The Gray Ghost

by Robert F. Schulkers

  “There she is,” said Link to me. “She was a good old tub—my pop worked on her one time.”

  “You boys will all wait here,” said our captain, as the other canoes came up where we landed. “Hawkins and Link are goin’ ’long with me to look her over first. I ain’t taking any chances gettin’ you boys hurt. If she is all right and safe, you can look at her when we come back. You all wait here.”

  The boys all beached their canoes, and Jerry took ours, and we left them sitting there while we went up to the wreck.

  Link and Dick and I went around the upper side of the bank where we would not have to climb so high to get on the stranded steamboat.

  Link pulled himself upon the railing, and Dick and I followed. The deck sloped a little, and it was a trifle hard walking, but we managed to get along, and what a sight we saw! Most of the valuable furniture and fixings had been taken out of the old steamboat. But many things had gone to ruin in her, and we thought we could take a lot of it and fix it over so it would be good enough for us to use. We stood there in the engine room, and looked with sad faces at all that great machinery business shot to pieces, and I wondered to myself how could the river do such a powerful thing as this. But river ice is mighty; it has broken many proud and powerful steamboats. It certainly smashed the dickens out of the Smokey City.

  We went forward and up to the next deck. All of us tiptoed, as though we were in a church. Link talked in whispers to us. We answered him the same. The silence in that old dead steamboat made me think of a graveyard, and it was a graveyard sure enough for this poor old boat.

  “What did you hear?” whispered Link to me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “What made you ask me that?”

  The Skinny Guy did not answer me. He stood listening, as though he expected to hear something. Then he turned to Dick and me and said in a low tone:

  “Somebody else is on this boat—listen!”

  And then we heard it too, flup—flup—flup—flup, the sound of bare feet on the deck above us. We three looked at each other as we listened.

  “There wasn’t a soul here today,” whispered Link. “I went clean through—come on, let’s see who it is.”

  “Go easy!” warned Dick. “You know I’m captain—I got to take the blame!”

  But Link was careful alright. He climbed up the steps like a cat, and we followed him without any noise. When we reached the top deck, there was not a soul upon her. Link turned to me with a puzzled look.

  It was somebody,” he said. “You fellas heard the same thing I did—”

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s look everywhere—”

  But we didn’t have to look. For, at that moment a sound came to our ears, a boy’s voice, singing—

  Bumble-dee—bumble-dee—Rumble—dee-rum,

  Down in dear old N’Orleans.

  Where had I heard that voice before? It sounded strangely familiar.

  “It’s forward,” whispered Link. “Come on—let’s see.”

  We all three ran forward. In front of the pilothouse, we stopped. A voice inside was talking—like a fellow talking to himself.

  “She’s mine,” the voice was saying, “an’ I inten’ to tak’r clean to N’Orleans an’ back. Stand by, you men. Be ready when I give the word. Let me take the wheel, sonny, I’ll show y’ how to spin ’er. Be ready to put yer tiller down in a hurry. Alright, let her go.”

  From where we stood, we could not be seen by the boy in the pilothouse, because we were right below, nor could we see into the pilothouse, but we could just catch a glimpse of the upper spokes of the big pilot wheel.

  We saw a boy’s hands grasp the spokes and give the wheel a turn, and it squeaked awfully.

  The boy’s voice began to sing again, and I wished I could see his face, but if I moved back far enough to look up at him, he would be able to see me too. Link was grinning at us.

  “It’s a kid,” he whispered. “Some kid playing like he is a steamboat pilot—lookit the little beggar—lookit him holding the wheel, Hawkins—”

  I did look—in fact, I had been looking all the while—but not until now had I taken a good look at those hands that held the wheel.

  “I knew it!” I said in an excited whisper. “I was sure I knew that voice, Link—look at his right hand—”

  “Three-Finger Fred!” exclaimed Link, under his breath.

  “Sure—he came back with Stoner—you fellas stay here and watch so he don’t jump out the windows, and I’ll go up and get him.”

