“When Harold turned him over to us,” I said.
“O’ course. Now listen, Hawkins, you write a letter to the Skinny Guy. Link knows the Gray Ghost. He will he able to spy on him better than any fella we got in our club. You take my advice and get the Skinny Guy back here.”
I shook my head.
“No chance, Jerry,” I said. “Link is a rich boy now. And he is living with his mother, you see. ‘Tain’t like when he used to live in a houseboat on the river here with only his daddy to keep him company. It’s different, you see. He has to stay at home, and act like a regular fancy guy now. Because he lives in a fine house, and I understand he has learned so fast in school that he is entered into a special early program to take some classes at the State College in Kentucky. How could he get away to come back here? I’d like to know.”
“Shucks,” said Jerry. Then he looked at me good and long, without saying a word. It was only when we heard other boys coming in that Jerry moved away from my desk. Dick Ferris and the rest had come to hold the meeting.
“Wait a minute,” I said, as they took their places around the table. “Shadow and Robby have arrived. They brought the Rolling Stone with them. You boys will all remember that Rolling Stone John Loomis is now a member of our club. So please treat him nice. Don’t try to be smart.”
In a little while, Shadow and Robby returned with the Rolling Stone. He looked a little backward, but all of us boys greeted him the same as we did Shadow and Robby, and Perry Stokes got up and ran for the extra chair in the corner and started to put it up to the table for Rolling Stone John.
“I’ll sit here, if it’s all the same,” said John, and he drew the chair to the stove, where he sat down, and put his feet upon the fender. Most every face around our table was smiling; it was the same old John, same old place, same old way. But it was good to see him back with us again. That old stove never looked the same since Rolling Stone John had taken his feet off the fender. And now, with his big canalboats resting on the fender again, everything looked the way it should be.
“Meeting come to order,” called Dick Ferris.
At once everybody was silent, and I got up, read the minutes of our last meeting, and then called the roll. Every boy in our club was present. There were eleven. Then came the paying of the ten cents dues; every boy paid. Shadow paid two, one for his brother John. John, the rolling stone, sat over by the stove and acted as if that was all he was expected to do. I marked it down in the book, and then our captain said:
“Boys, one of you fellas been talking too much. Whoever it was told about Stoner’s Boy being back and Judge Granbery found it out. He told Doc Waters that if anything happened like what happened to Stoner’s Boy the last time, we wouldn’t be allowed to have a clubhouse down in this hollow anymore.”
“Captain,” said Jerry Moore, standing up. “We got to take care of ourself. Judge or no Judge. If this Stoner fella comes snooping around here trying to do us dirt, we got to fight back, and that’s all I got to say.”
“You said enough,” said Dick. “Any of you boys got any motions to make, let’s have ’em.”
“I make a motion we write to the Skinny Guy,” said Jerry Moore, “and tell him that Stoner’s Boy is back. If I ain’t mistaken, we will see the Skinny Guy back here, too, in a little while.”
“Jerry’s right,” said Bill Darby. “Link will come. He would like to see Stoner again. There ain’t a boy in our club who can run as fast as Link. And it takes a fast runner to catch Stoner.”
“It takes more than a fast runner,” said Dick. “It takes a fast thinker. That Gray Ghost is too clever for us. That’s all.”
“I made a motion,” said Jerry. “What you gon’a do about it?”
“I second the motion,” said Bill Darby.
“The motion is made,” said Dick. “That we should write to the Skinny Guy and tell him that Stoner’s Boy is back. All who favor that motion will stand up.”
Every boy stood up but the Rolling Stone, John Loomis. He sat with his feet propped up on the stove as if he hadn’t heard a word.
“How about you John?” asked our captain.
“I’m nootral,” he said. “You just go ahead.”
Some of the fellas laughed, but John acted like he didn’t hear.
“Motion’s carried, Jerry,” said Dick. “Alright Seckatary, you will write to the Skinny Guy right away, as the club has directed you to do.”
“Sure,” I said. “I will write to him very soon.”
