The Phantom Town Mystery

Dora thought, “Poor Jerry, I ‘reckon’ he didn’t like that part about H. H. being donated to his Mary, but he isn’t going to say so, not Jerry!”

A small clock on the kitchen shelf back of the big stove made four little tingling noises. Mary sprang up. Holding out her hand to the cowboy, she said, “Stay for supper if you think the calf can milk the cow. I’m going to read to Dad for an hour. Then I’ll be back again.”

CHAPTER XXI

A POSSIBLE CLUE

At five, which was the invalid’s supper hour, Mary emerged from the living-room and heard excited voices from behind the closed door of her father’s study across the hall.

Dora, who had been listening for her friend’s footsteps, threw the door wide. Her olive-tinted face told Mary that something had happened even before Jerry exclaimed: “Little Sister, come here and see what Dick has found. We think it’s a clue.”

“A clue about Little Bodil here in Dad’s study?” Mary’s voice was amazed and doubting.

“Oh, it’s something Dick himself brought into the house. Don’t tell,” Dora implored the boys. “See if Mary can guess.”

The fair girl gazed thoughtfully at the other three. Dick, beaming upon her, was holding something behind his back.

“Hmm. Let me see.” Mary put one slim white finger against her head, as though trying to think deeply. Then she laughed merrily. “I’d like to seem terribly dumb and drag out the suspense for you all, but, of course, it’s as plain as the sun on a clear day. Dick only kept one thing from the trunk, and that one thing was a small carpet slipper. But I don’t see how that could possibly be a clue.”

“Very well, my dear young lady, we will show you.” Dick handed the slipper to her. “First, thrust your dainty fingers into its toe. Do you find a clue there?”

“No, I do not.” Mary was frankly curious.

“Now, turn the slipper over. What do you see?”

Mary turned the small worn slipper wonderingly and reported, “A loose patch.” Then, gleefully, “Oh, I know, Dick, that patch is some kind of coarse paper and on the inside of it, there’s writing. Is that it? Have I guessed right?”

“Well,” Dick confessed, “you know now as much as we do. We were just about to remove the patch when you came in. Jerry, let me take your knife. I left mine on a fence post over at Bar N.”

The four young people stood close to one of the long windows while Dick cut the coarse thread that held the patch.

“Oh, do hurry!” Dora begged. “Your fingers are all thumbs. Here, let me do that.” But Dick shook his head, saying boyishly, “It’s my slipper, isn’t it?”

“One more stitch and we shall know all,” Jerry said, then, smiling across at Mary, he asked, “What do you reckon that we will know?”

“I can’t guess what’s in the letter, of course,” that little maid replied, “but it can’t be anything that will tell us whether the child was eaten up by wild animals or carried off by bandits.”

The ragged piece of brown paper, which had evidently been torn from a package wrapping, was removed and opened. Although there had been writing on it at one time, it was so blurred that it was hard to decipher. Mary found a magnifying glass in her father’s desk. Dora, Dick and Jerry stood with their heads together back of the younger girl’s chair, and when they thought they had figured a word out correctly, Mary, seated at the desk, wrote it down. After half an hour, they had made out only two words of the message and had guessed at the blurred signature.

    “lonesome – write – Miss Burger,
    Gray Bluffs,
    New Mexico.”

There were several other words which they could not make out.

Mary took the letter, spread it on the desk before her and gazed intently at it through the magnifying glass. Then, smiling up at the others, a twinkle in her eyes, she said, “This is it – perhaps.

‘Dear Little Bodil,

When you reach the strange place where you are going, you may be lonesome. If you are, do write often to your good friend,

    Miss Burger.’”

“Well, I reckon that’ll do pretty nigh as well as anything else,” Jerry said. Then, glancing out of the window at the late afternoon sun, he grinningly announced that since the calf, by that time, had milked the cow, he and Dick would accept Mary’s previously given invitation and stay for supper.

