The Yellow Feather Mystery Read online

  Joe went to get the ladder under the guest-room window. Kurt stormed for a few more minutes as to how the school ladder had gotten there. No one answered, and Joe asked Skinny to bring him a fish pole.

  Then Joe propped the ladder against the wall, and holding the pole, climbed to the catwalk of the tower. A few flicks of his wrist and he cast the fishhook into Frank’s pants. Amid cheers from the onlookers he hauled them down.

  “Whose are they?” several boys asked.

  Joe escaped without answering. When he brought them to Frank, his brother stared in astonishment. A rueful grin that spread over his face as Joe told the story lasted only a moment, then he began to speculate on who had taken the pants.

  “Are you sure you locked our door the second time?” Joe asked him.

  Frank thought a moment. “No, I’m not sure. Dumb of me. I deserve what happened.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t any worse,” Joe remarked. “Well, let’s get some breakfast and then start our sleuthing.”

  Several students had already assembled in the dining hall. As Frank and Joe entered, Kurt met them, anger on his face.

  “There’s no breakfast,” he announced. “The cook and her helper didn’t show up this morning.”

  “Mrs. Teevan probably is still ill,” Frank reminded him. “The doctor may have told her to stay in bed today.”

  “Doctor!” Kurt exclaimed. “I didn’t know anything about that. What’s the matter with her?”

  Frank briefly explained the circumstances that led to the physician’s visit. Kurt expressed no sympathy but burst out:

  “That leaves us in a fine mess. And that assistant quit—just when we need her. I found her note of resignation on the kitchen counter top.”

  “Looks as if we’ll have to get our own breakfast,” Frank remarked.

  “The Yellow Feather is behind all this!” Kurt said. “I’m sure of it. He’s the one who left the note ordering that tray for Greg Woodson.”

  Suddenly the headmaster snapped his fingers. “Why didn’t I think of it before!” he exclaimed.

  Leaning over, he whispered confidentially, “The Yellow Feather must be nearby to make such frequent visits. I’ll bet I know where his hideout is!”

  “Where?” the Hardys chorused.

  “The school has a camping hut along the river,” Kurt replied. “We’ll find that scoundrel!”

  “It might be a good idea to look,” Frank agreed.

  He and Joe walked into the kitchen with the intention of getting something to eat when Skinny, who had been looking everywhere for them, came to tell them that Chet was at the front door.

  “Chet! Up this early!” Joe exclaimed. “Something important must have happened!”

  The two boys hurried to the main entrance and looked questioningly at their friend. Quickly he explained that Mrs. Hardy had telephoned him to deliver a message to them.

  “She said your dad was in touch with her and wanted you fellows warned that you’re in danger out here!” Chet whispered.

  How well they knew that! the Hardys thought. But how had their father learned this?

  Quickly they brought their friend up to date on what had happened and Chet whistled softly.

  “Say,” Joe asked him, “how would you like to hang around and do some cooking? You might pick up some clues for us.”

  Chet beamed. “Direct me to the food supply.”

  Joe led the way and introduced him to the headmaster.

  “I’ve found a cook!” he announced triumphantly.

  “And not a bad one either!” Chet boasted. “I came up here on my sled to see what the Hardys were doing, and it looks as if I’ll come in handy until your regular cook gets back to work, Mr. Kurt.”

  Frank explained Chet’s fondness for food and remarked that he had developed a flair for the culinary art. Kurt readily agreed to the plan.

  As a chef, Chet proved his ability to organize an efficient staff. Strutting about in an apron, he divided up the work so quickly between several boys that an excellent breakfast was prepared in short order.

  During the meal Joe discussed Kurt’s proposal with his brother and added, “It doesn’t make sense that a criminal would be hiding in a hut which might be used by students at any time.”

  “The Yellow Feather probably knows that most of the boys are away,” Frank pointed out.

  “Oh, it’s possible, all right,” his brother agreed. “But I’m not putting much stock in Kurt’s idea.”

  He contemplated another angle. “Maybe Kurt is trying to get us away from the school for some reason.”

