Danny Orlis and the Angle Inlet Mystery

by Bernard Palmer

  "Oh, boy," Bob said, his whole body quivering with excitement. "Oh, boy, we can find the treasure now."

  "First of all," Danny said soberly, "we've got to get out of here as quick as we can. Then we can think about looking for the treasure."

  "But how're we going to get out of here?" Bob asked.

  "We can't walk, that's a cinch," Mike put in. "There are at least three or four deep streams between here and Danny's place, to say nothing about having to make our way through eight or ten miles of forest and muskeg."

  "We can't walk," Danny agreed, "but I've got my ax along, and I saw some heavy rope out in the woodshed. We can tie enough logs together with the rope to make a raft. It'll be slow going, but we can pole our way out of here. All we've got to do now is to wait until it gets light enough for us to work."

  The boys sat there studying the map and talking, too excited to go back to sleep until daylight. With the coming of dawn the storm drifted southward, and the sun came up clear and warm.

  Danny said as they stepped outside, the ax in his hands, "We haven't had anything to eat since yesterday noon. I'm getting powerful hungry."

  "Eat?" Bob asked. "Who's got time enough to eat?"

  "I have," Danny said. "There are some blueberries over there, Bob. Why don't you go over and pick some for us while Mike and I make the raft. We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us, and it might be another six or eight hours before we get a chance to eat again."

  Danny and Mike cut down two or three straight, evenly shaped trees, trimmed off the branches, and cut the trunks into eight-foot lengths.

  "Are you sure this'll hold the three of us and Laddie?" Mike asked as they lashed the last log into place and scooted the raft down into the water. "Sure it will," Danny said. "Our worry's going to be poling the thing, not drowning."

  "The first mile and a half will be easy enough," Mike said, indicating the current they would be riding downstream.

  "I know," Danny agreed, "but just wait until we have to buck the lake. There won't be any current there."

  By the time they were ready to go, Bob was back with almost a gallon of big, juicy blueberries. "Say," he said, grinning, "these things are good. I didn't know how hungry I was until I got over in that patch."

  "From the stains around your mouth and the looks of your face, you shouldn't be very hungry," Mike laughed good-naturedly.

  They climbed aboard the raft, and Danny and Bob shoved it out into the current. The raft began to float slowly downstream.

  "Now," Mike said, "Let me at some of those blueberries."

  "I think we ought to have our morning devotions before we eat, don't you?" Danny asked.

  "Sure thing," Bob said.

  Danny opened his Testament to the Book of Psalms that was included in the back part of it and began to read from Psalm 98. "O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvellous things:…The Lord hath made known his salvation."

  "God has sure done that on this trip," Mike broke in. "He's made known His salvation so plain and clear to Bob and me that we couldn't run away from it. We had to accept Him as our Saviour."

  "I was just thinking the same thing," Bob said.

  When Danny finished reading, all three of them prayed in turn, thanking God that Mike and Bob had found Christ as their Saviour, thanking Him for caring for Bob in time of danger and for watching over them through the stormy night.

  "And, O Lord," Danny concluded, "bless this food as we eat it and help us to use the strength we receive to Thine honor and glory. In Jesus' name. Amen."

  They were still eating blueberries and talking excitedly about the map when Mike spied the canoe floating upside down along shore.

  "Look!" he cried. "There's our canoe!"

  Quickly they poled the clumsy raft over alongside the canoe.

  "Boy, this is swell!" Danny said as he grabbed hold of the canoe. "I've been wondering how we were ever going to pole this raft all the way to our place, and what I was going to tell Dad about losing the canoe. It's the best one we've got."

  "God does watch over a fellow, doesn't He?" Bob said as they bailed the water out of the canoe and got into it.

  "Yes," Danny said. "The important thing is to just keep our trust in Him and to remember that all things work together for good to them who love Him."

  One paddle had been washed away when Bob and Laddie upset the canoe, but Danny had two others lashed securely in the canoe. They unfastened them quickly and began to paddle.

