Bingham went right up here to get a better view of the battle,” he said to himself. He continued to walk around, looking out across the hills.
Suddenly Chet had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being spied upon. He stood still a minute, and heard a rustle in a thicket far off to one side.
Chet’s heart thumped. It could be some kind of animal—or a person scouting their every movement. The stout boy considered the alternatives. He could race down the hill to report his suspicion to Frank and Joe. Or he could carry on by himself and turn the tables on the lurking enemy. Chet chose the latter. He’d try to snap the picture of the hidden foe!
He listened again, but all was still. As silently as possible, he unlimbered his camera, attached the telescopic lens, and cautiously approached the bushes.
At first the boy saw nothing. Then, through his telescopic view finder, he saw the blurred image of a man. Chet slowly retreated a few paces to avoid being seen as he adjusted the focus. The next moment he heard a stir in the brush and the figure fled.
At the same time, Chet, still retreating, stepped back into space and disappeared!
CHAPTER V
Retracing History
“HELP!” Chet shouted, flinging out both arms as he felt himself falling.
Frank, Joe, and the general, still mapping their strategy in front of the old headquarters, heard the cry from the knoll.
“Chet’s in trouble!” Frank yelled, and started running.
The others kept close behind him and arrived on the scene almost at the same moment. There was not a sound.
“Chet! Chet! Where are you?” Frank called.
When there was no answer, the Hardys became alarmed. The general walked toward the edge of the woods. In a moment he called: “Here he is!”
The officer dropped to his knees beside a deep hole, the opening of which was nearly concealed by a growth of low bushes and grass.
“I’ve got one of his legs. Give me a hand with the other, boys.”
Frank leaned far over and grasped the other leg. Together he and the general pulled Chet to a sprawling position on the level ground.
“Wh-what hit me?” Chet spluttered, still a bit dazed.
“Nothing hit you,” General Smith replied. “You fell into a dry well.”
As Chet rubbed his head ruefully, he told them he had tumbled while trying to get a picture of the fleeing figure.
“Where’d he go?” Joe asked excitedly.
“That way.” Chet pointed to the right. “He—Hey! Where’s my camera?”
Frantically Chet began combing the brush. The others joined him in the search. Minutes later, Chet shouted with relief.
“Here it is!” he cried, lifting the mechanism out of a patch of soft grass. “And not a scratch on it!”
“What about the man you saw?” Joe persisted. “Are you sure you saw one?”
“Sure I’m sure,” Chet replied, ruffled by the implication.
“What did he look like?” Frank asked.
“I didn’t get a good focus on him.”
“And he’s far away by this time,” Joe said ruefully.
Frank and the general pulled Chet to level ground
As the group started back to the farmhouse, Frank noticed Chet was limping a little and asked if he wanted to go back to the general’s house.
“I’ll be okay,” the boy answered. “I wonder where that spy Bingham went. What do you fellows think?”
Frank and Joe shrugged. “I’d like to hear the story of the battle first,” Frank said. “General Smith, will you explain just where the troops were stationed?”
The officer turned to a hill beyond the one from which they had come, and with a sweep of his arm, said, “That ridge was held by the Northern troops. They had three lines of riflemen, backed by a strong force of artillery.”
“They pushed down the hill and captured your great-grandfather’s headquarters?” Joe surmised.
“Not exactly. It was in sort of a no man’s land. The Southern troops were in this valley when the attack began. They retreated to that ridge over there.” He pointed to another hill a mile away which was higher and steeper than the one the Federals had held.
“If Bingham got into your great-grandfather’s headquarters,” Joe continued, “all he’d have had to do would have been to hide until the battle was over.”
“It wasn’t as easy as that,” the general said, smiling at Joe. “Great-grandfather had a force of cavalry in reserve. They counterattacked on the left flank and cut a wedge into the opposing forces.”
“So Bingham was checked from going straight back to his own lines,” Frank mused.
“It seems to me he wouldn’t have had a chance to get through that line of cavalry,” the officer agreed.
“Then Bingham would have had to go around the cavalry and along the Rocky Run,” Frank reasoned, “until he could contact his own forces again.”
“That’s good thinking, Frank,” the general said. “If he did go along the Rocky Run, he probably ran into more trouble, because artillery, which was rushed to my great-grandfather’s aid, opened up from the opposite ridge. From all accounts, it was a terrific onslaught.”
“He might not have come out of it alive,” Joe commented. “But if he did, I think he’d have gone in the direction Frank indicated.”
“True enough,” the general stated.
“Then let’s follow that trail!” Joe exclaimed.
“Remember one thing,” General Smith said. “A good soldier makes the most of natural cover. Bingham would have made his way behind trees, boulders, along depressions in the ground, and behind slight rises to afford protection from the artillery. Well, let’s start!”
“Gosh,” Chet said, “I never thought of that. I think I’d go in a beeline just as fast as I could!”
“What a target you’d be!” Joe teased as they started on the trail which Bingham might have taken. Frank led the way, and the general nodded approvingly as the boy picked a route which provided the least exposure to cannon which years before had thundered from the ridge across the valley.
“You’re a natural-born soldier, Frank,” the officer said, smiling.
The trek was hot and arduous. Finally they came to the bank of Rocky Run.
“I think Bingham would have followed the stream here,” Frank observed.
“Right,” the general agreed. “He’d have tried to put the water between him and that daredevil cavalry.”
