BOB DEXTER AND THE STORM MOUNTAIN MYSTERY (continued 2)

“Here it comes!” answered the lad.

The next instant he had dropped the brass key down the black opening.

CHAPTER VIII

JOLLY BILL’S TALE

Tense was the silence that had fallen over the little group of experimenters—Bob on the roof of the log cabin, Ned, Harry, Chief Duncan and Jolly Bill Hickey on the ground below—Chief Drayton inside the cabin, squatting down near the embers of a dead fire on the hearth.

The key had fallen.

What was the result?

They were not long left in doubt. Up the flue came the voice of Chief Drayton reporting on the first test. “No good!” he called to Bob.

“What do you mean?” asked the young detective, and his words, as well as those of the chief inside the cabin came plainly to his listeners.

“I mean the key just plopped into the ashes and stayed there.”

“Didn’t it bounce out at all?”

“Nary a bounce.”

“Well, then we’ll try it again.”

Which they did—a dozen times or more—but always with the same result. The key fell down the flue with many a tinkle as it struck the cross pieces of iron bars which Hiram had set in to prevent night-prowling animals from entering his strong room. Then the brass implement fell into the soft ashes where it remained.

“Well, that settles one point,” declared Ned, as they all went inside the cabin after the test. “The man who robbed Mr. Beegle and locked him inside the room, putting the key back in after he went out, didn’t use the chimney.”

“That’s right!” chimed in Harry.

“And yet what other opening is there by which the key could have been gotten back in this room, and placed close to the hand of Mr. Beegle, so it would look as if he had locked himself in, robbed himself and made himself unconscious with chloroform or something?” asked Ned. “What other opening is there?”

“None!” declared Chief Drayton. “I went all over that Hiram made his room as tight as a bank vault. The fireplace is the only opening in or out, and the key didn’t come down there!”

“There must be some other opening!” insisted Ned.

“Well, the best way is to have a look,” suggested Bob. “Now the crowd seems to be gone for good, let’s have a look.” For the throng of curious ones had followed the organ grinder down the mountain trail, it seemed. Not often did one of these traveling musicians, if such they may be called, invade Storm Mountain, and the simple inhabitants of that isolated and rural community welcomed their visits.

Such careful examination as Bob and his chums, with the aid of the police chiefs and Jolly Bill Hickey, gave to the strong room, or vault in the log cabin, revealed no visible means by which a large brass key could have been passed inside after the door was locked.

The keyhole theory was, obviously, not to be mentioned again. A moment’s test proved the utter impossibility of forcing the key through the opening by which the lock was operated. And, granting that the key could have been pushed through the hole into which it was intended to be inserted, it would merely have dropped on the floor inside, and would not have fallen near the hand of the stricken man.

The walls of the room appeared very solid, nor was any hollow sound developed when they were tapped.

“How about a trap door in the floor?” asked Ned, when it had been fairly well established that there was no opening through the walls.

“That’s so!” cried Chief Drayton. “I never thought of that! There must be a trap door!”

There wasn’t much he really thought of until some one else suggested it, be it noticed.

But hopeful and feasible as this plan seemed when Ned had mentioned it, nothing developed. The floor was smooth and without any secret flap or trap door, as far as they could see.

“Well, I guess well just have to give it up,” said the Storm Mountain officer with a gesture of despair. “I’ll have to work along the line of catching the criminal. If I do that and get back Hiram’s box of valuable papers I guess that will be all I’m expected to do.”

“Yes, if you do that you’ll be doing well,” said Chief Duncan with a laugh.

“Oh, I’ll do it!” declared the other. “After all, the key mystery doesn’t amount to much. I’ll drop that.”

But there was one present who had made up his mind not to drop the mystery of the brass key, and that individual was Bob Dexter. For here was a mystery just to his liking—no sordid crime was involved, nothing like a sensational murder, such as rumor first had it—only a mysterious robbery, and that of papers which perhaps were of value only to the recent inheritor of them.

“I’ll have a go at it!” Bob Dexter told himself. “But I want to look around when there aren’t so many present. I’m not altogether satisfied that it isn’t possible to get a key in through the walls of this strong room. And I’d like to know why Hiram Beegle built such a strong room. What did he have to guard? What was he afraid of, or, rather, of whom was he afraid? I’d like to find out about these things, and I’m going to.”

He was enlightened on some of these points sooner than he expected.

With the taking away of Hiram by the physician, to the home of Tom Shan, where the old man would be nursed back to health, there was little more that could be done at the lonely log cabin.

“I’ll just lock it up and keep the key,” said Chief Drayton who, in the absence of any relatives of the old man, would seem to have this right under the law. “I’ll keep the brass key, too, though I reckon there isn’t much left in here to steal.”

They were in the strong room at the time, taking a final look around, and the empty chest in the corner bore mute evidence of the futility of keeping guard over the place. Other things of Hiram’s than the brass-bound box might have been taken, but he said nothing about them. His most valuable treasure seemed to be that which Judge Weston had given him the day before, and now that was gone.

“Yes, lock up and we’ll get out,” suggested Chief Duncan. “I’ve got to be getting back to Cliffside. You boys coming with me?” he looked at Ned and Harry.

“We’ll ride back with Bob in his Rolls Royce,” chuckled Harry.

“All right, but don’t speed in my territory or I’ll have to lock you up,” laughed the police head.

“And I think I’ll be pulling up my mud hook and making for some port myself,” said Jolly Bill Hickey with a laugh. “There isn’t any hotel around here,” he added as he stumped around on his wooden leg. “How about it over in your port, my lads?” and he looked at Bob and his chums.

“There’s the Mansion House,” Harry informed him.

“Suits me!” cried Jolly Bill. “I came here to spend a few days with my old shipmate Hiram Beegle, but since he’s in the sick bay I’ll have to make other plans. So I’ll stay at the Mansion House for a while. I’ve got the shot in my locker to pay my passage, too!” he cried, pulling out a plump wallet, and showing it with a flourish. “Don’t be afraid that the Mansion House will see me skipping my board bill, even if I have a wooden leg,” and he tapped against his tree-like ember a heavy knurled and knobbed stick that assisted him in his hobbling walk.

“That’s between you and the Mansion House,” observed Ned.

“If you like I’ll drive you down,” offered Bob. “You know you said you could tell us something about Mr. Beegle,” he added as he and his chums were left alone with this odd bald-headed character, while the two police chiefs saw to securing the cabin. The crowd of curious ones seemed to have followed the organ grinder away, as did the children after the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

“That’s what I said, and that’s what I’ll do!” cried Jolly Bill. “I can tell you almost as much about old Hiram Beegle as he can himself. Man and boy we sailed together!”

“Come on then,” urged Bob.

Jolly Bill, chuckling to himself as if at some joke he had not shared with the others, stumped in the wake of Ned and Harry as Bob led the way to where he had parked his flivver.

“I can talk while we breeze along,” said the odd character as he took his place beside Bob, Ned and Harry occupying the rear seat. “For when I get to the Mansion House I’m going to take a rest. I’ve traveled a long way to get here. Thought I’d be in time for old Hank Denby’s funeral, but I missed him.”

“Do you know him?” asked Bob.

“I did, son,” replied Jolly Bill with the trace of an accent on the second word. “I knew him well. Had a letter from him just before he went on his last long voyage. Pals we were—Hank and I and Hiram.”

“What about Rod Marbury?” asked Bob.

“Bah! That pest and scoundrel! He sailed with us, of course, but he wasn’t a true messmate in the real meaning of the name. You never could trust Rod Marbury—that’s why Hiram built his strong room.”

“I was wondering why he had the place so much like a bank vault, with the key hid in a secret place,” spoke Bob.

“Secret place—for the key—say, boy, what do you know about that?” cried Jolly Bill, all the jollity gone from him now. “What do you know?” and he gripped Bob’s arm, so that the latter had to shake loose the grip in order to steer down the trail.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, somewhat sharply. “This is a bad hill.”

“Excuse me,” murmured Bill, obviously ashamed of his show of feeling. “But I was wondering if Hiram had showed you any of his secrets.”

Conscious that he had made a mistake in betraying any knowledge of the place where the old man hid the key to his strong room, Bob tried to shift it off with a laugh as he said:

“Oh, well, it stands to reason that careful as Mr. Beegle was of that room, he’d keep the key to it in a secret place, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, I reckon he would,” admitted Jolly Bill. “I see what you mean. I beg your pardon.” Bob was glad it had passed off this way, for, truth to tell, he had not meant to say what he did.

“Well, Mr. Hickey, we’re ready to hear your story,” said Harry, when they had reached a place in the road from Storm Mountain where the going was safer and easier. “It seems like a sort of pirate yarn to me.”

“Pirate yarn!” cried Jolly Bill. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you three—or four if you like to count in Rod Marbury——”

“I don’t like to count Rod in and I’m not going to!” cried Bill.

“Well, then, you three, yourself, Mr. Beegle and Mr. Denby—seem to have been associated in some voyages where you got wealth—not to say a fortune,” went on Harry.

“No, not a fortune—considerable money, but far from a fortune,” said Jolly Bill. “Enough for us to live on without risking our lives going aloft in a storm, but not much more. I’ll spin you the yarn.”

He settled himself comfortably in the auto and began:

“Originally there were four of us, Hiram, Hank, myself and that rat Rodney Marbury. We sailed together many a year, putting up with hard work and worse food in good ships and bad ships. We were wrecked together and saved together more than once.

