The Phantom Town Mystery

“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?”

Jerry nodded and gazed thoughtfully into the sweet face uplifted to his, though hardly seeing it. He was thinking what would be best for them to do.

“Dick,” he said finally, “you stay here with the girls. I’m going back up to the car to get my rope. I reckon if you three will hold one end of it, I can slide down on it to that crevice and – ”

“Oh no, no, Jerry, don’t, please don’t!” Mary caught his khaki-covered arm wildly. “You would never get over the shock of being so close to that ghastly skeleton and if the rope should slip – ” she covered her eyes with her hands. Then, as she heard the boys speaking together in low tones, she looked at them. “Jerry,” she said contritely, “I’m sorry I go to pieces so easily today. Of course I know you would not suggest going if you weren’t sure that it would be absolutely safe. Get the rope if you want to. I’m going to try hard to be as brave as Dora is.” Then she added wistfully, “Maybe if you weren’t my Big Brother, I wouldn’t care so much.”

Sudden joy leaped to Jerry’s eyes. How he had hoped that Mary cared a little, oh, even a very little, for him, but usually she treated him in the same frank, friendly way that she did Dick.

Dora, watching, thought, “That settles it. Jerry will not go. The Dooleys and Little Bodil are nothing to him compared to one second’s anxiety for his Sister Mary.”

And it did seem for a long moment that Jerry was going to give up the entire plan. Dick, realizing this, plunged in with, “I say, old man, I know how to go down a rope. That used to be one of my favorite pastimes when I was a youngster and lived near a fire station. The good-natured firemen would let us kids slide down their slippery pole but we had to do some tall scurrying when the alarm sounded.”

Jerry looked at his friend for several thoughtful seconds before he spoke. What he said was, “I reckon you’re right, Dick, but my reason is this. I’m strong-armed and you’re not. Throwing the rope and pulling cantankerous steers around, gives a fellow an iron muscle. And you’re lighter too, a lot, so I reckon I’d better be on the end that has to be held. Now that’s settled, you stay here with the girls while I go up to the car and get my rope.”

CHAPTER XII

A NARROW ESCAPE

The long rope with which Jerry had captured many a wild cow was dropped over the outer edge of the wide ledge. Since the distance was not more than twenty-five feet, the lariat reached nearly to the crevice. Looking around, Jerry found a projecting rock about which he wound the upper end of the rope, but he did not trust it alone. He threw himself face downward and grasped the knot that was nearest the edge in a firm clasp. He told the girls he would not need their assistance at first, but that, if he shouted, they were to both seize the rope near the rock and pull with all their strength.

Dick, making light of the feat he was about to perform, tossed his sombrero to one side, and then, with his hand on his heart, he made a gallant bow to the girls.

Dora and Mary, standing close to the rock around which the rope was twined, clung to each other nervously. They tried to smile encouragingly toward the pretending acrobat, but they were too anxious to put much brightness into the effort.

“Kick off your boots,” Jerry said in a low voice; “you’ll be able to cling to the knots better in stocking feet.”

“Sort of an anti-climax.” Dick’s large brown eyes laughed through the shell-rimmed glasses as he removed his boots. “There, now I do the renowned disappearing act. I’d feel more heroic if I were about to rescue someone.”

“Dick isn’t the least bit afraid, is he, Jerry?” Mary asked in a whispered voice as though she did not want the boy who had gone over the ledge to be conscious of the fear that she felt.

“He’s all right,” Jerry reported a second later. “He’s going down the rope as nimbly as a monkey.”

“Will there be room on the edge of that crevice for him to stand when he does get down?” was Mary’s next question.

There was a long moment’s silence, then Jerry turned his head and smiled reassuringly. “He’s down! Oh, yes, there’s ten feet or more for him to walk on. He’s got hold of the front wheel of the old coach.” The cowboy’s voice changed to a warning shout, “I say, Dick, down there! Don’t try to get aboard! The whole thing might crumble and take you to the bottom of that pit.”

The girls could hear a faint shout from below. Dick evidently had assured Jerry that he would be cautious.

“I wish we could come over where you are, Jerry,” Dora said. “I’d like to watch Dick.”

“Stay where you are, please.” The order, without the last word, would have sounded abrupt. “Er – I may need your help with the rope. Keep alert.”

“I couldn’t be alerter if I tried,” Mary said in a low voice to her companion. “Every nerve in my whole body is so tense I’m afraid something will snap or – ”

“Great Jumping Jehoshaphat!”

Jerry’s startled ejaculation and sudden leap to his knees caused the girls to cry in alarm, “Did Dick fall? Oh! Oh! What has happened?”

Jerry turned toward them and shook his head. “Sorry I hollered out that way. Nothing happened that matters any.”

“But something did, and if you don’t tell us, we’ll come over there and see for ourselves.” Dora’s tone was so determined that Jerry said, “Sure I’ll tell you. When Dick took hold of the front wheel of the stage, he must have jarred the seat, for, all at once, the driver’s skeleton collapsed and toppled off and down into that deep crevice. Well, that’ll be more comfortable for an eternal resting place, I reckon, than sitting upright was, the way he’s been doing this forty years past.” Then he called, “Hey, down there, what did you say? I didn’t hear. Your voice is blown off toward the Little Grand Canyon, I reckon.” Jerry sat intently listening, one big brown hand cupped about his right ear. The girls could hear Dick’s voice coming faintly from below. Jerry showed signs of excited interest. The girls exchanged wondering glances but did not speak until the cowboy turned toward them.

“Dick says there’s a small, child-size trunk under the driver’s seat. Whizzle! I wish I were down there. Together we might be able to get it out.” Leaping to his feet, Jerry went to the rock around which the rope was tied. “That ought to hold all right!” There was a glint of determination in his gray eyes, but it wavered as he glanced at Mary who stood watching him, but saying not a word. “There isn’t anything here to frighten you girls, is there?” He seemed to be imploring the smaller girl to tell him to go. “It’s this-a-way. If there is a child-size box or trunk in the stage coach still, it was probably Little Bodil’s, and don’t you see, Mary, how important it is for us to get it. Why, I reckon a clue would be there all right.”