The Phantom Town Mystery

CHAPTER III

THE MISSING FRIENDS

Upstairs, in Mary’s room which was furnished as it had been when she had been there as a child, curly maple set with blue hangings, the two girls changed from riding habits to house dresses. Mary wore a softly clinging blue while Dora donned her favorite and most becoming cherry color.

“One might think that we are expecting company tonight.” Mary was peering into the oval glass as she spoke, arranging her fascinating golden curls above small shell-like ears.

“Which, of course, we are not.” Dora had brushed her black bob, boy-fashion, slick to her head. “There being no near neighbors to drop in.” Then suddenly she exclaimed, “Oh, for goodness sakes alive, I completely forgot that letter. It’s for both of us from Polly and Patsy. I’ve been wondering why they didn’t write and tell us where they had decided to spend their summer vacation.”

Dora sprang up to search for the letter in a pocket of her riding habit. Mary sat near a window in a curly maple rocker as she said dreamily: “If we hadn’t come West, we would have been with them – that is, if they went to Camp Winnichook up in the Adirondacks the way we had planned all winter.”

Dora, holding the letter unopened, sat near her friend and smiled at her reminiscently as she said, “We plan and plan and plan for the future, don’t we, and then we do something exactly different, and most unexpected, but I wouldn’t give up being out here on the desert and living in a ghost town for all the fun Patsy and Polly may be having – ”

Mary laughingly interrupted. “Do read the letter and let’s see if they really did go there. Perhaps – ”

“Yes, they did.” Dora had unfolded a large, boyish-looking sheet of paper. “Camp Winnichook,” she announced, then she read the rather indolent scrawl. “Dear Cowgirls,” – it began —

“Patsy has just come in from a swim. She’s drying her bathing suit by lying on the sand in front of the cabin in the sun. Her red hair, which she calls ‘a wind blown mop,’ looks, at present, like a mop that has just finished doing the kitchen floor. Last winter, you recall, she had a few red freckles on her saucy pug nose, but now she wears them all over her face and arms and even on her back. She’s a sight to behold!”

There were spatters on the paper that might have been water. The type of penmanship changed. A jerky, uneven handwriting seemed to ejaculate indignantly, “Don’t you kids believe a word of it. I’m a dazzling beauty – as ever! It’s Polly whose looks are ruined – if she ever had any. She won’t play tennis and she won’t swim and she will eat chocolate drops – you know the finish, and she wasn’t any too slim last year when she had to do gym.”

The first penmanship took up the tale. “I had to forcibly push Patsy away. She’s gone in to dress now, so I’ll hurry and get this letter into an envelope and sealed before she gets back because I want to tell on her.

“You know Pat has always said she was a boy hater, and the more the boys from Wales Military Academy rushed her, the more she would shrug her shoulders and ‘pouff!’ about them, but she’s met her Waterloo. There’s a flying field near our camp and a boy named Harry Hulbert is there studying to be a pilot. Pat and I strolled over to the field one day and ever since she caught sight of that tall, slim chap all done up in his flying togs, she’s been wild to meet him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s even hoping that his machine will crash some day right in front of our cabin so that she can bind up his wounds and – ”

Once again the jerky, uneven writing seemed to exclaim, “Silly gilly! That’s what Polly is! It isn’t the flier, it’s the flying that I’m crazy about. I do wish I knew that Harry Hulbert, but not for any sentimental reasons, believe me. Pouff – for all of ’em! But fly I’m going to!! In truth, if you girls stay West until the end of vacation, you may see an airplane landing in your ghost town – me piloting!!!???”

Then came a wide space and when the writing began again, it was dated three days later and was Polly’s lazy scrawl. “It’s to laugh!” she began. “But, to explain. If you wish hard enough for anything, it’s bound to happen. Not that Harry Hulbert’s plane crashed in front of our cabin but it was forced down when Patsy and I were out in her little green car far from human habitation. Of course we hadn’t gone riding just because we saw that particular little silver plane practicing up in the air – oh, no – not at all!”

Patsy’s jerky scribble interrupted. “She’s a mean, horrid, misrepresenting person, Polly Perkins is! She knows perfectly well we had to go to the village to get a pound of butter for our camp mother, and wasn’t it only polite for us to give that poor stranded boy a lift? He is a real decent sort, even though the only thing he’s crazy about is flying, but we did learn something about him. His father has some sort of a government position in Arizona, where you are, no less. I mean, in the same state, and when Harry gets his pilot’s license, he is to be a flying scout, he told us. He said it will be an awfully exciting life. When there has been a holdup out there on a stage or a train and the bandits leap on to their horses and flee across the border, Harry is to pursue them in his little silver plane and see where they go. Then he’ll circle back to where a posse is waiting, notify them, and so the bandits will be captured. Won’t that be simply too thrilling for words? Oh, why wasn’t I born a boy? I could have been Patrick, then, instead of Patsy. Believe me, when Harry Hulbert gets his license, and it won’t be long now – he’s that good – don’t I wish I could be a stowaway in his plane! We’d have to leave Polly here though. She’s so heavy, the plane wouldn’t be able to get off of the ground.”

The lazy scrawl concluded the epistle. “If Patsy goes West, so do I, but I’ll go by train. I have no romantic urge to take to the air with slim, goggle-eyed young men with a purpose in life.

“Our camp mother (nice Mrs. Higgins, Jane’s aunt, came with us this year) is calling us to lunch, and right after that Pat and I are going to town to mail this. Pat wants me to say that when her friend Mister Harry Hulbert does fly West, she’ll give him a letter of introduction to you two and I calls that right generous of her considering – ”

“Pouff!” came a brief interruption. Then “Goodbye. We’re signing off. Patsy Ordelle and Polly Perkins of the famous Sunnybank Seminary Quadralettes.”