“Then, one day, Hank struck it rich—that is he got hold of an old sailor who was dying. This sailor had been what I reckon you might call a pirate if there are such critters nowadays—or were then. And this fellow had gotten possession of a store of gold. It was where it couldn’t be come at easy—hidden on an island in the South Seas, to be exact, but he had papers and a map to show just where it was, and these papers and map he gave to Hank Denby.

“Now we four—that is before we knew what a rat and skunk Rod Marbury was, had made a vow to share and share alike if ever one of us got rich. So when Hank got possession of these papers showing where some gold—and a good store there was of it—was buried on an island in the South Seas, of course he told us. And we set out to get it.

“I won’t bother to tell you what trouble and hardships we went through to get this hidden gold—maybe it was pirate gold—I don’t know. We had to work and save and scrimp—live as low as we could—until we could make a trip together to this island.”

“And did you?” cried Ned, whose eyes, like those of Harry and Bob, were shining with excitement over this romantic tale.

“We did, lad, yes. We finally got to the island with the map and papers which Hank Denby always carried, as was his right.”

“And when you got there——” began Bob.

“The cupboard was bare!” finished Harry, laughing as he completed the old nursery rhyme. “I mean there wasn’t any gold there.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Jolly Bill with a smile, “for we found the gold buried just where the old map said it would be, and, what’s more, we took it out—that is some of it.”

“Did the natives attack you—did you have a fight or anything like that?” Harry wanted to know.

“Nope—nothing as exciting as that,” replied Jolly Bill.

“Crickety! I wish I could have been there!” sighed Ned. “I’ve always wanted to go to the South Seas. It’s nice and warm there, isn’t it?” he asked. “You don’t have to wear many clothes and dress up do you?”

“Not a great deal,” chuckled the sailor. “Well, as I was saying, we took some of the gold.”

“Why did you leave any of it?” asked Bob, curiously.

“Because—I’ll tell you why—because——”

“Hark!” cautioned Ned. “Listen!”

They listened and heard, just ahead of them the strains of a hand organ.

A worried look came over the face of Jolly Bill Hickey as he stopped the telling of his curious tale.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE TRAIL

“That—that music!” murmured the wooden-legged sailor. “Are there two of those organ grinders? There was one playing at Hiram’s cabin, and now down here—another one—I don’t like it!”

“Why not?” asked Ned, struck by a peculiar look on the man’s generally smiling face.

“Just superstition, I reckon,” was the answer. “But I never yet heard two different hand organs close together on the same day, but what bad luck followed me. I don’t like it, I tell you!”

“This isn’t, necessarily, another hand organ grinder,” remarked Bob as the music came nearer, or, rather the nearer they approached it, for the auto was still progressing.

“Do you mean it could be the same one we heard back at the cabin?” asked Jolly Bill. “That was five miles back. Those dagoes don’t travel that fast.”

“There’s a short trail down Storm Mountain a man can take on foot and beat an auto that has to go by the road,” explained Bob. “Or this man may have been given a lift by some motorist and have started before we did.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” murmured Jolly Bill. “But I’d like to make sure it’s the same one.”

“It is—there he stands,” exclaimed Harry, pointing as they made a turn in the road, and saw the dispenser of music grinding away near a house, out in front of which were several children laughing with delight at the antics of the monkey.

Jolly Bill stared hard at the organ grinder as Bob’s flivver passed him, and it may be said that the grinder also favored the party in the car with a searching glance. However, it appeared to be more of curiosity than anything else, for the man turned aside and called to his monkey, yanking on the long string that was fastened to the collar on the neck of the simian.

“Yes, it’s the same one all right,” murmured Jolly Bill, as they left him behind. “The same one—I’m glad of it.”

He seemed to be brooding over something not connected with the matter in hand, and it was not until Harry made a remark that he took up the telling of the tale.

“Why did you leave any of the gold on the South Sea island?” the lad wanted to know.

“Oh, yes, I started to tell you when that music came along. Well, the reason was that it was Hank Denby’s plan. Hank always had a better head on him than any of the rest of us—he was more business-like. Maybe that’s why the old pirate sailor picked him out to give him the map of the treasure.

“But after we’d located it and got it out—and a precious hard time we had of it to do it in secret so as not to let the natives and some of the worse whites on the island know about it—after that Hank talked to us.

“He reminded us what sailors were like—free spenders when they had anything—saving nothing against a rainy day, and he persuaded us to let him take charge of most of the money—that is the biggest parts of our three shares. He said he’d put it in a safe place and pay it out to us as we needed it. He first divided it all up fair and square—a quarter of the lot to each man—and then asked us to let him handle all of ours but a few thousands we wanted to spend right away.”

“Did you agree to that?” asked Bob, who, with his chums, was eagerly interested in the tale.

“Yes, we did. We knew Hank had a better head than the rest of us, so we turned our shares over to him.”

“And buried it back on that island?” asked Harry.

“Oh, no, we brought it away with us. That island was too far away and too hard to get at to leave any gold there. Hank said there was just as good hiding places in the town where he lived.”

“You mean here in Cliffside?” cried Ned.

“Cliffside’s the place!” announced Jolly Bill Hickey. “Hank said he could hide the money where nobody would ever find it without a map, and that’s just what he’s done. And now he’s dead and the map is in that brass-bound box and who’s got the box I don’t know! It’s fair maddening—that’s what it is!”

Jolly Bill seemed anything but like his name then.

“But say—look here!” exclaimed Ned. “Do you mean to say that after Mr. Denby got you three to intrust the most of your shares to him, that he wouldn’t give them back to you?”

“That’s what he did!” exclaimed Jolly Bill. “Not but what he had a right to under the circumstances. I’ll say that for him.”

“What circumstances?” asked Bob.

“Well, we acted foolish,” confessed the one-legged sailor, as if somewhat ashamed of himself. “At least Rod and I did, but I was led into it by that skunk. After we three had spent most of the first lot we took out of the treasure, Rod proposed that he and I and Hiram rob old Hank of all that was left—take Hank’s share as well as our own.

“I fell in with the scheme, when Rod told me that Hiram was in it also, but I’ve found out since that this was a lie. Hiram wouldn’t do it. And I wouldn’t have gone into it with Rod except that he had me fozzled with strong drink. That cured me—I never touched another drop since. It was how I lost my leg.”

The story was rapidly approaching a dramatic climax, and seeing a quiet place beside the road. Bob drew the car in there and stopped it.

“That’s better,” commented Jolly Bill. “I can talk better when I’m not so rattled about. To make a long story short, I believed what that rat Rod told me—that he and I and Hiram, together, could steal the map of the new place where the treasure was hid, and take it from Hank. Hank had made a lot of money with his first share—he was getting to be fair rich, and we’d spent ours—that is Rod and I had, though I found out that Hiram had done almost as well as Hank had. He had some money put away for a rainy day.

“Well, one night we carried out the plans. It was dark and stormy and Rod and I were to meet at a certain place, get into Hank’s house on pretense of wanting to ask for more of our shares, and then we were to attack him and get the map. I wondered why Hiram wasn’t with us, but Rod said he’d meet us at Hank’s house.

“I found out since that Rod tried to get Hiram in on the wicked scheme, but Hiram wouldn’t come, and threatened to tell Hank. However, it was too late for that. Rod and I went at it alone, but Hank showed fight. I got a bullet in my leg and had to have it taken off. Rod ran and I haven’t seen him since. Hiram wasn’t in on the mean trick, as I realize now it was, and I was laid up!

“That ended the attempt to get more than our share away from Hank, and, not only that, but we had forfeited our right to any more of the treasure.”

“How was that?” asked Ned.

“Well, we agreed when the first division was made, and Hank had been made banker, so to speak, that if any one of us tried to trick, or over-reach, the other, he would lose his rights to any further share in the remainder of the gold. As we all signed a paper to this effect—signed it in blood, too, for we had our superstitions—as we’d all signed, that was all there was to it. Rod and I were out of it. The rest of the gold went to Hank and Hiram.”

“And Mr. Denby is dead,” remarked Bob.

“Yes, but he and Hiram remained friends to the last on account of what had happened—Hiram not going into the rotten trick. And in the course of events Hank left his share—and there was more than when he started with it—he left it all to Hiram. Not only that, but he left our two shares also—Rod’s and mine—as he had a right to do.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Harry.

“I got a letter from a lawyer here in town, telling me about that,” said Jolly Bill, now quite serious. “This lawyer—Judge Weston is his name—said Hank had left a will, and some instructions—and the instructions were for this lawyer to write to us after Hank’s death, telling how everything went to Hiram, under the rules we had all agreed to.

“So Hiram got the brass-bound box, in which Hank kept the map, showing where the treasure is still buried. For you must know, boys, that Hank, like the rest of us, was a bit afraid of banks. He kept most of the money hid and it’s hid yet. The map’s the only thing to tell where it is. Not even the lawyer knows, he wrote me.”

“And did he write the same news to Rodney Marbury?” asked Bob.

“I suppose he did—that was the agreement—the first one to die was to let the others know, writing to the last address he had. So I s’pose Rod knows how his trick didn’t do him any good, nor me neither. We were both bilked out of our shares, but we had a right to be. It served us good and proper.

“However, I made some money in another way—not much—but enough to exist on—and when I heard Hank was dead I came on to see my old messmate Hiram. And I got here just too late.”

“Yes,” agreed Bob, “some one got the treasure map and they may have the treasure by this time.”

