The Phantom Town Mystery

CHAPTER X

A LONELY MOUNTAIN ROAD

While the four young people ate the delicious chicken sandwiches which Mrs. Newcomb had prepared for them and drank creamy milk poured into aluminum cups from a big thermos bottle, they sat gazing silently about them, awed by the terrific majesty of the scene, the girls not entirely unafraid. Below them was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to a desert floor which was most uneven, having been cut up by torrents, which, during each heavy rain, were hurled down the mountain sides.

The effect of the desert for miles beyond was that of a little “Grand Canyon.” Dora, thoughtfully gazing at it, said, – “In a few centuries, other girls and boys will stand here, perhaps, and by that time those canyons will be worn deep as the real Grand Canyon is today, won’t they, Jerry?”

“I reckon that’s right,” the cowboy replied.

Then Mary asked, “Jerry, is this old dangerous mountain road the very same one that the stages used to cross years ago?”

Jerry nodded, but before he could speak, Mary, shining-eyed, rushed on with, “Oh, Dora, I know why the boys have brought us here! This is the road where the three bandits held up the stage that Sven Pedersen and poor Little Bodil were riding in.”

“Of course it is!” Dora generously refrained from telling her friend that she had been convinced of that fact ever since they began climbing the grade.

Glowing blue eyes turned toward the cowboy. “Oh, Jerry, have you any idea where the exact spot was; where the bandits shot the driver, I mean, and where the horses plunged over the cliff and where that poor little girl was thrown out into the road?” Excitement had made her breathless.

Jerry’s admiring gray eyes smiled down at the eagerly chattering girl. “I reckon I know close to the spot. Silas Harvey said it was just at the top of Devil’s Drop, and – ”

Mary interrupted, horror in her tone, “Oh, Jerry, what a dreadful name! What is it? Where is it?” She was gazing about, her eyes startled. The road disappeared fifty feet ahead of them around a sharp curve. For answer Jerry started the motor, then, joltingly and with cautious slowness, the small car crept toward the curve. Unconsciously the girls were almost holding their breath as they gazed unblinkingly out of staring eyes at the wall of rock around which the road was winding.

When they saw “Devil’s Drop,” a bare, granite peak, up the near side of which the old road climbed at an angle which seemed but slightly off the perpendicular, Mary, with a little half sob, covered her eyes.

Jerry, terribly self-rebuking, wished sincerely that he and Dick had come alone. He was sure that the road was safe, for he and his father had crossed it since the last heavy rain. Mr. Newcomb had a mining claim which could be reached by no other road. So it was with confidence that Jerry tried to allay Mary’s fears. “Little Sister,” he said, “please trust me when I tell you that the grade looks a lot worse than it is. I’d turn back if I could, but it wouldn’t be safe to try.”

Mary, ashamed of her momentary lack of faith in Jerry’s good judgment, put down her hands and smiled up into his anxious face.

“Jerry,” she said, “I’m going to shut my eyes tight until we are up top. You tell me, won’t you, when the worst is over?”

Dora had made no sound, but Dick, glancing at her, saw that she was staring down at the hamper at her feet as though she saw something there that fascinated her. He, also, feared that the girls should have been left at home. Nor was he himself altogether fearless. Having spent his boyhood in and around Boston, he was unused to perilous mountain rides and he was glad when the car came to a jolting stop and Jerry’s voice, relief evident in its tone, sang out, “We’re up top, and all the rest of our ride will be going down.”

Mary opened her eyes and saw that the road had widened on what seemed to be a large ledge. Jerry climbed out and put huge stones in front and back of the wheels, then he held out his hand.

“Here’s where we start hunting for clues,” he said, smiling, but at the same time scanning his companion’s face hoping that all traces of fear had vanished.

Dora and Dick went to the outer edge of the road. “Such a view!” Dora cried, flinging her arms wide to take in the magnitude of it.

“Describe it, who can?”

“I’ll try!” Dick replied. “A bleak, barren, cruel desert lay miles below them like a naked, bony skeleton of sand and rock.”

Mary, clinging to the cowboy’s arm, joined the others but kept well back from the edge. “Jerry,” she said in an awed voice, “do you think – was this the very spot, do you suppose, where the stage was held up?”

“I reckon so,” Jerry replied, “as near as I could figure out from what Silas Harvey said.”

Dora turned. “Then somewhere along here was where poor Little Bodil was thrown into the road.”

The cowboy nodded. A saw-tooth peak rose just beyond them.

Dora, gazing at it, speculated aloud: “Could a wild beast have slunk around the curve there snatched the child and dashed away with it to its cave?”