  They had not been paddling more than fifteen or twenty minutes when they heard the high-pitched whine of an outboard motor.

  "Somebody's coming," Bob said excitedly. "Ditch that map!"

  "I've got it," Mike said, "and no one'll ever find it."

  "That sounds like your dad's motor, Danny," Bob went on. "Do you suppose it's Cliff and Jack coming after us?"

  "It's more likely Dad," Danny said. "He and Mother have probably been worried silly with that bad storm and us not showing up all night."

  It was Danny's dad in the boat alone, his gray hat pulled low over his eyes.

  "Now, where have you fellows been?" he asked as he cut the motor and pulled alongside of them. "Your mother's been about crazy with worry, Danny. She didn't sleep at all last night. And neither did I."

  "I know," Danny said when they had paddled to shore and transferred into the aluminum boat. "But there just wasn't anything we could do about it." Hurriedly he told what had happened.

  "Well," Mr. Orlis said, "we can thank God that you're all safe."

  "We have something else to thank God for, Uncle Carl," Bob said. "Both Mike and I took Christ as our Saviour last night."

  "Well, now that's something." The big man smiled broadly. "That's wonderful."

  Back home Danny's mother cried a little, kissed all three of them and fixed them the biggest breakfast they'd ever seen in all their lives. While they were eating, Cliff and Jack came sauntering in.

  "There are the fellows that stayed out all night," Jack said, trying to laugh and sound friendly. "What happened to you, anyway?"

  "We got caught out in the storm," Danny said.

  "We were out scouting around a little yesterday too," he went on, "but we didn't see you."

  "Well," Danny replied, "the Lake of the Woods is pretty big."

  "That storm was a long time coming up," Jack went on, eyeing the boys carefully. "It must've been something pretty important to keep you out when clouds like those were threatening."

  "It was something mighty important," Bob said without thinking. "And what's more we got what we went after too." The instant he spoke the color began to rise in his cheeks. Danny and Mike both looked up at him quickly.

  "Oh," Jack said, getting to his feet, "I see." He started for the door. "Come on, Cliff. We'd better get to circulating."

  There was no chance for the boys to get away from the place to look for the treasure that day, not after having stayed out the night before. Danny helped his mother clean the cabins, and Mike and Bob got ice out of the ice house and cut a pile of firewood and carried water for the chickens and rabbits. It was after supper, and they were back in their cabin alone before they had a chance to talk to one another.

  "Boy," Bob said, "I sure spilled things this noon. I could've cut my tongue out when I realized what I'd said."

  "It probably set them to wondering, all right." Danny said, "but I don't think you gave them enough information to really give them a line on anything."

  "We'll have to be extra careful now, though," Mike said. "If they get wind of the map, we'll be in the soup."

  Bob sighed. "I sure hope they didn't find out enough to do them any good."

  "Right now we've got something else to worry about," Danny said as he dumped a handful of paper scraps on the table.

  "What's this?" Mike asked.

  "That's what we've got to find out. I found them out in back of Jack and Cliff's cabin this afternoon."

  Bob went over and pulled the blinds while Mike and
Danny began to fit the pieces together.

  "Why, it's a map," Danny said in a moment or two. "A map of Angle Inlet."

  "It sure is. And it's got a treasure marked on it!" Mike exclaimed. "Right over there on the mainland."

  They stared at the torn pieces, wondering. "I can see why someone would come up here to hunt for a treasure with a map," Danny said. "But I can't see why they would tear the map up after they got here."

  "This map doesn't look very old to me," Bob said, "not like ours does anyway. I'll bet it isn't real."

  "We know it can't be the real map," Danny told him, "because we've got it."

  They sat there looking at one another. "It just doesn't make sense," Mike said.

  That night when they went to bed, Bob just could not sleep. He kept thinking of how he almost drowned, and would have, if Danny hadn't pulled him out; how he had become a Christian there in Gibb McCloud's old house; how they had found the map they had gone after; and how Danny had found the mysterious map which had been torn to shreds.