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Three taps on the door. Slow taps—one—two—three.
“What’s that?”
Jerry Moore held up his hand for us all to be still. I could see by his face that he was excited. Once more—
Knock! Knock! Knock!
“It’s him,” whispered Jerry in a hoarse voice. “It’s the Gray Ghost!”
And I knew he was right. We all knew he was right. It was just like Stoner’s Boy to come like that, while we were all together, and knock on our door to show us that he was not afraid to come to us when we were all gathered together. He was not afraid, this Stoner fella.
“Open the door, Hawkins,” ordered Dick. I hesitated an instant. I wanted to think. “Hawkins, open that door.”
I got up and walked quickly to the door. I pressed the latch and pulled. But—
“It’s fast,” I said. “It won’t open, Dick.”
There was a silence during the next few seconds, then Dick said:
“You don’t mean you’re afraid, Hawkins, do you? Let me have that latch. I’ll show you how to meet Stoner face to face—”
He had walked around to the door while he spoke, and pushed my hand off the latch. But when he pulled, the door would not open.
“Trapped!” he exclaimed, under his breath. “Trapped like rats. Holy smoke, boys, we got to get out quick—suppose he sets fire to the shack—”
By now all the boys had stood up and were crowding ’round. Even Rolling Stone John.
“If you need a strong arm,” Rolling Stone was saying—
He put his hand upon the latch and pulled. I heard the wood splitting as the door suddenly gave way, and all of us went tumbling back upon the floor as the Rolling Stone lurched backward. In a second, Jerry Moore and Perry Stokes were out upon the ground in front of the porch. There was nobody around.
“It was him,” yelled Jerry. “Come here fellas, look. Here’s his footprints, ain’t they Perry? Me and Perry been finding these footprints all over the place today before you guys came down. He must be close by—come on, scout around you fellas and see who is the first to scare him up.”
We all pushed out upon the ground in front of the porch. There was a set of footprints made by heavy shoes whose soles were covered with nailheads. But even as we gazed at these old familiar footprints there came from the river that old mocking laugh—enough for me. Stoner had come and gone. Nothing to be surprised at, either. For he had done so many times before and left us wondering just what he meant to do next.
“See here,” called the Rolling Stone from the porch. “Here’s what that knocking was—hammering a tack—the fella left you a note.”
Sure enough. Tacked on to the door was another of those ragged-edge cardboards with that same old scrawling handwriting which I knew too well.
Plenty time—plenty time.
That was all it said. Plenty time, the old Gray Ghost said, to take his revenge on us. Plenty time he had with his silent ways and fleet feet. My courage felt very weak when I walked back into my writing room to begin the letter which I was instructed to write to the Skinny Guy, Link Lambert, telling him that our old enemy, Stoner’s Boy, was again playing his pranks about our shack in the hollow and that it was high time for us to do something about it. I wrote a long letter to Link. I didn’t think I would do so before this last stunt of Stoner’s; I didn’t think I would care much if Link came or not. Now, I found that I was begging him to come. “Come, if you possibly can, Link,” I wrote.<
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Dick and Perry Stokes were the only ones waiting for me while I wrote. When I folded the letter and put it in the envelope, Dick said:
“If you’ve finished that letter, Hawkins, me and you and Perry better get busy and fix a new door—a stronger one—on this clubhouse.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 5
The Telltale Footprints
I WROTE that letter to the Skinny Guy like the boys voted for me to do. And I mailed it that same day. Every day I waited for an answer, and still none came. It’s mighty funny when the Skinny Guy doesn’t answer my letters. I never knew him to do that before. Maybe, I said to myself, I will hear from him later on.
We held our meetings regularly every day after school. Each day the captain asked me did I hear from Link, and each time I had to say no. Dick ordered me to write again, so I sat down one afternoon after our meeting and wrote a second letter. Then I waited for an answer to that.
“Give him time,” I said. “He will write. Maybe he can’t right now.”
