A POSSIBLE CLUE
At five, which was the invalid’s supper hour, Mary emerged from the
living-room and heard excited voices from behind the closed door of her
father’s study across the hall.
Dora, who had been listening for her friend’s footsteps, threw the door
wide. Her olive-tinted face told Mary that something had happened even
before Jerry exclaimed: “Little Sister, come here and see what Dick has
found. We think it’s a clue.”
“A clue about Little Bodil _here_ in Dad’s study?” Mary’s voice was
amazed and doubting.
“Oh, it’s something Dick himself brought into the house. Don’t tell,”
Dora implored the boys. “See if Mary can guess.”
The fair girl gazed thoughtfully at the other three. Dick, beaming upon
her, was holding something behind his back.
“Hmm. Let me see.” Mary put one slim white finger against her head, as
though trying to think deeply. Then she laughed merrily. “I’d like to
seem terribly dumb and drag out the suspense for you all, but, of course,
it’s as plain as the sun on a clear day. Dick only kept _one_ thing from
the trunk, and that one thing was a small carpet slipper. But I don’t see
how _that_ could possibly be a clue.”
“Very well, my dear young lady, we will show you.” Dick handed the
slipper to her. “First, thrust your dainty fingers into its toe. Do you
find a clue there?”
“No, I do not.” Mary was frankly curious.
“Now, turn the slipper over. What do you see?”
Mary turned the small worn slipper wonderingly and reported, “A loose
patch.” Then, gleefully, “Oh, I know, Dick, that patch is some kind of
coarse paper and on the inside of it, there’s writing. Is that it? Have I
guessed right?”
“Well,” Dick confessed, “you know now as much as we do. We were just
about to remove the patch when you came in. Jerry, let me take your
knife. I left mine on a fence post over at _Bar N_.”
The four young people stood close to one of the long windows while Dick
cut the coarse thread that held the patch.
“Oh, do hurry!” Dora begged. “Your fingers are all thumbs. Here, let me
do that.” But Dick shook his head, saying boyishly, “It’s my slipper,
isn’t it?”
“One more stitch and we shall know all,” Jerry said, then, smiling across
at Mary, he asked, “What do _you_ reckon that we will know?”
“I can’t guess what’s _in_ the letter, of course,” that little maid
replied, “but it _can’t_ be anything that will tell us whether the child
was eaten up by wild animals or carried off by bandits.”
The ragged piece of brown paper, which had evidently been torn from a
package wrapping, was removed and opened. Although there had been writing
on it at one time, it was so blurred that it was hard to decipher. Mary
found a magnifying glass in her father’s desk. Dora, Dick and Jerry stood
with their heads together back of the younger girl’s chair, and when they
thought they had figured a word out correctly, Mary, seated at the desk,
wrote it down. After half an hour, they had made out only two words of
the message and had guessed at the blurred signature.
“lonesome—write—Miss Burger,
Gray Bluffs,
New Mexico.”
There were several other words which they could not make out.
Mary took the letter, spread it on the desk before her and gazed intently
at it through the magnifying glass. Then, smiling up at the others, a
twinkle in her eyes, she said, “This is it—perhaps.
‘Dear Little Bodil,
When you reach the strange place where you are going, you may be
lonesome. If you are, do write often to your good friend,
Miss Burger.’”
“Well, I reckon that’ll do pretty nigh as well as anything else,” Jerry
said. Then, glancing out of the window at the late afternoon sun, he
grinningly announced that since the calf, by that time, had milked the
cow, he and Dick would accept Mary’s previously given invitation and stay
for supper.
“Oh, Jerry!” Mary stood up and caught hold of the cowboy’s arm. “I know
by the gleam in your eyes that you think this bit of paper _may_ be a
clue worth following up.”
“Yes, I sure do,” was the earnest reply. “I reckon this Miss Burger, if
we got the name right, was a friend to the little girl somewhere,
sometime.”
“Shall we write to her now?” Mary dropped back into the desk chair. “If
she’s living, she will surely answer.”
“But,” Dick was not yet convinced that it was a helpful clue, “_how_ can
Miss Burger know—”
“Stupid!” Dora interrupted. “Of course Miss Burger _won’t_ know whether
Little Bodil was eaten by wild animals or carried off by bandits, but
_if_ the child lived, it’s more than likely, isn’t it, that she _did_
write and tell this friend.”