“It’s likely,” agreed Jolly Bill with a sigh. “But it can’t be helped. But I think I know who robbed Hiram.”

“I guess we can make a pretty good stab at it,” said Bob. “If what Mr. Beegle thinks is true, it must be this same Rodney Marbury.”

“Correct, my lad. And you said he waylaid him on the way home from the lawyer’s office?” asked Bill.

“That’s what he thinks,” stated Bob. “I found him unconscious beside the road, but he then had the box.”

“Which he hasn’t now,” added Bill “Well, I s’pose it’s all up. Rod will get the treasure after all.”

“Maybe not,” spoke Bob quietly.

“What do you mean?” asked the wooden-legged man.

“I mean that he’ll be trailed,” said the lad. “The police of this and other towns will get after him.”

“A lot of good that will do!” laughed Harry. “The police—whoop!”

“Well, then, I’ll take a hand myself!” declared Bob.

“Now you’re talking!” cried Ned. “Detective Bob Dexter on the trail! Hurray!”

“Cut it out!” said his chum in a low voice. “There’s that hand organ grinder again!”

And, as he spoke the man with the monkey and wheezy music box came tramping along the road.

CHAPTER X

SAILOR’S KNOTS

Just why Bob Dexter didn’t want Ned to wax enthusiastic over the fact that Bob intended taking the trail after the thief who had robbed Hiram Beegle wasn’t quite clear. Perhaps it was Bob’s modesty over ever being praised for his detective work. Perhaps it was just natural caution in the presence of the strange Italian—for certainly he seemed of that nationality.

However it was, Ned desisted from his words of praise, and a silence fell over the group in the auto as the man with the organ and monkey shuffled along.

He had cast a quick glance at all in the machine, his glance lasting longest, perhaps, on the jolly face of Bill Hickey, for on that odd character’s shining countenance a smile was again visible. Bill seemed to have recovered his spirits after telling his story.

The organ man appeared inclined to stop and grind out a tune, hoping, perhaps, to charm some pennies from the pockets of those in the flivver, either by his music, of which the less said the better, or by the antics of his monkey, which was the usual small variety, attired in coat, trousers and a cap—a shameful degrading of a decent simian.

But Bob exclaimed:

“You needn’t play any music for us—we’re going to move along.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Jolly Bill. “I reckon I’ve spun about all of the yarn you need to hear.”

“No music—you no like?” questioned the Italian, with his shock of hair and his curling, matted beard.

“No like,” said Ned, with a laugh.

Once more the auto rolled along the quiet country road, leaving the organ grinder and his monkey staring after them.

“Looks like he was going to settle down here permanently,” remarked Harry.

“Yes,” agreed Bob. “This is the third time we’ve seen him the same day. They don’t often come to Cliffside.”

“Well, as I was saying,” remarked Ned, “if anybody can locate this Rod Marbury it can be done by our young detective friend Bob Dexter.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Bob with a smile. “But I’d like to have a go at it, if Mr. Beegle will let me.”

“Let you?” cried Jolly Bill Hickey, “why he’ll be glad to have you get his map back! He wants that treasure—any man would, and he can’t tell where old Hank Denby hid it until he looks at the map. Of course he’ll be glad to have you get it back for him.”

“I don’t know that I can do it—or even find this man he suspects,” stated Bob.

“Well, you can have a try at it, anyhow,” decided Harry. “And you did pretty well down at Beacon Beach.”

“There was a lot of luck in that,” admitted Bob.

“Well, maybe luck will break here for you, too,” put in Jolly Bill. “I hope so, for Hiram’s sake.”

“But look here,” spoke out Ned. “Mr. Beegle must have opened his brass-bound box and have looked at the map inside between the time he got home with it and the time it was taken from him. And by looking at the map he must know where the stuff is buried.”

“That’s so,” agreed Harry.

“Not so fast!” exclaimed Jolly Bill. “It isn’t so easy to look at a map and then find the place it refers to. We found that out when we went to the South Sea island. You’ve got to have the map right with you, and work your course along fathom by fathom. Hiram would need the map to find where Hank had hid anything. Hank wouldn’t hide it in any easy place, or a place you could find by one look at the map. And Hiram didn’t have much time to study it.

“No, what I think, is that Rod heard, through the letter he got from Judge Weston, that everything had gone to Hiram. This made him mad and he decided to do things his own way, like he did once before when this happened to me,” and Jolly Bill tapped his wooden leg. “So he got the best of Hiram before Hiram had a chance to study the map. Rod has it now and he’ll dig up that treasure as soon as he gets the chance.”

“Do you think it’s buried around here?” asked Ned eagerly.

“It’s likely to be somewhere around Cliffside,” admitted Bill. “Hank wasn’t much of a hand to go far away from home after our South Sea trip.”

“Then all we’ll have to do is to watch where any stranger begins digging operations,” was Ned’s opinion. “I say stranger, for we don’t any of us know this Rod Marbury.”

“I know him—to my sorrow!” remarked Jolly Bill. “But as for watching for a digger—gosh! any number of holes could be sunk, off in the woods—in the mountains—even at Storm Mountain—and no one in the village would ever know it—not even the police.”

“I guess that’s right,” agreed Ned. “We’ll have to leave it to Bob Dexter.”

“Well, Bob Dexter isn’t going to do anything about it right away,” declared the young detective himself. “I’ve got to get back and report to Uncle Joel. I’ve been away a long time as it is.”

“That’s right,” said his chums.

“Well, I’ll see you again some time,” remarked Jolly Bill, as they left him at the Mansion House—a hotel hardly living up to its name—but good enough for the purpose. “I’m going to stick around a while and see if I can help Hiram. Of course I feel a bit sore that I didn’t get a share in the big part of the treasure, but it served me right for letting Rod lead me astray in attacking Hank. I deserve all I’m getting, and I’m not complaining.”

He seemed quite humble and not a bit jolly now.

“But I’ll do all I can to help Hiram,” he went on, as he stumped into the hotel, attracting many curious glances, for he was as odd a character as had been seen in those parts in many a long day. “And if I can help you solve this mystery, my young detective, call on me,” he said to Bob.

“Thanks, I shall,” was the answer. “I don’t know that I can do anything, but I’m going to try, if my uncle will let me.”

All Cliffside was soon buzzing with the news of the attack on the lonely old man, and there were various rumors as to the size of the fortune taken from him. Of course there was some disappointment that there had been no murder—I mean disappointment from a strictly sensational standpoint, for no one wanted to see the harmless old man killed. But, all in all, there was plenty of excitement for a time.

The real story was known only to Bob, his two chums and Jolly Bill, and the lads had agreed to keep silent about it. Jolly Bill had no inducement to tell something that was not to his credit. And Ned and Harry wanted to give Bob a chance to exercise his detective abilities, in which they hoped to share.

As for Rod Marbury, he would have the greatest incentive in the world to remain in hiding, and Hiram was so ill and hazy as to what had happened that he would not be likely to tell the story of the buried and recovered treasure. Re-buried to be exact, for it had been hidden by Hank Denby and was still hidden, unless Rod Marbury had used the map to get the location of it and had removed it.

“Well, Bob,” remarked his uncle at home that evening, when they were talking the matter over, “of course I want you should make your way in life. I did hope you’d sort of succeed to my business, but I can see you’re not cut out for a hardware merchant I don’t altogether hold with this detective business, but I like to see a young man go in for what he likes best, other things being equal. Now you’re asking me to let you off from your regular work so you can solve this Storm Mountain mystery.”

“That’s what I’d like, Uncle Joel.”

“Well, then, I’ll agree to it with this understanding, that you don’t run into danger. I’m responsible for you—almost as much as if I was your father.”

“You have been a good father to me,” said Bob, feelingly.

“I’ve tried to be,” said Mr. Dexter, quietly. “So I want you to take care of yourself.”

“I will,” promised the lad. “Thanks, Uncle Joel.”

“I don’t reckon you’ll find out much,” went on the hardware man. “From what you tell me it’s as queer and complicated as some of the moving pictures we’ve had here in town. But they always work out some way, and maybe this will.”

“I’m sure it will,” said Bob, who had told his uncle the whole story. “Of course there are some points that seem pretty hazy—especially about this Rod Marbury—how he could be around, attack Hiram on the road and get in his cabin without being seen either time. And that trick of getting the key back in the locked room—that is a puzzler!”

“There must be some secret about the old log cabin,” ventured Mr. Dexter.

“A secret! I’ll say there is!” declared Bob. “But I’ll find it!”

Having arranged with his uncle to get time off from his work in the store, which work he had promised to do since there was no school for a time, Bob began to lay out some plans. Most of all he wanted a talk with Hiram Beegle, to clear up some points.

“I want to know more about this mysterious Rod Marbury,” said the lad to himself. “When Mr. Beegle gets better he can talk more about what happened just before he was stricken.”

The next day Bob went to see the log cabin hermit at the home of Tom Shan, but Mr. Beegle was still a bit weak and uncertain in his mind, and the physician forbade any one bothering him with vexing questions.

“Those two chiefs of police have been here,” said Tom to Bob, “but they didn’t find out much, and I guess they never will.”

“Well, I’ll be around again to-morrow,” said Bob, as he took his leave, followed by a friendly smile from Hiram Beegle who was slowly improving. He had been knocked out by some sort of gas, or else by something given him to drink, the doctor decided. But the effects were passing off.

