"Are you worried about getting out?" asked the reporter.
"Naw! We're not worried," said Harmon.
"I'm sure they'll have you out in fine shape very soon," said the reporter cheerfully.
"Tell 'em to take their time," said Harmon, yawning. "As long as we get home in time for breakfast, it's OK."
"Boy! Have we got a story!" crowed the reporter, as he stuffed his notes into his pocket. "'Tell 'em to take their time,' the kid says. Can you imagine it? Boy! The wires'll eat this up!"
"Hey! I bet we could peddle this tape to all the networks!" said the photographer as they hustled up the path to the highway.
"Aren't you going to stick around to see if they get out?" Mortimer shouted after them.
"Sorry!" the reporter shouted back. "We got a deadline to meet."
And they were gone.
"What a creep!" said Dinky Poore.
By the time the TV crew arrived from White Fork, things had reached an impasse. Some men had been sent out in small boats to reconnoiter the ledge below the falls to see if it were possible to anchor cables there so fire ladders could be run out from the shore. But they came back reporting no success. Mayor Scragg had called a conference under the big oak tree to get opinions on what would be the best way to proceed. It appeared that the most feasible plan would be to build some kind of footing in the creek bed for the big construction crane to work from. The Mayor was asking for estimates on how long it would take to truck in enough rock and heavy fill to do this and whether it was possible to get the big crane down the steep bank with a block-and-tackle rig. Seth Emory had proposed that the city requisition every truck in the area and set up a high-speed shuttle with police escorts from the gravel pits out on White Fork Road. The estimates ran from half a day to a full day, before real rescue operations could start.
Meanwhile, the director of the TV crew had been pacing up and down at the edge of the group, running his fingers through his hair and looking at his watch every thirty seconds. He stepped over to Mayor Scragg and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Does that mean there won't be anything happening until noontime... or maybe even later?"
"If you mean when will we be getting the boys out, I guess that's it," said the Mayor.
"We might as well pack up and go back and get some sleep, boys," said the director to the other members of his crew.
"Suit yourself," said Mayor Scragg. "I expect we'll be here a long time."
"As long as we're here, why don't we get some local color?" one of the cameramen suggested.
"Yeah! Maybe we could," said the director, rubbing his chin. "Say! That gives me an idea." He turned back to the Mayor. "Is there any possible way to lower a camera into that cave?" he asked.
Mayor Scragg looked at him goggle-eyed. "If I could figure that out, I could get those kids out," he said testily. "Now go away and stop bothering me!"
The director stepped back, a little abashed, and felt somebody plucking at his sleeve. It was Jeff Crocker.
"Excuse me, mister," he said. "There is a way to get a camera into the cave. But it would take a lot of cable, and it would have to he waterproof."
The director looked at Jeff, not knowing whether to believe him or not. "How much cable?" he asked.
Jeff shrugged. "Maybe three or four hundred feet. I don't know for sure."
"I hope you're not kidding me," said the director. "We don't have that much cable, but we could send and get it. Are you sure you could get it in there?"
"Yeah, I'm sure we could get it in there," said Jeff. "There is another way into the cavern, but you have to..." Then Jeff started rubbing his chin. "Wait a minute!" he said excitedly, and came running over to where the rest of us were. "Henry!" he said, grabbing him by the shoulder. "I'll bet we could get those kids out the same way we took the sub in, if we had enough diving gear!"
"Not so loud!" Mortimer cautioned, looking back to where the TV director was standing.
"Yeah!" said Freddy. "You'll give away our whole secret, blabbermouth!"
"Shut up, Freddy!" said Jeff, pushing him in the face. "The first thing we have to think about is getting Harmon and his gang out of there."
"We could go back and get our scuba gear," Mortimer suggested, "and Jeff and I could swim in there and bring 'em out one at a time."
"You could bring 'em out faster if you used the submarine," said Dinky.
"That's a good idea," Henry observed. "At least it's worth a try. We'd better talk it over with Mayor Scragg."
