jiffy before. It looked like a folded white handkerchief or something,
so I stooped down, reached out my hand to touch it, and it was an
envelope of some kind.
“Little Tom’s mom’s letter,” I thought. “Bob dropped it, and is coming
back to look for it.”
Poetry and I kept even quieter than we had been, he not knowing of
course, what I’d just found and had tucked into my pajama pocket--he
and I not taking time to dress but were in our pajamas--I in my green
and white striped ones and Poetry in his purple ones.
It was a queer feeling we had, right that second. For some reason we
decided to get ourselves out of there, which we did, sneaking back
maybe fifteen feet before we decided to stop and wait to see who it was
and what he was looking for and why, if we could.
In only a few excited jiffies, whoever it was was right where we
ourselves had been, and was flashing his flashlight on and off, all
around, right where a little while before I’d picked up the envelope.
I could see he wasn’t very tall--not as tall as Big John Till, so I
decided it might be Bob again. Poetry had hold of my arm so tight it
actually hurt, which showed, even though he was usually calm in a time
of excitement, while I was the one that always got all nervous inside,
this time he was pretty tense himself.
I certainly didn’t know what to do, and would have been afraid to do it
even if I had. Besides I wouldn’t have had time to do much of anything,
for right that jiffy whoever it was, stopped looking for whatever he
was looking for, which was maybe the envelope I had in my striped
pajama pocket, and I heard his footsteps going on past, and in the
direction of Santa’s dock, which was several hundred yards farther on.
For a worried jiffy, I remembered the envelope in my pocket and thought
that it wasn’t mine, which it wasn’t, and thought I ought to call out
to whoever it was, and say, “Hey, there, mister, whatever you’re
looking for, I’ve got it, whatever it is!” but I didn’t. A little
later, Poetry and I were alone with ourselves, and the only sound there
was, was the friendly lapping of the waves against the dock posts and
the washing of other waves against the sandy shore. Away out on the
lake there was a great big shimmering silver spot of moonlight which
was very pretty. Still farther was the shadow of the trees on the
little island on the other side of which we had caught our walleye that
afternoon and where Wally had lost his life, and right that minute was
maybe half digested in the stomach of a great big ugly-snouted northern
pike.
I could feel my heart beating with excitement, but there was something
else I was feeling too, and it was the envelope I had in my pocket,
which I quick took out, and whispered for Poetry to turn on his light,
which he did, and this is what we saw on the envelope written in
pencil, that was kinda smeared like pencil marks on a letter are when a
boy has carried it around in his pocket or in his hands awhile. We saw
written in a big awkward scrawl, the name _Bob Till_, but there wasn’t
anything else, not even an address--and no postage stamp.
Quick as anything, not stopping to think that that letter was private
property and he had no right to open it, Poetry had the inside out
of the outside and was unfolding it, and I was holding his trembling
flashlight on it to see what it said, and--would you believe it?--it
was a sheet of white typewriter paper and there wasn’t a thing on it,
not even a pencil mark.
“’Tsanother invisible-ink map,” Poetry said to me, and I remembered
quick the other one we’d found which I told you about in another story,
and which when we’d warmed it up had turned out to be a map of the
territory up here, showing where the little kidnapped girl had been
found, and which way the broken twig trails led and we had followed
them and finally found the ransom money in the old icehouse.
“And here’s a _note_,” Poetry whispered, as a little folded piece of
paper with writing on it tumbled out.
That note, which was printed in pencil, said,
“Dear Bob:
Santa’s away tonight. Get my boat which is tied to his dock and
pick me up at the Indian cemetery at 10 o’clock and we’ll get the
rest of the ransom money.... If I’m not there, wait till I come.
Your Dad.”
Well, when I saw what Poetry’s trembling flashlight showed us was
written on that unfolded piece of paper, you could have knocked me over
with a question mark, I was so surprised. Our mystery had come to life
again and we were going to have another exciting adventure before our
vacation was over.... Hurrah!... Boy oh boy!
Poetry spoke first, saying excitedly, “I’ll bet Bob’s going down to get
the boat _right now!_ We’ve got to stop him!”
“Why?” I said, and he said, “Stop him and make him tell us where his
dad is. Then we or the police can capture him.”
“Bob wouldn’t tell us,” I said, being sure he wouldn’t.
