The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Julia K. Duncan

  One by one Phyllis brought the horses out. When the last one was secure she leaned weakly against the post. The alarm bell was tolling now. It had been ringing for several minutes but in her absorption she had not heard it. Soon the girls would be on the scene and the fire apparatus would be in play. Phyllis felt as if she would never again get the smell of smoke out of her system.

  One—two—three—she counted the horses neighing and rearing at their posts. Nine! There should be ten! With a sinking of heart she looked at them all again. White Star was not there! White Star! The best of the group! How could she possibly have missed him?

  Without another thought but that of her favorite mount Phyllis dashed back into the stables. One—two—three—stalls empty. Nothing but silence and the crackling of flames—flames creeping closer, destroying, and smoke.

  Her head was whirling and she felt choked. Once she stumbled wildly over something and fell to her knees in the straw. She sat there several seconds, dazed. She had better find White Star soon or they would both be trapped! Why didn’t help come? Though only a few minutes could have elapsed since she and Gale first sighted the fire it seemed like hours. What was that?

  An excited whinny came to her, followed by the sound of crashing blows against wood. White Star! And he was trying to kick his stall to pieces! Despite the terribly desperate situation Phyllis could not help but smile. White Star proposed to fight! She stumbled to her feet and went on prowling through the smoke until she came to the stall in which all the uproar was taking place. She felt as though all the strength in her body was leaving her. White Star was bucking and kicking with all his might. The smoke was like a blanket smothering everything and through which Phyllis felt her way to White Star’s head. She took hold of his bridle and he nuzzled against her shoulder affectionately. He seemed to recognize his friend. With her last remaining strength Phyllis cut the rope that held White Star. She turned him around and gave him a stinging blow.

  “Go it, boy!”

  The horse reared and plunged out through the door of his stall, leaving Phyllis a huddled figure on the straw.

  Gale, after turning the electric switch that automatically sounded the fire alarm, had sped to the Dean’s office. She found Dean Travis working late. After excitedly blurting out the news Gale dashed again to the stables, stopping for nothing. She was just in time to see White Star appear.

  The horse bounded out of the smoke into the cool night air. He stopped short, raised his head and whinnied, pawing the ground with his forehoof. He glanced at the other horses, straining at their ropes, tossed his head, and turning, dashed back for the burning stable.

  “Phyl——” Gale shouted.

  There was no reply. Gale saw the groom and another man playing a stream of water upon the flames on one side of the building. She went closer. Through the smoke she could see White Star.

  Gale could not explain White Star’s actions. She had read of how horses always dashed back into the burning building from which they were rescued, unless they were tied outside. It was evident that Phyllis had tied the others, why not White Star? This was her favorite!

  Gale looked at the other struggling horses and wondered at the strength of her friend. Horses were strong at any time—frightened, terrorized as they were now, she did not see how Phyllis had managed to get them all out.

  White Star appeared out of the smoke and almost ran her down. He stood for a second looking at her, pawing the ground and tossing his head.

  Gale remembered seeing a wonder horse in the movies who acted like this when he was summoning help for his master. Was it possible—— White Star was a magnificent animal. She had always acknowledged that, but she had never actually credited him with super intelligence. However, now his eyes seemed to be pleading with her; the crazy way he dashed about made her think he was trying to tell her something.

  “Phyllis!” Gale shouted again.

  “Ahoy.” Carol and Janet dashed up breathlessly.

  “We got here first because we didn’t have to stop to dress seeing that we weren’t yet undressed—if you understand me,” Janet said.

  “We might have known you would be here,” added Carol. “Where’s Phyl?”

  “Look at that horse!”

  The groom had taken it into his head to rescue White Star and tie him beside the other horses. But White Star had other ideas. He raced madly past the flames and into the smoke.

  “I think I know what he wants!” Gale cried and the next time White Star dashed into sight she followed him.

  “The crazy——” Carol began. “Gale, come back!”