  He was lying there quite still, but very wide awake when he heard a muffled footstep on the porch. Instantly his eyes were open, striving to pierce the darkness. There was a long, breathless silence, and the doorknob began to turn. He could not see it, but he could hear the thin sound of metal against metal as the catch was drawn. Somebody was on the porch. Somebody was breaking into their cabin!

  It’s the real thing all right!

  Chapter Ten

  A Night Prowler

  THERE WAS A LONG, deathly silence in the little cabin while Bob lay there, wide-eyed, and not daring to move. Somebody was going to break into the cabin, and he lay there helpless. There wasn't a thing he could do. He heard the door catch click. In the hush of the night it sounded like a rifle bullet, and the guarded noises on the other side of the door froze instantly.

  They should have locked that door, especially after they had found the map and he'd made such a break in front of Cliff and Jack. They should have hidden the map someplace besides under Danny's mattress. Bob could hear Mike and Danny breathing regularly, but they were across the cabin. There was no way of waking them without warning the intruder.

  The door began to move slowly, and he heard a muffled footstep on the threshold, the faint creak of shoe leather against the wood floor.

  "O God," Bob prayed fervently, "help me to know what to do." He reached out for the table that stood beside his bed, his groping fingers at last encircling something solid.

  The door opened a little wider, and he could faintly make out the heavy bulk of someone against the moonlight as the intruder moved silently inside. Bob straightened suddenly and threw a perfect strike toward the big shape in the doorway. There was a thud, a loud, terrifying yell, and the strong odor of kerosene.

  "Mike! Danny!" Bob cried, "Wake up!"

  They were both awake instantly.

  "What happened, Bob?" Mike asked. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"

  "W-w-w-what's the matter?" Danny asked tensely.

  "The map?" Bob asked. "Is it there?"

  Danny felt under the mattress.

  "Sure it is, why?"

  "Somebody's after it, guys," Bob said hoarsely. "I heard him come in a couple of minutes ago. He was right inside this cabin!"

  "Nobody'd break into the cabin while we were here," Danny said. "They'd know that they would never be able to get away with it."

  "I don't know about that," Bob went on, "but I do know he was in here, and I let him have it with the first thing I could get my hands on."

  "I think you were just having a nightmare, Bob," Danny laughed.

  "But I saw him, I tell you. I threw the lamp at him."

  "That was the man in the moon," Mike said.

  "Just the same," Bob countered, "I'll bet he's got a black eye."

  Even though they laughed at Bob, both Mike and Danny lay in bed for a long while without sleep. Finally all three of them drifted off to sleep, waking with a start at the slightest sound. When the first faint rays of dawn began to lighten the horizon, Bob got up and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

  Danny's Testament was there. He picked it up and looked at it. It was the first time in his life that he'd actually held a Testament because he wanted to, because he was looking for something to read. It was still wet from the dunking Danny had given it the day before when he had pulled Bob out of the river. He turned the well-worn pages slowly. Danny had underlined much of it.

  "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven."

  That verse was clear enough. He was glad he'd confessed Christ before men. Over in Mark there was part of a verse that Danny had underlined, "For with God all things are possible." For a moment or two Bob closed the Testament and looked across the room. To think, he had a God like that, a God who could do anything. Bob fingered the Testament lovingly. And that wonderful God had provided salvation free to any who would receive it. All he had to do was to confess his sins and put his trust in Christ. While he was sitting there, he heard the door to the next cabin close, and a moment later Cliff and Jack came walking past.

  "I never will get the smell of kerosene out of my clothes," Cliff was saying. "You told me those kids would be sleeping in the house last night."

  "I thought they would be."

  "Well, the next time you can do your own prowling."

  When Bob told Danny and Mike about it, Danny said, "Now don't go to giving us any more of that stuff."

  "You guys wouldn't believe anything."

