Bob Dexter and the Storm Mountain Mystery or, The Secret of the Log Cabin

CHAPTER XXIV
THE TREASURE

“Let him go,” suggested Bob with a laugh. “His game’s played out and he knows it. No use arresting him and having a long-drawn out case in the police court. That is if you’re satisfied, Mr. Beegle?”

Hiram looked a bit disappointed at the escape of Jolly Bill. The old sailor was accustomed to seeing punishment meted out to those who deserved it. And certainly Bill deserved something in this line. But, after all, Hiram was a bit of a philosopher.

“If he isn’t taking away any of my treasure with him, I don’t mind letting him go,” he said, as he stood in his doorway and watched Bill stumping off down the rugged trail.

“No, he won’t take any of the treasure with him,” said Bob. “I’ll guarantee that. But whether we can find it or not is another question. Bill tried his best and didn’t succeed.”

“I don’t see how anybody could succeed with this to work on,” complained Ned as he looked at the seeming jumble of words which had been written down by Hank Denby, to guide his heir to the buried treasure, and to keep others from finding it. It looked as if he might succeed in keeping it even from the one entitled to it. “There’s no making any sense of this,” concluded Ned, dubiously.

“Oh, we haven’t had a real try at it yet,” said Bob, cheerfully. “Let’s go at it systematically. But first I’d like to clear up a few loose ends. Do you know anything about this man with the hook arm, Mr. Beegle? The one who calls himself Jake Dauber, and who went off with Rod in such a hurry?”

“No, he’s a stranger to me,” answered the old sailor. “He wasn’t one of us in on the secret of the treasure. But he might have had some deal with Rod to help him get my share away from me. And when Rod couldn’t, this man with the hook got tired and took Rod off on some other trick.”

“Perhaps,” admitted Bob. “But in the light of what has come out, Mr. Beegle, do you still think it was the organ grinder who attacked you on the road and tried to take the box away from you? And do you think he visited you here in the cabin, and made his way into your strong room while you were looking at this paper,” and Bob indicated the cipher, for such it was.

“I don’t know what to think,” admitted the old sailor with a puzzled shake of his head. “I certainly didn’t see any one like an organ grinder attack me on the road that day you found-me, Bob. And, as I say, I didn’t see the man who got in here, made me senseless and took this box.”

“I think it’s pretty safe to assume,” said Bob, as he sat down at a table and spread the mysterious square of parchment out in front of him, “it’s pretty safe to assume that Jolly Bill was the guilty man in both instances. He sneaked out on you from the bushes, Mr. Beegle, and struck you down before you had a chance to get a good look at him. You assumed that it was Rod because you had him in your mind.

“Then, finding that his first assault wasn’t a success, Bill tried other tactics. He sneaked up here in the night, and saw you in the room, looking over the paper from the brass box. He made use of some mysterious chemical, I think – something that overpowered you and made you fall unconscious. He could have tossed a sponge, saturated with it, into the room while you were intent on studying this cipher, Mr. Beegle. Then, when the fumes had blown away, after having knocked you out, he entered, took the box away with him, locked you in and put the key back.”

“But how did he do that?” demanded the sailor. “I can understand all but that part of the key.”

“We’ll come to that in time,” said Bob. “I’m not worrying about that. The main mystery is solved. We know who stole the brass box, and we have it back – with the cipher, or map, if you want to call it that, which tells where the treasure is buried.”

“But does it tell?” asked Ned. “It isn’t exactly a map. But does it tell about the treasure?”

“Of course it does!” declared Bob.

“Then you’re smarter than I give you credit for being if you can make head or tail of this,” commented Harry.

“We’ll see,” and the young detective smiled. “At any rate we have cleaned up the loose ends. Jolly Bill was the robber, and as many another criminal has done, instead of fleeing he remained on the spot to throw suspicion off, which he succeeded in doing very well. Then came Rod on the scene, disguised as an Italian organ grinder to see if he couldn’t get at the treasure after Hank Denby died. It was a good game but it didn’t work.”

