The Galloping Ghost by Roy J. Snell
Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morganand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
_A Mystery Story for Boys_
_The_ GALLOPING GHOST
_By_ ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago
COPYRIGHT 1933 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I Kidnaper's Island 11 II Whispers in the Night 22 III "We Must Escape" 30 IV The Ghost Appears 38 V Red Wins to Lose 49 VI The Red Rover Gets the Breaks 56 VII A Journey in the Night 67 VIII "The Rat" 78 IX Red Goes Into Action 89 X The Invisible Footprint 100 XI Hotcakes at Dawn 109 XII Johnny Gets a "Jimmy" 116 XIII Light on the Water 127 XIV Drew Lane Steps Into Something 137 XV "Shootin' Irons" 146 XVI The Branded Bullet 156 XVII Johnny's Jimmy 164 XVIII Dreaming at Dawn 173 XIX Night on Isle Royale 180 XX Riding a Moose 190 XXI The Shoe 200 XXII On the "Sleeping Lion" 207 XXIII A Visit in the Night 213 XXIV Uncle Ned Does His Bit 226 XXV The Trail Leads North 236 XXVI Battle Over the Waves 245 XXVII A Haunted Bay 255 XXVIII The Light That Failed 262 XXIX Silent Night 269 XXX Hollow Chuckles 276 XXXI "Play by Play" 289 XXXII "70,000 Witnesses" 296 XXXIII The Flea Flicker 309
THE GALLOPING GHOST
CHAPTER I KIDNAPER'S ISLAND
Red Rodgers rolled half over, squirmed about, then sat up. For a longtime he had felt the floor beneath him vibrate with the throb of powerfulmotors. His eardrums, beaten upon as they had been by the roar of thosemotors, now seemed incapable of registering sound.
Not the slightest murmur suggesting life reached his ears. "Not therustle of a leaf, nor the lap of a tiny wave; not the whisper of avillage child asleep," he told himself. "Can I have gone stone deaf?"Cold perspiration started out upon the tip of his nose.
And then, piercing the silence like a siren's scream in the night, came awild, weird, mad, hilarious laugh.
Startled by this sudden shock of sound, he shuddered from head to foot.Then, at once, he felt better.
"At least I am not deaf."
"That laugh," he mused a moment later, "it was almost human, but notquite. What could it have been?"
To this question he could form no answer. The wild places, wilderness,forest, lakes, rivers, were sealed books to Red. He had lived his life ina city, lived strenuously and with a purpose.
"Some wild thing," he murmured. "But where am I?" His brow wrinkled."I've been kidnaped, dragged from my berth in a sleeping car, thrown intoa speed boat, carried miles down a river, bundled into this airplane,whirled for hours through the air, and landed here. But where is here?And why am I here at all?"
"Hours," he whispered slowly. A stray moonbeam lighted a spot on hisknee. He placed his wrist there and read the dial of his watch.
"Yes, hours. It's five after midnight. And to-morrow, hundreds of milesaway, I was to have made at least two touchdowns. The crowd would expectat least one sixty-yard dash by the Red Rover."
"The Red Rover." That was the name the fans had given him. Well, the RedRover would not run. He smiled grimly. But, after all, what did itmatter? They were to play Woodville. What was Woodville? A weak team. OldMidway's cubs could beat them. It was a midweek game, mainly forpractice. He wasn't needed for that. But Saturday's game! Ah, well, thatwas another story.
"But kidnaped!" He brought himself up with a start. "I've been kidnaped!Dragged from my berth. Whirled all the way to some place where wildcreatures laugh at midnight."
Kidnaped. The whole affair seemed absurd to him. He had read ofkidnapings. There had been many of late. It had always made his bloodboil when some innocent child, some helpless woman had been carried awayto a dismal hole and held for ransom. "Low-lived curs," he had called thekidnapers.
"Ransom!" He laughed a low laugh. He was a college student, a footballplayer for two months of the year, a night clerk in a hotel the rest ofthe year, an orphan boy working his way through the university. Hethought there were three dollars in his pocket, but he could not be sure.
"Kidnaped! Must have got the wrong fellow this time. Tell 'em who I am,and they'll turn me loose; hustle me back, like as not."
He was wrong. They would neither turn him loose nor hustle him back.
"All right, Red. You can get out." These words were spoken as theairplane door swung open.
"Red!" the boy thought with a start. "So they _do_ know who I am. Theydid mean to get me. I wonder why!
"Whew!" he whistled as a cold breeze struck his cheek. "Cold up here."
"Cold enough," the other grumbled. "Come on, shake a leg! This boatswings about."