  I ran for the steps in the back of the pilothouse, and as I ran, I got a flash of a boy’s head poked out of the window and drawn back quick, but I didn’t stop, and up the steps I flew. As I was halfway up, the door of the pilothouse was slammed in my face. But it was not locked, and I jumped up and shoved it open and leaped inside.

  There was nobody there.

  No. No hands were on the wheel. No boy was there. I stood alone in front of that big steering wheel, and I wondered if I had been dreaming. No, because Link had seen him too. The Skinny Guy recognized that right hand with the thumb and forefinger missing. Three-Finger Fred had been in that pilothouse. He had been playing pilot a few minutes before. There was no doubt of that. But he was gone. He had vanished.

  I looked out of the pilot window. Link and Dick stood on the deck below.

  “Nobody here,” I called down to them. “Did he jump out this window?”

  “Not so you could notice it,” replied Dick. The next minute they had run around and come up the steps into the pilothouse. We all three stood there looking at one another.

  “You’re sure he did not jump out?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said Link. “We could see every side of the pilothouse. He did not come out.”

  “Well where is he then?” I asked.

  They did not answer me.

  “There’s some trick about it,” said the Skinny Guy. “Let’s look at the floor and the walls of this pilothouse.”

  We looked. There was no trap door in the floor. There was no sign of a crack in the walls. We did not find the least thing that might give us an idea as to how Three-Finger Fred disappeared.

  “Stoner’s Boy’s got something to do with this,” said Link. “It looks just like one of his tricks, and Three-Finger Fred is learning ’em fast. Dick, I think we better not hang around here very long. Don’t know what Stoner might have fixed up here for us. Let’s go back and tell the boys they can look at the wreck all they want to, but they can’t go through because it’s too dangerous.”

  Which we did.

  CHAPTER 10

  Escape of Three-Finger Fred

  FOUR days have passed since our visit to the wreck of the Smokey City—the old steamboat that was caught in the ice last winter and left broken and disabled on the river bank near Hobbs’s Ferry. Four days of peace and quiet, and I have not had a chance to write a line in this book, because there was always something to do after we held our meetings, and then Bill Darby is set on making a ball team out of us boys this year. He might do it, but dern if I can see how—

  But what has me puzzled is Stoner’s Boy. He has not been around here, as far as we know, since the night we heard the loud voice. Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe the fellow who called himself Simon Bleaker—who came to claim the machine that made the loud voice—maybe that was Stoner. Shadow Loomis thinks so. He says Simon Bleaker is a false name. He says that it was Stoner’s Boy himself who claimed the machine in the mahogany box and says that he called himself Simon Bleaker only because he had to give another name with the initials “S. B.” so that we would not know it was really Stoner himself. I’m not so sure. Robby Hood thinks different. He says he kind o’ thinks Androfski dresses up in that long cape-coat with a handkerchief across his face and plays Stoner’s Boy one time and Androfski the next time he comes. But that don’t sound quite right to me neither because I haven’t seen Androfski since Harkinson passed away. And Robby says, “No, and you didn’t see Stoner as long as you saw Androfski, did you? D
id you ever see them both together? No, of course you didn’t, and you never will, because he can’t play Stoner and Androfski at the same time.”

  Well, that may be so. But I don’t know. Stoner is a smart fellow; there’s no doubt of that. He might be able to play off like he is somebody else one time and somebody else the next. But I know this one thing. It can’t be Simon Bleaker, if it’s Androfski. No. I saw Simon Bleaker’s face, and I saw the face of Androfski the Silent. Now this Simon Bleaker was one of the handsomest fellows I ever saw, while Androfski has a nose like the beak of a bird. But Stoner’s Boy—no. I can’t tell you what he looks like. With a handkerchief over his face, Simon Bleaker might easily be Stoner, and Androfski could cover up his beak of a nose with that gray handkerchief and look like Stoner too. Let it be who it may. I will wait and see.