  Frank shrugged. “Suppose I stay here while you and Kurt go to the hut.”

  Joe agreed. Frank told Kurt he wanted to help Chet get the kitchen setup organized and he would not make the trip to the hut. The headmaster looked displeased but said that he and Joe would proceed, anyway.

  “We’d better go on skis,” Kurt suggested, and arranged for Joe to borrow the equipment.

  Gliding along through the woods, they soon reached a trail which Joe recognized as the one on which the boys had spotted Benny Tass with his car. As he was beginning to wonder if this were a favorite haunt of the unpleasant boy, Tass suddenly appeared at the side of the trail, leaning on ski poles.

  “Hello, Mr. Kurt. Hi, Joe!” Benny greeted them. “What’s up?” It was the friendliest he had ever been to the Hardy boy.

  “Oh, we’re just going to the camp-out hut,” Kurt returned. “Want to come along?”

  “Sure.”

  Joe noticed a sly smile creep over Benny’s face as he joined them. Also, Kurt seemed a bit too pleased by the addition of the new arrival.

  Mr. Hardy’s warning flashed into Joe’s mind. Had Kurt and Tass planned this? Was he walking into danger?

  CHAPTER VIII

  Snowbound

  “I’m going to watch these two like a hawk!” Joe resolved silently.

  But as they glided forward through the woods his anxiety lessened, for both Kurt and Tass seemed very friendly. To Joe’s amazement the headmaster told Benny of the Yellow Feather mystery and the mysterious happenings in connection with it.

  “Sure is spooky business,” Benny said with a quaver. “I hope we don’t find the Yellow Feather in the hut. He sounds like a guy to stay away from.”

  “It’s my guess he’s not there,” Joe spoke up and to himself added, “Kurt wouldn’t dare let a student run the risk of meeting such a dangerous person.”

  As the three moved on, the sun was blotted out. A biting wind cut their faces.

  “More snow coming,” Joe remarked. “We’d better make this trip snappy.”

  They came to a wooded hill and herringboned to the summit. Then swiftly the skiers slalomed to the bottom.

  “Be quiet, boys,” Kurt warned them. “We’re getting close now, Joe. There’s the hut up ahead.”

  Several hundred yards away Joe could see a solidly built little stone house which looked well cared for. Kurt explained that he and Mr. Teevan came out once in a while to make sure things were in order. Neither of them, however, had been here recently. As they neared the building, conversation ceased until Kurt burst out:

  “Just as I thought! Someone’s been living here!”

  The boys noticed that the snow around the cabin had been trampled down in several directions.

  “Look at that stack of logs by the door,” Benny pointed out. “It wasn’t there the last time I was out.”

  “You’re right,” Kurt agreed. “Let’s surround the place. I’ll move in from this side. You two circle and close in from the front and back.”

  At Kurt’s signal they all advanced.

  At the front door Kurt pounded and called. There was no reply.

  Joe watched tensely in case the Yellow Feather should jump out a window. But there was not a sign of him.

  The boys hurried to the door and followed Kurt inside. The hut was vacant. A quick scanning of the interior showed everything to be in order—the table clear, the sink
clean.

  Kurt sniffed the air several times and headed for the fireplace. With a poker he jabbed at the ashes. Little spots of red came to life.

  “I thought so,” he proclaimed. “Someone has been here!”

  Joe did not share the man’s excitement. “How about Mr. Teevan?” he asked.

  Kurt gave a slight start, then said, “Impossible.” He was standing before the fireplace, his eyes riveted to the mantel above. Bright against the gray stone lay a tiny yellow feather!

  “I knew it!” Kurt gloated. “The Yellow Feather has been living here!”

  Examining the feather, Joe realized it was similar to the one that had been left under Greg’s coffee cup and the same kind which Mr. Teevan used as a bookmark.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Kurt said excitedly. “That crook is living in this cabin, and disappearing whenever he thinks someone might show up.”

  “It sure does look like it,” Benny agreed.

  Joe was not paying attention. He was thinking about Mr. Teevan. This was the second time the caretaker had come under suspicion. Was he the Yellow Feather, or was someone trying to frame him?