On his way back from visiting the chief character in this new mystery that had engaged him, Bob took the road to Storm Mountain and passed near the log cabin. It was deserted and locked, for Chief Drayton still had the keys, though he promised to give them to Mr. Beegle as soon as the latter wanted to get back in his home.

“I wish you could talk,” murmured Bob to the silent logs. “You’d tell me how that key got inside the locked room. As soon as I can I’m going to have a look at that room more closely, and have a talk with Hiram. He’ll know whether there are any secret sliding panels in the walls, through which the key could have been tossed in as it could have been had there been a transom over the door.”

Bob then walked around to the chimney side. He wanted again to look at those marks in the soft ground—the marks that his chum had first taken for the prints of an elephant’s foot They were somewhat less plain now—those queer marks, but Bob could think of nothing more that they looked like than a sack of potatoes set down again and again because of its weight.

“It’s a queer case,” mused Bob as he turned away from the old log cabin. “A queer case—more so than that of the Golden Eagle or the wreck of the Sea Hawk. I don’t know how I’m going to make out on it.”

As he walked around to the front of the little dwelling, he saw, sitting on the low doorstep, the organ grinder. The Italian had leaned his wheezy instrument up against a tree, and the monkey was swinging from a low branch.

“Nobody home,” said Bob, thinking the fellow might have stopped to play, hoping, thereby, to earn some pennies.

“Nobody home,” murmured the other.

He held in his hand the long string that was attached to the collar of his monkey, and as Bob looked the fingers of the man began tying into the cord a number of sailors’ knots.

Idly, and seemingly unconsciously, the man made a square knot, he loosened that and threw a clove hitch—then a half hitch. Next he made a running bowline, all the while looking at the lad.

“Nobody home,” the Italian said, musingly. “Aw-right. I go—come, Jacko!”

And jerking on the string, which was a signal for the monkey to perch on top of the organ, the fellow shouldered his instrument and walked off toward the road.

“Sailors’ knot!” mused Bob to himself as he stood watching. “Sailors’ knots—I wonder——”

But his wondering was interrupted by hearing footsteps at the rear of the log cabin.

CHAPTER XI

NO POTATOES

Bob Dexter was not at all alarmed by hearing the footsteps of some one in the rear of the log cabin where Hiram. Beegle had his home. The young detective knew that it had been, and probably would be, visited by many curiosity seekers, though now that the first wave of excitement was over there was less morbidness about the cabin.

But the lad was somewhat surprised when he met, coming around the corner of the shack, Chief Drayton of the Storm Mountain force—the whole force, one might say, though the chief did swear in constables on the few occasions when they were needed.

“Hello! What are you doing here, young man?” demanded Mr. Drayton in rather a harsh voice. He did not seem to have recognized Bob.

“Oh, just looking around the same as you are,” was the lad’s easy reply.

“You can’t be looking around the same as me!” snapped out the officer.

“Why not?” coolly demanded Bob, thinking the chief was going to question his right to be on the premises.

“Because I’m here in my official capacity as chief of the Storm Mountain police. I’m here to solve this mystery, and you can’t be here on any such errand as that.”

“Well, I happen to be,” and Bob smiled. “I have permission from Chief Duncan of the Cliffside police to do what I can on this case.”

A light seemed to break over Mr. Drayton.

“Oh, now I know who you be!” he said, though not much more genially than at first. “You’re that young detective feller that was here the day Hiram was knocked out. Um, what you doin’ here?” and there was suspicion in the question.

“Just looking around—that’s all—same as you are.”

“Um! Find out anything?”

“No, not a thing. It’s as deep a mystery as ever. I was wishing I could get inside. I’d like to take a look at the walls of that room again, and see if there was a secret opening in them. There must be, in order for that key to have gotten back inside.”

“Um, maybe there is—unless Hiram did all this himself.”

“Do you believe that, Chief?”

“Um, I’m not sayin’ what I believe. But I know one thing.”

“What’s that, Chief?” Bob thought it best to give the man his tide. It might make him more friendly.

“I know that you aren’t going to get inside—not while I got the keys!” and the self-important individual drew himself up like a turkey gobbler.

“Oh, there’s no hurry,” said Bob, easily. “Any time will do. I was just wondering—that’s all.”

“Yes, there’s a lot of folks wondering about this case,” said the Storm Mountain official. “And they’ll wonder a lot more when I arrest the man that robbed Hiram Beegle.”

“I thought you said Hiram did it himself—locked himself in the room and then told a story of being held up,” said Bob with a sly smile. He was not averse to taking a “fall” out of the conceited chief.

“I never said no such thing, young feller, and you know it!”

“You said Hiram might have done all this himself.”

“Well, I may have said it, but I didn’t mean it. And don’t you go to takin’ me up so short, neither! I’m in charge here and if I don’t want to let you snoop around I don’t have to.”

“No, I suppose you don’t,” agreed Bob. “But I didn’t intend to take you up short. I want to get at the bottom of this mystery as much as you do. I don’t believe Hiram Beegle robbed himself. What object would he have?”

“Um! I’m not here to discuss this case with you! I’ll solve it in the official way. And I don’t need any help from outsiders. I called in Chief Duncan because I thought he’d like to be associated with me in this, but I really don’t need him. I can get along alone, and I’m going to!”

“Suit yourself,” replied Bob easily, and he smiled as he moved away. He had left his flivver out in the road, and as he got into it he saw, farther down the highway, the Italian organ grinder trudging along.

“You’re a queer character,” mused Bob to himself as he started off. “You certainly were tying sailors’ knots in that rope. Must have picked it up on your way over from Italy in a ship. If you weren’t what you are, I’d say you had been a sailor some day.”

Bob had an errand to do for his uncle in a town beyond Storm Mountain, and it was not until late in the evening when he returned. He found Ned and Harry at the house waiting for him.

“Come on to the movies,” urged Harry. “You haven’t anything to do, have you, except eat?”

“I haven’t got to do even that,” answered Bob. “I had supper in Yardley. Yes, I’ll go to the movies with you.”

“Unless you’re going to work on your latest case,” added Ned with a laugh.

“No, there isn’t much I can do until I have a talk with old Hiram,” replied Bob. “There are one or two points I want him to help me clear up before I get down to brass tacks. I guess it will do me good to get a sight of a movie. Is the show any good?”

“It’s a sort of a circus yarn,” answered Ned. “They show a lot of the acts in the big tent, so Joe Wright was telling me.”

“Good! Let’s go!”

It was a lively movie and the boys enjoyed every moment of it. There was one act where a performer slid down a slanting wire cable, attached to the highest point of the tent, suspending himself by his teeth on a sort of trolley wheel that spanned the taut wire.

He whizzed down the inclined cable with great speed, landing on a big mattress at the lower end where the wire was fast to a peg in the ground.

“Say, that was nifty!” whispered Ned to Bob. “Wasn’t it?”

“What was?” asked Bob, somewhat absently.

“For cats’ sakes! Didn’t you see that fellow slide down the inclined wire rope?”

“Oh, you mean that?”

“Sure! What else would I mean? Did you see it?”

“No, I didn’t take particular notice,” replied Bob. “I was thinking of something else.”

“Well, for the love of stamps! Say, what did you come for, anyhow, if you aren’t enjoying it?” chuckled Harry.

“Oh, I’m enjoying it all right,” remarked Bob.

His chums shook their heads knowingly at each other. Well they realized that the detective virus was working in the veins of Bob Dexter.

It was two days after this, during which time Bob and his chums had paid a visit to Jolly Bill at the Mansion House, that something else happened. Jolly Bill had made himself at home in the town’s most pretentious hostelry, though that isn’t saying much. He was an easy person to make friends, and seemed to be well liked.

“Well, have you located the treasure yet, or that rascal Rod?” he asked Bob.

“No, not yet. I’ve been waiting to have a talk with Mr. Beegle.”

“So have I,” said Jolly Bill. “That’s why I left my home out west and traveled here. And no sooner do I arrive than I find my old messmate in difficulties. But I reckon he’ll soon be better, and then we’ll visit and spin many a yarn together. He may be able to give you a clew that will lead to Rod Marbury.

“I’m hoping he will,” said Bob. “I expect to see him to-morrow.”

“I’ll try and stump my way up there,” said the wooden-legged man. “It’s a fair walk, but——”

“I’ll take you,” kindly offered Bob.

“Thanks—that’s good of you. Let me know when you go.”

But Bob wanted a private and lone conversation with Hiram Beegle before he took the wooden-legged man to Storm Mountain, and so, with that end in view, the young detective decided to anticipate the visit by one day.

“I think he’ll be well enough to talk to me now,” Bob reasoned.

On his way to the log cabin the lad in his flivver passed a small hotel or boarding house on the outskirts of the town. It was not a very choice or reputable place, and it did not much surprise Bob to see, sunning himself out in front, the bewhiskered Italian organ grinder.

“Business must be pretty good that he can afford to stay there,” thought the lad. “Of course the board isn’t so very expensive, but I always thought these organ grinders had to sleep under hay stacks and beg their food in order to get along. But there he is!”

The Italian seemed to know Bob, or at least remember him, for he nodded in friendly fashion as the flivver chugged past.

“He’s taking a day off from grinding,” thought the young sleuth, for he had sight of neither the monkey nor the organ.

Arriving at the house of Tom Shan, Bob was met by the farmer’s wife who said:

“He isn’t here!”

“Who?” asked the youth.

“Hiram,” was the answer. “He’s much better now and he’s gone back to his cabin.”