Perry Stokes was our watchman. He took care of our clubhouse, and never was a clubhouse so clean before Perry joined our club. I remember when we held our meetings in the old stranded houseboat; the place was always thick with dust. Every chair you sat on left a round mark on your pants, made of dust of course. And every time you put your arms down on the table at a meeting, your shirt sleeves got dirty. But now, since Perry is caretaker, we have a neat place to meet in. The chairs and table are always clean. And the floor is clean and the windows are washed. Perry looks after all that. No one tells him what to do. He is glad to belong to our club. When the boys took him in, I was away; I was in Cuba that time, and they only took him in on the promise that he would be caretaker of the clubhouse.
“Hawkins,” he said to me to-day, after the meeting. “I’ve been keeping close to the clubhouse ever since those notes were pinned on our door. I got a feeling that the fellow who wrote those messages is a bad egg, sir.”
“When are you going to quit saying ‘sir’ to me, Perry?” I asked. “Haven’t I told you many times that you ain’t a butler in this clubhouse? You don’t have to say ‘sir’ to us boys. You’re one of us.”
“I hope you excuse me,” he said. “I just got the habit, that’s all. But what I was saying is that the marks on the ground—the footprints, sir—”
“Ah,” I said. “So you are an expert on footprints—”
“You don’t have to be expert on that, sir,” he said quickly. “There ain’t no others like ’em, Hawkins—broad soles, covered with nailheads, deep marks in the mud they make.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Perry, I’ve seen those same prints lots of times, before you ever came to this clubhouse. It’s a wonder Stoner’s Boy wouldn’t change the kind of shoes he wears.”
“I’m glad he doesn’t, sir,” said Perry. “It’s a help to us that he wears ’em, Hawkins; we can tell more easily that he’s been around.”
“He’s been here again—after the second note we found, I mean?”
“Yes, sir, he’s been here every day. Every night, before I leave, I rub out the prints in the soft earth before the porch. Then I take the sprinkling can and wet the ground all around the clubhouse, sir. When I come down next day, I look for the prints. He has left his tracks every day this week, Hawkins.”
I nodded my head and said nothing. I was thinking of a way to trap this Stoner’s Boy and put a feather in my cap without the other boys knowing. So I told Perry to keep watch, and I went up to Doc Waters’s office.
“Hello, Hawkins,” said Doc in a cheery voice. “My, but you are forgetting me these days. Sometimes I wish we were back in Cuba again. You had to stay around me there.”
“No more Cuba for me,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Next time you go there, you will go by yourself. What’s new?”
“You ought to know,” he answered.
“You heard about Stoner—”
“Yes, so did the judge. I’m afraid you boys are having your last stand in the clubhouse. Something is going to happen. Don’t tell me. Every time Stoner came something happened. This time it’s going to blow the top off your clubhouse.”
“Not if I know it,” I said.
“You’re not going to know it,” said Doc. “Stoner is too smart for you boys, Hawkins. Why don’t you own up to it and quit?”
“What can we do?” I asked. “Tell me, and I’ll follow your orders.”
Ah, that had him. Doc could not answer that.
“You see,” I continued. “The only thing we could do is to leave the clubhouse. And you know we won’t do that. And if Stoner is going to demand a showdown, Doc, why—”
“Of course you are going to give it to him,” said Doc with a light laugh. “Well, I’ll talk to the judge. Maybe—”
“Here’s the judge,” said a voice from the door. “What’s that you have to say to me?”
I turned and saw Judge Granbery. That same old grouchy look was on his face. He looked at me with a scowl, and then to the doctor.
“I hope these youngsters have not done anything that needs my attention, doctor,” he said.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Doc. “We were just talking about the return of Stoner’s Boy to these parts. He is pestering our boys again, Judge.”
The judge grunted into his short beard.
“Hawkins,” he said. “I’ll have you and your boys understand one thing: you can do what you please as long as there is no breakin’ the law. If people come to me complainin’ about their sons being mixed up in some trouble again, I warn you that I shall tell your father that you’d better be sent off to some college far away from here to stay till you grow up.”