  Gale bumped into White Star. She was unable to see him clearly, the smoke hurt her eyes, and she was choking for breath. With one hand on his bridle she let him pull her along. The horse trotted forward until he came to his stall. There he stopped.

  “W-What now?” Gale coughed. Dimly through the smoke she became aware of a figure lying on the ground. “Phyl!” she screamed. “Phyl!”

  A burning rafter crashed to the ground at some little distance. White Star reared and plunged away but a second later he was back, trembling and whinnying. Gale lifted Phyllis and put her across White Star’s back. Necessity and fear had lent her strength and now she pulled White Star’s head down to her shoulder. With a tight grip on his bridle she started forward at a run. The horse plunged after her. How she managed to dash out through the smoke Gale didn’t quite know but thankfully she had come at last to her friend.

  CHAPTER XX

  The End of the Term

  “I am personally going to buy White Star a whole box of sugar for his very own,” Carol said positively. “The horse is a hero.”

  “And he speaks a language all his own,” added Janet. “Gale understood him but we didn’t.”

  “It is lucky for me that Gale did understand him,” Phyllis said lazily.

  It was the last day of classes, weeks after the fire at the stables. The girls were gathered on the campus after their last classroom session, discussing the high points of their college term. The miraculous way White Star had summoned help for Phyllis never ceased to be a thing of wonder to them. Neither Phyllis nor Gale had suffered other than a slight sickness from smoke. New stables had been erected and riding classes had gone on as before, with the exception of White Star’s sensational rise in popularity.

  “All the girls want to ride him,” Madge laughed, “but he seems to prefer Phyllis.”

  “Ah, yes, brothers under the skin,” Carol giggled daringly. “What is this power you have over horses, Phyl?”

  “The same you have over Chemistry professors,” Phyllis retorted. “What I want to know is, why did Professor Lukens pass you?”

  “Because I’m brilliant,” Carol said modestly.

  “More likely because he wanted to be rid of you,” Janet put in. “You asked more questions in class than——”

  “Let’s go down to the village and get a soda at the drug store,” Madge proposed peacefully.

  “An excellent suggestion,” Carol said immediately. “Why don’t you think of things like that?” she asked Janet.

  “Because walking doesn’t appeal to me,” Janet said promptly. “Now if—behold!” she said in astonishment.

  The girls were at the edge of the college grounds. Mounting the hill to the gate was a new, shiny bus which declared in broad white letters on the side “Briarhurst College.” At the wheel was the same old fellow who had met them in his dilapidated contraption when they arrived at Briarhurst and who had been so against the new Dean because she wanted to buy him a new bus.

  “Say, did somebody leave you money?” Janet shouted.

  He stopped the bus and opened the door. “Want a ride to the village? Ain’t she a beauty?” he asked next when the girls had accepted his invitation with alacrity and tumbled into the vehicle. “The new Dean’s responsible. Course,” he added condescendingly, “she ain’t as good as old Lizzie but she’s sure spiffy!”

  Janet and Carol chortled with
glee.

  “Spiffy is exactly the word!” Carol declared.

  At the foot of the hill he let them out and went on his way.

  “Miracle number two,” Carol laughed. “Remember how fond of his old bus he was?”

  “Now he is even more proud of this one,” Madge agreed.

  “Lead me to the drug store,” Janet said firmly.

  “What are we going to do this summer?” Valerie asked over her chocolate soda.

  “Let’s go camping,” Madge proposed. “We can have a lot of adventures that way.”

  “Hm,” Janet agreed unenthusiastically.

  “My dad,” Phyllis said slowly, “has offered to let us use his boat—if we want to.”

  “If we want to,” Janet echoed gleefully.

  “Carol Carter! Did you suggest it to Doctor Elton?” Gale asked, trying to be stern but failing.

  “Well,” Carol murmured, “it might have slipped out in my conversation with him. You see I——”

  “We see,” Valerie laughed.

  Suppose we leave the Adventure Girls here, discussing their plans for the summer. We shall join them again for more excitement in The Adventure Girls on Vacation4.