“That’s good!” exclaimed Bob. “I’ll go on over there to talk to him. How did he get back? I sort of figured on coming after him.”

“Oh, Tom hitched up and took him over this morning. Hiram is much better. He says his head is all clear now.”

“Then can he remember what happened—I mean when he was robbed in his strong room?” asked Bob.

“Well, not exactly,” answered Mrs. Shan. “But you better talk with him yourself.”

“I will,” decided Bob, and he drove over to the log cabin.

“Who’s there?” demanded a voice inside, when he had knocked at the door—a voice he recognized as that of the old sailor.

“I am—Bob Dexter,” was the reply.

There was a moment of silence, and then a movement within—the sound of a chair being pushed back over the floor.

“Oh—all right—I’ll let you in,” went on Hiram Beegle.

There was the sound of a key being turned in the lock, and a rattle, denoting a chain being slipped from its fastenings.

“He isn’t taking any more chances,” thought Bob with a smile.

The door was finally opened, and the old man peered out. That dazed look was gone from his face, but he seemed a trifle weak. As he caught sight of Bob he murmured:

“Oh, the young detective who helped me! I remember. Come in. But is there any one with you?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Not a soul,” answered Bob.

“Good! All right, come in.”

The place had been straightened out since the night of the robbery, and there were evidences of a woman’s hand. So Bob judged Mrs. Shan had been putting the log cabin to rights.

“I thought I’d like to satisfy myself on a few points about this case,” began Bob. “Chief Duncan said I might try my hand at solving it.”

“Somebody needs to do it,” spoke Hiram Beegle. “It’s a queer case. If I don’t get back that map I’ll never know where the treasure is hid, and I’ll never get it.”

“Did you have a chance to look at the map and find the location before you were robbed?” asked Bob.

“No, I only glanced at the papers in the box Hank Denby left me in his will. The map was quite complicated—it would take a deal of study to puzzle it out. But now it’s gone.”

“And is all that story true that Jolly Bill told—about treasure on a South Sea island?” asked Bob.

“Well, I don’t know what Bill told you,” was the reply. “But there was treasure on an island. It was dug up and we four agreed to share it—that is until Rod and Bill went to the bad when they forfeited their shares. It wasn’t so much Bill’s fault though—I don’t hold it against him. It was that Rod Marbury.”

“So I understand,” spoke Bob. “We’ll pass over that for a while,” he said, glad to have, however, this much confirmation of the tale told by the wooden-legged sailor. “What I’d like to find out now, Mr. Beegle, is how that key got inside the room where you were lying unconscious. Are there any secret openings by which the key could have been tossed in—the opening being closed later?”

“No, Bob, not a one. I watched that room built and I know. That’s the deepest mystery of all.”

“Well, we’ll pass that for the time being. But tell me—were you out around your cabin, just before you were attacked, carrying a bag of potatoes which you had to set down every now and then because it was too heavy? Were you?”

“A bag of potatoes? No!” exclaimed Hiram, wonderingly.

“Did anybody bring you a sack of potatoes, or did you sell any one a sack, which they carried away?” went on the lad. “There are marks of a potato sack having been set down in the soft ground near the side of your cabin where the chimney of the fireplace in your strong room is built. Somebody had a sack of potatoes.”

“No potatoes!” cried Mr. Beegle. “I didn’t carry any, and no one brought me any. It must be something else, my boy. But no potatoes!”

He looked at the young detective earnestly. Then some sort of doubt, or suspicion seemed to enter his mind, for he said:

“Look here, Bob, my boy! You aren’t stringing me, are you?”

“Stringing you, Mr. Beegle? No, of course not! Why do you ask that?”

“Because of this potato business. I thought maybe you were trying to play a joke. Lots of people think they can joke with a sailor.”

“No,” replied the lad, “I’m in dead seriousness. I want to find out all I can about this matter. If you say there weren’t any potatoes that ends my theory in that direction.”

“But what could have made those marks if it wasn’t a sack of potatoes?” thought Bob in wonderment as he went back over the case.

CHAPTER XII

MONKEY LAND

Hiram Beegle was feeling much better. Several days had passed since the two assaults on him—being knocked down on his way home with the brass-bound box, and the attack in his own cabin. He was almost his own, hearty self again as he sat there looking at Bob, trying to fathom what the young detective was driving at.

“I don’t understand this potato business, young man,” said the old sailor.

“Neither do I,” admitted Bob, “unless you have a pet elephant somewhere around this cabin,” and he laughed.

“An elephant! I should say not, though I’ve seen plenty of ’em, and wild ones, too, in my time. More likely I’d have a monkey.”

“A monkey?” questioned the lad.

“Yes, I heard there was one camping on my doorstep while I was sick over at Tom Shan’s.”

“Oh, the organ grinder’s monkey—yes. But he’s gone away. He’s stopping over in Cliffside—at the Railroad House.”

“You don’t tell me! What’s the idea?”

“Guess he must be making money with his wheezy music,” laughed Bob. “But to get back to this subject, have you any idea what made the funny marks around at the side of your cabin, Mr. Beegle?”

“No, I haven’t, but I’ll go out with you and take a look at them. And say, I wish you wouldn’t call me Mr. Beegle?”

“Isn’t that your name?” asked Bob, thinking perhaps the inheritor of some of the old pirate’s hidden treasure might be masquerading.

“Yes, it’s my name, but all my friends call me Hiram, and since you’re one of my friends—I’m sure you must be or you wouldn’t go to all this work on my account—why can’t you call me Hiram?”

“I will, if you wish it,” answered Bob. “But as for work—I don’t call this work—I mean trying to solve a mystery.”

“You don’t? Well, have it your own way. Now let’s go out and have a look at those marks. Though I’m afraid there aren’t many of them left. We had a shower in the night, and that fellow who calls himself the chief of the Storm Mountain police has been pottering around.”

“Was he here to-day?” asked Bob.

“Yes, just before you came. He didn’t know anything, though, and never will, in my opinion.”

Bob did not subscribe to this, feeling that it was not just exactly ethical, since Mr. Drayton was a sort of fellow practitioner so to speak.

Hiram Beegle was right in his surmise that not many of the “potato marks,” as Bob called them, remained. There had been a little shower over Storm Mountain early that morning, and the raindrops, together with the tramping of feet about the cabin, had obliterated, for a great part, the strange impressions.

But Bob found a place, sheltered by the trunk of the tree which grew close to the cabin, where there was one mark plainly visible.

“And if that isn’t the impression of a jute bag, the kind that holds potatoes, I don’t know what is,” declared the young detective.

Hiram Beegle put on his spectacles and bent over to make a closer inspection. Long and earnestly he gazed at the mark.

“That’s been made by a bit of bagging,” he declared. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say the bag had potatoes in it, though.”

“No, it needn’t have had potatoes in,” agreed Bob. “But it was a bag and it had something heavy in. You could tell that more easily, before, by seeing the depth of the impressions. Chief Drayton would have it that your box was carried off in a sack and it was so heavy that the thief had to set it down every now and then.”

“Nonsense!” laughed the old sailor. “That box wasn’t at all heavy nor big, but it did contain a treasure. It had a map in that showed where old Hank had buried his share of the gold—his share and that which would have gone to Jolly Bill and Rod if they had done what was right. It’s partly my treasure, too, for I didn’t use up my share.”

“And haven’t you any idea where it is buried, even without reference to the map?” asked the lad.

“Nary an idea,” was the answer with a dubious shake of the head. “I don’t reckon I’ll ever lay my eyes on it now.”

“Oh, you may,” said Bob, cheerfully. “Of course I’m pretty young at this business, but——”

“I’ve heard good reports of you,” complimented Hiram.

“Thanks. But of course there’s lots I’ve got to learn. But I know enough about cases like this to feel sure that, somewhere or other, the thief has made a slip. He’s left some sort of a clew, and if I can get on the trail of it we may catch this Rod Marbury.”

“Yes, Rod did it all right,” declared Hiram. “He and Jolly Bill were the only ones, except me, that knew of the treasure. Old Hank wrote to each of them, just before he died, telling how he had willed the treasure to me, and had left me the brass box in which the map was always kept.

“Now Jolly Bill appears, fair and square and above board, and he’s man enough to say he’s sorry for what he did. Well, he may be, for he’s out of pocket by it.

“But this scoundrel Rod sneaks into town, waylays me to get the box away and when he can’t do that, because he’s scared off, he comes back to my cabin, drugs me in some way, either by dropping something into my buttermilk, or by throwing a gas bomb into my room, and then he takes the box, after tapping me on the head.”

“Do you think that’s how it happened?” asked Bob.

“Of course it was! I’ve told you, but I’ll tell you again. I went in my strong room, and I was looking at the brass box and the map, when all of a sudden I felt sort of weak like. The next I knew was when I came to, and found myself lying on the floor, locked in, the big key close to my hand, and my box and map gone.”

“And you never saw Rod nor any one else?”

“Nary a soul. It was like a dream.”

“But you must have been expecting some sort of attack as this,” reasoned Bob, “else why did you build the strong room, with no entrance to it except by the door, and the chimney barred? Why did you do that?”

“I’ll tell you why, son,” was the answer, “it was because I have always feared this Rod Marbury! I’ve feared him ever since he and Jolly Bill tried to bilk old Hank—not that Bill started that plan—it was Rod. But I knew from that he was a desperate man, though Jolly Bill got the worst of the deal—he lost a leg and the fortune that had been his, while Rod only lost the money. But now he’ll get it all—that’s the way in this world—the wicked sure do flourish like a green bay tree, as the Good Book says, and many’s the bay tree that I’ve sat under, though I never thought, at the time, I’d have this bad luck.”