“Well, for goodness’ sake, let’s do _something!_” Poetry exclaimed
to me, and when I said “What?” he said, “Get the gang and beat Bob
to the cemetery!” which made as good sense as anything I could have
thought of, especially since right that minute I heard an outboard
motor somewhere and guessed that Bob had already started the powerful
black-shrouded motor that was on the boat John Till had had, and which
the police had left at Santa’s dock.
We didn’t have time to decide anything right then, though, ’cause
almost as quick as a lightning bug can flash his flash on and off, we
heard somebody running toward us from the direction of Santa’s cottage
and, a second later, two forms came puffing out into the moonlight and
into our camp--and it was Big Jim and Circus, who, as you already know,
were staying all night in Santa’s cabin, just to sort of look after
things for him.
I thought of Tom Till, and hated to have him know what was going on,
which he would if there was a lot of boy noise and the whole camp
should wake up and come scrambling over each other down to the dock in
crazy-looking pajamas, talking and wondering “What on earth?”
So Poetry and I shushed Big Jim and Circus and the four of us started
to tell each other what we knew.
“Somebody took John Till’s boat!” Circus puffed. “Hear him?--there he
goes now!”
About two hundred yards from shore I saw a shadow of a boat out in the
moonlight and heard the roar of a powerful motor, and knew we’d have to
hurry if we got to the Indian cemetery first.
“Let’s step on the gas and get going,” Circus said as soon as we’d
told them about the note we had found, and Poetry said, “What kind of
gas--outboard motor, or station wagon?”
Big Jim, knowing that most of the Sugar Creek Gang had more bravery
than good sense and that we sometimes did things that were dangerous,
without thinking first, said, “This is another job for the police,”
but Poetry spoke up and said, “Let’s be policemen ourselves. By the
time we could phone them and they could get there, it’d be too late,”
which it would be, I thought, so we decided we ought to try to get to
the cemetery first by driving there as fast as we could in the station
wagon.
What to do about Tom, was our first problem, but we wouldn’t have much
time to try to solve it--some of us simply had to get going to the
cemetery to be there before Bob could get to the Narrows, zip through
it, and into that other lake where the cemetery was. It was half past
nine right that second, and Bob was supposed to meet his dad there at
ten. If only we could get there before either one of them did, and hide
somewhere in the bushes. Then maybe we could sneak up on them, and get
both of them at once--’cause it looked like Bob was in on the business
of being a helper to the kidnapper too.
Barry and Little Jim and Tom Till were the only ones left in Barry’s
tent. Barry must have heard our excited talk, ’cause in a jiffy his
tent flap plopped open and out he came and wanted to know what on earth
all the excitement was all about. We told him and showed him the note
and he also heard Bob’s motor on the lake at the same time. We didn’t
stop to try to figure out why John Till had _written_ to Bob instead of
just _telling_ him where to meet him, or came tumbling out of Barry’s
tent and in our direction, and anything. Right that minute almost,
Little Jim and Tom Dragonfly came out of the other tent, and there we
all were--too many--and some of us too little--to go on a kidnapper
hunt.
I guess I never was so disappointed in my life as I was right that
minute, though, ’cause Barry took charge of things quick, and said,
“You boys all stay right here, and look after camp. I’ve a phone call
to make--and I want to see the firewarden a minute.”
“Is there a fire somewhere?” Tom Till asked quick, sniffing to see if
anything smelled like smoke, and Dragonfly did the same thing, and
sneezed just like he had actually smelled something he was allergic to,
which he is to nearly everything in the world anyway.
A jiffy later, Barry in the station wagon was riding down the lane
toward Santa’s boathouse and I knew that in a few jiffies more he’d be
pulling in low up a steep hill, swishing along a sandy trail at the
top, and driving like mad down a winding road through the forest to
the firewarden’s house, which you know about if you’ve read “The Sugar
Creek Gang Goes North.” There he’d make a terribly fast phone call to
the police--or else let the firewarden’s wife do it while he and the
firewarden would beat it on to the Indian cemetery. They’d probably
stop before they got there though, and sneak carefully up along the
lake shore to where Bob’s boat would be coming in, and, if they could,
they’d capture both Bob and John. I felt terribly disappointed inside,
like I’d just blown up a very pretty great big colored balloon, and
somebody had stuck a pin into it and it had burst--not knowing there
was going to be more excitement where we were than where Barry and the
firewarden would be.