“Rod was always up to tricks like that,” said Hiram. “He would play them on board the ships we sailed in. I think he had some Italian blood in him, for once, when we were at an Italian port, he was as much at home as any of the natives, and he could talk their lingo, too. But I didn’t know him in his false beard and wig. He was always smooth-shaven.”

“It wasn’t a false beard nor wig, either,” said Bob. “He just let his hair and whiskers grow. He was clean shaved when he and the man with the iron hook took the milk train. Well, we’ll let them go. They don’t figure in this mystery any more.”

“Unless they’ve already dug up the treasure and skipped out with it,” suggested Ned.

“It couldn’t have been done,” declared Bob. “Rod was only digging at random in the bramble patch, though why he hit on that is more than I can tell. But we’d better get to work on this.”

“I’ll say you had!” exclaimed Harry. “And there’s a long trail ahead of you – a long, long trail.”

However, Bob Dexter went to work with a certain system in mind. He had made a sort of study of puzzles, ciphers and the like, and knew certain fundamental rules governing them. That the secret of the treasure was a comparatively simple one he felt convinced.

“One of the things to do is to see if this paper contains any secret writing,” he said. “I mean certain words may be written in with a chemical so as to remain invisible until heated or treated with other chemicals.

“Now Mr. Denby wouldn’t be very likely to make a complicated affair – one that would need other chemicals to bring out the writing. He would know that Mr. Beegle, here, couldn’t have such chemicals at hand. Consequently the simplest way would be the one he would select – that is heat. Let’s see if, like the cipher in Poe’s ‘Gold Bug,’ heat will bring out anything.”

They held the parchment near the flame of a candle, but aside from producing rather an unpleasant odor, nothing developed. The writing remained the same.

“The next thing,” said Bob, “is to pick out from this mass of words certain ones that mean something. As it stands it might be just part of an essay on astronomy or geography. Now in ciphers of this kind certain key words are used, say beginning with the second or third from the start of the message, and then letting the words follow in a certain numerical sequence. Let’s try that.”

He and his chums tried – over and over again they picked out certain words, setting them down on separate sheets of paper, but all they got were meaningless, jumbled sentences.

“Perhaps it’s certain letters in certain words,” suggested Ned.

“Maybe,” agreed Bob. “We’ll try that way.”

But that was of little use, either, and finally, in despair, the young detective turned to Hiram, who had done little toward helping solve the riddle, and asked:

“Did Mr. Denby ever say anything to you about how you were to proceed to search for the treasure?”

“Well,” remarked Hiram slowly, “he said he’d leave me something in his will, and he left me that,” and he motioned to the box.

“Yes, I know!” exclaimed Bob, impatiently. “But did he ever tell you how to use what he left you? He knew he was going to leave the directions to you in a cipher. Now did he give you the key to it?”

“You mean this brass key?” and Hiram held up the big one that locked his strong room.

“No, I mean some sort of directions for solving this puzzle.”

The old sailor arose and went to the strong chest in the corner of the strong room. He brought back an envelope.

“He gave me this letter, some years ago,” he said. “It just tells me that he’s going to leave me the gold as my share, being the only survivor that kept the agreement Here’s the letter.”

Bob eagerly read it. As Hiram had said, it contained just that information, and nothing more. But at the end of the letter were these words:

“Don’t destroy the envelope.”

“Now what did he mean by that?” asked Bob, puzzled. “Is there anything else in the envelope? Let’s look, Harry.”

He took from his chum the envelope that had contained the letter. Looking inside Bob gave a cry of surprise and exultation.

“I’ve found it! I’ve got it!” he cried “What?” asked his chums.

“The key to the cipher! Look!”

With his knife Bob slit the envelope down each end. It was of thick, manila paper, and on the inside of what was the front there were marked off in black ink a number of small oblong spaces, placed here and there irregularly.

“I don’t see how that’s going to help any,” observed Ned.

“You don’t? Just wait a minute!” cried Bob.

With his knife he cut away from the envelope the loose flap and the back, leaving an oblong piece of opaque, manila paper, marked off in those queer blank spaces. Then Bob began to cut out the spaces along the black border lines until he had a piece of paper containing fifteen oblong holes. The holes were at irregular places, and arranged in lines.