“Maybe it will turn out all right,” suggested Bob, hopefully.

“I’m afraid not,” was the gloomy answer. “Anyhow, as I was telling you, I built this strong room in my cabin after I heard what Rod had tried to do to Hank. I thought my turn would come some day, and it did—but not as I planned. It was the first time I ever went in my strong room, to do anything, without locking the door behind me. If I had done that Rod couldn’t have gotten in. But I figured that after he got fooled on the road he wouldn’t try again. But he got in, and of course, after that, it was easy for him to get out, after locking me in.”

“But how did he get the key back in?” asked Bob. “That’s the secret of this log cabin that I’d like solved.”

“I’ll never tell you,” said old Hiram with a shake of his head. “Any more than I can tell you what made those funny marks, like a sack of potatoes.”

“Well, that’s what I’ve got to work on,” decided Bob. “I’ve got to discover the secret of the log cabin, and locate Rod. But you might help in the last.”

“How?” asked Hiram.

“By giving me some idea of where he might start to dig for the hidden treasure—telling me the probable location of the place where Hank Denby might have hidden it.”

Hiram Beegle shook his head dubiously.

“Might as well try to look for a needle in a hay stack,” he said. “Hank was a strange man. He’d pick out a hiding place you nor I would never dream of. He must have taken a leaf out of the book of the old pirate who originally had this money. How he got it—I mean how the pirate came by the wealth—no one knows. Perhaps it’s just as well not to inquire. Anyhow the real owners couldn’t be found after all these years. And I intended doing good with the money after I got it. I was going to leave most of it to a hospital.”

“That would be good,” remarked Bob. “So we’ll have to try to get it back for you. But can’t you give me a clew as to where this Rod might start to look for the wealth? He’ll know where it is, having the map, you see.”

“Oh, yes, he’ll know,” agreed Hiram. “But I can’t say, for the life of me, where it might be.”

“Do you think it would be in Cliffside?”

“Yes, I should say so. Hank never went far from home of late years, and he certainly would keep the treasure near him. He didn’t believe in banks, you know.”

“So I’ve heard. Well, well see what can be done about it. There isn’t anything more I can find out here, since you say there was no secret opening into the strong room.”

“Not an opening, but the chimney.”

“And when we dropped the key down the flue it just fell in the ashes,” said Bob. “So it couldn’t have been that way.”

He remained a little longer, talking to Hiram and puzzling over the queer case, and then rode back to town. As he passed the office of Judge Weston, the lad saw, coming from it, the Italian organ grinder.

Surprised at this, Bob stopped his car and looked after the man who had neither his organ nor monkey with him this time. Then, as the Italian passed on down the street, Judge Weston came out.

So excited that he hardly observed the veneration due the old gentleman, Bob exclaimed:

“What was he after?”

He pointed to the retreating Italian.

“Why, he came in to buy monkey land!” answered the judge with a laugh.

CHAPTER XIII

QUEER PLANTING

Bob Dexter did not know whether to laugh with Judge Weston or to remain serious, for he felt there might be something serious in the visit of the Italian to the lawyer’s office. Bob was seeing altogether too much of that Italian organ grinder of late—at least so thought the young detective.

However, as Judge Weston continued to smile, as though amused at something, the lad thought it couldn’t be very serious, so he repeated:

“Monkey land?”

“Yes,” went on the lawyer. “It seems he is a traveling organ grinder, and——”

“Yes, I know him,” interrupted Bob. “I beg your pardon,” he hastened to add, as he saw the legal man look at him somewhat strangely. “But I was trying to save your time in explanation.”

“You say you know this Italian, Bob—er—let me see, I put his name down somewhere—Pietro Margolis, he calls himself.”

“Well, I don’t exactly know him, Judge Weston, but I’ve seen him around town a lot. He’s staying at the Railroad House. I first saw him at the log cabin of Hiram Beegle, right after the robbery. He walked down the road playing his wheezy old organ and showing off his monkey’s tricks.”

“Yes, that’s what he came to see me about,” said the lawyer. “It was his monkey. It seems the animal must have a certain kind of food, and it doesn’t grow in this country. So this Margolis wanted to buy a piece of land and plant the peanuts or whatever it is that monkeys eat. I know he doesn’t want to plant peanuts, though I know monkeys eat them, but I use peanuts for an illustration. He told me the name of the nut, or fruit or whatever it was he intended to plant, but I’ve forgotten.”

“And he wants to buy land for that purpose?” exclaimed Bob. “Why, it’s too late to plant anything now. It might not be in the tropics, where monkeys come from, but here——”

“Oh, he doesn’t intend to start planting until spring,” said the lawyer. “He just wants to get the land now.”

“But you aren’t a real estate agent,” said Bob. “Why didn’t he go to Mr. Landry for what he wanted?”

“I suppose he came to me because he happened to learn that I controlled the very piece of land he wanted to rent, or buy,” said the judge.

“Some of your property?”

“No, Bob. Some that belongs to the estate of old Hank Denby. You see, I’m executor of Hank’s will, and there are several pieces of land to dispose of.”

“Yes, I heard he left quite a little,” admitted Bob. “He was pretty well off, even if he didn’t use all the pirate gold he dug up at the South Sea islands.”

“Oh, you know that story, do you, Bob?” asked the lawyer in some surprise.

“Yes, Jolly Bill Hickey told me part of it and Hiram Beegle the rest.”

“Um! Well, I didn’t know it was out, but I wouldn’t spread it too widely, if I were you. Folks think Hiram queer enough as it is, without having this added to his reputation. Of course if it’s necessary, in order to capture the scoundrel who robbed him, to tell the story, I wouldn’t ask you to hold it back.”

“I understand,” stated Bob. “There doesn’t seem to be any need, at present, of broadcasting it. The police don’t need to know it in order to catch this Rod Marbury.”

Again Judge Weston laughed.

“Offhand, Bob, I should say the kind of police we have around here would need to know a great more than this story in order to capture this fellow Marbury. But that’s neither here nor there. Are you working on the case?”

“In a way, yes. Of course I’m not officially connected with it. Uncle Joel wouldn’t allow that. But some day I’m going to be a regular detective. However, he said I could do whatever I might think was right in trying to find out things about this mystery.”

“I wish you luck, Bob.”

“Thanks. But did you rent or sell this Italian any land for his monkey food?”

“I have, practically, Bob, though the deal isn’t closed yet. He was willing to pay a good price for a piece of otherwise waste land on which he could raise these monkey nuts, or whatever they were. He doesn’t want to start planting until spring, but he wants to get control of the land now to prepare it, he says.”

“Where’s the land?” asked Bob. “I didn’t know we had any in Cliffside that was suitable for monkey business,” and he laughed.

“Why, this Pietro Margolis said he had been looking at land around here, and he found a piece that just suited him. It’s that overgrown bramble patch back of the house where Hank Denby lived at the time of his death.”

“You mean some of Mr. Denby’s land?”

“Yes, Bob. I’ve practically rented this Italian, for a year, that bramble patch, and I consider, as executor of the estate of the old man, that I got a good price for it. You know it’s the duty of an executor, Bob, to Increase the estate if possible. And though I don’t imagine the nieces and nephews of Hank—for those are all the relatives he left—I don’t imagine they appreciate what I’ve done, still it was my duty.”

“Yes,” agreed Bob. “So he left his estate to nieces and nephews, did he? But what about the pirate fortune that went to Hiram Beegle—that is if Hiram ever gets it—what about that? Won’t these nieces and nephews want a part of that?”

“It wouldn’t do them any good to want it, Bob,” stated the lawyer. “You see that gold, or whatever form the wealth was in that was dug up on the island—that fortune was held by Hank in trust, so to speak. At his death it went to the survivors of the original four—or such of them as had played fair and kept the agreement Hiram Beegle was the only one, so he got all the others’ shares.”

“That is he has them to get,” remarked Bob, somewhat grimly. For the stealing of the brass-bound box, containing the directions for finding the hidden wealth, had effectually blocked Mr. Beegle’s chances.

“Yes, it’s very much in distant prospect, Bob. But perhaps you’ll be able to help the old man.”

“Maybe. I don’t suppose Hank ever intimated to you where he had buried the stuff?”

“Never a word, Bob. He was as close as an oyster on that point, though he told me everything else about his affairs. He said Hiram would have no trouble locating the gold if he followed directions on the map in the brass-bound box. It was very peculiar on the part of Hank to bury the fortune this way, instead of keeping it in a bank vault, but it was his business, not mine, and though I did my best to persuade him to use business methods, it was of no use. He clung to his old sailor superstitions.”

“Yes,” agreed Bob, “and Hiram and Jolly Bill Hickey are much the same. I suppose you know Jolly Bill is staying at the Mansion House?”

“So I heard, yes. Well, I think I’ll go up and look over this piece of old Hank’s land this monkey merchant wants to rent to raise food for his nimble charge. I want to see that he has no ulterior motive, so to speak.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bob, a bit puzzled.

“Well, he may know of some land development out in that neighborhood—something like a railroad going through or a new trolley line. If he had a lease on some property that was needed, he might hold up matters until we paid him a big price.”

“Oh, I see,” remarked Bob. “These Italians are sharp and tricky when it comes to matters of property, I’ve heard.”

