[Illustration: Renfro’s hand trembled so that he could hardly pull the
knife from his trousers pocket. It was followed by a note book from
which he tore two sheets of paper. Quickly he opened one blade, the
thinnest of the three in his knife, warmed it with several breaths,
then slipped it under one of the frozen eyebrows on the window pane.]
THE MYSTERY
OF THE
MISSING EYEBROWS
By STEPHEN RUDD
The Newspaper Boys’ Series
Illustrated
_Published by the_
R. H. GORE PUBLISHING CO.
_Copyright, 1921_
R. H. GORE PUBLISHING COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
RENFRO HORN STORIES
TO FOLLOW SHORTLY
By
THE SAME AUTHOR
THE LUCK OF A RAINY NIGHT
THE RISE OF ROUTE 19
THE WHITE BAG’S SECRET
THE CLUE OF THE TWISTED PAPER
THE LONG LOW WHISTLE
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE MILK
THE LEAK AT COOGAN’S CHIMNEY
THE GROWL OF THE LOST DOG
THE COURAGE OF RENFRO HORN
THE FALL OF THE EAST SIDE BULLY
THE SCOOP OF THE CUB REPORTER
R. H. GORE PUBLISHING CO.,
TERRE HAUTE, IND.
A WORD TO ALL NEWSPAPER BOYS
This volume, the “MYSTERY OF THE MISSING EYEBROWS,” is the first of
twelve books written about newspaper boys by an old newspaper boy,
and the picture of Renfro Horn is the likeness of a flesh and blood
newspaper carrier, the real Renfro Horn, who inspired these twelve
books, that the newspaper boys of these United States might understand
the responsibility they bear to the world.
The newspaper that you take each night to your subscriber’s door plays
a great part in the life of each subscriber. Thru rain and snow and
cold you go, and if you are a good carrier, as all newspaper boys
should be, you will overcome all problems to have your paper there at
the exact time each day, as early as you can get there, regardless
of weather, unmindful of play, striving all the time to be first to
deliver papers in your territory.
And if you are to succeed later in life, you will constantly strive to
make route gains for your newspaper. A new subscriber each week, a gain
of only one new subscription each week, if you do it regularly, will
mean that you are a good carrier, as good as Renfro Horn and Renfro is
one of the best, for he carried papers on a route for the writer of
this book who is a circulation manager.
When your subscribers quit, make them give you a good reason. And
collect your bills. When folks do not pay, tell them about the six or
seven times you come to their door each week, and ask them if they can
do you just the one favor, and remind them you bring the biggest value
in the world for the money, the news of the whole world, plus your good
service.
Newspaper boys are becoming the great men of the world. We have one of
them as president of these United States. Others are in high places.
The newspaper training is valuable, as much so as school, but you must
look about you and make mental notes and you must be a go-getter like
Renfro Horn. And here he is. Read about this newest and greatest Boy
hero, who is just a carrier of newspapers like yourself. And when you
know him as well as we do, you will like him quite as well, and you
will want to follow his many adventures in the other books to come.
By The Author
[Illustration:
Stephen Rudd
]
The R. H. Gore Publishing Co.,
General Offices, Myers Building,
Terre Haute, Ind.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MYSTERIOUS HOUSE 7
II. RENFRO WANTS A NEWSPAPER ROUTE 18
III. A STRANGE MAN AT A WINDOW 27
IV. A NEW DOG AT THE OLD HOUSE 38
V. THE STRANGER COMES AGAIN 47
VI. HELEN WIER IS KIDNAPED 57
VII. RENFRO TAKES THE EYEBROWS 67
VIII. RENFRO GETS A SHOCK 76
IX. TRACKS AT THE CABIN 86
X. THE LIGHT ON THE INDIAN GRAVES 97
XI. RENFRO BECOMES A MENTOR 107
XII. THE SCRATCHES ON THE WINDOW 117
XIII. A TRIP TO THE CABIN 127
XIV. THE MAN IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE 137
XV. A DEAL IN TURKEYS 147
XVI. BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE 156
XVII. RENFRO FINDS THE MYSTERY MAN 165
XVIII. THREE MEN IN THE PLOT 173
XIX. RENFRO IS KIDNAPED 182
XX. HIDDEN IN THE CAVE 191
XXI. HELEN WIER IS FOUND 199
XXII. THE LIGHTS ARE REVEALED 206
XXIII. HELEN TALKS TO RENFRO 215
XXIV. LANG TAMMY HELPS RENFRO ESCAPE 224
XXV. THE GLOBE GETS A SCOOP 233
THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING EYEBROWS.
CHAPTER I.
THE MYSTERIOUS HOUSE.
