Bob Dexter and the Storm Mountain Mystery or, The Secret of the Log Cabin

“I thought so! Come on, Ned, we’ll walk!” laughed Harry.

But a moment later the engine began to turn over with a steady throb, hum and roar that told of plenty of power, each of the four cylinders firing evenly and regularly.

“Not so bad!” announced Ned, listening with a critical ear.

“Yes, I’ve got her pretty well tuned up,” admitted Bob with pardonable pride. “I guess she’ll take me there and back.”

“Well, we’ll take a chance,” said Harry, and soon the three chums were rattling down the road. Rattling is the proper word, for though the flivver certainly moved, she also rattled, as do most of her kind. But rattling is no crime.

“Say, there’s going to be a big crowd,” observed Bob as he slowed up at the ball park to let his chums jump off. “Wish I could see the game!”

“Same here,” remarked Harry. “Yes, there’s going to be a mob all right!”

Though it would be nearly an hour before the game started, already throngs were congregating at the park. For the contest was an important one.

There had long been a rivalry between the Boys’ Athletic Club, to which Bob, Ned and Harry belonged, and the team from Midvale, a town about ten miles from Cliffside where Bob Dexter lived. Each year a series of games took place, and up to date the championship had wavered between the two.

This year the rivalry was keener than before, and should the Boys’ Club clinch this contest it meant winning the pennant for the season. Hence the interest.

“Root hard, fellows!” begged Bob as he started his machine off again, while his chums hastened to get the seats reserved for club members. “I’ll get back in time for the last inning if I can!”

“Atta boy!” called Ned.

It was with rather a disappointed air that Bob continued on to the railroad station. But, after all, he knew he must do his duty, and helping his uncle, who was bringing him up, was part of this.

The 2:30 train pulled in a little late, and Bob, who had been told what Mr. Sheldon looked like, so he would know him, caught sight of this individual out on the platform of one of the cars, while the train was yet moving. Mr. Dexter had arranged for the transfer of the papers, and to make sure that Mr. Sheldon would know Bob, the latter carried in his hand a red dahlia from his aunt’s garden.

“You’re Bob Dexter, aren’t you?” cried Mr. Sheldon as he held a bundle of legal-looking documents to the lad. “Yes, I see you have the red flower. It’s all right, tell your uncle, but the papers must be signed before two witnesses before three o’clock. I’ll look after the other matters for him. Glad the train wasn’t any later and I’m glad you are here on time. I was getting a bit worried. If things had gone wrong it would mean a big loss. Don’t lose any time getting those papers back to your uncle now. Good-by!”

“Good-by,” was all Bob had time to say, and then the train pulled out again, for it seldom stopped long at Cliffside. Mr. Sheldon went back to his seat in his car, waving his hand to Bob. The latter looked at the bundle of papers, though they told him nothing of the business they represented. However, Bob did not think much about that. His affair was to get the documents to his uncle as soon as he could. And it was now twenty minutes to three by the depot clock.

“Hope the old flivver doesn’t go back on me!” mused Bob as he climbed to his seat. He was glad to find that the motor turned over at the first touch on the self-starter pedal, and he was about to let in the clutch and dart away when he was hailed by a voice calling:

“I say there young feller, can you give me a lift?”

He turned to see, beckoning to him, an old man – a grizzled old man with a short, stubby beard. Under his arm the man, whose clothing was not of the best nor most up to date, carried a small brass-bound box – a box such as might contain papers or other things of value. And yet the appearance of the man did not indicate that he was in the habit of carrying things of value.

He was, to put it bluntly, but a few degrees removed in appearance from a tramp, though Bob noticed his face and hands were clean, which is not often the case with tramps.

“I’m in a hurry,” said Bob, as civilly as he could under the circumstances.

“So am I,” said the man with the box. “I’ve got to get to Storm Mountain as quick as I can.”

Storm Mountain was a town well up amid the hills, about five miles from Cliffside. It was located on the side of a big hill also called Storm Mountain.

“Sorry, but I’m not going up Storm Mountain way,” said Bob, as he slowly allowed the flivver to get up speed.

“But I’m willing to pay you!” said the man, shifting his brass-bound box under his other arm as he limped forward – Bob noticed that he walked with a slight limp.

