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

“Perry Junction.”

“Um, down where they can catch the fast trains. But there aren’t so many trains at this time of the morning. Maybe I can nab them yet.”

“What are you going to do, Bob?” asked Mr. Dawson, as the lad started from the station.

“I’m going to take the short cut to Perry Junction. I can beat the milk, for it’s got half a dozen stops between here and there to pick up cans. I want to see these fellows.”

“Better not take any chances with them, Bob,” advised Mr. Dawson. “They didn’t look like very nice customers, especially that man with the iron hook. If he made a dig at you with that – zowie, boy!” The agent drew in his breath sharply.

“Don’t worry – I’m not going to take any chances, Mr. Dawson. I’m going to stop and pick up an officer at headquarters.”

“I think that’s wise. I didn’t like the looks of these chaps from the time they came in. I was suspicious of them, and I thought I might be in for a hold-up, until I remembered that I didn’t have enough money on hand to make it worth while. But they were civil enough.”

“And you say the man with the smooth face bought the tickets?”

“Yes – two, for Ferry Junction.”

“Did he talk like an Italian?”

“No, Bob, I can’t say he did. Talked like as American, as far as I could judge.”

“Then he must have dropped his pretended Italian jargon along with his hair and whiskers,” thought the young detective. “Well, things are beginning to work out – though what the end will be I can’t tell.” Aloud, to the agent, he said:

“Well, I guess I’ll be getting along if I’m going to beat the milk, though that won’t be so hard. She’s got a bad grade ahead of her up Storm Mountain. Much obliged for your information, Mr. Dawson.”

“Don’t mention it, Bob. Hope you make out all right with your case.”

“Thanks, I hope I do.”

“I reckon, before long, you’ll be on the police force of some big city, Bob.”

“No such luck as that, Mr. Dawson. But that’s what I’m working for. Good-night.”

“Good-morning, you mean!” chuckled Mr. Dawson as he smiled at the lad. “It’ll soon be daylight.”

So it will. Well, I’ve got to get a hustle on.

The young detective found Constable Tarton on night duty at police headquarters. Mr. Tarton had considerable respect for Bob, for he knew of the outcome of the case of the Golden Eagle. In fact Caleb would rather work with Bob than with Chief Miles Duncan.

So it was with eagerness that Mr. Tarton agreed to accompany the lad in the flivver to Perry Junction, there, if need arose, to make an arrest on suspicion.

“I’ll just wake up Sim Nettlebury, and let him take charge of matters,” the constable said with a chuckle. “Not that anything is likely to happen in Cliffside at this hour of the morning, but I got to follow regulations. Sim won’t like it, though, being woke up.”

Sim didn’t, as was evident from his grumbles and growls as the night constable aroused him in the room over the main office of police headquarters. A certain proportion of the limited police force of Cliffside slept on the premises, taking turns the different nights.

“Now I’m ready to go with you, Bob,” announced Mr. Tarton, as the half-awake Sim, rubbing his eyes, tried to find a comfortable place behind the desk with its green-shaded lamp.

Bob Dexter had thought out his plan carefully, and yet he was not at all sure of the outcome. The identity of Rod Marbury, the man suspected of assaulting Hiram and stealing the brass-bound box, with Pietro Margolis was a surprise to the young detective. How the man with the iron hook fitted into the mystery Bob could not yet fathom.

But that something had occurred between the two to make Rod leave off his disguise, and hurry out of town was evident.

“He fooled Hiram and he fooled Jolly Bill,” thought Bob. “The question is now can he fool me. I was taken in by his monkey nuts, but from now on I’ll be on my guard. And yet I don’t believe he took the brass box. But he may know who did. The man with the iron hook couldn’t have – I’m sure. Hiram never mentioned such a character, and he would have done so, I’m sure, if there had been any such character to mention. You don’t meet a man with an iron hook every day. Well, it may be working out – this Storm Mountain mystery – but it’s doing so in a queer way.”

“All set, Bob,” said the constable, as he got in the flivver.

“Let’s go!” was the grim rejoinder.

The roads were clear of traffic, save for an occasional farmer bringing to town, for the early market, a load of produce. And, as Bob had said, he could take a short cut, intercepting the milk train, almost before it reached Perry Junction. The train, as the lad had stated, would have to make a number of stops to pick up cans of milk which the dairymen had left at the different stations along the route.

“Those fellows must have been in a desperate hurry, Bob, to take the milk train,” said the constable, as they jolted along side by side in the flivver.

“Hurry – on the milk?” laughed Bob.

“Well, I mean in a hurry to get out of town. Of course the train is a slow-poke, but they could get out of Cliffside on her, and that’s what they wanted, maybe.”

“That’s so,” agreed Bob. “I didn’t think of that”

“Think of what?” asked Caleb Tarton.

“Oh – nothing much. Hold fast now, here’s a bit of rough road.”

It was rough – so much so that at the speed which Bob drove all the constable could do was to hold on. And he didn’t dare open his mouth to ask questions for fear of biting off his tongue.

Which, perhaps, was Bob’s object. I’m not saying it was, but it would have been a good way to insure silence.

Then they got onto a smooth, concrete highway, leading directly to Perry Junction. A faint light was showing, now, in the east.

“Soon be sun-up, Bob,” remarked Mr. Tarton.

“Yep. It’s been a long night, I’ll say. I haven’t been to bed yet”

“You haven’t?”

“No. I ran off a party. Then I ran onto this clew and I’ve been busy on it ever since.”

“Well, we’ll soon know what’s what, Bob. There’s the station right ahead of us.”

“Yes, and here comes the milk,” added Bob, as a shrill whistle cut the keen, morning air.

“We’re just about in time,” remarked the constable.

Perry Junction was not a station of any importance save that certain fast trains stopped there to pick up passengers from other points along the line. And it was evidently the object of the two men to take advantage of this. Bob had made his plans well, and they would have worked out admirably save for one thing.

The two men he was after weren’t on the train. A simple thing, but it loomed big.

Bob and the constable leaped from their flivver as the milk train drew to a screeching stop, and the two hid themselves behind a corner of the station. It was now light enough so that they could see who got off the milk train. But the man with the iron hook and the man who had been masquerading as an organ grinder, were not among the passengers that alighted.

“Looks like they give us the slip, Bob,” observed Mr. Tarton.