Danny Orlis and the Angle Inlet Mystery

by Bernard Palmer

  "I'd give a lot to see the look on Cliff's face when they come buzzing up to the other side and start to look for us," Bob laughed.

  "Let's get going," Mike said nervously. "They might come around on this side and catch us."

  The boys kept looking around, half fearfully, as they paddled furiously toward the south end of the island. They could hear the outboard motor making its way up and down the other side of Massacre Island, and once or twice, the boys held their breath, expecting the boat to come around on the east side. But finally the high-pitched whine began to fade away.

  "They're heading for home," Danny said happily. "Now let's get to that treasure!"

  They studied the map and left the canoe at the point nearest to the spot where the treasure was supposed to be buried and began to make their way through the trees to the top of the ridge.

  "I think we're a little too far to the right," Danny said when they stopped for breath. "I don't see anything up here that looks like a granite boulder with a jagged point on top."

  "We should have brought a compass along," Mike said.

  "A spade!" Bob broke in suddenly. "We came clear over here to dig for a treasure and didn't bring a spade! Oh, well," he said good-naturedly, "we can look for the granite boulder today and come back tomorrow and dig."

  Danny could not help thinking, as they began to walk along the ridge, about how different Bob had become since he'd accepted Christ as his Saviour. Before, he'd have jumped down Danny's throat about that spade. He'd have blamed him for it and blamed Mike for it and would have raved until both of them would have felt like throwing him in the lake. Now he just said that they could come back tomorrow. Yes, sir, becoming a Christian sure did things to a person.

  As things turned out they couldn't have used the spade anyway, for though they hunted until it hurried them to get home in time for supper, they didn't find a sign of the boulder.

  "You don't suppose somebody moved it, do you?" Bob asked as they nosed the canoe into the shore in front of their cabin.

  "Sure," Danny laughed. "They carried it out piggyback."

  Mike was the first one to go into their cabin. He stopped in the doorway and whistled in amazement.

  "Danny! Bob!" he cried. "Come here, quick! Somebody's upset our beds, and dresser drawers and everything. They've turned our cabin inside out!"

  He could faintly make out the heavy bulk of someone against the moonlight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Danny to the Rescue

  "WOULD YOU LOOK at this mess!" Danny exclaimed as he stood in the middle of the little cabin floor and looked about.

  "I knew they'd be back!" Bob said excitedly. "I knew when they tried to break in last night that they'd be back!"

  "It's the map they're after," Danny said as though the possibility had just occurred to him.

  "Sure, it's the map," Mike said. "They've found out that we've got it, and they're out to get it away from us if they can."

  "And," Danny added darkly, "I don't think they care how they do it, either."

  "They'll likely be back again tonight, fellows," he said, "if we don't do something."

  Danny crossed over and closed the door. "There's not much we can do about their coming back if they decide to," he said. "What we've got to do is to get the map put away where they can't get at it, even if they do come back for it."

  "What if they force their way in and make us tell where it is?" Bob asked.

  "That's a chance we'll have to take," Danny replied.

  They slipped out into the woods, one after the other, and met just beyond the old sawmill on the edge of the path to the schoolhouse.

  "Are you sure neither of you were followed?" Danny asked Mike and Bob when all three of them were together once more.

  "Nope," Bob said. "Nobody followed me."

  "Nobody followed me, either," Mike said. "I slipped out through the back window in the cow barn."

  "Well," Danny said. "I don't think Cliff and Jack are around, but we can't take any chances."

  "That's right," Bob put in, "but now that we're out here like you said, what're we going to do?"

  "First of all we're going to hide this map so they can never find it," Danny said.

  "Then we're going to get our things together so we can get out early in the morning, before Cliff and Jack are even up."

  Mike looked about quickly. "This doesn't look like much of a place to hide a map."

  "It's a lot better than around the house or one of the buildings," Bob said.

