The Phantom Town Mystery

by Carol Norton

  CHAPTER X A LONELY MOUNTAIN ROAD

  While the four young people ate the delicious chicken sandwiches whichMrs. Newcomb had prepared for them and drank creamy milk poured intoaluminum cups from a big thermos bottle, they sat gazing silently aboutthem, awed by the terrific majesty of the scene, the girls not entirelyunafraid. Below them was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to a desertfloor which was most uneven, having been cut up by torrents, which,during each heavy rain, were hurled down the mountain sides.

  The effect of the desert for miles beyond was that of a little "GrandCanyon." Dora, thoughtfully gazing at it, said,--"In a few centuries,other girls and boys will stand here, perhaps, and by _that_ time thosecanyons will be worn deep as the real Grand Canyon is today, won't they,Jerry?"

  "I reckon that's right," the cowboy replied.

  Then Mary asked, "Jerry, is this old dangerous mountain road the _very_same one that the stages used to cross years ago?"

  Jerry nodded, but before he could speak, Mary, shining-eyed, rushed onwith, "Oh, Dora, I _know_ why the boys have brought us here! _This_ isthe road where the three bandits held up the stage that Sven Pedersen andpoor Little Bodil were riding in."

  "Of course it is!" Dora generously refrained from telling her friend thatshe had been convinced of _that_ fact ever since they began climbing thegrade.

  Glowing blue eyes turned toward the cowboy. "Oh, Jerry, have you any ideawhere the exact spot was; where the bandits shot the driver, I mean, andwhere the horses plunged over the cliff and where that poor little girlwas thrown out into the road?" Excitement had made her breathless.

  Jerry's admiring gray eyes smiled down at the eagerly chattering girl. "Ireckon I know close to the spot. Silas Harvey said it was just at the topof Devil's Drop, and--"

  Mary interrupted, horror in her tone, "Oh, Jerry, _what_ a dreadful name!_What_ is it? _Where_ is it?" She was gazing about, her eyes startled.The road disappeared fifty feet ahead of them around a sharp curve. Foranswer Jerry started the motor, then, joltingly and with cautiousslowness, the small car crept toward the curve. Unconsciously the girlswere almost holding their breath as they gazed unblinkingly out ofstaring eyes at the wall of rock around which the road was winding.

  When they saw "Devil's Drop," a bare, granite peak, up the near side ofwhich the old road climbed at an angle which seemed but slightly off theperpendicular, Mary, with a little half sob, covered her eyes.

  Jerry, terribly self-rebuking, wished sincerely that he and Dick had comealone. He was sure that the road was safe, for he and his father hadcrossed it since the last heavy rain. Mr. Newcomb had a mining claimwhich could be reached by no other road. So it was with confidence thatJerry tried to allay Mary's fears. "Little Sister," he said, "pleasetrust me when I tell you that the grade _looks_ a lot worse than it is.I'd turn back if I could, but it wouldn't be safe to try."

  Mary, ashamed of her momentary lack of faith in Jerry's good judgment,put down her hands and smiled up into his anxious face.

  "Jerry," she said, "I'm going to shut my eyes tight until we are up top.You tell me, won't you, when the worst is over?"

  Dora had made no sound, but Dick, glancing at her, saw that she wasstaring down at the hamper at her feet as though she saw something therethat fascinated her. He, also, feared that the girls should have beenleft at home. Nor was he himself altogether fearless. Having spent hisboyhood in and around Boston, he was unused to perilous mountain ridesand he was glad when the car came to a jolting stop and Jerry's voice,relief evident in its tone, sang out, "We're up top, and all the rest ofour ride will be going down."

  Mary opened her eyes and saw that the road had widened on what seemed tobe a large ledge. Jerry climbed out and put huge stones in front and backof the wheels, then he held out his hand.

  "Here's where we start hunting for clues," he said, smiling, but at thesame time scanning his companion's face hoping that all traces of fearhad vanished.

  Dora and Dick went to the outer edge of the road. "Such a view!" Doracried, flinging her arms wide to take in the magnitude of it.

  "Describe it, who can?"

  "I'll try!" Dick replied. "A bleak, barren, cruel desert lay miles belowthem like a naked, bony skeleton of sand and rock."

  Mary, clinging to the cowboy's arm, joined the others but kept well backfrom the edge. "Jerry," she said in an awed voice, "do you think--wasthis the very spot, do you suppose, where the stage was held up?"