There was one space on the first line, two on the second, three on the third, five on the fourth and two each on the fifth and sixth lines.

“It’s getting more complicated than ever!” sighed Harry.

“On the contrary it’s getting clearer and clearer,” cried Bob. “Give me the cipher,” and he reached for it. “How many lines in it, Ned?”

“Just six,” was the answer.

“Exactly the number of lines represented by these cut-out spaces. Now look!”

Bob placed the piece of envelope over the parchment containing the seemingly meaningless message. Only the words now showed that could be read through the cut-out openings. All the others were covered by the opaque manila. And these words stood out like a message in flame.

“Listen!” read Bob:

“Dig ten feet due east and ten south of Red gate post in buttercup lot.”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Ned cried:

“The buttercup lot! That must be Mr. Denby’s pasture near the bramble patch. Why, Rod was away off! He was in the wrong lot!”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Bob. “I think this gives us the secret of the treasure.”

They looked again at the message as revealed by the cut-out key. There was no doubt as to its meaning. Hank Denby had adopted a very simple form of cipher, yet one almost impossible to solve if one hasn’t the key-paper. He had put in several points of the compass, and a number of measurements in his queer message and one might have dug for a long time without hitting on the right spot. But now it was easy.

“So that’s why he didn’t want me to destroy the envelope!” murmured Hiram, as he saw to what use it could be put. “Well, I’m glad I saved it all these years. Oh, he was a cute one, Hank was!”

“Do you think he planned it all this way?” asked Ned.

“He must have,” asserted Bob.

“It was leaving a good deal to chance,” was Harry’s opinion. “Just supposing Hiram hadn’t saved that envelope?”

“In that case we’d be out of luck,” Bob said. “But I think Mr. Denby must have known Hiram would save the key to the cipher. If he hadn’t thought that he’d have made up some other way of letting it be known where the treasure was buried.”

“Maybe it’s all a joke,” murmured Ned. “I mean, maybe there isn’t any treasure buried after all. How’ll we know?”

“Well, let’s get busy!” suggested Bob. “Let’s see if the story of the cipher is borne out. Let’s dig for the treasure!”

“That’s the idea!” cried Hiram. “Wait, I’ll get some shovels. We’ll go to the buttercup lot. Hank always called it that, for it’s fair like a plate of butter in the summer time, with yellow flowers. But he never pastured any cows there. I wondered at him writing about cows.”

“You should worry now!” joked Ned. “You’ll be a rich man in a little while, if things turn out right.”

Then they set out to dig up the treasure.

CHAPTER XXV
THE KEY TRICK

Hank Denby had been a thrifty man after settling down in Cliffside following his life on the sea. Few there were who knew him well – not even his own lawyer, Judge Weston. And perhaps even fewer knew of his early association with Hiram Beegle and that the two had formed a quartette which had dug for treasure on the mystic South Sea isle.

But such was the case, strange as it may seem. The four had found the old pirate’s treasure, they had made an agreement, doubtless influenced by the dominant mind of Hank Denby, and they had done just as he said.

“But you got to give him credit for being honest,” declared Hiram, on their way to the buttercup lot. “Hank did just as he said he would do.”

“I believe that,” stated Bob. “The thing of it was that Jolly Bill and Rod didn’t live up to their agreement, and, in consequence, they forfeited their rights to that share of the treasure which Hank was keeping for them. So much the more for you, Mr. Beegle.”

“Yes, I hope so. But I’m going to pay you boys for your trouble,” he insisted.

“Trouble? There wasn’t any trouble!” laughed Ned.

“We’ve had a lot of fun out of it,” added Harry. “But maybe, after all, there won’t be any treasure.”

“No treasure! What do you mean?” cried Hiram.

“Well, that fellow Rod, or whatever his name was – going off in such a hurry with that hook-armed man – they may have found out where the stuff was buried and have dug it up ahead of you. Their going off in such a hurry and secretly in the night looks bad.”

“No, I don’t believe so,” spoke Bob. “Rod had an idea where the treasure was, I’ll say that, though how he got the hint is more than I can figure out. He just must have reasoned that Hank would bury it somewhere on his own premises, and the bramble patch looked like a good place to hide gold.”

