The Mystery of Rainbow Gulch

by Norvin Pallas

  “His clothes didn’t look too bad,” Ted recollected, “and he surely never showed up in town to buy them.”

  “But who is he, and what’s he doing there?” Nelson persisted. “And why didn’t you want us to take a peek in the window? We might have found out something. I don’t think it would have hurt anything—he didn’t look dangerous.”

  “I think I know what he’s doing. He’s a prospector of some sort. I imagine he thinks he’s discovered something, or about to discover something, and that’s why he’s holed up there.”

  “What could he be prospecting for?” asked Ted.

  “It could be almost anything—gold, silver, copper, maybe even diamonds or uranium.”

  “Don’t things like that take a lot of equipment nowadays? He didn’t look as though he’d have very much along that line.”

  “I suppose they do, if you want to do a really efficient job. But you still have some of these lone prospectors, hoping to stumble across something valuable. The way he walked and the way he muttered to himself made it look as though he’s not quite right. That’s why I didn’t want to go bursting in on him. You don’t know what notions he might take if he thought we were spying on him and going to beat him to his claim.”

  “You were the closest to him when he passed us, Ted,” Nelson pointed out. “Did you catch what he was muttering about?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” said Ted, frowning, “but to me it sounded as though he was saying over and over to himself, ‘Maryland, Maryland!’ “

  CHAPTER 8.

  THE OTHER MAN

  It was decided on the way home that Mr. Fontaine would have to be told about the hermit.

  “I feel sorry for him,” said Bob soberly, “and I’d like to let him alone as long as he wasn’t hurting anything. But we can’t go on losing sheep and other things. Besides, he might be in need of help. Getting through the winter might be tough for him.”

  “Wouldn’t he need a gun if he was going to support himself?” asked Nelson.

  “Not necessarily. Some of those older fellows are pretty clever with snares and things, though it’s getting to be almost a lost art.”

  “What do you think about his clothes?” Ted questioned. “They would have to be replaced from time to time.”

  “Well, we don’t know how long he’s been there. He might have had a pretty good stock before he moved in.”

  Ted thought that would require forethought, and it didn’t seem to him that this dazed man was capable of such planning, or of carrying on a systematic search for minerals, or of even knowing what to do with it if ever he had discovered something of value. Of course it was possible that he had been more clear-headed when he moved there, but if so, would he not have made plans for a better way of living for himself, and a better, more scientific method of prospecting?

  And who was this man, anyway? Surely he was no one known to the neighborhood or he would have been missed, and quite probably a search made for him. But if he was a stranger, what had brought him here, and was anyone looking for him? Surely he must have been there for many months, or even years. Almost without thinking, Ted had agreed with Bob on this, and as he thought back he could recall the well-worn path between the cabin and the spring, some amateurish attempts at repairs to the cabin, and even a few vines strung up along the side of the house. This seemed to be about as much as the hermit was capable of. And—yes—to steal a sheep once in a while when hunger drove him to it.

  At the supper table Mr. Fontaine listened carefully to their story. When they had finished, he had to agree with Bob that the mystery of the disappearing sheep had been solved.

  “I didn’t really think it was José—it was just that I couldn’t think of any better explanation. But José, even though he might help himself to little things he needed, would hardly take a sheep. He would know better than that, and wouldn’t want to get himself in trouble. I agree with you, Bob, that we ought to look in on the hermit before winter to make sure he isn’t in need. Meanwhile, he doesn’t seem to be doing much harm.”

  “There was a call for you this afternoon, Bob,” his mother informed him. “Mr. MacCafferty is stopping out tonight for your report. I told him I wasn’t sure how far along you were with it, but he is going to be out this way anyway.”

  “Ted wrote it up, Mom, and it seems to be in pretty good shape. There’s a typewriter you can use to copy it on, if you want to, Ted. I’d do it myself, but it would be hunt-and-peck, and I wouldn’t get done before midnight.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind typing it,” said Ted, “as long as both of you are satisfied with it.”