“We’ll probably never know,” Dick replied. “That could have happened, couldn’t it Jerry?”

“I reckon so,” the cowboy began, when Mary caught his arm again. “Oh, Jerry,” she cried, “are there wild animals now – I mean living here in these mountains?”

The cowboy glanced at Dick before he replied. “None, Little Sister, that will hurt you. Don’t think about them.”

But Mary persisted. “At least tell me what wild animal lives around here that might have dragged Little Bodil to its lair.”

Jerry, realizing that there was nothing else to do, said in as indifferent a tone as he could, “I reckon there may be a mountain lion or so up here, and a puma perhaps. That’s sort of a big cat, but it’s a coward all right! Gets away every time if it can.” He hoped that would satisfy Mary but instead she looked up at the grim peak above them, her eyes startled, searching. “I saw a picture once, oh, I remember it was in my biology book, of a huge catlike creature crouched on a ledge. It was about to spring on a goat that was on the mountain below it. Underneath the picture was printed, ‘The Puma springs from ledges down upon its unsuspecting prey.’ I remember it because it both fascinated and terrorized me.”

“Mary,” the cowboy took both her hands and smiled into her wide blue eyes, “will it make you feel better about wild animals attacking us if I tell you that Dick and I are both carrying concealed weapons?”

Mary smiled up at Jerry as she said, “You think I’m a silly, I know you do, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to be fearful of anything again today.” Then, as she glanced down the steep road up which they had come, she returned the conversation to the subject from which they had so far digressed. “Jerry, which way do you suppose the three bandits came?”

“I reckon they came around the sharp curve over there. They could hide and not be seen by the driver of the stage until he was almost upon them.”

Anxiously Mary asked, “There wouldn’t be any bandits on this road these days, would there?”

It was Dora who answered, “Mary Moore, you know there wouldn’t be. Jerry told us that this road is abandoned by practically all travelers.” Then turning to the cowboy, Dora excitedly exclaimed, “Why, Jerry, if this is the spot where the stage was held up and where the horses plunged off the road, don’t you think it’s possible something may be left of the stage, something that we could find?”

“That’s what I reckoned,” the cowboy said slowly. “Dick and I were planning to climb down the side of the cliff here and see what we could unearth, but I reckon we’d better give up and go home. Dick, you and I can come back some other time – alone.”

“Oh, no!” Dora pleaded. “Mary and I are all over being afraid. We have on our divided skirts, and, if it’s safe for you to climb down Devil’s Drop, why, it’s safe for us, isn’t it, Mary?”

“If Jerry says so,” was the trusting reply accompanied by an equally trusting glance from sweet blue eyes.

Instead of answering, Jerry beckoned Dick over to the edge of the steep drop. It was not a sheer descent. Every few feet down there was a narrow ledge, almost like uneven stairs. There were scrubby growths in crevices to which the girls could cling. About one hundred feet down there was a wide-flung ledge and then another descent, how perilous that was they could not discern from where they stood.

“We could get the girls down to that first wide ledge easily enough,” Dick said, “if you think we ought.”

Jerry spoke in a low voice which, the girls could not hear. “I’m terribly sorry we brought them. My plan was to have them sit in the car up here in the road while we went down to hunt for a skeleton of that old stage coach, but now that Mary’s afraid of a wild animal attacking them, we just can’t leave them alone. They don’t either of them know how to use a gun. I reckon what we ought to do is go back home and – ”

Dick shook his head. “They won’t let us now,” he said, and he was right, for the girls, tired of waiting, skipped toward them saying in a sing-song, “Verse seven!”

“Great!” Dick laughed, applauding.

“Well, only down as far as the wide ledge,” Jerry told them. “That will be easy going, I reckon, and safe.” He held out his strong brown hand to Mary, and, leading the way, he began the descent.

CHAPTER XI

THE SKELETON STAGE COACH

Mary, slender, light of foot, sprang like a gazelle from step to step feeling safe, since Jerry towered in front of her. The firm clasp of his big hand on her small white one made her feel protected and cared for and she was really enjoying the adventure.

Dora, athletic of build and sure-footed, refused Dick’s proffered aid, depending on the scraggly growths in the crevices for support until they reached a spot where only prickly-pear cactus grew.

“Now, Miss Independent,” Dick laughingly called up to her, “you would better put one hand on my shoulder and let me be your human staff.”