“Hey!” Chet shouted suddenly. “There’s a bridge Bingham could have hidden under!”
They came in sight of a span which carried the main highway over the Rocky Run.
“Only that’s a concrete bridge,” Joe countered. “It must have been built long after the Civil War.”
By this time the four were within a stone’s throw of the span. Suddenly a black sedan whizzed over it, the driver glancing down in surprise at the three boys and the officer. The car brakes jammed on, bringing it to a screeching halt out of sight of the searchers.
“That looked like the same sedan that tried to wreck our car!” Frank cried. “I’m going after it!”
He made his way up the side of a steep embankment to the edge of the bridge. Just as he spotted the back of the driver’s head, the car’s wheels spun and the automobile streaked down the highway with a roar. The license plate on the back of the car was still covered with mud, hiding the numbers.
“Where do you suppose he was going?” Joe asked as he and the others reached the top of the embankment.
“The road comes to a fork up there a way,” General Smith said, pointing. “One branch runs past the Beauregard Smith plantation.”
Frank whistled. “I’ll bet Bush was in that car, and is on his way to the plantation!”
“Let’s hurry there!” Joe exclaimed.
“It’s quite a walk from here,” the officer warned. “And a long hike back to our car.”
“One of us can go for the car,” Joe said.
“Let me,” Chet offered.
Frank gave him the keys. “If we don’t get to the plantation before you do, pick us up on the highway.”
Frank, Joe, and the general set off down the road toward the plantation. When they came to the fork, they took the left one and were halfway to the Civil War farm of the Smith family when a horn blew behind them. The Hardy convertible rolled to a halt and the hikers got in.
“I thought you were lost,” Joe remarked as they drove on. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Chet replied. “I just stopped at that little store along the highway. Here. Have some candy.”
He thrust a bar into the hands of Frank and Joe, then turned to the officer.
“Will you have some, sir?” Chet asked self-consciously.
“Thank you. I’d like it.”
Chet grinned. “I didn’t know whether generals ate candy bars or not.”
“I guess all men have a sweet tooth,” the officer said, smiling. “Besides, soldiers eat chocolate before combat to get extra energy.”
Chet looked askance at the general. “I prefer to eat my candy in peace and quiet.”
Frank winked at Joe. “You may need some for battle right now, Chet. Never can tell what may happen if we run into Dr. Bush at the plantation.”
At General Smith’s directions, Chet presently eased the car off the highway and onto a rutted trail overgrown with weeds. There was no sign of the black sedan or any evidence that a car had recently entered the lane.
“This was a fine place once,” the general said. “Those boxwoods over there are all that’s left of a wonderful garden which stretched from the road to the mansion. My father had pictures of the old place.”
At the general’s suggestion, Chet stopped the car alongside a low, crumbling wall.
“Look over there,” the man continued, extending his arm in a gesture toward a cluster of large oak trees which seemed to form a military phalanx. “That’s where the big white house stood.”
The ruins of the old mansion were scarcely visible through the tall grass and brush, which acted as the scar tissue of time to cover the wounds left by the war. The four got out of the car and pushed through the weeds toward the area.
The officer stopped and held his two hands parallel in front of him. “The steps to the front portico were right here. They led into the beautiful center hall of one of the most picturesque homes in the whole South.
“And look what’s left now—nothing,” General Smith remarked sadly. “Nothing but ghostly memories.”
“And a cache full of gold somewhere around here,” Frank reminded him, turning his thoughts to the work at hand. “General Smith, was the cellar of this place ever searched?”
The officer looked intently at the mass of overgrown rubble before them and mopped his bro
w with a handkerchief. “It’s been searched at one time or another by three generations.”
“And they found nothing?”
“Not a thing. That’s why somebody has been digging elsewhere on the plantation trying to find the gold.”
The four walked around in silence for several minutes.
“I think the first thing we should do is investigate the old farmhouse headquarters that’s now the museum,” Frank said at last. “We might find a battlefield relic that would provide a clue. Maybe Bingham even hid the bandoleer some place in the old building, and it hasn’t been found yet!”
“Good logic,” General Smith agreed after a pause. “I can see you’re a better detective than I am.”
Joe grinned. “You can’t live with Dad all your life without learning something about sleuthing.”
“Let’s go to the museum immediately,” Frank continued. Then, seeing a distressed look on Chet’s face, he added, “I mean after lunch.”
They made their way back to the car and drove to Centerville, past green fields of tobacco which bordered either side of the road.
“I think you boys can do your checking without me,” the officer decided when lunch at his house was over. “I have a little business to attend to in town.”
Chet, who was sleepy from having overeaten, would have liked to take a nap, but the boys urged him to accompany them. Half an hour later they druve up to the museum. Frank parked and they entered the front door of the erstwhile farmhouse headquarters.
“Just think,” said Joe in awe, “once old General Smith and his staff walked through this door just as we’re doing.”
Inside the doorway the boys were met by an old Negro wearing a gray uniform similar to the Civil War uniform of the Confederate Army. He had a kindly, wrinkled face and a fringe of snow-white hair.
“Welcome to our little museum of the Battle of Rocky Run,” he said pleasantly.
Frank noticed a sign stating that the museum was run by the County Historical Society and that a small admission was asked. He paid for the three of them.
“We’d like to look over the relics,” Joe said eagerly.
The Secret of the Lost Tunnel Page 3