  "That's the way I figured," Danny went on. "There's a hollow log up here a little ways. It isn't so far out of the way for us to come to pick up the map in the morning, and if they didn't follow us out here, they'd never be able to find it."

  Once the precious map was safely hidden in the hollow tree, the boys went back to the cabin and got the equipment together that they figured they would need. Bob dug a compass out of his suitcase. Danny brought a spade and a length of good, strong rope from the woodshed.

  "Now," he said, "we'll have Mom fix lunch for us and we'll be all set to leave tomorrow."

  The dinner bell just outside the kitchen door clanged loudly, and Mike got to his feet. "Come on," he said. "I'm about starved."

  "Remember," Danny warned, "let's not say anything at all about our cabin being ransacked. Let's just go in and act as though nothing happened."

  At the doorway to the main house Danny paused.

  "Say, Carl," said the skipper of the boat that was tied at Angle Inlet for the night. "Whatever's come over that loud-mouthed, ornery kid I hauled up here awhile back. I've noticed on my last trip or so that he doesn't act like the same boy any more."

  "How do you mean?" Danny's dad asked, smiling.

  "Well," the boat captain went on, "he isn't shooting off at the mouth all the time. He's got a smile and a kind word for everyone now and—I don't know how to explain it. He just acts like a different guy."

  "Why don't you ask him what came over him?" Mr. Orlis suggested. "He's on the porch right now."

  When Bob stepped inside, Mr. Orlis turned to him. "Bob," he said, "the skipper here has been wondering what's come over you. He says you don't act like the same boy that came up here."

  "I guess I'm not," Bob said evenly, and without conceit. "You see I've taken Christ as my Saviour since I came up here. Any difference that you see in me is because of Him. I—I'm not perfect by a long way, and I prob'ly never will be, but I'm just putting my trust in Christ to help me live the kind of life He wants me to."

  The skipper picked up his glass and took a long drink of water.

  "I've knowed you to talk about the change that becoming a Christian can make, Carl," he said slowly, "but this is the first time I've ever seen it happen right before my eyes."

  The boys were sitting at the table before they noticed that there were two empty chairs.

  "Where're Cliff and Jack?" Danny asked, striving to be casual.

  "If they can't get here for mealtime," Mr. Orlis said shortly, "they can just go hungry. I'm getting mighty tired of those two fellows coming in here and trying to take over."

  They had finished eating and were sitting in the living room talking when they heard the outboard motorboat come in and stop at the dock.

  Mr. Orlis looked at his watch fifteen or twenty minutes later. "That's funny," he said. "I thought sure those two would be in here crying for something to eat long before this." He reached over and got the checkerboard and set it on the table between himself and the boat captain.

  "There's something mysterious about Cliff and Jack, and I don't like it. I've a good notion to send them on their way in a day or two."

  Bob started to say something, but Danny kicked him on the shins.

  The next morning the boys were up even earlier than they had been the day before. They dressed in the semidarkness of early morning, and Bob and Mike quietly loaded the canoe while Danny slipped out into the woods to get the map.

  "Did you get it?" Bob wh
ispered guardedly as he approached a few minutes later.

  "Yep," he said, smiling. "It was just as safe as could be. Have you got everything?"

  Mike checked carefully and said, "It looks like it's all here this time."

  "Fine."

  "Now," Bob said softly, "if we can just get out of here and over to the island without having anyone see us."

  While the other two boys and Danny's dog, Laddie, were getting into the canoe, Danny looked about carefully, his dark eyes piercing the semidarkness. There was an eerie fog that hung like a shroud over the lake.

  "The boat Cliff and Jack have been using is here, all right," Danny said, his voice growing suddenly tense. "But one of the canoes is gone."

  Bob and Mike straightened quickly.

  "W-w-what do you suppose happened to it?" Mike asked as though he didn't know the answer.

  "Cliff and Jack have got it," Bob put in quickly.

  "They just couldn't have gotten out earlier than we did this morning," Danny went on. "They must have left last night."

  "Then they're out there," Bob said excitedly. "They're out on the lake somewhere just waiting for us!"