  Nelson said he was, and Bob that he would be, if Ted added the few small things he had suggested. After supper Bob and Nelson went out to the barn, for Bob had chores, and Nelson was developing considerable interest in farm machinery. Ted went alone into the study. He took out his fountain pen to correct the report before typing it and then turned to the typewriter. But before he was finished, Mr. MacCafferty had arrived and was shown into the study.

  “I’ll be through in a few minutes, if you don’t mind waiting,” said Ted, as Mr. MacCafferty sat down.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” said the CAP man obligingly. “If you’ve no objection, I’ll read what you’ve written so far.”

  He read through slowly and carefully so that he finished studying the report very shortly after Ted had finished copying it.

  “I think you’ve done a pretty good job,” he announced, folding the papers carefully and placing them in an envelope in his pocket. “It helps to get all these details down on paper before you forget what you really did see.”

  “I only hope it’s of some help to you,” said Ted, closing the typewriter and turning to face Mr. MacCafferty.

  “It probably will be, although that’s hard to judge at the beginning of an investigation.” He crossed his legs and leaned back, as though doing some careful thinking.

  “Have you learned anything more about the accident?” Ted questioned.

  “Well, yes, in a way. I’ve done some checking into this man Jeff Leonard. He owned a farm downstate. He seems to have been the unscrupulous sort of man who would be willing to do almost anything as long as there was enough in it for him. Whatever he may have been up to this time, there’s a good chance it was to no good.”

  “Then he did make an unauthorized stop?”

  “Yes, there’s no question about that. I believe I also have a good idea as to where he stopped. There’s a big, empty field on his farm which would accommodate a plane of that size, so I imagine that was where he landed. Your report, showing the direction from which the plane came, helps to substantiate this.”

  “Do you know yet why he stopped?”

  “I have a hunch about that,” said Mr. MacCafferty deliberately. “I didn’t mention it to you while we were at the scene of the crash, but there was some photographic equipment aboard. It seems to me more than likely that the plane was on some sort of photographic expedition. This equipment is expensive, and Leonard wasn’t wealthy, but possibly he borrowed or rented it somewhere. Now I don’t know whether or not this equipment was on the plane when it left the airport, but I suspect it wasn’t, and the stopover was made for the purpose of installing it. It takes some skill to operate equipment of this kind, and I’m not sure Leonard could do it. But here’s something I do know. He couldn’t have used this particular equipment while he was piloting a plane. It would take another man to handle it.”

  “But there was only one man on the plane!” Ted cried.

  “Was there?” asked Mr. MacCafferty pointedly. “Then how do you account for the fact that several pictures of Sandy Hill were taken before the crash?”

  “Well, there was only one man when the plane left the airport, and there was only one in the wreck.”

  “Have you forgotten those footprints, Ted?”

  “Oh!” For some reason it had never occurred to Ted that the footprints might have been made by a passenger in the plane. “B
ut if he was in the wreck, wouldn’t you suppose that he would have been injured, too?”

  “Ordinarily you would think so, but it doesn’t always work out that way. It’s quite possible that the pilot could have been killed in the wreck, while his passenger was only shaken up.”

  “Then you think that this—this giant who made the footprints was originally on the plane?”

  Mr. MacCafferty smiled. “I’m afraid that that giant exists only in our imaginations, Ted. Oh, I admit that you found footprints of a man who seemed to weigh more than three hundred pounds. But you’ve been thinking in terms of wild animal tracks. Let’s think in terms of a domesticated animal, let’s say a horse. Now what do you think?”

  “Oh,” said Ted thoughtfully, “I think I understand now. You mean a horse might be carrying a burden.” He recalled that Bob and Mr. Fontaine had been skeptical about the weight of the man right from the beginning.