  "I reckon so," Jerry replied, "as near as I could figure out from whatSilas Harvey said."

  Dora turned. "Then somewhere along here was where poor Little Bodil wasthrown into the road."

  The cowboy nodded. A saw-tooth peak rose just beyond them.

  Dora, gazing at it, speculated aloud: "_Could_ a wild beast have slunkaround the curve there snatched the child and dashed away with it to itscave?"

  "We'll probably never know," Dick replied. "That could have happened,couldn't it Jerry?"

  "I reckon so," the cowboy began, when Mary caught his arm again. "Oh,Jerry," she cried, "_are_ there wild animals now--I mean living here inthese mountains?"

  The cowboy glanced at Dick before he replied. "None, Little Sister, thatwill hurt _you_. Don't think about them."

  But Mary persisted. "At least _tell me_ what wild animal lives aroundhere that might have dragged Little Bodil to its lair."

  Jerry, realizing that there was nothing else to do, said in asindifferent a tone as he could, "I reckon there _may_ be a mountain lionor so up here, and a puma perhaps. That's sort of a big cat, but _it's_ acoward all right! Gets away every time if it can." He hoped that wouldsatisfy Mary but instead she looked up at the grim peak above them, hereyes startled, searching. "I saw a picture once, oh, I remember it was inmy biology book, of a huge catlike creature crouched on a ledge. It wasabout to spring on a goat that was on the mountain below it. Underneaththe picture was printed, 'The Puma springs from ledges down upon itsunsuspecting prey.' I remember it because it both fascinated andterrorized me."

  "Mary," the cowboy took both her hands and smiled into her wide blueeyes, "will it make you feel better about wild animals attacking us if Itell you that Dick and I are both carrying concealed weapons?"

  Mary smiled up at Jerry as she said, "You think I'm a silly, I _know_ youdo, and I don't blame you. I'm not going to be fearful of anything againtoday." Then, as she glanced down the steep road up which they had come,she returned the conversation to the subject from which they had so fardigressed. "Jerry, which way do you suppose the three bandits came?"

  "I reckon they came around the sharp curve over there. They could hideand not be seen by the driver of the stage until he was almost uponthem."

  Anxiously Mary asked, "There wouldn't be any bandits on _this_ road_these_ days, would there?"

  It was Dora who answered, "Mary Moore, you _know_ there wouldn't be.Jerry told us that this road is abandoned by practically all travelers."Then turning to the cowboy, Dora excitedly exclaimed, "Why, Jerry, if_this_ is the spot where the stage was held up and where the horsesplunged off the road, don't you think it's possible _something_ may beleft of the stage, something that _we_ could find?"

  "That's what I reckoned," the cowboy said slowly. "Dick and I wereplanning to climb down the side of the cliff here and see what we couldunearth, but I reckon we'd better give up and go home. Dick, you and Ican come back some other time--alone."

  "Oh, no!" Dora pleaded. "Mary and I are all over being afraid. We have onour divided skirts, and, if it's safe for you to climb down Devil's Drop,why, it's safe for us, isn't it, Mary?"

  "If Jerry says so," was the trusting reply accompanied by an equallytrusting glance from sweet blue eyes.

  Instead of answering, Jerry beckoned Dick over to the edge of the steepdrop. It was not a sheer descent. Every few feet down there was a narrowledge, almost like uneven stairs. There were scrubby growths in crevicesto which the girls could cling. About one hundred feet down there was awide-flung
ledge and then another descent, how perilous that was theycould not discern from where they stood.

  "We could get the girls down to that first wide ledge easily enough,"Dick said, "if you think we ought."

  Jerry spoke in a low voice which, the girls could not hear. "I'm terriblysorry we brought them. My plan was to have them sit in the car up here inthe road while we went down to hunt for a skeleton of that old stagecoach, but now that Mary's afraid of a wild animal attacking them, wejust can't leave them alone. They don't either of them know how to use agun. I reckon what we _ought_ to do is go back home and--"

  Dick shook his head. "They won't let us now," he said, and he was right,for the girls, tired of waiting, skipped toward them saying in asing-song, "Verse seven!"

  "_Two_ cowgirls whom _nothing_ can stop Are now going over the Devil's Drop. Come, come, coma, Coma, coma, kee. You may come along if You're brave as we."

  "Great!" Dick laughed, applauding.

  "Well, only down as far as the wide ledge," Jerry told them. "That willbe easy going, I reckon, and safe." He held out his strong brown hand toMary, and, leading the way, he began the descent.