“He made up a good story about it – wanting to plant monkey nuts!” laughed Harry.

“He sure did,” agreed Bob. “He had me fooled for a time. And when I saw Jolly Bill digging for worms, I thought he was on the right track. Though it didn’t seem reasonable to suppose that Hank would bury the stuff on Mr. Beegle’s land.”

Thus talking and speculating on the mystery, they reached the pasture lot spoken of as the buttercup pasture. But the field was now sear and brown, the buttercups of summer long since having died.

They had brought with them spades and shovels, and also a tape line. This was necessary to measure off the distance from the red gate post.

“But is there a red post?” asked Harry, as they approached the lot. “I don’t seem to remember one.”

“There’s a gate, anyhow,” observed Ned, “or what’s left of one. And maybe the posts were painted red, once upon a time.”

This they found to be the case, though there was but a faint trace of red left on the weather-beaten wood now. But there was only one post which had any vestige of color on it, and this made their task simpler. The other post had long since rotted away.

With tape line and compass, the latter being one that Hiram Beegle always carried with him, a distance ten feet due east was measured off from the red gate post. Then the same distance was measured off due south. When this had been done, and stakes driven in at each of these points, Ned suddenly uttered an exclamation of disgust.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bob.

“Why, we’re as badly off as we were before,” declared Ned. “Look, we’ve got two places to dig. Which one contains the treasure?” and he indicated the south mark and the east.

“Maybe there’s treasure under each one,” suggested Harry.

“That’s it!” cried Bob. “I was waiting for one of you to suggest that, for it occurred to me as soon as I saw that the cipher gave us two points. It’s either that – treasure at both places, divided to make it less easily found, or else we’ve got to draw a line from the two points, making a triangle and then dig at the middle point of the longest line. But we’ll try the two points first.”

With beating hearts they began digging at the south point first. The ground was soft, the early frosts not yet having penetrated deeply, and as the brown soil was tossed out, shovelful after shovelful, each one was eagerly looked at.

They took turns, making an excavation large enough to stand in, and going deeper gradually. They had gone down five feet, and there was, as yet no indication of hidden wealth. Ned climbed out of the hole and dubiously shook his head.

“Looks like a hoax to me,” he said.

But Bob, whose turn was next, had not taken out more than three shovelsful of earth than he uttered a cry of delight.

“I’ve struck something!” he shouted.

Quickly he began tossing out the soil, and, a moment later, there was revealed the rusted top of an iron box. It did not take long to uncover the chest – a veritable strong box – and haul it up on top of the ground. The chest was closed with a heavy padlock, but it was so rusted that a few blows from a spade shattered it.

The lid was pried back, on squeaking hinges and there, revealed in the light of the sun, was, what seemed to the boys, millions of dollars in gold – old gold coins of a bygone age.

“We’ve found it!” shouted Harry, capering about. “We have it!”

“That’s the treasure all right!” added Ned. “You’re a millionaire, Mr. Beegle!”

“Not so loud!” cautioned Bob. “You don’t want all Cliffside rushing out here. Go easy!”

His chums calmed down and then an examination of the gold was made. Bob’s keen eyes soon estimated that there wasn’t anything like a million dollars – only a few thousands at most, but it was a fortune to the old sailor.

“But we’ve got another hole to dig!” said Ned, somewhat disappointed at finding the gold to total less than had been hoped for. “Maybe that’ll run higher.”

They soon uncovered a second iron chest, which contained about the same amount of old gold, and some ornaments which, Bob said, might be sold for a large sum as antiques. So, take it all in all, it was a very tidy little fortune that was dug up that day.

While Bob and Harry remained on guard, Ned and Hiram went to the village to get a horse and wagon to haul the stuff to the local bank. For Hiram did not share Hank’s distrust of these institutions and declared that he wasn’t going to run any more chances.

That there was a sensation in Cliffside, when it became known that the long-buried pirate treasure had been dug up, and that Bob Dexter had been instrumental in locating it, you can well believe.

“That boy’s got stuff in him! I always said it!” declared Chief Duncan who was not at all peeved because he had not solved the mystery. “Mark my words, the police of the big cities will yet hear of Bob Dexter.”