“What a jolly letter!” Mary said. “Wouldn’t it be fun if the missing members of our little clan could be here with us. Patsy is as wild about mystery stories as you are and this ghost town just teems with them.”

A rich, musical voice drifted up from the back porch, “Señoritas!”

“Oh, good! There’s Carmelita calling us to supper, and am I hungry?” Dora tossed the letter on the dresser and slipping an arm about her friend, she gave her a little impulsive hug.

“I don’t envy Pat and Poll, not the least little mite,” she said as they went down the broad front stairway together. “It is lovely at Camp Winnichook as we well know, since we’ve been there with them the past three summers, but the desert has a lure for me that the little blue lake in the mountains never did have.”

“I know,” Mary agreed. “Those mountains are more like pretty hills. There’s nothing grim or grand about them.”

They entered a large, pleasant kitchen, in one corner of which, between two windows, was a table spread with a red cloth. A good-looking middle-aged Mexican woman, dressed in bright colors, stood at the stove preparing to dish up their meal. “Buenos dias, niñas,” she said in her deep, musical voice.

“Good evening, Carmelita,” the girls replied, and then, when they had been served generous portions of the Americanized Mexican dish which the girls called “tamale pie,” Dora flashed at the smiling cook a pleased glance as she said, “Muchas gracias, Señora.”

Then to Mary, “It doesn’t take long to use up all the Spanish I know. Let’s take a vow that when we go back to Sunnybank Seminary next fall we will add Spanish to – ” A wistful expression in her friend’s face caused Dora to pause and exclaim in real alarm, “Mary Moore, do you think, because of your dad, that you won’t be able to go back East to school? You have only one year more before you graduate. You know how we four of ‘The Quadralettes’ have counted on graduating together.”

Mary smiled brightly. “Of course, I expect to go and take Dad with me.” Her momentary wistful doubting had passed.

They had finished their supper and were rising when Carmelita, who had been out on the back porch, hurried in and began a rapid chattering in her own language. The mystified girls could not understand one word. But, as the Mexican woman kept pointing out toward the road, they felt sure that someone was coming toward the house, nor were they wrong.

CHAPTER IV

“DESPERATE DICK”

Skipping to the vine-covered back porch, the two girls peered through the deepening dusk at the approaching car. In it were two boys.

“One of them resembles Jerry,” Mary said, “but the other one is also a cowboy, so it can’t be Dick.”

“It is Dick!” Dora exclaimed gleefully. “Jerry must have loaned him some cowboy togs.”

“Oh, Happy Days!” Mary exulted. “Now we can ask Jerry about that Evil Eye Turquoise and all the rest of the story about poor Mr. Lucky Loon.”

“If there is any rest to it,” Dora remarked. “Look!” she interrupted herself to point laughingly at the little car that was rattling toward them. “Dick is waving his sombrero. He wants us to be sure and take notice of it!”

“Isn’t he proud though?” Mary chuckled. “His face fairly shines.”

Then, as the small car drew up near the porch, the girls clapped their hands gaily, and yet quietly, remembering that Mary’s invalid father might be asleep.

“Oh, Dick,” Dora exclaimed, not trying to hide her admiration, “your mother must see her to-be-physician son. You make a regular screen-star cowboy, doesn’t he, Mary?”

Before the other girl could reply, Dick, who had leaped to the ground, struck a ridiculous pose as he said in a deep, dramatic voice, “Dick, the Desperate Range Rider.”

Dora’s infectious laugh rang out. “Your big, dark eyes look so solemn through those shell-rimmed glasses, Mr. Desperate Dick, that somehow you fail to strike terror into our hearts,” she bantered.

Then Mary smiled up at Jerry, who was standing near her. Half teasingly she asked, “To what do we owe the honor of this visit? When we parted this afternoon, you called ‘we’ll see you tomorrow.’”

Jerry glanced at the other boy, mischievous twinkles in his gray eyes. “You might as well ’fess up, old man. Truth is, Dick couldn’t wait until tomorrow to let you girls admire him in his cowboy togs.”

“Villain!” Dick tried to glower at his betraying friend, but ended by beaming upon him with a most friendly grin. “I suppose I had to rope you and drag you over here quite against your will.”

Jerry’s smile at the curly-headed little girl at his side revealed, more than words, the real reason of his coming. What he said was, “Mom had a letter she wanted mailed and – er – as long as Dick wanted to show off, I reckoned – ”

“Oh, Jerry,” Mary caught his arm, “it really doesn’t matter in the least why you came. I was wild to see you – ” then, when the tall cowboy began to glow with pride, Mary quite spoiled her compliment by hurrying to add, “Oh, it wasn’t you that I wanted to see.” Jerry pretended to be greatly crestfallen, so she laughingly added, “Of course I’m always glad to see you, Big Brother, but – ”

“Goodness!” Dora rushed to her friend’s rescue. “You’re getting all tangled up.” Then to Jerry, “Mary and I are wild to know more about that awfully desolate stone house you showed us this afternoon and about the Evil Eye Turquoise – ”

“Yes, and about poor Mr. Lucky Loon – ” Mary put in.

“Rather a contradictory description, isn’t it?” Dick asked. “How can a man be poor and lucky all in one sentence?”

“I’ll tell you what.” Jerry had a plan to suggest. “Let’s go down to the store and get old Silas Harvey to tell us all that he knows about Lucky Loon. I reckon he’d loosen up for you girls, but he never would for me. He knows more than any other living person about that rock house and the mystery of Sven Pedersen’s life – ”