  Joe looked for other signs of occupancy, or a clue to who the intruder might have been. He found nothing.

  “Well, I really ought to get back to school,” Kurt remarked a few minutes later. “I have a lot of work to do before the rest of the boys return from vacation. But why don’t you two stay here and see if you can’t catch this Yellow Feather?”

  “Sounds like a swell idea,” Benny was quick to agree—a little too quick, Joe thought.

  The idea of being left in the hut with Benny did not appeal to Joe. Furthermore, he wanted to keep track of Kurt.

  “I think we’d better go back to school together,” he said. “I can’t see much sense in splitting our forces, and anyway, it’s going to snow.”

  “You’re not afraid to stay here, are you?” Kurt asked sarcastically.

  Benny sneered, “I thought you and your brother were such brave detectives that lying in wait at a lonely hut wouldn’t scare you at all.”

  Joe refused to be nettled.

  “Our experience in detective work,” he said calmly, “is exactly what makes me think it would be wise to look elsewhere for the Yellow Feather.”

  Kurt flushed at this observation but made no comment. They put on their skis in silence and set off. The raw wind howled through the bare trees and tore at the three figures. Before they had gone half a mile the sky grew dark and a driving snowstorm descended upon them.

  “We’re going to have trouble getting through this,” Kurt remarked nervously as the snow matted in his beard. “I can’t see ten feet ahead.”

  Before they had traveled a hundred yards farther, a heavy branch, weighted by snow and lashed by the wind, cracked and toppled down. It landed between Joe and Benny, who jumped several feet to avoid it.

  “Maybe we should go back to the hut and wait this out!” Benny said worriedly.

  Traveling on skis became impossible and they finally took them off. The snow was not only deep but coming down so thick that the group could see only a few feet ahead of them. Again a huge limb crashed down.

  “Hey, I don’t want to be conked!” Benny exclaimed. “And we’re off the trail!”

  At last the headmaster agreed that they had better return to the hut before their foot and ski prints were entirely covered by snow.

  By the time they reached the stone building, they were exhausted. After propping their skis beside the door they carried in some of the stacked wood and soon had a comfortable blaze in the fireplace.

  “This is most unfortunate, most unfortunate!” Kurt kept murmuring as he strode back and forth like a caged lion.

  The snow seemed to be coming down even harder and continued to fall steadily after evening descended.

  “I guess we’ll have to spend the night here,” Kurt said. “But at least we’re safe from the Yellow Feather. He can’t get back here.”

  They found several cans of food and sat gloomily around the fire to eat beans and corned-beef hash.

  “We may as well go to bed right away,” Benny suggested when they finished. “Then we can wake up early and get back to school. Let’s bar those windows, and the door, too.”

  Joe helped secure the hut, then sat cross-legged in front of the fire.

  “I think I’ll sit up and keep this blaze going,” he said, “while you sleep.”

  Reluctant at first, the other two agreed and settled themselves in the hut’s bunks. Joe gazed thoughtfully into the leaping firelight. He tried to sift the events that seemed to tie in with the appearance of yellow canary feathers and the disappearance of old Elias Woodson’s strange cutout message to Greg.

  After some time Joe noticed that the fire was getting low. All the wood had been used up.

  “I’ll get an armload from the stack outside,” he murmured to himself, and quietly opened the door.

  Stepping out, he found that the storm finally had abated. Snow had covered the pile of logs, and it took Joe a few minutes to brush several inches of the white fluff away before he could begin to gather up a load.

  Stooping over, the boy heard a muffled foot step behind him. As he straightened up, a blunt object connected with the back of his head.

  Joe pitched forward and blacked out.

  CHAPTER IX

  Cat and Mouse Sleuthing

  IN the library of Woodson Academy, Frank and Chet were poring over a pile of books. It was late afternoon and snow was pelting against the windows.

  “This place would be too obvious for old Mr. Woodson to hide anything,” Chet complained. “He’d never take a chance of some student stumbling upon it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Frank answered. “Sometimes the obvious is the most difficult to see.”