"You guys are gonna blow the whole thing!" screamed Freddy. "The whole town's gonna find out about our secret passage, and Harmon too!"
"What's all the argument about?" asked the TV director, walking over to where we stood. "Can you get a camera down there or not?"
"Forget your camera, mister," said Jeff, as we moved off to see the Mayor under the oak tree. "We've got something important to think about."
"What was that you said about a secret passage?" the director asked, grabbing Freddy by the arm.
"What secret passage?"
"A secret passage into that cave, you ninny!"
"Oh, that secret passage! That's none of your business," said Freddy, pulling his arm loose and running after us.
"Yes, Mulligan. What is it now?" said Mayor Scragg wearily, when Henry tapped him on the shoulder.
"We know of a way to get those kids out of there," Henry said simply, and he went on to explain how we had gotten the submarine into the cavern through a subterranean channel that ran under the cliff beside the falls and connected with the pool in the cavern.
"It's only about two hundred feet long," Jeff explained. "We discovered it one day when we were skin diving. The entrance is about ten feet underwater, and it's right where you want to dump all that rock to make a pier for the shovel. If you dump a lot of rock in there you'll probably block it up."
Mayor Scragg looked at them quizzically. "Every time I listen to you kids I get into more trouble!" he moaned, holding his hand to his forehead. "Isn't it enough that you've got half the town out here in the middle of the night?"
"Don't listen to a word they say, Mr. Mayor," said Freddy tersely, as he elbowed his way into the group. "It's all a big fat lie!"
"I told you to keep out of this!" said Jeff, pushing him in the face again. Freddy bounced right back and kicked Jeff in the shins. Mortimer grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him off to the side.
"Cool it, Freddy!" he said, dumping him like a sack of potatoes. "Jeff knows what he's doing."
"He's a big blabbermouth!" Freddy blubbered. "He's giving away all our secrets."
"Secrets, huh?" said Mayor Scragg. "You mean you really do have a submarine down in that cave?"
"Yes, we do!" said Jeff. "You can ask Zeke Boniface. We brought it here in his truck."
"And you got it in there through an underground channel?"
"We didn't carry it in!" said Jeff.
The Mayor thought this over for a while. Then he turned to talk with Seth Emory. Chief Putney and Chief Pixley joined them, and the four held a whispered consultation near the head of the path leading down to the water's edge. Finally the Mayor beckoned to Henry and Jeff.
"We've got to do something and do it soon," he said. "You think you can swim in there and bring those boys out through that channel. Is that right?"
"Right!" said Jeff. "If they know how to use scuba gear, we'll get them to swim out. If they can't we'll try the submarine."
"It's worth a try," said the Mayor, "but I'm going to send two men from the sheriff's rescue unit with you. We don't want any accidents."
"That's a good idea," said Jeff. "We can show them the way. But we'll have to go back to town and get our tanks. We keep all that stuff in my barn."
"No need for that," said Chief Pixley. "The rescue unit has plenty of diving gear and everything else you'll need."
"Good deal," said Jeff. "That'll save time." And he and Mortimer started stripping down to their shorts. We didn't know it
at the time, but if Jeff and Mortimer had gone to the clubhouse for their scuba outfits it would have saved us a lot of trouble.
Now that some definite action was being taken, the atmosphere along the creek bank changed abruptly. You could feel the excitement generated in the rescue workers and onlookers as word spread among them that two kids had volunteered to swim into the blocked cavern through an underground waterway that nobody knew existed. Everybody crowded around the mobile rescue unit to watch the preparations.
The two sheriff's deputies fitted tanks and face masks on Jeff and Mortimer, and then the four of them linked themselves together with a piece of nylon line. It was decided that Jeff would lead the way and Mortimer would bring up the rear and feed out communication wire from a reel, so they would have direct communication with the mobile rescue unit as well as a guideline for finding their way back out through the channel. The two deputies each carried an extra set of scuba gear, and all four were equipped with a flashlight and a knife.