“Oh, Jerry!” Mary stood up and caught hold of the cowboy’s arm. “I know by the gleam in your eyes that you think this bit of paper may be a clue worth following up.”

“Yes, I sure do,” was the earnest reply. “I reckon this Miss Burger, if we got the name right, was a friend to the little girl somewhere, sometime.”

“Shall we write to her now?” Mary dropped back into the desk chair. “If she’s living, she will surely answer.”

“But,” Dick was not yet convinced that it was a helpful clue, “how can Miss Burger know – ”

“Stupid!” Dora interrupted. “Of course Miss Burger won’t know whether Little Bodil was eaten by wild animals or carried off by bandits, but if the child lived, it’s more than likely, isn’t it, that she did write and tell this friend.”

“True enough!” Dick agreed. “But, Lady Sleuth, if Bodil wrote Miss Burger telling where she was, isn’t it likely that Mr. Pedersen also wrote the same woman telling where he was, and presto, his long search would be over. He would have found his child.”

“Oh, of course, Dick! You weren’t stupid after all.” Dora was properly apologetic. Then, she added ruefully, “Since this clue isn’t any good, we got thrilled up over it for nothing at all.”

Jerry spoke in his slow drawl. “I cain’t be sure the clue is no good until we’ve heard from this Miss Burger.”

“Well spoken, old man,” Dick commended. “If we could send a night-letter, we might have an answer at once, if – ”

“That ‘if’ looms large,” Dora commented dubiously. “There isn’t a telegraph office in this ghost town, and, moreover, Miss Burger may not be alive and if she is, wouldn’t she be awfully ancient?”

“Not necessarily,” Mary replied, glancing up at the others thoughtfully. “If Little Bodil is alive, she will be about fifty. This Miss Burger may have been a very young woman.”

“About that night telegram,” Jerry said. “We can have one sent out of Tombstone up to nine o’clock. What, say that we ride over there as soon as we’ve had supper.”

“Great!” Dick ejaculated. “There’ll be a full moon to light us home again.”

Mary sprang up and clapped her hands gleefully. “It will be jolly fun anyway. And it may be a good clue. Come on now, let’s storm the kitchen and help Carmelita. We ought to start as soon as we can.”

* * * * * * * *

It was early twilight when the faithful little car (that always seemed just about to fall apart but which never did) drew up in front of the combination blacksmith shop-oil station on the edge of Gleeson.

Seth Tully, one of the grizzled, leathery old-timers, hobbled out of a small, crumbling adobe building. It was evident that he was much excited about something and eager to have someone to talk to.

“Howdy, folks,” he began in his high, uncertain, falsetto voice, “I reckon as you-all heerd how a freight train was held up last night over in Dead Hoss Gulch.” Then, seeing the boys’ amazement and the girls’ dismay, he went on exultingly, “Yes, siree! Thar was bags of rich ore in one o’ them cars – the hindmost one, an’, time take it, if them thar bandits wa’n’t wise to it. The train allays goes durn slow along that steep grade climbing up out o’ the gulch. Well, sir, what did them bandits do?” The old man was becoming dramatic in his delight at having such thrilled listeners. “Dum blast it, if a parcel of ’em didn’t hold up the engineer and another parcel of ’em cut loose that hind car. Crash it went back’ards down that thar grade, jumped the track and smashed to smithers.”

“Oh, Mr. Tully,” Mary cried, “was anyone killed?”

The old man shook his head. “Nope, the guard wa’n’t kilt, but them bandits reckoned as how he was, ’totherwise they’d have plugged him. He come to, but they’d cleared out, the whule pack of ’em, an’ they’d tuk the ore with ’em.”

Dora, watching the old man’s glittering, pale-blue eyes that were deep-sunken under shaggy brows, thought that he seemed actually pleased about it all, nor was she wrong as his next remark showed.

“Say, Jerry-kid, that thar holdup smacks o’ old times. It was gettin’ too gol-darned quiet around these here parts. Needed suthin’ like this to sort o’ liven us up.” He ended with a cackling laugh that made Mary shudder.