“I’m not a taxicab – you can hire one in town or over there,” and Bob pointed to where usually some ancient autos stood – representing the jitney and taxi service of Cliffside. Just now there were no vehicles there, as they seldom met the 2:30 train.

“I’d hire one if I could,” said the man with the box. “But I can’t. I’ll pay you well to take me to Storm Mountain.”

“I’m sorry, but I have an important engagement in town,” said Bob, as he let his car gather speed. “You’ll have to get some one else.”

“All right,” said the man good-naturedly enough. He turned back to the station, and as he drove off Bob was rather glad that he could conscientiously refuse the service.

“For, to tell the truth,” said Bob to himself, “I don’t altogether like your looks, nor the looks of that box you carry. You may be all right, but I’ve got important papers and I’ve got to look after them.” He made good time to his uncle’s office, and found Mr. Dexter rather anxiously waiting for him.

“Oh, you have them, I see!” exclaimed Mr. Dexter as he took the bundle of papers from his nephew. “Mr. Sheldon was there all right, I take it?”

“Yes, and he said he’d attend to the other matters. But these must be signed before two witnesses by three o’clock.”

“I know it, Bob. I’ll attend to it right away. You had no other trouble, did you – I mean no one stopped you to ask to look at the papers – or anything like that?” Mr. Dexter seemed anxious and nervous.

“No, I wasn’t exactly stopped,” Bob answered. “But there was an old man with a box who wanted me to take him to Storm Mountain.”

“What sort of a man, Bob?” eagerly asked his uncle.

Bob described the individual, and a look of relief came over Mr. Dexter’s face.

“It isn’t any one I know,” he said. “I guess it’s all right, Bob. You may go now. Thanks for attending to this for me. I can look after matters now.”

“Then I’ll go to the ball game,” announced Bob.

He was on his way to the park, taking a short cut along a back road when, in a lonely spot he saw a huddled figure lying beside the road.

“It’s a man!” exclaimed Bob, as he stopped his machine and jumped out. “The man with the box – looks as if he’d been killed!”

CHAPTER II

THE LOG CABIN

Bob Dexter, young as he was, had been through too many strenuous experiences to be turned aside at the thought of a dead man. Besides, this was right in the line of Bob’s ambition, if you get my meaning. That is, he had fully determined to become a detective, and here seemed right at hand a mystery that needed solving. He was first on the scene – a most advantageous thing from a detective’s standpoint.

“I’ve got to keep my wits about me,” thought the lad to himself as he approached the prostrate man who lay suspiciously still and quiet in the grass beside the lonely road.

And while Bob is getting ready to solve what he hopes may be a most baffling mystery, perhaps it would be just as well if I told my new readers a little about the youth who is to figure as the hero of this story.

Bob Dexter’s father and mother died when he was quite young, and his uncle Joel Dexter agreed to care for the lad and bring him up as his own son. Uncle Joel and his wife Aunt Hannah had faithfully kept their promise, and Bob could not have asked for a better home nor for more loving care than he received.

But though loving and kind, Mr. Dexter insisted on Bob “toeing the mark,” as he called it in the matter of work and duties, including attending school. Bob’s uncle was “well fixed” as regards this world’s goods, though not exactly a man of wealth. He was interested in several businesses in Cliffside, including a hardware store he owned. He also loaned money on mortgages and kept a private office over the First National Bank, in which enterprise he was said to own several shares.

Thus Bob grew from boyhood to young manhood, and when he began to develop a taste for detective stories, and, not only that but a desire to solve local crimes and mysteries, Uncle Joel rather “put his foot down,” as he expressed it.

However, when Bob scored a point on the Cliffside police, by finding Jennie Thorp, who, it was supposed, had been kidnaped (though she wasn’t) Bob’s stock went up several points. And when, as I have told you in the first volume of this series, entitled “Bob Dexter and the Club House Mystery,” the youth solved the secret of the Golden Eagle, well, then Uncle Joel “drew in his horns,” as his wife said, and Bob “detected” to his heart’s content.

The Golden Eagle was the mascot of the Boys’ Athletic Club, and when it vanished there was a great deal of astonishment, which only subsided when Bob got the eagle back.