“But he can’t tell how that key got back in the locked room,” sneered Caleb Tarton, who was a little miffed that he had had no part in unraveling the tangle of the case.

“Maybe he will,” said the chief. “Give him time. They only just got the treasure.”

And when the gold had been safely put in the bank vaults, after Judge Weston had confirmed Hiram’s right to it, Bob and his chums paid another visit to the log cabin. They found Chief Drayton there talking to the old sailor.

“I could ’a’ figgered all this out if they’d give me time,” declared Mr. Drayton. “Gosh, but when I got to act as postmaster, pound keeper and be my own constable I ain’t got any too much time t’ be chief of police. I’m goin’ t’ talk t’ th’ selectmen ’bout it at next meetin’. I want a helper, that’s what I want.”

“Yes, you need one!” chuckled Hiram.

“But, anyhow, I know one thing!” declared Mr. Drayton. “You locked that door yourself, Hiram. That key was never put back in from the outside.”

“Oh, yes, it was,” said Bob, quietly.

“It was? How?” cried Ned and Harry.

“It couldn’t be!” insisted Chief Drayton. “Chuckin’ it down the chimbley wouldn’t do it.”

“Not exactly chucking it,” said Bob, still quietly. “But the chimney was used. I’ll show you how it was done. Mr. Beegle, do you mind going in your strong room, and lying on the floor just in the position you were in when you recovered consciousness after you were robbed?”

“Sure I’ll do that,” agreed Hiram.

The others watched him take his place. Then they went outside on Bob’s request and watched him solve the key trick. The lad climbed up in the tree that grew beside the log cabin, and in a minute he was on the roof, beside the chimney.

“I’m dropping down the flue a piece of fish line with a piece of lead on the end to carry it,” he said, suiting the action to the word. “Now go inside again.”

They entered the room, where Hiram was lying on the floor, waiting for what was to happen next. Dangling in the fireplace was the weighted string.

The fish line extended up the chimney flue, coming out at the top, where Bob fastened it temporarily.

The young detective then removed the lead weight and pulled the slack of the cord across the floor, until the end was close to the hand of Mr. Beegle as the sailor lay on the floor. With a small nail, passed through a knot he tied in the end of the cord, Bob fastened the line lightly to the floor.

“We now have,” he said, “a cord extending from this point up through the flue and out of the chimney at the top. Now if you will all remain here you’ll see the conclusion of the experiment.”

They waited expectantly while Bob went outside. Presently they heard him up on the roof.

“Watch now!” he called down the flue.

A moment later there was a tinkling, metallic sound and sliding down the string came the big brass key of the strong room. It was guided down the chimney, and out from the fireplace, the ashes of which it cleared, across the room, until it fell on the floor, close to Mr. Beegle’s hand. There was a twitching of the cord that was fast to the little nail driven lightly into the floor. Out came the nail on the string. The cord was pulled up out of the chimney, leaving the key on the floor beside Mr. Beegle.

“Gosh!” gasped Ned.

“Easy as pie!” murmured Harry. “When you know how it’s done.”

“That was how the key trick was worked,” said Bob, as he joined his friends. “I got the idea after I’d seen that fellow in the circus movie slide down the inclined wire,” he added. “And I also saw a little hole in the floor near where Hiram lay the night he was made unconscious. It was a hole left by the nail Bill drove in for his string.

“If a man could slide down a wire, I said to myself,” a key could be made to slide the same way. I tried it with a string, passing it through the hole in the hand-end of the key, and it worked fine.

“This is what Jolly Bill did. He sneaked up, used his gas bomb, or whatever it was that overpowered Mr. Beegle, slipped in the open door of the strong room, and took the brass box. Then, to make the robbery seem mysterious, he came out and locked the door. To get the key inside he climbed the tree and slid the key down the cord he had previously prepared. Twitching out the cord and nail left not a trace except the tiny hole in the floor, of how the key got inside the locked room without an opening. The chimney flue did the trick. Though when we tried dropping the key down, finding that it only stayed in the ashes, I was puzzled for a time.”