  When they went into the house for breakfast that morning, Bob took one look at Cliff and punched Danny in the ribs, hard. The short one's left eye was swelled shut and was as black as Danny's pet crow.

  "I—I ran into something in the dark last night," Cliff explained lamely, when he saw that the three boys were staring at him.

  "Yes," Jack said, laughing, "that door'll never be the same again."

  The two men ate hurriedly and, without excusing themselves, got up and left the house before Danny's father began the morning's devotions.

  "Well, now," Mr. Orlis said when they were gone. "I wonder what got into them."

  In a moment or two the outboard started with a roar and went speeding downstream.

  "I'm going to talk to them about that," Danny's dad said, his eyes narrowing. "I don't like the idea of having my boats taken without permission."

  As soon as the Bible reading and prayer were over, Danny and the twins excused themselves and went out to the canoe.

  "Have you got the map?" Mike asked as they stood on the dock.

  Danny nodded. "I brought Dad's binoculars too. They might come in handy if Cliff and Jack are really after us."

  "What do you mean, really after us?" Bob countered. "You saw Cliff's eye, didn't you?"

  "I guess I've got to admit it wasn't a pipe dream this time," Danny said. "But I still can't figure out what they're up to."

  "Neither can I," Mike said, "but whatever it is, we know that for us at least it isn't good."

  "Let's forget those fellows for a while," Bob said, "and take a good look at that map. Just where is it that we go, Danny?"

  "Down toward Penasse on American Point," Danny said, "to Massacre Island. We came right past it as we came in on the boat from Warroad."

  "Sure," Mike put in. "I remember it. You pointed it out to us."

  "If this direction is north," Danny said pointing, "then we'll have to go over to the southwest corner of the island and leave our canoe. According to the map, the treasure is buried quite a way back on the island, back on that little ridge that runs along it."

  They paddled on for half an hour or more, not rapidly, but with long, firm strokes that sent the little canoe rippling through the water.

  "Say, Danny," Bob said at last, "you had a verse in your Testament marked that said something about your body being a living sacrifice. What'd that mean?"

  "What book was it in?" Danny asked.
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  "I don't know for sure. It was somewhere in the middle."

  Danny thought for a moment. "That must have been Romans." He stopped paddling a moment, got out his Testament, and turned to the twelfth chapter of Romans. "Does this sound like it? 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service?'"

  "Yeah, that's the one. What does it mean?"

  "Well," Danny began, "it means that when Jesus comes into our hearts, He wants to take possession of our bodies too. Our bodies become Christ's home here on earth."

  Bob was silent a moment or two. "That's how you get that a Christian shouldn't smoke or drink or do anything that would harm his body, isn't it?" he asked.

  "That's one of the verses," Danny said.

  Mike, who had been watching the horizon as he listened, reached over and picked up the field glasses and trained them on a dark spot along the shore of one of the islands.

  "Take a look over there, Danny," he said at last. "Doesn't that look like your boat?"

  Danny looked through the glasses. "It is," he said. "I wonder what they're doing over there."

  "I'll bet they're watching us," Bob put in.

  Danny swung the canoe about abruptly and headed north along the shore of Massacre Island. "We'll soon see," he said. While he and Bob paddled furiously, Mike kept the glasses trained on them.

  "They're following us, all right," he said. "And one of them looks like he's got a pair of field glasses on us."

  "What're we going to do?" Bob asked. "They've really got it over us with that motor boat. They can catch us any time they want."

  For answer Danny thrust his paddle deep in the water and turned the canoe toward shore.

  "They can't catch us if they can't see us," he said, laughing. "The island's narrow here. We'll portage the canoe to the other side, put it in the water and paddle to where we want to go. They'll never know what happened to us."

  The boys paddled into a little cove that gave them momentary protection from the prying eyes of the field glasses, hauled the feather-light canoe up onto the shore and began to carry it through the trees. The forest was dense, but it took only a few minutes to carry the canoe across the narrow length of the island and launch it in the lake once more.