  4 Note: The Adventure Girls on Vacation was never published.

  THE SECRET OF STEEPLE ROCKS, by Harriet Pyne Grove

  CHAPTER I

  STEEPLE ROCKS

  “Are you satisfied, Beth?”

  Elizabeth Secrest turned with a smile to the two girls who had come up behind her, their footfalls silent in the sand. “The world is mine,” she answered, with a comprehensive sweep of her arm and hand toward the foaming surf which was almost at their feet. “Doesn’t it fill you, some way?”

  “Yes, Beth; I’m not myself at all. Here—take these and look at those towering rocks with them.” Sarita Moore handed her fine glasses, all shining and new, to the older girl, who directed them toward a distant pile of rocks. There two rose high, irregularly decreasing in circumference, and at this distance apparently pointed at their tops. Below them massed the other rocks of the dark headland.

  Elizabeth looked long and steadily. “Steeple Rocks!” she murmured. “I wish that I owned them! But I would give them a better name. I’d call them Cathedral Rocks. Doesn’t the whole mass make you think of the cathedrals—the cathedrals that you and I are going to see some day, Leslie?”

  The third girl of the group now took the glasses which her sister offered. “Sometimes, Beth, I can’t follow the lines of your imagination; but it doesn’t take much this time to make a cathedral out of that. Are you happy, Beth?” There was a tone of anxiety in the question.

  “Yes, child. Who could help being happy here? Look at that ocean, stretching out and away—into eternity, I think—and the clouds—and the pounding of the surf. Think, girls! It’s going to put us to sleep tonight!”

  “Unless it keeps us awake,” suggested Leslie, “but I’m all lifted out of myself, too, Beth. Imagine being here all summer! Look at Dal, Sarita.”

  Leslie pointed toward a masculine figure standing on the beach not far in advance of them. “It’s ‘what are the wild waves saying?’ to Dal all right!”

  Dalton Secrest, who had preceded his two sisters and their friend in their visit to the beach and the tossing waves, stood facing the sea, his hands in his pockets, his tall young body straight before the strong breeze. He heard the girls’ voices above the noise of the surf, as they came more closely behind him, and turned with a smile as his sister had done.

  “What great thoughts are you thinking Dal?” Sarita queried.

  “Sorry that I can’t claim any just this minute, Sarita. I was thinking about what fish there are in the sea for me. When I’m not building the shack I’m going to fish, girls, and I was wondering if the bay wouldn’t be the best place for that.”

  “Of course it would, Dal,” Leslie replied, “but you can easily find out where the fishermen get their fish. I thought at first that I should never want to eat. It is almost enough to look. But now—‘I dunno,’ as the song goes!”

  “We’d better be getting back to the tents,” said Dalton. “Beth looks as if she had not had enough, but I’ll have to gather some wood for a fire and by the time we have our supper it will be dark. We can watch the sunset just as well from above.” With this, Dalton Secrest linked arms with the girls, and with one on each side of him ran as rapidly as sand would permit to where Elizabeth had found a seat upon a rock back of the sands.

  “Come on, Beth. Time for eats. Les and Sairey Gamp are going to do the cooking while you sit out on the point with your little pencil to sketch.”

  “Don’t you call me ‘Sairey Gamp,’ Dal Secrest,” laughed Sarita.

  “Never you mind, Sairey, you can get it back on me. If I have any time left from building, fishing and bringing home the bacon, I shall be the wild pirate of Pirates’ Cove!”

  “Listen to Dal!” cried Leslie. “You’d think that he had to support the family! But I will admit, Dal, that if ‘bacon’ is fish, it will certainly help out expenses.”

  Dalton fell back with his older sister, Beth, while the two others went on, all directing their way to a spot some distance ahead, where the climb to the upper level was not difficult. All four were exhilarated by the new scenes, the beauty and almost mystery of the sea, the beach, the rocks and crags, and the invitation of the singing pines where their tents were pitched.