9
The station wagon hadn’t any sooner disappeared and the whirring sound
of its motor faded away, leaving us all with Barry’s orders to go
back to bed ringing in our ears, than I remembered the blank sheet of
typewriter paper I had in my pocket and which we hadn’t bothered to
show to Barry but only John Till’s note to his boy, Bob.
Little Jim and Tom Till didn’t know anything about what was going
on, and they, being sleepy anyway, seemed glad to get back to their
tent and make a dive back into the sleep from which they had dragged
themselves a little while before.
Dragonfly was suspicious, though, and when he noticed Poetry and Big
Jim and Circus and me talking together, he got a stubborn expression in
his voice and whined a question at us which was, “You guys got a secret
of some kind?”
We didn’t want him to start any fuss; besides sometimes he wasn’t such
a dumb person to let in on a secret, so for a little while we left
Little Jim and Tom Till alone in their tent and the five of us went
into the other tent, lit a lantern, unfolded the piece of typewriter
paper and heated it over the hot top of the lantern, and in only a few
minutes we were looking at a map of the territory up here--showing the
camp where we were and the place where the little Ostberg girl had been
lying, just like the other map we’d found. Also different other places
were identified, such as Santa’s boathouse, the firewarden’s cabin, and
the broken twig trail which led off in different directions....
“Both maps are alike,” Circus said, and it looked like they were.
Poetry traced the faint markings of the new one with his pencil so we
could study it better.
“What do you suppose Bob had two maps for?” Dragonfly asked, and Poetry
answered by saying, “He maybe had only one at first, but when he lost
it,--the one we found last week--he or Hook-nose made him another one.”
“Yeah,” I said, with a questionmark in my voice, “but why draw them in
invisible ink?”
“Maybe so nobody would think they were maps.”
“But how could Bob _himself_ know the different places if he couldn’t
see the lines and different marks?” I asked, wondering how.
It was Dragonfly who answered my doubt by saying, “Oh he probably had
what they call an ‘original’--and as soon as he’d memorized it, he drew
another one in invisible ink and tore the first one up!” His idea made
sense, I thought, and said so, and so did Poetry.
Well, we weren’t getting anywhere--and weren’t supposed to anyway. It
certainly didn’t seem fair to us that Barry hadn’t let us go with him,
but he was camp boss and that was that, and we were supposed to crawl
back into our sleeping bags and go to sleep. Imagine that! Right while
Barry and the firewarden, and maybe the police, were capturing Old
hook-nosed John Till and his son Bob! _Imagine_ it! It was terribly
disappointing.
And then all of a sudden Dragonfly gasped and said, “Hey, Gang! Look!”
He had the newest map and was holding it up between his dragonfly-like
eyes and the light. His voice had contagious excitement in it, so we
all looked quick to see what he saw. But it wasn’t anything--only two
crude-looking fish away off on the part of the map which was supposed
to represent a lake.
“A couple of fish,” I said, disgusted with him for getting us excited
over nothing. “That’s to show you there is a lake there.”
“Yeah,” he said, still excited, “but look where they _are!_ They’re
right over there where that island is where we caught our walleye
today.”
Big Jim answered that by saying, “Maybe they’re supposed to locate a
good fishing place.”
And then Dragonfly got another idea which sent our minds whirling like
summer cyclones at Sugar Creek, when he said, “You know what that
is? That’s where the island is, and that’s where John Till has been
catching the big fish to put the ransom money in, and that island’s
where maybe the rest of the money is right this very minute. I’ll bet
that’s where they’ll go to get the rest of it, if Barry or the police
don’t catch ’em first!”
Well, sir, you could have knocked me over with an invisible ink map,
when Dragonfly gave us that wonderful idea. It seemed like he was
exactly right, and it seemed a shame that I hadn’t thought of it
first--in fact, for a minute it almost seemed like I had, because all
of a sudden I was remembering what I’d thought in the afternoon when
Poetry and I had been exploring that island looking for clues. Also I
remembered that that island is where I’d wanted to go to start hunting
for the treasure in the first place when I’d thought of playing
Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday and also Treasure Island. I just
knew that Dragonfly and I were right, so as quick as a flash I said,
“If we really want to capture Bob and Old Hook-nose, we’d better beat
it over to that little island, and be hiding there somewhere when they
get there, and capture them ourselves.”