“That’s right, Bob. This fellow may be all right, but I owe it to the estate not to take any chances. So I’ll take a look over the ground before I sign the lease.”

“I’ll run you up there, if you’re going now,” offered Bob. “That is if you don’t mind riding in my flivver.”

“I’ve ridden in many a worse car. Bob. And I was on my way to look over old Hank’s property. Come on, we’ll go together.”

Judge Weston had truly spoken of the vacant lot near the Denby house as a “bramble patch.” It was just that and nothing more. Nor were there any signs in the neighborhood of any real estate boom. It was far off the line of the railroad, and not near the trolley.

“I guess there’s no harm in letting Pietro have this place on a lease,” said the judge, when he had gone around the bramble patch. Going over or through it was out of the question.

“It doesn’t seem to be good even for monkey food,” laughed Bob.

“No, I should say not. But then we don’t know what monkeys like. I’ll go back and draw up the papers.”

Bob drove the lawyer back to his office, and as they parted Mr. Weston said:

“If you get any trace of this Rod Marbury, Bob, or get a line on where Hiram can find the missing map, let me know, will you?”

“I will,” promised the lad.

“I feel a friendly interest in Hiram,” went on the lawyer, “and I’d like to see him get what’s coming to him.”

“I’m going to help him all I can,” declared the young detective.

It was several days after this, during which time Bob had worked in vain to get a clew to the mysterious happenings at the log cabin on Storm Mountain that, one evening, on his way home in his car, having done an errand for his uncle, he passed the old house where Hank Denby had died.

In the glow of the setting sun Bob saw some one moving about in the field behind the house—the field which Judge Weston had rented to Pietro Margolis as a garden in which to raise monkey food.

“It’s the Italian organ grinder himself!” exclaimed Bob as he caught sight of the black-bearded fellow.

Bob stopped his flivver, and the noise of the squeaking brakes caused the Italian to look up. He saw and must have recognized the lad. But if he was at all disturbed at being observed he did not show it. Instead he smiled, showing his white, even teeth.

“Hallo!” greeted Pietro. “Hallo-hallo!” He had a queer pronunciation of it—not unpleasant, though.

“Hello,” replied Bob. “You grow monkeys here?” he jokingly asked.

“No—not maka da monk grow—maka him eats grow.”

“You mean peanuts?” asked Bob, though he knew it couldn’t be goobers, or ground-nuts, that Pietro contemplated raising in the bramble patch. The lad was throwing out feelers, so to speak.

“No peanuts!” laughed the Italian. “Look—monkey lika deese!”

He held out in his hand, having taken them from the pocket of his coat—some sort of dried fruit or nuts, Bob couldn’t decide which.

“Oh, you’re going to plant these, eh, Pietro?”

“Sure—plant for da monk.”

“But they won’t grow this time of year, Pietro. Cold weather, you know—Jack Frost kill ’em. Look, everything now almost dead,” and Bob waved his hand over the sear and yellow weeds in the bramble patch.

“Oh, sure, I know—cold—not plant now—plant by next summer time. Just dig now—maka da holes.”

“Holes!” exclaimed Bob.

And then he became aware of some curious digging operations that the Italian had been carrying on. There were a number of deep holes here and there in the bramble patch—holes newly dug.

CHAPTER XIV

A NIGHT PURSUIT

Smilingly, Pietro Margolis leaned on his spade and regarded Bob Dexter. The Italian had been using a spade to good advantage in the bramble patch of old Hank Denby.

“You plant these monkey nuts very deep, don’t you?” asked Bob, calling the objects the Italian had shown him “nuts,” though he was not certain on this point.

“Sure—got to be deep,” said the organ grinder, though he had temporarily abandoned that occupation it seemed. “No deep—no grow.”

He tossed into the last hole he had dug a few of the dried objects from his coat pocket, shoveled in the earth and tramped it down.

Bob Dexter knew, or thought he knew, something of farming.

“You’ll never make anything grow planting it as deep as that and then stamping the ground down as hard as a brick!” declared the lad.

“Oh, sure da monkey nuts grow!” declared the Italian with a smile. “Alla same we plant dem lika deese in Italy.”

He smiled his white-tooth smile.

“Oh, in Italy,” conceded Bob. He couldn’t dispute this. He had never been in Italy and knew nothing of these strange fruits or nuts.

“Sure—Italy. Deese grow fine when da warm weather he come back. Put ’em in deep so no freeze.”

There might be something in that theory Bob admitted to himself. Idly he watched the Italian dig. He cut aside, with wide sweeps of the sharp spade, the dead and dying weeds and brambles, and when he had a cleared place he began on another hole, not far from where he had dug several others, as evidenced by the mounds of fresh earth.

“How’s the monkey?” asked Bob, seeing no object in lingering longer on the scene.

“Jacko—he good—I leave him by friend while I plant hees food for da next year.”

“What does he live on while these things are growing—there won’t be any until next year,” said the young detective.

“I got some I breeng from Italy—’nough, mebby, to last. I dunno! Jacko eat da banana too, mebby.”

“Um,” mused Bob. “Well, I wish you luck, but I don’t think much of your farm,” and he laughed as he started away.

“Sure, I have da good luck—t’anks,” and the Italian smiled and waved a hand in farewell. Then he resumed his digging.

Bob Dexter was doing some hard thinking as he drove his little flivver down the road and away from the bramble patch, where he left the Italian digging away at the holes, into which he dropped those queer, dried nuts or fruits. And Bob was still thinking on the many problems caused by the robbery and assault on Hiram Beegle as he went to his uncle’s store and reported on the business matter that had taken him out of town.

The young detective was still puzzling away over the many queer angles to the case when he reached home, and in the twilight he rather started nervously as he heard his name called when he was putting the car in the garage.

“Hello, Bob!” some one hailed him.

“Who’s that?”

“What’s the matter?” laughed the voice of Harry Pierce. “Any one would think I was a detective after you.”

“Oh—yes, I was thinking of something else,” admitted Bob with a laugh. “Come on in! Seen anything of Ned?”

“I’m here,” replied the other chum, as he stepped out of the darkness. “Where you been?”

“Over to the courthouse for Uncle Joel. Anything happened in town while I was away?”

“Nothing much. Say, what you going to do to-morrow?”

“Same answer, Harry—nothing much.”

“Then let’s go after chestnuts.”

“Chestnuts! There aren’t any left!” declared Bob. “The blight has killed them all.”

“Not all,” declared Ned. “I know a grove on Storm Mountain where there are still a few good trees left. I found it by accident this summer. I’ve been saving it.”

“Good enough!” cried Bob. “I’m with you. Chestnuts are great, but I didn’t think there were any left. Sure I’ll go.”

“All right—Harry and I’ll stop for you early in the morning. There’s likely to be a hard frost to-night and that will open the burrs,” spoke Ned.

Bob thought of the frost and the holes the Italian was digging to plant his monkey nuts. But the holes seemed to be below the effect of anything but a hard and deep frost, and that kind didn’t come so early in the season.

“I’ll be ready,” promised the young detective, “Is the chestnut grove anywhere near Hiram Beegle’s log cabin?”

“Not so far away—why?” asked Harry.

“Oh, I thought I might want to stop over and see the old man—just to see if there’s anything new in the case.”

“Sure, we can do that,” agreed Ned.

“How you coming on with the case?” Harry wanted to know.

“I’m not coming on at all, fellows. It’s at a dead standstill, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Oh, well, you’ll pop off with something unexpectedly, like you did when you discovered the wireless station that was putting out the lighthouse beacon,” said Harry.

“Maybe—I hope so,” sighed Bob.

His chums called for him next morning before he had finished his breakfast. But Bob hurried through the meal, found an old sack to hold the chestnuts he hoped to gather, and soon the three chums were chugging in the flivver up the trail of Storm Mountain.

The day was pleasant, with just the tang of winter in the air, for Ned’s prediction of a heavy frost had been borne out and there was every prospect of a good fall of the sweet, brown nuts.

“If the squirrels and chipmunks haven’t been there ahead of us,” remarked Harry as they talked over the possibilities.

“Or that dago’s monkey!” added Ned. “Say, what do you know about that fellow, anyhow? He’s still hanging around town. Lives at the Railroad House and goes out with his organ every night. Charlie McGill was telling me he takes in a lot of nickels, too, playing down around the post office. His monkey does a lot of tricks.”

“So I’ve heard,” admitted Bob. But he did not tell of what he had seen in the bramble patch.

“But I guess he won’t be up here with his monkey,” stated Ned.

“Do monkeys eat chestnuts?” asked Harry.

“Sure they do!” declared Bob. “Don’t you remember the story we used to read in school, of the monkey who hired a cat to pull the roasted chestnuts out of the fire?”

“Oh—that’s moving picture stuff!” laughed Ned.

Talking and joking they wended their way up Storm Mountain. They passed the cabin of Hiram Beegle, but saw no signs of life about it, and, as it was rather early, Bob thought it best not to stop then to speak to the old sailor.

“We’ll give him a hail on our way back,” he decided, the others agreeing to this.

Ned’s promise to lead his chums to a grove of chestnut trees not killed by the blight which swept over this country a few years ago, was carried out. And, parking the car in a quiet lane, the boys were soon gathering a goodly supply of the new, brown nuts.

The lads were not alone in their garnering, for the grove was a scene of activity on the part of squirrels and chipmunks who took this opportunity of laying up their winter’s store of food. But there were enough chestnuts for all, and having filled the bags they had brought with them, the boys began to think of returning.