This plan proved successful until, in the descent, they came to a spot where the ledge below was farther than the girls could step. Jerry held up his arms and lifted Mary down. That was not a difficult feat since she was but a featherweight. Dora, broad shouldered for a girl and heavily built, was more of a problem. The boys finally made steps for her, Jerry offering his shoulders and Dick his bent back.

Dora, flushed, excited, glanced at the ledge above as she exclaimed, “Getting up again will be even more difficult.”

“We won’t cross bridges until we get to them,” Dick began, then added, “or climb mountains either. Going down at present requires our entire attention.”

But the narrow ledge-steps continued to be accommodatingly close for about fifteen feet; then another sheer descent was covered by repeating their former tactics.

“There, now we’re on the wide ledge,” Mary said, “and we can’t see a single thing that’s beneath us.” Then she cried out as a sudden alarming thought came to her. “Oh, Jerry, what if our weight should cause a rock-slide, or whatever it’s called, and we all were plunged – ”

“Pull in on fancy’s rein, Little Sister!” the cowboy begged. “You may be sure I examined the formation of this ledge before I lifted you down upon it.” Then, turning to Dora, he said, “I reckon you and Mary’d better stay close to the mountain while Dick and I worm ourselves, Indian fashion, to the very edge where we can see what’s down below.”

“Righto!” Dora slipped an arm about Mary and together they stood and watched the boys lying face downward and wriggling their long bodies over the flat, stone ledge.

Dora noticed how slim and frail Dick’s form looked and how sinewy and strong was Jerry.

The edge reached, the boys gazed down, but almost instantly Jerry had whirled to an upright position and the watching girls could not tell whether his expression was more of terror than of exultation. Surely there was a mingling of both.

Dick, who had backed several feet before sitting upright, was frankly shocked by what he had seen.

For a moment neither of them spoke. “Boys!” Dora cried. “The stage coach is down there, isn’t it? But since you expected to find it, why are you so startled?”

Jerry was the first to reply. “Well, it’s pretty awful to see what’s left of a tragedy like that. I reckon you girls would better not look.”

“I won’t, if you don’t want me to,” Mary agreed, “but do tell us about it. After all these years, what can there be left?”

Jerry glanced at Dick, who, always pale, was actually white.

“I’ll confess it rather got me, just at first,” the Eastern boy acknowledged.

Dora, impatient at the slowness of the revelation, and eager to see for herself what shocking thing was over the ledge, started to walk toward the edge, but Dick, realizing her intention, sprang up and caught her arm. “Let us tell you first what we saw, Dora,” he pleaded, “and then, if you still want to see it, we won’t prevent you. It won’t be so much of a shock when you are prepared.”

“Well?” Dora stood waiting.

The boys were on their feet. Jerry began. “When the horses reared and plunged off the road, they must have rolled with the stage over and over.”

“That’s right,” Dick excitedly took up the tale, “and when the coach struck this wide ledge, it bounded, I should say, off into space and was caught in a wide crevice about twenty-five feet straight down below here.”

“Oh, Jerry,” Mary cried, “is the driver or the horses – ”

The cowboy nodded vehemently. “That’s just it. That’s the terribly gruesome part. The skeletons of the horses are hanging in the harness and that poor driver – his skeleton, I mean, still sits in his seat – ”

“The uncanny thing about it,” Dick rushed in, “is that his leather suit is still on his skeleton, and his fur cap, though bedraggled from the weather, is still on his bony head.”

“But his eyes are the worst!” Jerry shuddered, although seeing skeletons was no new thing to him. “Those gaping sockets are looking right up toward this ledge as though he had died gazing up toward the road hoping help would come to him.”

Suddenly Mary threw her arms about Dora and began to sob. Jerry, again self-rebuking, cried in alarm, “Oh, Little Sister, I reckon I’m a brute to shock you that-a-way.”

Dora had noticed that in times of excitement Jerry fell into the lingo of the cowboy.

Mary straightened and smiled through her tears. “Oh, I’m so sorry for that poor man, but I must remember that it all happened years ago and that now we are really bent on a mission of charity.” Then, smiling up at Jerry, she held out a hand to him as she said, “That’s the big thing for us to remember, isn’t it? First of all, we want, if possible, to find out if poor Little Bodil is alive and if we’re sure, oh, just ever so sure, that she is dead, we want to get the gold and turquoise from Mr. Pedersen’s rock house for the Dooleys.”

Her listeners were sure that Mary was talking about their good purpose that she might quiet her nerves. It evidently had the desired effect, for, quite naturally, she asked, “If there is nothing beneath this ledge but space, how can you boys get down to the stage coach to search for clues? That’s what you planned doing, wasn’t it?”