Big Jim answered me in a tone of voice that sounded like he thought I
was only about half bright when he said, “Who wants to get the living
daylights knocked out of him in the middle of the night? When you saw
him the _first_ time, didn’t he have a big hunting knife?”
I remembered he had--in fact, in my mind’s eye, I could still see that
wicked looking knife with its five-inch-long blade that looked like it
could not only make a quick slice into the stomach of a fish but could
do the same thing to a boy. When Big Jim said that to me like that, it
seemed like maybe he was right and I was very ignorant for wanting to
be brave without using good sense.
“Besides,” Big Jim said, “those two silly looking fish out there on the
map don’t mean a thing. We’d better all get some sleep or we’ll be as
tired as wrung-out dishrags tomorrow.”
Well, that was orders, and a boy is supposed to obey anybody who has
a right to be his boss--such as a schoolteacher or a camp leader or
either one of his parents, or somebody he is working for. Big Jim
didn’t always get obeyed, though, on account of our gang nearly always
voted on important things to decide what to do, so right away Poetry,
who thought my idea wasn’t so bad after all, spoke up and said, “I move
we all get into Barry’s big boat and go roaring over to that island,
beach the boat on the sandy shore of the cove behind some willows and
be there waiting when Bob and Hook-nose come--if they do.”
“Second the motion,” I said quick, but Big Jim exploded our idea by
saying, “It’s _Barry’s_ orders to go to bed.”
It certainly wasn’t easy to go to bed when there was so much excitement
we’d rather be mixed up in, but orders were orders, so pretty soon I
was in my sleeping bag in the same tent with Dragonfly and Poetry--Big
Jim and Circus having decided to go back to Santa’s cabin to spend the
rest of the night like they’d planned to in the first place.
Pretty soon, in spite of feeling excited and wondering whether anybody
would catch Old John Till and his son Bob, I dropped off to sleep--not
even knowing I was going to do it--as a certain poem says, “No boy
knows when he goes to sleep.” It seemed like even in my sleep I could
hear an outboard motor roaring out on the lake, first coming close to
us, then fading away and then a little later coming back again.
Once when I was half awake and half asleep, I heard Poetry turn over
beside me and then I heard him whisper, “Bill--listen, will you?
Somebody’s out there in a motor boat going back and forth in front of
our dock.”
It took a jiffy for me to realize where I was, and why, and then I
was actually listening to an outboard motor away out on our lake like
somebody was doing what Poetry said he was.
A second later, Poetry sat up, scrambled over to the tent flap, worked
it open, and in another jiffy I had my red head beside his, and we
were both looking out across the moonlit water, and seeing a dark
fast-moving boat out there.
“The crazy goof!” Poetry said to me in my left ear, and I said to
him in his right one, “He’s cutting big wide circles,” which is what
whoever it was was doing.
It seemed silly for anybody to do what he was doing; so, because it
was a crazy night anyway, and so many crazy things had happened on our
fishing trip, Poetry and I squeezed our crazy way through the tent flap
and went down to the dock to see what on earth anybody was doing out
there going round and round like that. And then all of a sudden, Poetry
gasped breathily and said, “Hey, _there isn’t anybody in that boat.
It’s empty!_”
Just that second the boat came out into the middle of a big wide silver
path which lakes have on moonlight nights, when you look out across
them in the direction of the moon. And sure enough, Poetry was right. I
could hardly believe my surprised eyes, but in that silver path was a
row boat about the size of the one Bob Till had gone away in, cutting
big, terribly fast wide circles, going round and round and round. The
motor sounded exactly like the big black shrouded two-cylinder one I
knew how to run so well and which Bob had taken from Santa’s dock.
It didn’t make sense--a boat out there without anybody in it.
And then, Poetry said something else, which was, “Hey, it’s getting
_closer!_ The wind is blowing it toward the shore. It gets closer every
time it makes a circle!”--which I noticed it was.
What to do or whether to do anything, was the question. Poetry and I
stood there on the dock in our pajamas, not slapping at the mosquitoes,
on account of when the wind blows, like it was right that second,
mosquitoes’ smallish wings can’t control their flight, and they stop
looking for boys to bite.
_Whirr! ... Roar! ... Whizzz! ..._ and also _Plop! ... plop! ... plop!
..._--the motor doing the whirring and the whizzing, and the bottom of
the boat doing the plop-plop-plopping on the waves.