  *  *  *

  The Skinny Guy did not come to our meeting today, but he walked into my little writing room just as I had begun to write the minutes of the meeting.

  “Well,” I said, “been scoutin’?”

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Hangin’ around the Smokey City wreck. I got a notion, Hawkins, that maybe Stoner’s headquarters are on that wrecked steamboat. Else what was Three-Finger Fred doing on the boat?”

  “Why,” I said, “he was playing pilot. He likes to—”

  “You know everything,” broke in Link. “But listen to me a minute. How did Three-Finger Fred disappear all of a sudden when you ran up into the pilothouse after him?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t give me any more riddles to figure out, Link,” I said. “I’m done doing that.”

  “He had a secret door somewhere,” continued Link.

  “Didn’t we search all around the walls?” I asked. “And didn’t we look closely at the floor? Did we find any sign of a crack that might look like it was a secret entrance?”

  “All the same there was one,” said Link. “You got enough sense to know that Three-Finger Fred was hiding there somewhere or got out through a secret door. Of course we couldn’t find it. It wouldn’t be a secret door if we could find it.”

  “Well,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. As far as I am concerned, he can keep the secret. I’m not going to lose any sleep wondering where he got out of that pilothouse.”

  Link looked sore.

  “Hawkins,” he said. “You’d git a saint mad at you sometimes the way you talk. You know you ain’t goin’ to sit here and let Stoner and his gang hang out in that old steamboat wreck and lay for us whenever they git the chance. You’re goin’ to try to catch him—listen,” he leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Doc Waters said that Judge Granbery offered a reward for Stoner’s Boy.”

  “How much?” I asked. This sounded more like business.

  “Ten dollars,” he said.

  I waved my hand.

  “He can keep it,” I said. “Let Stoner’s Boy go. If he ain’t worth more’n $10 to catch, he ain’t worth a cent. I’d like to see the judge try to catch him.”

  “Of course he couldn’t,” said Link with a grin. “But you and me, Hawkins—sure, we c’n do it.”

  I smiled at my old Skinny Boy.

  “We said that so many times, Link,” I said.

  “But now is our time,” he said. “Listen, I saw two fellows leave the old wreck and start up the river today in a canoe. They got a good start on me, and I was in my long boat. I had to let them take a long stroke because I didn’t want ’em to see me following. They turned the bend up above before I did. When I got round the bend, their canoe was not in sight.”

  “They paddled too fast for you?” I asked.

  “No, they couldn’t, because I wasn’t that far. Their canoe was gone from the river.”

  “Oh,” I said. “They had a secret place in the river to disappear in, I guess.”

  “Hawkins!” cried Link. “I’ll punch your nose—don’t kid me, listen. I’m goin’ to git this Gray Ghost before I go back to my home. You’re goin’ to help me.”

  “Like fun I am,” I said. “I’m goin’ to mind my own business. What’s the use me stickin’ my nose in the nest of Stoner and gettin’ the skin all rubbed off? Now listen, Link, you talk sense, and I’ll listen.”

  Link didn’t say any more. He just turned and walked into the meeting room. I heard the Rolling Stone’s voice shouting, “Hi, Link,” and then I could hear them both talking together in a low voice. “Ha!” I said to myself. “The Skinny Guy and the Rolling Stone are figuring out the way to catch Stoner, most likely.”

  I finished my writing and closed my book and put the stopper on my ink well. Then I took my cap and started out to join Bill Darby’s famous nine, practicing base stealing in the hollow. As I passed through the meeting room, I saw the Rolling Stone seated in his chair behind the stove, his feet resting on the fender. On the floor in front of him sat the Skinny Guy, his knees up to his chin and his arms around his knees. They both were very much interested in something they were talking over, and I thought I knew what it was.

  *  *  *

  But before I had reached the door a sound came from the river—a sound that brought both Link and Rolling Stone John to their feet at once.

  “The horn!” exclaimed the Rolling Stone.

  “The Gray Ghost,” I said.

  “It’s him,” said Link. “Dern if he ain’t a brave guy, Hawkins, always lets us know when he is passing by. Come on.”