The TV director was in a better humor now, and kept getting in the way and delaying things as he tried to get as much of the action as he could on film. He started giving directions as to just how each man was to go down the path and get into the water, until Chief Putney pulled him gently aside and assigned two officers to keep him company for the duration of the operation.
Jeff waded into the water first. "Keep a tight line," he told the deputy behind him. "There are a lot of sharp rocks jutting out from the walls. We'll stay right on the bottom as much as possible. There's good white sand on the floor of the passage, and it's easier to see." Then he fitted his mask to his face, blew out a lungful of air, and opened the valve of his air tank. One by one the others followed him as he let himself out into deeper water and dove for the bottom. Soon there was nothing to be seen but a trail of air bubbles on the surface of the creek and the communication wire flapping up and down as it unreeled itself from the spool Mortimer was carrying.
For the watchers on the shore there was nothing to do but wait, now, while the four divers probed the darkness of the underground channel. Everybody except the men in the mobile rescue van had crowded along the bank, pushing and shoving each other in an effort to get a better vantage point from which to watch the dark patch under the cliff where the trail of bubbles had disappeared. Two people slipped and tumbled down the bank into the waters of the creek. Except for shining flashlights in their eyes, nobody paid much attention to them. The TV director was moaning about not being able to send a TV camera into the cavern with the divers. But Chief Pixley solved his problem by offering him a set of diving apparatus so he could take the camera in himself. The director decided that it wasn't that important.
Henry and the rest of us stayed glued to the side of the mobile rescue van, alongside Mayor Scragg. We knew that the first word from the four divers had to come in there through the communication line they had taken with them. It seemed like hours, but it was really only ten minutes later that the deputy monitoring the phone line waved frantically for silence.
"Hello! Hello!" he said. "Is that you, Foster?" He listened for a moment. "Roger! We'll stand by. We're all ready up here."
"They've gotten through to the cave, and they're looking for the boys now," he told the Mayor.
"Just ask them if there's a submarine in there," said Mayor Scragg, looking suspiciously at Henry.
The deputy whistled down the phone line again. "Hello, Foster! The Mayor wants to know if there's a submarine in there."
"Yeah, there's a submarine here all right," came the answer, "but there's no sign of any kids. We've looked all over the place. There's just nobody in here."
"Say that again."
"I say there's no sign of any kids in here. I think there's something fishy about this whole thing."
"Did you hear that, Mr. Mayor?" said the deputy. "Foster says there's nobody in that cave!"
"Nobody in there!" exclaimed the Mayor.
"Nobody in there!" echoed Henry.
The Mayor turned and looked at Henry. "Mulligan," he said.
"But there's got to be somebody in there!" Henry protested. "We talked to them on the intercom."
"Mulligan!" said the Mayor.
Henry turned and ran. He headed for the intercom jack at the base of the cliff, with the rest of us hightailing it after him. The Mayor and Chief Putney came puffing up the path behind us.
"Jeff! Jeff!" Henry hollered into the handset. "Can you hear me in there?"
"We hear you loud and clear!" came Jeff's voice in reply.
"What about Harmon and his gang? Where are they?"
"I don't know where they are, but they're sure not in here! We've searched the whole place."
"Scout's honor, Jeff?"
"Scout's honor, Henry!"
"I just don't understand it," said Henry helplessly. "We were talking to them not more'n half an hour ago."
Henry was still standing there, scratching his head and looking crestfallen when the Mayor and Chief Putney broke through the bushes.
"Well, Mulligan, what's this all about?" puffed the Mayor, all out of breath.
"They're just not in there, Mr. Mayor," said Henry dejectedly. "I don't understand it. They were there just half an hour ago."
"Why don't you tell 'em the truth, Mulligan?" came Harmon Muldoon's voice from somewhere in the darkness above us. "You knew we weren't in that cave." A chorus of raucous laughter almost drowned out the last words. Henry's jaw dropped open as he stared upward through the darkness toward the lip of the cliff that towered above us.
"Who's that up there?" Chief Putney demanded, as he flashed his powerful light along the edge of the cliff.