  As anyone might surmise, their arrival was recent. Sensibly they had pitched their tents first, while Dalton could have the assistance of the man who drove them there; but after the necessary things were accomplished they hastened to get as close to the sea as possible, for none of them had ever seen it before.

  It was one of the interesting spots on the much indented coast of Maine. There were an obscure little fishing village, a bay, into which a few small streams emptied, and a stretch of real coast, washed by the ocean itself. It was this beach which the newcomers had just visited with such pleasure, at a place varying in its outlines, from curving sands washed by a restless sea to high rocks and half-submerged boulders, where the water boiled and tossed.

  As the summer visitors climbed the ascent, they noticed that in the village at their left most of the fishers’ cottages lay within easy reach of the beach proper, from which the launching of boats was easy. There was a dock, stout, but small. It was quite evident that no large vessels came in.

  The bay lay in the direction of Steeple Rocks, but the climb to reach it would have been impossible from the beach. This was blocked by the high cliff whose rocks reached out into the waves and curved around into one side of the bay’s enclosure, though gradually lowering in height. Much farther away, around the curving, rocky, inland shore of the bay, and across its quiet waters from this cliff, loomed the other more bulging headland which reminded Beth of a cathedral in some of its outlines. But Beth was an artist, and an artist had not named Steeple Rocks.

  Dalton helped Elizabeth while the other girls scrambled up to the path by themselves. “I do hate to play the invalid, Dal,” breathlessly said Beth, clutching her brother’s arm. “What is the matter with me, anyhow?”

  “Nothing in the world, Doc said, but being just played out. What do you expect? You can’t do a million things and teach school, for fun, of course, on the side, and feel as frisky as a rabbit at the end of the year. Just wait, old girl. We had to let you help us get ready to come, but about two weeks of doing nothing and sleeping in this air—well, you will probably be able to help me up the rocks!”

  Leslie, meanwhile, was explaining to her chum Sarita how their property included the smaller headland and its rocks. “There is right of way, of course, but this is ours.”

  The girls were standing by this time high on the rocks, from which they could look down and back, along the beach where they had been. At this place the point ran out to its curving, jutting, broken but solid rampart which kept the sea from the bay. Below them a few boats dotted the surface of the bay. Sarita through her glass
was watching a vessel which was passing far out on the ocean.

  “How did it happen, Leslie, that you never came here?” Sarita asked.

  “You see, Father had just bought it the summer before he died. He had been up in Canada and then down on the coast of Maine. He came home to tell us of the place he had bought at a great bargain, where we had an ocean view, a bay to fish in, and a tiny lake of our own. Then came all our troubles and we had almost forgotten about it, except to count it among our assets, pay tax on it and wish that we could raise some money on it. But nobody wanted a place that had no good roads for an automobile and was not right on the railroad, though, for that matter, I don’t think it’s so terribly far.”

  “Yes, it is, Les, for anybody that wants to be in touch with civilization, but who wants to be for the summer?”

  “Well, as we told you when Beth said I could ask you to come along, it is just what we want to camp in, and there are people near enough for safety, besides the ‘Emporium’ of modern trade in the village, if that is what one can call this scattered lot of cottages.”

  “It is more picturesque, Beth says, just as it is, and most of the summer cottages are on the other side of the village, or beyond the Steeple Rocks, in the other direction, so we’ll not be bothered with anybody unless we want to be. I like folks, myself, but when you camp you want to camp, and Beth is so tired of kiddies that she says she doesn’t want to see anybody under fifteen for the whole three months!”

  Sarita laughed at this. “She seemed jolly enough on the way.”

  “Oh, Beth is jolly and perfectly happy to come; but we did not have any idea how worn out she was, simply doing too much and so afraid we’d have too much to do to get our lessons. Why, when Dal and I waked up to the fact that Elizabeth was almost agoner, we were scared to pieces. She couldn’t get up one morning after Commencement was over—but you remember about that and how we sent for the doctor in a hurry. My, what a relief when he said that it was just overdoing and that she was to stay in bed and sleep, and eat anything she wanted to!”