“It’s empty!” we said to each other, and it looked like it was, for
sure.
“Maybe whoever was in it fell out. Maybe it was John Till and he was
drunk and fell out and the boat just keeps on running,” I said. I knew
a motor could do that, and if the steering handle was set, it would
maybe stay set, and the motor would keep on going until it ran out
of gas, or until it rammed into an island or a shore somewhere....
Then, almost before anything could happen if there had been anything
to, that boat straightened out a little, like the motor’s steering
handle had swung around--which they do sometimes when nobody holds
onto them--and the boat came roaring straight toward our dock at a
terrific rate of speed.... In another half minute maybe it would crash
ker-wham-splinter-smash into the end of the dock where we were--right
there by the flagpole. It was coming toward us as straight as a torpedo
and almost as fast, I thought, just like this was a war and somebody
had shot a torpedo straight for where we were.
And then, a second later while my mind was whirling, not believing it
could or would happen, the sharp prow of that big white boat with the
fierce racing motor on the other end of it, struck with a crash that
jarred and shook the dock, glanced sidewise, swerved up along its edge
and ran ker-squash-jam into the sandy shore, while at the same time or
just before, the propeller, down in the water, struck the shallow sandy
bottom, which made the motor tilt forward.
The motor made a couple of ridiculous-sounding discouraged sneezes and
coughs, and stopped. Then almost before the sound of the crash had
stopped splitting my ear-drums, I was over near the boat, looking down
into it and shining my flashlight into it. There lying in the bottom
was a great big quart-sized whiskey bottle, and my imagination told me
that maybe John Till had been in the boat and that he had gotten drunk
and had fallen out and was out there in the lake somewhere already
drowned. My heart sank as I thought of what a hurt heart Little Tom
Till would have when he found it out.
The waves of the lake were washing against the dock post and lapping at
the shore and the boat, and I knew it was a terribly tense minute. And
then Poetry, who was beside me, grabbed my arm like he had just heard
something terribly important, and said, “Listen ... SH! ... _Listen!_”
I listened, and didn’t hear anything at first, and then all of a sudden
I did, and it was a scared voice calling from somewhere saying, “HELP
... HELP ... HELP...!”
10
I certainly didn’t dream that things were going to turn out the way
they did when that mad boat came racing toward us and whammed itself
into our dock and up onto the shore and turned part way over on its
side, and when I heard a voice calling from somewhere, “HELP ... HELP
... HELP!” The first thing I thought of was that somebody, I didn’t
know who, was out there somewhere drowning and had to have help right
away quick. Santa’s house was several hundred yards up the shore and
any yelling I or any of us could have done for Big Jim and Circus to
come and help us, couldn’t have been heard by them, and by the time any
of us could have run up there and waked them up, it would maybe be too
late to save whoever’s life needed to be saved.
Quick as anything, I said to Poetry, “We’ve got to do something or
maybe somebody will drown out there!”
But say, I didn’t have to tell Poetry to step on the gas to get going.
He was the fastest acting barrel-shaped boy you ever saw. In less time
than it takes me to write it for you, Poetry had quick picked up two
oars that were lying there and tossed them into a row boat that was
on the opposite side of the dock, and a jiffy later was unwinding the
anchor rope from around the dock post. Then he yelled to me, “Hurry up
and get in quick, and get the oars into the oarlocks, and let’s row out
quick and save him.”
Even while we were making a lot of noise, it seemed I could still hear
that voice out there calling, “HELP ... HELP ... H-E-L-P!...”
We got the boat’s prow headed into the waves, which is what you have
to do when you row on a lake--keep the prow headed toward the oncoming
waves, or you’ll maybe get your boat filled with water.
Right that minute I heard another yell coming from the direction of
the tents, and it was Dragonfly racing toward us in flapping pajamas
wanting to know what on earth was going on and why.
I yelled back to him from the boat I was already in, and said, “Hey,
you--Dragonfly! Beat it down to Santa’s cabin and tell Big Jim and
Circus to step on the gas and get Santa’s motor boat and come out to
help us! There’s somebody drowning out there in the moonlight!”
As quick as anything, Poetry and I were on our way. Our boat had three
life-preserver cushions in it--enough for Poetry and me and whoever was
out there, which of course had to be John Till, I thought, on account
of the whiskey bottle in the bottom of the boat that had just roared
its way up onto our shore.