“But could Jolly Bill climb up in a tree with his wooden leg?” asked Harry.

“Oh, he was pretty nimble – I watched him use a spade,” said Bob.

“And was there an elephant here?” Ned wanted to know.

“No, that, too, was Jolly Bill,” said the young detective. “He bound pieces of burlap bags on his good foot and on his wooden leg – making a wad on the latter to expand it, and so he walked around, not making any shoe prints. We thought it was sacks of potatoes set down, but it was Bill’s trick.”

“He was full of tricks,” said Ned.

“But Bob went him one better each time!” laughed Harry.

“He sure did!” murmured Hiram. “And I’m mighty thankful to you boys for what you’ve done. I’m going to pay you – I’m well off now.”

However, the boys would not listen to this. Though later, when Hiram insisted on making a contribution to the Athletic Club, his offer was accepted and he was made an honorary member.

“Well, I guess this is the end of the Storm Mountain mystery,” remarked Ned, as with Bob and some other chums, they were talking over the matter one day.

“Yes, the secret of the log cabin – how the key got in the locked room – has been solved,” added Harry.

“Did the police get any trace of those two that ran away in the night – the hook-armed man and the fellow with the monkey?” asked Fred Merton.

“No, I guess they didn’t,” Bob answered. “There really wasn’t much use chasing after them, or Jolly Bill, either. Mr. Beegle has the money and that’s all he wants.”

And that, really, was all that remained of the celebrated mystery. As summed up by Bob it ran this way:

“Jolly Bill and Rod, who were roaming around the country, living as best they could on what they first got out of the buried treasure, learned, at the same time, of Hank’s death through letters he had caused to be sent them. They also knew Hiram had succeeded to the fortune.

“They came on to Cliffside, separately, but with the same end in view, that of robbing Hiram. Rod adopted a disguise he had used before, it seems. Jolly Bill depended on sneaking tactics, and it was he who got ahead of Rod. Of course Rod must have known Bill, for the latter did not disguise himself. But it is doubtful if Bill knew Rod under all that hair and whiskers.

“Bill succeeded in his robbery after the second attempt, but, instead of fleeing he remained on the scene and tried, by pretending friendship with Hiram, to throw suspicion from himself. Rod, knowing he had been forestalled, hung around trying to find some way of coming at the treasure. He even dug for it. But after Bill had the map, or, rather, the cipher, he couldn’t do anything without the key, which Hiram had but didn’t know it. As for the hook-armed man, there must have been some secret between him and Rod which we don’t know anything about. It may have had nothing to do with this case.”

“But I suppose you want another case to work on, don’t you, Bob?” asked Ned.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” was the answer.

“If you could have your choice, what sort of a case would you want to work on, Bob?” asked Harry.

“A case of soda water!” exclaimed Ned.

“No, cut it out! I’m serious,” went on Harry. “I’d just like to see what Bob’s ideas are on the matter.”

“I don’t know that I have any,” said Bob with a laugh. “In this detective business you can’t pick and choose. At least I’ve never heard of any of them doing it. Of course one man may be better working on bank robberies and another on murder cases.”

“A good murder case would be all to the cheese!” exclaimed Harry, but he was not quite as brutal as it looks in print.

“I don’t know that I’d care for a murder case,” mused Bob. “But I guess, if I ever really get into the game, I’ll have to take everything that comes along.”

“Get into the game? What do you mean?” cried Ned. “Aren’t you in the game for fair, now? Look how you solved the golden eagle mystery. Then we went to Beacon Beach and you cleaned up there. And now you found Hiram’s treasure.”

“And it was nearly a murder case at that!” remarked Bob in a low voice. “If the blow had been a little harder, Hiram would have passed out. But what’s the use speculating on what will happen next? If another case comes my way I’ll tackle it.”

And the young detective soon had another case, as you may read of in the next volume of this series to be called “Bob Dexter and the Silver Lake Mystery, or the Dweller of the Black Cavern.”

“But now I’m going to get ready to go back to school,” said Bob. “And if we’re going to have a football team it’s time we got in some practice. Come on, fellows!”

And with whoops of joy they followed their leader.

THE END