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

“Well, there aren’t any windows in the place. How do you get fresh air?”

“Oh, that!” he laughed. “I reckon you can tell that I like fresh air as much as anybody. I’m an outdoor man – always was. Well, I don’t make a practice of sleeping here, but when I do I get plenty of fresh air through the fireplace,” and he pointed to a hearth in the room. Bob knew that an open fireplace is one of the best methods known of ventilating a room.

And certainly if ever a room needed ventilation this inner one in the lonely log cabin did, for the strong door was the only opening in it. Not a window, not a porthole, nor so much as a crack gave on the outside. It was a veritable vault, the chimney opening being the only one by which a person shut in the room could save himself from smothering.

“Yes, once I’m shut up in here not even Rod Marbury can get at me!” chuckled Hiram Beegle.

“Couldn’t he get down the chimney?” asked Bob.

“I’d like to see him try it I There’s a crook in the flue and a raccoon that once tried to get down, though why I don’t know, was stuck until I tore a hole in the outside and set the poor thing free. That’s what would happen to Rod Marbury if he tried it. No, he’d better not try to play Santa Claus with me!” and again the old man chuckled.

While Bob looked about the room, noting how strong the walls were and the thickness of the door, the old man opened the chest in the corner and in it placed the brass-bound box, snapping the padlock shut after he made his deposit.

“There!” he announced, “I guess it’s all right now. It’s safe! Rod Marbury can whistle for a breeze but that’s all the good it will do him. Now for your buttermilk, young man.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about me!” begged Bob.

“It isn’t any trouble. It’s only a step to the spring and I’d like a drink myself after what I’ve been through.”

“Aren’t you going to notify the police?” asked Bob as he preceded the old man from the strong room, watching him turn the ponderous key in the lock.

“Notify the police? What about?” asked Hiram Beegle.

“About the attack on you – by Rodney Marbury as you think.”

“As I know, you mean, young man. But I don’t need the police. I can deal with that chap myself if need comes. But I guess he knows he’s through. He won’t bother me again. Now for the buttermilk.”

There was a small spring house not far from the log cabin, and from this cool repository Hiram brought a can of rich, cool buttermilk, which was most refreshing to Bob, for the day was hot, even though It was October.

“Well, much obliged to you, Bob Dexter,” said Hiram, as Bob was about to take his leave, having seen the big brass key deposited in the secret niche and the panel closed. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon you wouldn’t tell everybody what you’ve seen and heard to-day.”

“I’ll keep quiet about it,” the lad promised.

He rode off down the mountain trail in his flivver, looking back to see the odd but kindly old man waving a farewell to him. Bob little knew under what circumstances he would see Hiram Beegle again.

It was late afternoon when Bob returned home, for he got a puncture when halfway to Cliffside and had to stop to change a tire. As he drew up in front of his house he met his two chums, Harry and Ned.

“Too bad you missed the game,” remarked Ned.

“Yes,” assented Bob, “I’m sorry, too.”

“What did you do with Rip Van Winkle?” asked Harry.

“Rip Van Winkle?” repeated Bob, wondering.

“Yes. The old codger Fred Merton saw you with.”

“Oh, Hiram Beegle,” chuckled Bob. “Yes, he is a queer character,” and he told as much of the story as would not violate his promise.

“Well, I s’pose you know what you’re doing,” said Ned. “But from what Fred said about this old codger I wouldn’t want to meet him alone after dark, Bob.”

“Oh, he’s all right,” protested the young detective with a laugh. “But I suppose there’ll be great doings at the club house to-night.”

“There sure will – to celebrate the game to-day. Going to be there?”

“Surest thing you know. I’ll see you there. So long!”

“So long, Bob!”

The two chums went on their way and Bob went into the house after putting his car in the barn that had been turned into a garage.

The Boys’ Athletic Club had a jollification meeting that night over the baseball victory, and the Golden Eagle mascot looked down most approvingly from his perch to which he had been restored by the efforts of the young detective.

“I don’t believe we’d have had half such a good game out of it to-day if it hadn’t been for the Golden Eagle,” remarked Ned, as he sat with his chums, looking up at the mascot bird.

“You’re right!” chimed in Harry.

“Oh, I guess you imagine a lot of that,” laughed Bob. “Still, I’m glad the old bird is back in place.”

“You said it!” exclaimed his chums.

It was next morning, when Bob was on his way to his uncle’s hardware store where he now worked, that the lad met Harry and Ned.

“Did you hear the news?” cried Harry.

“What news?” asked Bob, slowing up his flivver so his chums might leap in.

“Old Hiram Beegle was murdered last night in his cabin!” cried Ned.

CHAPTER IV

WOODEN LEG

Suspecting that his chums were playing some joke on him, though he thought this rather a poor subject for humor, and believing that Harry and Ned wanted to get a rise out of him, Bob Dexter did not at once show the astonishment that was expected. Instead he merely smiled and remarked:

“Hop in! If I believe that I s’pose you’ll tell me another!”

“Say, this is straight!” cried Ned.

“No kidding!” added Harry. “The old man was killed last night. You know who we mean – Rip Van Winkle – the old codger you took over to Storm Mountain in this very flivver.”

“Yes, I know, who you mean all right,” assented Bob. “But who told you he was killed? How, why, when, where and all the rest of it?”

“We didn’t hear any of the particulars,” explained Harry. “But Chief Drayton, of the Storm Mountain police force – guess he’s the whole force as a matter of fact – Drayton just came over here to get our chief to help solve the mystery.”

“Oh, then there’s a mystery about it, is there?” asked Bob, and his chums noticed that he at once began to pay close attention to what they were saying.

“Sure there’s a mystery,” asserted Ned. “Wouldn’t you call it a mystery if a man was found dead in a locked room – a room without a window in it, and only one door, and that locked on the inside and the man dead inside? Isn’t that a mystery, Bob Dexter – just as much of a mystery as who took our Golden Eagle?”