  Out of the door flew the Skinny Guy with the Rolling Stone at his heels. I never saw John Loomis run that fast before, and it surprised me. Yet I wouldn’t put it past anybody to run like that once they got to chasing Stoner’s Boy. That old brassy sound of his horn was like daring a fellow to come out and fight. And no brave boy can take a dare like that. No. It would be like saying you were afraid to come out.

  For a minute, yes, two or three minutes—I hesitated. Why should I go? I knew well enough there was no use trying to catch Stoner’s Boy. Didn’t I know it? Haven’t I tried it many times? How many times have fellows chased him? How many caught him—how many even touched him?

  Yet it was the sound of that old brass horn that made me go. Yeah. That old brass horn. Stoner had stolen it out of my little office. To be sure it had belonged to him once upon a time, but Harkinson had given it to me before he died and had told me to keep it to remember him by. You might not know how it feels, but I do. I wanted that brass horn back. Harkinson told me to keep it.

  I flew out of the door all of a sudden—

  But I had waited there too long. Link and the Rolling Stone had already gone. Their canoe was not even in sight. A flatboat with a few Pelham fellows was coming across the river, and I waited for them to land. Briggen and Dave Burns and another Pelham were in it.

  “You lookin’ for Stoner?” asked Briggen.

  “Not worried about Stoner,” I said. “I came after Link and John Loomis.”

  “All went down the river,” answered Briggen. “Just turned the bend before you come.”

  Well, there wasn’t anything for me to do but get out a canoe and go down. Which I did. I expected I would find them at the old wreck of the Smokey City. But when I came in sight of the wreck, I saw only one canoe fast to a sapling on the bank.

  I paddled up close and jumped out and made my canoe fast to the same sapling and ran to the wreck. I climbed aboard the old wrecked steamboat and ran up the steps to the first deck. Link and the Rolling Stone were standing forward, talking together. They turned when they saw me. Then they both came walking toward me. Link was shaking his head, and he had a disappointed look.

  “Gave us the slip again, Hawkins,” he said. “We thought we had him cornered sure enough this time.”

  “Did he get off here?” I asked. “Did you see him land?”

  “Sure,” said the Rolling Stone. “We wouldn’t have come ashore till he had.”

  “Didn’t you see his old gray launch down there beside our canoe?” asked Link.

  “I don’t think I did,�
� I said. “I only saw your canoe.”

  “Well, we landed our canoe right alongside the gray launch after we saw him get out,” said Link. “And we saw him get onto this old wrecked steamboat. Yet when we came here, he wasn’t anywhere. He’s not on the boat. We looked from stem to stern, top to bottom.”

  “You might as well let Stoner alone,” I said. “You know you can’t catch him, Link. What’s the use bothering—?”

  “Listen!”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’,” said the Rolling Stone.

  “Shut up, listen!”

  We all listened. Not a sound.

  “You’re worked up over this, Link,” I said. “Might as well go back. Stoner is too slick for us.”

  All of a sudden, I heard it. Like the sound of a quarrel, it came to our ears—two voices, boys’ voices—one seeming to beg of the other not to beat him. Then it was quiet.

  “What was that?” asked the Rolling Stone, in a low voice. “Who’s pickin’ on—”

  Again came the muffled sound. We all ran aft to the far end, and then we realized that we had run the wrong way. For as we reached the rear railing and turned, we saw a figure of a boy at the opposite end of the boat. He had just sprung upon the deck and started for our end of the boat, but catching sight of us, he turned and mounted the steps leading to the top deck. I recognized him in a flash.

  It was Three-Finger Fred! I’ll never forget Three-Finger Fred. And he’ll never forget me either. There was a time when I warned him not to chum with Stoner’s Boy, and one time I thought he would take my advice. But now—

  “Run,” yelled Link. “Run for him, Hawkins. We will stay down here and see he doesn’t skip out here—he can tell us lots about the Gray Ghost.”