  “Exactly. Footprints of a three-hundred-pound man might actually mean a two-hundred-pound man carrying a one-hundred-pound pack. Now we have to consider what was so valuable that a man, who had undoubtedly been severely shaken up in the wreck if not actually injured, should have carried it away.”

  “Any ideas about that, sir?”

  “No, I’m stumped there. As far as we can tell there’s nothing missing from the plane. Possibly it was something else that was loaded on the plane at the farm, where the photography equipment and the passenger were taken on.”

  “But if someone did leave the plane, where is he now?” Ted questioned.

  Mr. MacCafferty stared at him quietly without answering, and Ted recalled that the prints had seemed to lead away toward Rainbow Gulch.

  Could the hermit have been the man on the plane? Almost as soon as the idea occurred to him, Ted dismissed it. Unquestionably the hermit had been holed up in the cabin for considerably longer than two days. That queer, demented man was not sufficiently alert to participate in any scheme with Jeff Leonard, could not have handled the delicate photographic equipment. And it would have been a most remarkable coincidence if the plane he was riding in had just happened to crash a few miles from the cabin he was occupying. No, the passenger was definitely not the hermit.

  Then could it have been José? Ted had to admit that, like Mr. Fontaine, he didn’t really suspect José, but only thought of him because he couldn’t think of anyone else it might have been. It couldn’t, for example, have been Henry Cox, almost the only other name that came into Ted’s mind. Cox was too much of a dude to wear those awkwardly shaped shoes; and though he might have put them on as a clever dodge, he surely couldn’t have known in advance that the plane was going to crash, and that he would be leaving footprints in the mud in the dark.

  So Ted was back to José again, and the slender clue of the odd-shaped shoes was the only evidence he had to support the idea. As for the depth of the prints, José was a slightly built man. Could he have carried something from the plane sufficiently heavy so that he made those deep prints? If so, what was it he had carried away, why did he want it, and where was it now? Wouldn’t this be something more than the “light” stealing José was known to do? And Ted recalled, too, that they had seen José the next afternoon in Hopalong, and he showed no traces of the crash, which would have meant a miraculous escape. Ted would have liked to cross José off the list, except that if he did, there was no list left!

  Mr. MacCafferty smiled, as though watching the inner workings of Ted’s mind. “Then you can’t think who the passenger is, Ted? That isn’t so remarkable, for he might be a complete stranger. But as you say, what happened to him afterward?”

  “Could he have been more badly injured than he realized, and died later out in the woods?”

  “Possibly, Ted, but remember that he was probably carrying a very heavy object. Would an injured man be likely to do that?”

  “No,” Ted agreed, and laughed. “That would take us right back to a three-hundred-pound man, wouldn’t it?”

  Mr. MacCafferty smiled, too, as he rose to his feet. “Yes, very often logic does seem to lead us right around in a circle. By the way, Ted, you may be interested to know that we are ascribing the accident to ‘pilot failure.’ As far as we can tell, the plane was in perfect operating condition. It seems that the pilot in his inexperience must have made some important mistake. Probably he was more intent on getting pictures than he was in observing proper flying procedures. But just why he was taking photographs of Sandy Hill, and why he preferred to take them at twilight, are questions we’ll still have to answer.”

  But Ted thought that the second of these questions, at least, was already answered. Leonard hoped to get his pictures in secret, and twilight seemed the best time, if he did not have infrared equipment for taking pictures in the dark. Dawn was another possibility, but you couldn’t count on that in a countryside with early risers, and it would probably have led to further complications with the airport, for he had to call in just as soon as he could to make his explanations.

  Ted walked out with. Mr. MacCafferty to his car, and watched him drive off. Returning toward the house, he ran into Tony. It was nearly dark, and time for her to be inside.

  “I thought you were playing with Cougar,” Ted remarked.

  “I was, but he went off with that new man. He likes him.”

  “Mr. Cox?”

  “Yes, he’s nice. He was helping me teach Cougar some tricks.”