“Excuse me, Judge,” I said. “I hope nothing like that happens. Us boys don’t want to have any trouble. All we want is to have our meetings every day in our clubhouse and to be let alone. Stoner’s Boy is back. He is sending us notes, which have mystery in them and we think maybe he is planning some of the old tricks. But—”
“Keep away from him,” said the judge. “If he strikes you, you have the right to fight back, of course. But that doesn’t mean that you have the right to go where you know you are likely to meet him. If you know he is at a certain place, keep away from it, even if it is your clubhouse. Get another clubhouse.”
“Fine, Judge,” I said. “Thanks for that suggestion. I had not thought of it, I tell you the truth. Sure, we ought to have another clubhouse to meet in if the Gray Ghost is hanging around our shack in the hollow. I’ll tell the boys what you said. Good-bye.”
With that I left Doc’s office and went down to our clubhouse in the hollow where all the boys were just wiping the mud off their shoes and cleaning up after a game of shinny in the hollow. I told them what the judge had said.
“It’s the best way,” I said. “We must have two clubhouses, boys. When we know the Gray Ghost is likely to be around in this hollow, we will have to meet somewhere else.”
“We’ve got to have another clubhouse,” said our captain. “Where will it be, boys? Who’s got a motion to make about a new clubhouse?”
For the first time, Shadow Loomis stood up to say something.
“Have you boys forgotten?” he asked. “Don’t you remember that we have a secret meeting place? How about the old hidden houseboat in the backwater pool on the island?”
None of us had thought of that. Shadow’s words brought us all to our feet at once, and we yelled. But Jerry Moore stood up and held up his hand.
“Wait just a minute, fellas,” he said. “I got to tell you that Perry Stokes and me been acting as sort of spies for a week. We been up and down the river, and we been down to the island, too. ’Tain’t no use to figure on the hidden houseboat. It ain’t hidden no longer. Is it, Perry?”
Perry Stokes stood up.
“If I may speak—” he began.
“Of course you may,” I said. “Go ahead, shoot.”
“Well, then,” began Perry. “Our hidden house
boat in the lily pond has been discovered.”
“Did you see anybody in it?” asked our captain, sharply. He didn’t like Perry very much.
“No, sir,” answered Perry. “Not exactly. We were just down there this noon. We been down there every day, sir, and every time, we would sit awhile in the hidden houseboat and rest and eat our lunch, Jerry and me. Jerry is a nice companion, sir, on a jaunt. He is just the kind of a fella, sir—”
“We know Jerry all right,” broke in our captain. “Tell us what you started to say.”
“Well, sir, today we didn’t go in the hidden houseboat at all, sir. No sir. We saw something which made us afraid to enter—”
“Not afraid, you boob,” broke in Jerry. “I wasn’t afraid, Hawkins, listen—”
“All right, Jerry,” I interrupted. “Let Perry tell his story.”
“We didn’t go in,” continued Perry, “because while we were on our way up to the hidden headquarters, sir, we saw footprints—”
“Footprints again,” I said. “I suppose they were—”
“Made by shoes which had soles covered with nailheads,” said Perry. “So we did not go farther. We returned to this clubhouse, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And that means that Stoner’s Boy has found out our secret meeting place, and there is no hope for us. All right. Dick, I think you better order all of us to take a trip to the island and see what is to be done. If Stoner has found out the hiding place of the Skinny Guy’s old houseboat, I think it is up to us to move that houseboat to some other place. Stoner’s Boy has no right to it. And as long as it is in the lily pond on the island, Stoner will be able to make himself at home in it.”
“Hawkins is right,” spoke up Shadow Loomis.
“Sure,” said Dick. “Come on, every one of you guys. We can get down there before dark yet. Get out the canoes, and let’s start.”
Eleven boys walked down the river path after we had locked our clubhouse. Five canoes were brought out of the bushes and shoved into the water. I sat in the last one with Jerry and Dick. It was Jerry’s long green canoe, the one that had beaten the Pelhams in the race from Watertown.
The Gray Ghost Page 4