  "What're we going to do?" Mike asked.

  Danny stepped lightly into the canoe and shoved it away from the dock. "We'd better get going just as fast as we can," he said, "to take advantage of this fog. As long as it holds out they can't see us."

  "But we can't see them, either," Bob exclaimed.

  They wielded their lithe Indian paddles expertly, and the light canoe knifed silently through the water, sending a widening V of ripples across the smooth surface. It was cold out on the big northern Minnesota lake, but the paddling soon warmed them. For three or four miles they paddled over water as smooth and motionless as a marble floor under fog so thick they couldn't make out either shore.

  "We ought to be getting pretty close to Massacre Island, hadn't we?" Mike said softly as they paused to rest.

  "It isn't too far," Danny told him.

  "We've been lucky so far," Bob put in. "Now if we can just make it the rest of the way safely we'll be O.K."

  Laddie moved a little, and Danny reached out and patted the big dog lovingly on the head. "We'll be there in a little while, old man," he said.

  "You know," Bob said, "if we find the treasure, I've just thought of something that I'd like to see us do."

  "What's that?" Mike asked, "go to Florida?"

  "Nope," he went on. "I've been thinking about that schoolhouse we have to use for a church. I—I know it doesn't matter what kind of a building we worship in, but I kind of figure that if we had us a nice little church that really looked like a church on the inside, it might help us to worship God better. It might even make us so proud of it that we'd try to get a minister to come up and serve us. Then something could be done about fellows like Mike Thunderbird and the other Indians and white people who live up here and who have never heard about Jesus."

  Mike and Danny just sat there for a moment or two looking at one another.

  "You know," Danny said at last, "you make me ashamed of myself, Bob. Here I've been thinking about what I could do for myself, and you, who haven't even been a Christian very long, had to show me what I'd ought to be thinking about. You've got a swell idea there."

  "I think so too," Mike added.

  The boys pulled their canoe up on shore and hid it in the brush that grew along the lake.

  "You fellows go ahead with the map and compass and go right toward the place where the treasure's supposed to be buried," Danny said. "I'll take this load of stuff up to that pine tree where we were yesterday and make camp. Then I'll join you, and we'll really get to work."

  "That sounds good," Bob exclaimed taking the wrinkled, faded map out of the canoe.

  The twins went ahead, half running through the trees, while Danny gathered up the equipment and lunch and began to trudge, with Laddie at his side, up the steep ridge.

  The load was heavy and awkward, and he stopped several times to rest. It took him almost half an hour to get up to the big pine tree. He was just setting down the spade and rope when he heard a loud, blood-chilling scream.

  He froze instantly! The hair on the back of Laddie's neck raised, and the big dog growled and took a step or two toward the sound.

  There it was again! "Help! Danny! Help! Help!" Danny's heart throbbed in his throat. Bob and Mike were in trouble!

  Chapter Twelve

  The Real Treasure

  DANNY ORLIS stood there a moment, icicles playing up and down his spine. The scream had come from the direction Bob and Mike had gone a few minutes before. Somebody must have grabbed them! While he stood there, too frightened to move, the scream came again, a terrifying scream. "Help! Danny! Help!"

  The hair raised ominously on the back of Laddie's neck. The muscles in his shoulders tightened as though he were ready to spring upon someone.

  "Easy, boy," Danny whispered hoarsely, laying his hand on the big dog's back. "Easy now, fellow."

  Even before the scream died away, Danny knew what had happened. Jack and Cliff had figured that the boys would be coming back to Massacre Island, so the two hoodlums had sneaked away from Angle Inlet by canoe and had hidden themselves on the island to wait for them. Now they had the map and Mike and Bob and everything!

  Laddie inched forward, his ears laid back against his head, and a low, deep-throated growl escaped his razor-sharp teeth. Danny took hold of one ear gently. "Easy, fellow. Easy now." The dog relaxed a little, but kept peering sharply into the woods in the direction from which the screams had come.