The sun was higher and warmer when they passed the log cabin again, and Hiram Beegle was pulling weeds from between his rows of dahlias, for he had a small but beautiful garden of these large and showy flowers.

“Hello, boys!” greeted the old sailor heartily, for he was by this time fully recovered from the effects of the strange attack made on him at the time of the robbery of the treasure map.

“Hello!” greeted Bob, Ned and Harry.

“Come on in,” invited the old man. “I can give you some cookies and milk.”

“That sounds good to me!” declared Ned.

His long years of sailor life had fitted Hiram Beegle to keep house by himself, and, not only do that but cook well—an art to which his three visitors soon bore testimony. For not only did he set out a plate of excellent molasses cookies before them, but some sandwiches and pie, all of which he had made himself.

The boys had eaten an early breakfast, and chest-nutting, or, indeed, any excursion in the open, creates a good appetite, of which our heroes had no lack. So they did full justice to the little lunch the old seaman prepared for them.

“I don’t s’pose you’ve heard anything about your missing box, or about Rod Marbury, have you?” asked Bob when a lull came in the eating.

“Nary a word. I’ve kept pretty close to my cabin. I didn’t want that scoundrel attacking me again.”

“Oh, he won’t come around again,” said Harry.

“I guess not. He got what he was after,” remarked Ned.

“While we’re here,” proceeded Bob, “I’d like to have another look at this room, Mr. Beegle. It seems as if there must be some way of getting a key in through the wall.”

“Well, Bob, look as much as you like, but you won’t find even a crack. I took good care of that. The chimney hole is the only opening, and you proved that couldn’t have been used.”

In spite of the assertion of the old sailor, Bob went carefully over each foot of the partition wall, aided by Ned and Harry. The strong room was built across one end of the log cabin, in the end. The three outer sides were of solid logs, chinked and sealed with real mortar, not mud as is sometimes used. There was no break in this. The chimney was built at the rear, and on the outside. It was made of field stone, both attractive in appearance and strong. There were no chinks or cracks through which the key might have been tossed.

The inside wall was of a double thickness of narrow wooden boards, and Bob thought there might be some secret panel in this, as there was a concealed slide hiding the niche where the brass key was kept.

But a careful examination showed no opening, and Hiram declared there was no secret panel.

“What I was thinking of,” said Bob, “was that the thief, using a very fine saw, might have sawed out a piece and have fitted the piece back again, after throwing the key inside.”

But the boards were so closely fitted and as solidly nailed to the partition uprights as when Hiram had the work done, some years before.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to give it up,” remarked Bob in disappointed and baffled tones at the conclusion of the examination. “It’s a deep mystery,” The lads thanked the old sailor for his hospitality and rode on back to Cliffside, bearing with them a goodly supply of chestnuts which they divided among their friends.

It was after supper that evening when Bob was settling down to read a book that the telephone in his uncle’s house rang a summons. Mr. Dexter answered it and, after listening a moment, said:

“It’s you they want, Bob. Chief of Police Duncan!”

“The chief!” exclaimed the lad, his heart suddenly beating fast. “I wonder if he’s found out anything?”

He greeted the officer.

“Say, Bob,” came the eager voice, “I think we’re on the trail of that fellow who robbed Hiram!”

“You mean Rod Marbury?”

“Yes. I just got a tip that there’s a strange sailor over in Cardiff, spending money freely. I’m going over and have a look at him. Would you like to come along? You heard Hiram describe this chap—you might know him. Want to come?”

“Sure I do! Wait a minute!”

Bob quickly explained to his uncle the nature of the summons.

“You mean chase off in the night after this suspect?” asked Mr. Dexter, not at all pleased.

“Yes. The chief wants to catch him. May I go?”

“Oh, I suppose so, Bob. But be careful!” The consent was reluctantly given.

“I will, Uncle Joel.”

“Oh, Bob, I hate to have you go out at night on this detective business!” objected Aunt Hannah.

“You’ve got to do night work if you’re going to be a detective,” said Bob cheerfully. He was even elated at the prospect before him of a night pursuit.

Quickly he made ready and soon he was chugging in his flivver down to police headquarters.

CHAPTER XV

A SINGER IN THE DARK

“This tip just came in,” explained Chief Duncan when Bob had joined him, a little excited by the news and by his quick trip from home. “I thought I’d rather have you with me chasing it down, than to take Caleb or even Sam Drayton.”

“Glad you thought of me,” murmured Bob. Caleb Tarton was the chief constable of Cliffside, while Mr. Drayton, of course, was the chief of Storm Mountain.

“Yes,” went on Mr. Duncan as he got into Bob’s car, for it had been decided to use that. “Of course this may be only a wild goose chase, but often you can catch chickens when you’re after geese. And, speaking of chickens, that’s the sort of case Caleb is on now. That’s another reason I couldn’t bring him.”

“A chicken case?” murmured Bob.

“Yes, seems that Tume Mellick has been missing a lot of his fowls lately, and he asked us to investigate. So I sent Caleb over.”

“Hope he finds the thief,” said Bob.

“Yes. Well, he’ll get a chicken supper out of it, anyhow. Tume always serves chicken to his company. But now about this case, Bob. Do you think you would know this fellow Rod Marbury if you were to see him?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ve never laid eyes on him, as far as I know. All I have to go by is the description Hiram gives.”

“Yes, that’s all I have. I wrote it down but I remember it. A short, stout fellow, with dark hair and a long scar on one cheek that he got in a fight.”

“That’s the description I remember,” stated Bob. “But of course if this fellow didn’t want to be discovered he could disguise himself.”

“Oh, sure,” agreed the Cliffside chief. “But they can’t hide all the marks. And when you take into consideration the fact that this suspect is a sailor, and bound to act like one, that may give him away.”

“There’s something in that,” admitted the lad. “How did you hear about him?”

“Oh, Hank Miller just got back from Cardiff—went over to sell a load of apples to the cider mill, and I’ve got my suspicions of that cider mill; by the way, I think they make a whole lot stronger cider than the law allows. But that’s for the Cardiff police to look after—’tisn’t in my territory. Anyhow, Hank was telling me about a fellow he saw in town, spending money pretty freely, and boasting that he could get a lot more when that was gone. He acted like a sailor, so Hank said, and right away it occurred to me it might be this Rod.”

“Yes, it might be,” assented Bob. “But it doesn’t seem likely, that if this is Rod Marbury, he’d stay around here and spend the money so close to the place where he robbed Hiram Beegle.”

“You can’t always tell by that,” declared the chief wisely. “I’ve known many a criminal to keep out of the hands of the detectives a long time just by staying right near the spot where the crime was committed. He figured out they’d never look for him there, and they didn’t. They went to all sorts of other places and never thought of looking or inquiring near home.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of such cases,” admitted Bob. “I suppose it would be a good plan for a robber to live next door to the place he robbed—or very near it—for no one would think he had the nerve to do that.”

“There’s a whole lot to that!” declared the chief.

It was a dark night, and a storm was coming up, but this did not daunt the old chief nor the young detective. They made as good time as was possible to Cardiff and then there confronted them the problem of finding the suspect.

Hank Miller had said the fellow whom he supposed might be Rod Marbury had been seen in many places in Cardiff, spending his money freely and foolishly. Of course the Cardiff police might have knowledge of such an individual. He could hardly escape notice. But neither Bob nor Chief Duncan wanted to disclose their hand In this matter. That is they wanted to make the capture alone, if capture there was to be made.

“I tell you what we can do,” said the chief, as they passed slowly into the town. “We can park the car and shift about a bit on foot. We’ll learn more that way. And we can drop into some of these pool parlors where Hank said he saw this fellow.”

“Yes, we can do that,” agreed Bob.

It was not a very pleasant way to spend an evening, particularly as it was now beginning to drizzle, and was cold, too. But Bob and the chief grimly resolved to go through with it.

“I don’t much care for any of the Cardiff police to see me,” remarked Mr. Duncan as Bob parked the flivver. “Not that they’re any great shakes at picking out folks, but one of them might spot me and it would make talk. So I’ll just pull my hat down over my eyes and turn up my coat collar—the rain will be a good excuse, anyhow.”

“Good idea,” declared Bob, and a little later hardly any of their friends would have recognized the two had they seen them slouching through the streets of Cardiff—the place was rather more of a city than was Cliffside.

Chief Duncan knew the less inviting parts of Cardiff—the haunts which would, most likely, prove attractive to those who liked their pleasures strong, or who had reason to keep out of the ken of the police. So it was to not very respectable pool rooms and cigar stores that Bob was led. However, he steeled himself against the sights he saw and went through with it.

All sorts and conditions of men were met with—young men, old men and middle-aged men—far too many young men, be it said, who seemed to have nothing better to do this evening than to hang around a pool table, a flopping cigarette dangling from their lips as they squinted down the length of a cue.

The places were blue with smoke—vile tobacco it was, too—but those moving about in the blue, acrid haze seemed to like it. However, it wasn’t very good for complexions. Most of the faces were a pasty white in hue.

There were many men, it seemed, who might be wanted for one criminal charge or other, but not one of them seemed to be a free spender. In fact, few of those in the pool rooms and cigar stores appeared to have any more money than they actually needed. They were a poor lot.

“Tin horn sports and cheap skate gamblers,” was the way Chief Duncan characterized them, and Bob agreed.