"Pretty good show, Mulligan!" came the strident voice of Stony Martin. "Whatta ya do for an encore?" And another wave of raucous laughter followed.
It was obvious that Harmon's whole gang was sitting up on the cliff above our heads, watching the proceedings with great relish. The glare from the floodlights on the rescue van was too bright for us to see into the darkness, but finally Chief Putney's flashlight picked out the white T-shirt of Stony Martin, perched in a tree. Stony scrambled back into the shadow with a burst of mocking laughter. A lot of raspberries and other uncouth sounds split the darkness.
"How did you get up there?" Henry shrilled, rather weakly.
"We walked up!" Harmon shouted back.
"I mean, how did you get out of the cavern?"
"That was simple! We weren't in the cavern."
"Aw, c'mon, Harmon. Somebody was in there."
"Yeah, we sent one man in to trip your alarm so we could raid your clubhouse. We've been up in Crocker's barn all night."
"You mean you were in our clubhouse all the time when we were talking on the intercom?"
"Yeah! After we tripped your alarm system all kinds of things began to happen. It was rich!"
Henry just stood there, speechless. He didn't even hear Mayor Scragg and Chief Putney arguing about whether they could arrest anybody, as they beat their way back through the bushes to the rescue van.
"By the way, Henry," Stony Martin shouted. "How do you get that cashbox of yours down off that rafter? We spent most of the night trying to figure it out."
Henry didn't answer. He just threw the intercom set he was holding against the side of the cliff and then kicked it into the bushes. It broke into a dozen pieces. I had never seen Henry lose his temper before.
Big Chief Rainmaker
© 1968 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer
IT WAS ONE of those hot August days in Mammoth Falls when even the dogs won't go out on the street, and you don't dare open your mouth for fear of getting your tongue sunburned. I was sitting in old Ned Carver's barbershop, thumbing through a magazine and waiting for Mr. Carver to finish cutting Charlie Brown's hair, when Jason Barnaby stumbled in through the door and flopped down in a chair to fan himself.
"How's the apples look this year, Jason?" mumbled Charlie Brown through the hot,
wet towel wrapped around his face. Jason's apple orchard up on Brake Hill is the biggest orchard in the county. It's a regular showpiece for visitors.
"Ain't gonna be no apples if we don't soon get some rain," whined Jason, mopping his gray hair back off his forehead. "I never did see such a hot spell as we're havin' now."
"Yes, sir!" Ned Carver agreed. "That little piece of grass in front of my place is about burned to a crisp right now. I expect it's been a month since we've seen a real rain."
"Longer'n that," moaned Jason. "Them leaves on my trees'll snap right in two in your fingers, they're so dry."
"I hear tell Mayor Scragg is bringin' in some professional rainmakers," said Charlie Brown. "Some real experts from the Department of Agriculture and the State University."
"Won't do no good," muttered Jason, stoically. "They tried that over in Clinton last year, and it wasn't worth a hill of beans -- all them birds with their blowin' machines and their silly airplanes! Pshaw! You might as well get down on your knees and pray. When the Lord says 'Let it rain!' it'll rain."
"That don't say you can't give the Lord a helpin' hand," said Charlie. "The Mayor and the Town Council know what they're doing." Charlie Brown is the town treasurer, and he's been on the Town Council for thirty-one years. He owns the only funeral parlor in Mammoth Falls, and everybody respects him. He generally knows what's going on in town.
Jason Barnaby didn't answer for a while. He was staring at the highly polished toes of Charlie's black pumps.
"How come you're always wearing a new pair of shoes?" he asked finally. "I swear you got more shoes than any man in town."
"Mind your own business!" said Charlie Brown. "We were talkin' about the dry spell."
I didn't hear much of the rest of the conversation, because I kept falling asleep like I always do in the barbershop -- especially on hot days. I woke up when Mr. Carver snapped the hair cloth and said "Next!"
"Couldn't you Mad Scientists do something to bring on rain?" he asked me with a chuckle, as I climbed into the chair. "You kids are always getting mixed up in something crazy."
New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club Page 6