  A breathless hush seemed to settle over the island, enveloping Danny like a cloud. His own deep breathing was the only sound he could hear. He took a step forward and a twig crackled. He jumped back, startled. His heart was beating faster now, and his breath was coming in short gasps. If only he could turn and run! If only he could flee the island before Jack and Cliff got him, too!

  Suddenly he was ashamed of himself, ashamed of even thinking that he could go away and leave Mike and Bob in the hands of those two men.

  He dropped slowly to his knees and buried his hands and face in Laddie's broad back.

  "O Heavenly Father," he prayed, "just be with Mike and Bob and keep them from any harm. And, O God, help me to figure out something to do—quickly."

  He didn't know how long he knelt there. It might have been two minutes. It might have been ten or fifteen minutes. But before he got to his feet, a quiet assurance came over him. He was still scared, so scared that the palms of his hands were wet with sweat, so scared his heart was thumping like a trip hammer, but now he had control of himself. He knew that God was there to help him. "And, O Heavenly Father," he prayed in conclusion, "I do thank Thee that both Mike and Bob have found Thee as their personal Saviour. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen."

  He got to his feet slowly. The first thing to do would be to get over there where Jack and Cliff held the twins captive. If he could make that without being seen, he could figure out something from there. He went through the stuff he had carried from the canoe. His hunting knife was strapped to his belt, and he found a long length of rope and a sharp ax, but that was all. Quickly he picked them up and began to walk toward the screams.

  His experience in the woods served him well as he made his way across the ridge searching for Mike and Bob. He stepped quickly, but silently, his gaze darting about the forest ahead, picking up every shadow, every flickering movement. He stopped frequently, his keen ears alert for any sound of voices or feet, or the chattering of birds or squirrels that would reveal the presence of men. He stalked through the forest like an Indian, sharp-eyed and cautious, every step of the way. Laddie seemed to sense what he was doing and pressed close beside him, his feet padding silently over the moss.

  He had walked half a mile or so, when he heard a sound in the trees just ahead. Laddie heard it first. The dog's ears went up instantly and he stopped, his nose thrust forward to catch the scent. Danny froze where he was as the h
air on the dog's neck began to bristle. The sound was faint and indistinct, but it was there. They were somewhere just ahead. His heart started racing again as he began to steal forward, a step at a time, an unspoken prayer on his lips.

  With every step the sounds seemed louder. In a moment or two he could make out Cliff and Jack's voices. They were talking fast and loud.

  Danny stood for a moment. There was no telling what he would find as he stepped closer. He might step out into a clearing and meet them face to face. He might stumble over a dead branch or fall over a rock and get caught before he ever saw Mike and Bob, let alone rescue them. He might—but there was no time to think of things like that. He dropped to his stomach and began to wriggle forward. Laddie did likewise, crawling close to the ground.

  "I'll tell you, Jack, we'd ought to go out and look for that other kid first," Cliff was saying angrily, "and look for the treasure afterwards. He's loose on this island, and there's no telling what he'll do."

  "Don't tell me you're getting scared of a kid," Jack snorted. "Come on over here with that mine detector and let's get to work."

  "O.K., O.K." said Cliff.

  Danny pressed even closer to the ground and began to inch forward. He could see them now, going over the ground with that queer-looking contraption he'd seen in their cabin. And, beyond them some twenty or thirty feet, he could see Mike and Bob, tied securely and gagged.

  "Take another look at that map, will you?" Cliff complained. "It doesn't seem to me that we're in the right place."

  Jack studied the map they had stolen from the twins. "You'd better go five or six paces to—" Before he could finish what he was saying, the mine detector began to click wildly.

  "We've found it! We've found it!" Cliff cried loudly throwing aside the mine detector and dropping to his knees over the spot where the machine had indicated metal.

  "Get out of the way and let me in there with that spade!" Jack exclaimed, pushing his partner aside. "Get that other spade, and let's get to digging!"