  Their examination of the school library was the final stop on a tour that produced nothing in the way of clues to the mystery.

  “I thought your idea of a secret room, or passage, was better,” Chet said regretfully. “I’ve always wanted to find a hidden treasure!”

  Frank chuckled and agreed that he too had been disappointed by their failure to find a cache. Taking advantage of Kurt’s absence they had spent several hours tapping the inner walls of the building but without success.

  Finally Frank, recalling Skinny’s tale of find ing Elias Woodson’s letter to Greg below the library windows, had steered their course to that room. Having uncovered nothing, they were now about to give up for the day.

  “Hm! Here’s a row of yearbooks,” Chet commented as they walked toward the door. “I’ll bet they’re full of funny old-time pictures.”

  As he pulled out a volume to look at it, Frank scanned the row.

  “A lot of them are missing,” he remarked. “Let’s see—Dad’s class is one of them.” He wondered if the books had been borrowed by someone or whether the collection was simply incomplete.

  “Let’s call it quits,” Chet said. “I’m getting hungry. Time to go back to my duties in the kitchen.”

  Frank agreed but said to count him out on helping. With Kurt’s continued absence he wanted to do some more sleuthing.

  “I just thought of something,” he said.

  “What?” Chet asked.

  “I found a key in the guest-room closet on the floor under a pair of sneakers. They might be Greg’s and he might have lost the key there.”

  “You think it’ll open something here at school?” Chet questioned.

  Frank nodded. “Maybe old Mr. Woodson’s study.”

  As Chet started down to the kitchen, Frank went for the key and tried it in the study lock. The bolt moved and the door opened!

  Frank locked himself in and got to work. It was an interesting room with heavy, carved furniture and paneled walls. For half an hour Frank tapped and searched. At last he came to the same conclusion Greg Woodson had: The deceased man’s secret was not to be found here.

  He returned to the guest room and hid the key in
a dresser drawer under the paper lining. Then he went to the kitchen. Chet was busy at the stove, with several students running errands for him between the refrigerator, the sink, and the dining room. Among them was Skinny, who rushed over to Frank.

  “Say, what do you suppose happened to Joe and Mr. Kurt and Benny Tass? They’re all missing!”

  Frank said he thought they must have been caught in the storm and had taken shelter.

  “Maybe the camp hut,” Skinny remarked.

  Frank did not tell the boy why Joe and Kurt had gone there and wondered if Benny had joined them. As time went on and the storm abated a little Frank confessed to Chet that he was fearful that the Yellow Feather might have captured Joe and Mr. Kurt.

  “Joe could have gone home,” Chet suggested. “Why don’t you phone and find out?”

  “I’ll do it,” Frank said and hurried to the telephone booth.

  Aunt Gertrude answered, and in reply to his query, she said Joe had not been there. She reported, however, that Fenton Hardy had been home for an hour but had gone out again, not telling his destination. He had requested that if his sons called to tell them the FBI had no record of anyone with the name of Yellow Feather.

  “Your father also said to tell you,” Miss Hardy went on, “that he thinks the paper Mr. Kurt left with him may be a fake. He doesn’t trust Kurt and wants you to try hard to find the one Greg Woodson lost.”

  After Frank had completed the telephone call, he stood lost in thought a few minutes. Although Kurt had said that the cutout paper had been given to him by Elias Woodson, maybe he had found Greg’s paper on the river and had made a copy of it. Had he slipped up on some detail which was apparent to Mr. Hardy?

  “That paper Kurt took from the file cabinet and put in his pocket might have been the original!” Frank thought excitedly. “Fat chance I’d have of finding out, though!”

  Suddenly another idea came to him. On a hunch he put in a call to Myles College. A fellow student in Greg’s dormitory obligingly summoned the senior. Greg instantly asked if the Hardys had uncovered any new clues.

  “Well, sort of,” Frank answered. “Dad thinks the cutout paper Kurt left with him could be a phony. I may know where yours is, but I can’t get it. Greg, do you think you could possibly remember those series of cutouts well enough to make a duplicate?”