Renfro Horn was quite sure that Captain Pete would never have spoken
had he not dropped the rabbit. But the sound of its frozen body
striking the hard crust on the top of the snow made the old man turn
around to discover the reason for the sound. And at the same time he
saw the rabbit he saw Renfro.
“Oh,” he snarled, “Spyin’ on me ag’in--sneakin’ on an old man’s own
grounds.”
The jerking of his shoulders broke the string which held the other
rabbits to his shoulder. A rattle like falling twigs. They were all
on the top of the snow. With a rush the old man was down on all fours
trying to roll them together.
Renfro stepped up to help him. And then he saw the three quails and
stopped. One minute he stared at them: the next he stooped and fumbled
with the tops of his shoes.
When he looked down at the ground again the quails were gone, and the
rabbits in a close heap. Renfro knew what was under the pile, but he
pretended not to have seen them. He remembered the notices the game
marshal had had posted about quail hunting the week before.
Imprisonment and fine for the first offense. Captain Pete had one of
these notices on his own big front gate.
“Pretty good luck?” Renfro twisted at the top button on his mackinaw.
“Fourteen rabbits I should guess.”
“Twenty-two,” Captain Pete was proud of his good fortune. “And all shot
in my own fields. You can go on, buddy. I’ll tote them down to my shack
myself.”
“Down to the shack?”
Renfro asked the question. Captain Pete answered it. “Yes, I’m a
stayin’ down there this winter. An old man like me can’t chop wood
enough to keep the big house warm. I didn’t even try to. Moved down to
the shack in September.”
With a last look at the pile of frozen rabbits Renfro walked slowly
away down toward the road which led back to town. The three quails and
the threatened fine were instantly forgotten. But a big question was in
his mind.
If Captain Pete had been living in the shack ever since September, then
who had been living in the big house? Four times recently, when he had
been out on late walks like this one, he had seen queer lights spring
from its windows.
They didn’t stay in one place but seemed to flash from one room to
another. The last time they had been in the right hand room in the
upper story and then suddenly had gone out and flashed in the lower
left hand corner. He had thought it queer then, but had regarded them
as certain proofs of Captain Pete’s queer mind.
Where the two paths, the short cut and the longer way round
intersected, Renfro paused uncertainly. The short one meant a saving of
at least a quarter of an hour and he would be on time for supper. The
longer one would make him late and bring upon his head the reproofs of
both his mother and father.
Yet he wouldn’t know about the lights if he chose the short cut. And
he had to know about them tonight. Better risk his family’s wrath than
miss a chance to solve this mystery.
And Renfro hurried down the long path which led past the big white
house.
Just after he was out on the road he met Clint Moore, the boy who sold
chestnuts on the Horns’ home street in the early fall. “Who’s living in
the old Hall house?” Renfro asked him.
Clint whistled, “Just old dippy Captain Pete Hall,” he laughed. “An
he’s worse off his nut than ever this winter. Don’t have no fire nor
nothin’. We’d think he was dead if we didn’t see his lights of nights
once in a while and see him agoin’ huntin’ past the house.”
Renfro stared at him. The dusk was beginning to get heavy, but he could
still see Clint’s eyes and he knew he was telling the truth. He started
to ask him another question when Clint said, “I’m going your way so
we might just as well walk along together if you don’t mind. There’s
a basket ball game in town tonight and I’m going to go and stay at my
aunt’s.”
He talked on about the ball game but Renfro wasn’t listening. He was
staring at the big Hall house which was less than a quarter of a mile
ahead of them. It set back off the road another quarter of a mile and
in front of it was a long row of pine trees.
They almost shut off all view of the old white shell whose original
owners had claimed that it was “a palace with fourteen rooms.” But in
the upper right hand corner of it a light was plainly visible to both
boys and--
“There’s the old fellow now.” Clint pointed at the small window, thru
the ragged blind of which were gleams of light. “Don’t see it often but
some times--”
And then the light suddenly went out.
Renfro was silent. Captain Pete with his twenty-two rabbits and three
quails was back in the woods. He was sure of that. But who could have
had that light? And did Captain Pete really live in the shack now or
had that been merely a story he had told to take Renfro’s attention
away from the quails?
Renfro was still wondering about that when they reached the end of
the car line and boarded the car which took them past his home. Clint
would have to transfer at Liberty Avenue.
They were the only passengers on the car until three paper carriers
with their big bulky paper bags got on a few blocks farther up the
line. When each had finished carrying his own route he had waited for
the others. Riding in together gave them a chance to talk over profits,
new subscribers and the adventures they encountered on their routes.
Renfro tried to listen to them and to Clint at the same time. His
questions about Captain Pete had reminded Clint of an old hired man
they had once had. He had known Captain Pete Hall before he got to be
so queer. There had been a brother who had been wild to get rich. He
and some confederates from another city had made counterfeit money in
the little shack on the Hall place.