  Farmers are particularly rushed just before dark as they try to get as much done as possible, leaving only the least necessary things for the next day. Why had Cox taken time to play with Tony and Cougar at that hour of day? Surely it must have meant neglecting some of his other duties.

  “Then you like Mr. Cox?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s nice to talk to. He asked me all kinds of questions.”

  Ted frowned. He had an idea that the Fontaines would not care to have Cox prying too deeply into their affairs. “What kind of questions, Tony?”

  She became vague. “Oh, about if I liked living here, and what was my dolly’s name, and things like that.”

  His questions seemed harmless enough, but Ted didn’t like it. He wondered just what Cox had been fishing for, and then remembered about their unusual experience that day.

  “Did he ask about the hermit, Tony?”

  She stopped to think. “No.” Then she went on in a moment, “But I told him all about it anyway.”

  For of course the subject had been discussed quite openly at the supper table, and Tony had been listening. Ted wondered now if that had been wise, though neither Bob nor his parents had seen anything wrong in it at the time. Were they going to spread the story around? They might rely on the good sense of their friends in staying away from the hermit until it came time to help him. Surely westerners would know enough to avoid a bewildered old man who was guarding some make-believe claim. But now Cox had the story, too. Would he have sense enough to stay out of it?

  Tony went on into the house, and Ted walked toward the barn, intending to join Bob and Nelson. As he passed the bunkhouse, Mrs. Jansen called to him from the door. She was holding a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “Is this yours, Ted? I found it on the ground, and I thought it might be yours, because I understand you’re a newspaperman.”

  Apparently she thought that journalism was full of all kinds of secrets, and the paper she gave to Ted was as mysterious as any he had ever seen. He looked it over thoughtfully.

  “Why, no, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “Neither have I. That’s why I thought it might be valuable. Last spring I burned up some of the men’s checks, and had so much trouble about it that I’ve been very careful ever since not to burn something that might be important.”

  “It’s just as well to be careful. But it isn’t mine, and I don’t know what it is or whose it could be.”

  “Then would you mind giving it to Mr. Fontaine? Maybe he will know.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that, Mrs. Janse
n. Thank you.”

  Ted walked on, studying the paper. He discovered that all the letters of the alphabet were to be found on each line. It certainly suggested some type of code, but he had no idea what kind. When he asked Mr. Fontaine in the barn, he was equally stumped, as were both Bob and Nelson.

  “Why don’t you take charge of it, Ted?” Mr. Fontaine suggested. “I rather imagine it is more in your line than mine.”

  Then Ted folded the paper and put it in his pocket, intending to see what he could make out of it later.

  CHAPTER 9.

  TEE AUCTION

  With so many problems on his mind, Ted again slept fitfully. The most spectacular of the events of the previous days was the plane crash, and the mystery of the missing passenger. But this was of little personal concern to him, other than the fact that he was one of the witnesses, which entailed certain obligations. The haunting sympathy he felt for the hermit up in Rainbow Gulch was something he could do nothing about, for there seemed no way he could identify or help the man.

  Closer to home was the strange circumstance surrounding Tony’s introduction to the Fontaine family, and the threat Mrs. Manners had posed to the expected adoption. He knew little of Mrs. Manners, her temperament or her character, but he could not agree with Mr. Fontaine that Mrs. Manners was merely intent on trouble. The scene at her farm convinced him that Mrs. Manners really wanted to adopt Tony, and would do everything she could to make it possible.

  Nor could he dismiss it as an idle threat. In his newspaper experience he had run into people who were mostly inclined to bluster, and those who were mostly inclined to act. Mrs. Manners had neither blustered nor threatened the Fontaines directly; instead she had taken legal action. If a responsible lawyer had taken her case, it would probably mean that she did have some legal justice on her side, or at least a case worth arguing in court. The fact that she had tried to hide her actions from the Fontaines indicated that she was not seeking an out-of-court settlement.