“True enough!” Dick agreed. “But, Lady Sleuth, if Bodil wrote Miss Burger
telling where _she_ was, isn’t it likely that Mr. Pedersen also wrote the
same woman telling where _he_ was, and presto, his long search would be
over. He would have found his child.”
“Oh, of course, Dick! You weren’t stupid after all.” Dora was properly
apologetic. Then, she added ruefully, “Since this clue isn’t any good, we
got thrilled up over it for nothing at all.”
Jerry spoke in his slow drawl. “I cain’t be sure the clue is no good
until we’ve heard from this Miss Burger.”
“Well spoken, old man,” Dick commended. “If we could send a night-letter,
we _might_ have an answer at once, if—”
“That ‘if’ looms large,” Dora commented dubiously. “There isn’t a
telegraph office in _this_ ghost town, and, moreover, Miss Burger may not
be alive and if she is, wouldn’t she be _awfully_ ancient?”
“Not necessarily,” Mary replied, glancing up at the others thoughtfully.
“If Little Bodil _is_ alive, she will be about fifty. This Miss Burger
may have been a very young woman.”
“About that night telegram,” Jerry said. “We can have one sent out of
Tombstone up to nine o’clock. What, say that we ride over there as soon
as we’ve had supper.”
“Great!” Dick ejaculated. “There’ll be a full moon to light us home
again.”
Mary sprang up and clapped her hands gleefully. “It will be jolly fun
anyway. And it _may_ be a good clue. Come on now, let’s storm the kitchen
and help Carmelita. We ought to start as soon as we can.”
* * * * * * * *
It was early twilight when the faithful little car (that always seemed
just about to fall apart but which never did) drew up in front of the
combination blacksmith shop-oil station on the edge of Gleeson.
Seth Tully, one of the grizzled, leathery old-timers, hobbled out of a
small, crumbling adobe building. It was evident that he was much excited
about something and eager to have someone to talk to.
“Howdy, folks,” he began in his high, uncertain, falsetto voice, “I
reckon as you-all heerd how a freight train was held up last night over
in Dead Hoss Gulch.” Then, seeing the boys’ amazement and the girls’
dismay, he went on exultingly, “Yes, siree! Thar was bags of rich ore in
one o’ them cars—the hindmost one, an’, time take it, if them thar
bandits wa’n’t wise to it. The train allays goes durn slow along that
steep grade climbing up out o’ the gulch. Well, sir, _what_ did them
bandits do?” The old man was becoming dramatic in his delight at having
such thrilled listeners. “Dum blast it, if a parcel of ’em didn’t hold up
the engineer and another parcel of ’em cut loose that hind car. _Crash_
it went back’ards down that thar grade, jumped the track and smashed to
smithers.”
“Oh, Mr. Tully,” Mary cried, “_was_ anyone killed?”
The old man shook his head. “Nope, the guard wa’n’t kilt, but them
bandits reckoned as how he was, ’totherwise they’d have plugged him. He
come to, but they’d cleared out, the whule pack of ’em, an’ they’d tuk
the ore with ’em.”
Dora, watching the old man’s glittering, pale-blue eyes that were
deep-sunken under shaggy brows, thought that he seemed actually pleased
about it all, nor was she wrong as his next remark showed.
“Say, Jerry-kid, that thar holdup smacks o’ old times. It was gettin’ too
gol-darned quiet around these here parts. Needed suthin’ like this to
sort o’ liven us up.” He ended with a cackling laugh that made Mary
shudder.
When they were again rattling along the lonely, rutty road which led to
Tombstone, the nearest town of any size, Mary, nestling close to Jerry,
asked, “Big Brother, is Dead Horse Gulch near here?”
“No, Little Sister, it isn’t, and, as for the bandits, they’re over the
border in Mexico by now, I reckon. Don’t you go to worrying about
_them_!”
In the rumble seat, a glowing-eyed Dora was saying: “Dick Farley, _what_
if this should be the _same_ robber gang—oh, I’m trying to say—”
“I get you!” Dick put in. “You’re wondering if the three bandits who held
up the stage and may have kidnapped Little Bodil are _in_ this gang. I
doubt it. They’d be _old_ fellows by now. It takes young blood to do
deeds of daring.”
Dora’s eyes were still glowing. “Dick,” she said prophetically, “I have a
hunch that _this_ robbery is going to do a lot to help us solve the
mystery about Little Bodil. I _may_ be wrong, but, _you_ may be
surprised.”