“Captain Pete found their outfit but he didn’t know his brother was one
of the counterfeiters so he went to the sheriff about it and the whole
gang was arrested. His brother got the stiffest sentence of the whole
lot.
“He hated Captain Pete then,” Clint went on with his story. “He said
that when he got out he was goin’ to kill him. Worryin’ about that
upset Pete’s mind.”
When Renfro asked him about the time at which the brother was to be
free again Clint shook his head. The hired man had never told him
anything about the length of the sentence Pete’s brother had gotten.
He had told all of the story he knew. His mother had once said that
Captain Pete’s brother was dead. “Better off that way than the way Pete
is,” he laughed.
When he got off at the corner several other passengers entered the car.
Renfro studied them--the man with the beetling eyebrows and weak mouth,
the woman with the near seal coat and the genuine diamonds. There was
something queer about them. The papers recently told the story of a
jewelshop theft. Renfro began to wonder.
The carrier boys jostled against him as they went to leave the car. The
little one was bragging about a ride he had taken on the patrol wagon
the night before. There had been some trouble in the street on which
his route lay and the corner police had taken him along to help give
directions about the location of some houses.
And then Renfro’s own street was called. With an effort he left the
interesting couple, the lively wide awake carrier boys, and the two men
in uniform. His own avenue lay before him, placid and uninteresting.
The bright street lights made every corner on it as visible as if it
were in the day time.
He ran up the great stone steps to his own home. He opened the door,
entered the hall and knew he was late for supper. With a dash he was up
stairs and to the bath room to wash his face and hands.
And down stairs in the dining room his parents were discussing him. His
father, tall and thin and patrician looking, adjusted his horn rimmed
spectacles and said once more that he knew his son was queer. Otherwise
why would he walk alone as he did? If he didn’t go out to some queer
spot he walked around the home yard. Why, once he had counted one
hundred trips Renfro had made around the house, his head down and his
feet moving at a fairly rapid pace.
Other thirteen year old boys were playing ball or visiting in the drug
stores. It was uncanny--this way he had of walking alone.
Mrs. Horn, also tall and thin and socially graceful, rustled her stiff
silk dress and frowned. She too, thought Renfro was queer. But she was
sure it was all due to the detective stories he read continually. Mary
had told her that morning of seeing a light under his door at about
three o’clock one night, at half past one on another, and when she had
slipped down there had found that he was reading.
“They are about horrible crimes,” she shuddered. “It worries me so that
I cannot sleep. I am afraid he will cultivate criminal tendencies. What
he reads will influence him, I’m sure. Now I read of a boy--”
Mr. Horn shook his head. “Nonsense,” he said shortly. “There’s no
criminals in our families. Renfro is a little queer. None of us boys
was the least bit like him. But he’s clever with all his queer streaks.
Why in that continued story--that detective one he coaxed me to read,
he had the mystery all solved before the last chapter was published.”
Well, Mrs. Horn was determined of one thing. If Renfro had to read such
queer stories he should not do it in the middle of the night. “I’ll
change his room,” she said with emphasis. “There is that old music room
right across from--”
“From mine,” Renfro finished in the door way. “And I’d like to have it
for my own library,” he added and walked to the table.
His unsatisfactory explanation of his walk half angered his father.
But he did not know what to say about it. The report card Renfro had
brought home a few days before had been almost perfect. He couldn’t
command him to hurry from school to study. He was just ready to mention
some errand he had at his office when Mrs. Horn spoke.
“Renfro,” her voice was fretful and accusing. “I needed you this
afternoon to go out to Captain Pete Hall’s for me. It’s rabbit season
now and I wanted some for dinner tomorrow. I waited over an hour for
you and then I drove out there by myself.”
She shivered. “It’s an uncanny place--that big house is. The shrubbery
has grown everywhere and the weatherboards and shutters which have
dropped off the house lay just where they have fallen. It was like
working my way thru a maze to get to the door. And what made it worse
it was just getting dark and--”
“And Captain Pete wasn’t home,” Renfro finished for her remembering
again the three quails, the rabbits and the shack story the old man had
told back in the woods.
Mrs. Horn gave him a severe look. She allowed no one to interrupt her
without giving them a reproof.
“Yes, he was,” she snapped back, “but he didn’t have any rabbits for
sale. What was worse he said he wouldn’t have any at all. He mumbled
something about not going to hunt this season and shut the door in my
face.”
With a gasp Renfro half rose from his chair, stared at his mother,
heard his father’s gruff command to behave himself, and settled back
in his seat again, smoothing out his napkin with a great effort. But
his eyes remained round and his mouth opened and closed several times
before he spoke.