"Boat." It's strange how a single word tells a long story. The whiff ofcold air had told him that they had flown north. Now he knew that theyhad landed on water. But what water? And where?
"There you are." A hand in the moonlight guided him to a seat in thestern of a small boat.
Red opened his eyes wide at the scene that lay before him, a broad, deepbay fringed by a black ribbon of spruce and balsam. The moonlight,forming a path of gold across the water, fell upon some dark object. Asthe oars of the boat creaked, the dark object made a splashing sound; itmoved.
As if reading the boy's thoughts, the oarsman ceased his labors to castthe circle of a powerful flashlight in the direction of the movingcreature.
With a quick intake of breath Red stared enchanted; for there, not twentyyards away, standing at the end of the small island which he had reachedat this moment, was a moose.
Nowhere in all his life had the boy beheld such complete majesty. Erect,silent, powerful, the monarch of the forest stood there defiant andunafraid.
"Where in all the earth could one find a spot such as this?" Red breathedto himself. "A spot so sheltered that even the shyest of the forest'sgreat ones shows no fear."
He had expected the oarsman to drag a rifle from the prow and firepoint-blank at this moose. Instead, he sat there for a second, his roughface disfigured by a semblance of a smile; then, pocketing hisflashlight, he once again took up his oars.
At the edge of this clearing was a small log cabin. From this a palelight gleamed. Toward this cabin the boat directed its course.
"'This is the forest primeval.'" The words sprang unbidden to the boy'slips. "'The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss, and ingarments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of eld,with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar, with beards thatrest on their bosoms.'
"And to-morrow was to have been--"
As he closed his eyes he saw what it was to have been: a wild, shoutingthrong; college songs, college yells, bands, waving banners. "Go, Midway!Go!" Two squads battling for victory. Wild scrambles. Futile dashes. And,with good fortune, a mad dash of fifty yards to triumphal victory.
"Life," he whispered, "is strange."
The boat bumped. A narrow landing lay beside him.
"We get off here." There was something impersonal in the tone of thisstrange pilot of the night. "This'll be home for you, son, for quite someconsiderable time."
"I hope you're wrong," Red thought.
The room he entered a moment later was small and very narrow. In onecorner was a cot, in another a table and chair. Across from the table wasa curious affair of sheet iron that, he guessed, might be a stove. Theplace was agreeably warm. There must be a small fire. On the table acandle burned.
Turning about to seek for an explanation of all that had been happeningand of his strange surroundings, he was not a little startled to findhimself alone. The door had been silently closed behind him. And locked?Well, perhaps. What could it matter? He was, beyond doubt, surrounded bywater, the merciless water of the north country--some north country inNovember; surrounded, too, by determined men, hostile men, perhaps, whohad apparently ordained that his stay in the cabin should be a long one.Once again, as he dropped into the chair, there came to his mind thatforceful interrogation:
"Why?"
As before, he could form no adequate answer.
His mind was busy with this problem when, with startling suddenness, hisattention was caught and held by the low sound of voices.
"Have you signed?" It was a man who spoke. The voice was not gruff; alow, smooth, persuasive voice, too smooth, too persuasive.
Quite in contrast was the answer. Unmistakably feminine, it came sharpand crisp as the crash of icicles fallen from the eaves. "I will neversign."
"But consider." The man's voice was not raised, still smooth, persuasive."You are on an island."
"An island. I thought so," Red whispered to himself. "But who can thisgirl be?" That the one beyond the partition was a girl he did not doubt.
"I will never sign!" the girl broke in upon the other's oily speech. "Myfather owes you nothing."
"Consider," the other persisted. "You are on a narrow island within abay. The water of the bay is icy cold. You might swim it in safety,though I doubt it. Should you succeed, it would be but to find yourselfupon a much larger island. That island is fifteen miles from the nearestmainland, a hundred from the farthest. Can you swim that, or row it evenif you should find a boat? Ah, no. The waters of this great lake areterrible in their fury. And Superior never gives up her dead."
There was something so sepulchral about these last words that thelistening boy shuddered in spite of himself.
"On such an island there are people." The girl's tone was stubborn,defiant.
"There is no one." The tone of the speaker carried conviction. "Insummer, yes. In winter, no. We are here alone."
"Then," said the girl, "I shall stay here until summer comes. Winter willsoon be here. And 'if winter comes,'" she quoted, "'can spring be farbehind?'"
"Very far."
There was a quiet cadence in the speaker's tone that sent chills coursingup Red Rodger's spine. At the same time he hardly suppressed a desire toshout: "Bravo!" to the girl.
The closing of a door some seconds later told him that this was a cabinof at least two rooms and, strangely enough, between these rooms was noconnecting door.