Mystery at Devil's Paw Read online

  He tried frantically to tread air with his hands and feet as he had seen the woman do. But the dizzying momentum of his flight upward seemed to rob him of his sense of balance. Twisting helplessly, Frank plummeted back toward the walrus hide and landed on his back with jarring force.

  Stunned, he struggled to his feet. The Indians gave him a moment’s respite, then again hurled him aloft!

  Joe and Ted watched, wide-eyed and helpless. For a second, Frank seemed to be dancing on air. Then, thrashing violently, he came down again, this time landing on one side.

  Badly shaken, Frank managed to stand up. His last chance! Although his heart was hammering, he gritted his teeth, determined not to fail. Once more the Indians catapulted him.

  Joe could scarcely bear to watch. Ted clutched his arm in breathless suspense.

  Arrowing straight upward, Frank closed his eyes, keeping his arms close to his sides. As he reached his highest point in mid-air, he opened his eyes again. The circle of Indians stood far below, gaping up at him, the walrus hide seeming not much bigger than a handkerchief.

  Frank felt himself begin to fall, slowly at first, then at higher speed. He stretched out his arms and trod the air gently, like a man on a unicycle. It worked! He landed squarely on both feet, still upright!

  The crowd roared its approval! Frank was lifted off the walrus hide, hoisted onto the shoulders of two Indians, and paraded about the village clearing amid whoops and yells.

  “You skookum fella!” The Haida chief beamed when he was finally allowed to stand on his own feet again. “Now you and two friends all come to the wedding feast!”

  “Thanks,” Frank replied, a trifle weakly. Joe and Ted, then Fleetfoot, wrung his hand in congratulation.

  “Terrific!” Joe told his brother.

  “I just kept thinking of what else they might do to me.” Frank grinned.

  “It’s a wonder you could think at all after those first two jolts!” Ted exclaimed.

  The villagers now gathered about a great central campfire. Two medicine men performed a religious dance, then the chief joined the hands of the Indian groom and his Eskimo bride. The wedding feast followed.

  Squaws brought huge carved wooden platters heaped with food. The first course consisted of slabs of pink salmon.

  “Good night! It’s raw!” Joe whispered.

  The boys took some, however, in order not to offend their hosts, and managed to eat a few bites. The bear steaks and stewed rabbit which followed were more to their liking. These were accompanied by nuts, berries, vegetables, and fruits, including one with a citrus flavor, which tasted like a cross between lemon and grapefruit. Ted identified it as the fruit of the wild rose.

  “Boy, now we’re getting fancy!” Joe chuckled as he sampled the fruit’s delicate flavor.

  There was also something that looked like coarse baked bread. “Wonder what it’s made out of,” Frank muttered, after trying a few bites.

  Fleetfoot explained, “Women make flour by grinding up bulbs of rice lily.” He pointed to some brownish-purple flowers which several of the squaws wore in their hair. “Those are flowers from the same plant.”

  When the feast was over, the Hardys at last found an opportunity to tell Fleetfoot about their trip upriver. Frank asked if the Indian youth would accompany them as guide.

  “I’d be glad to come with you!” he explained. “But I’ll take my own canoe. It is much better than white man’s.”

  “Fine! Let’s go!” said Joe.

  But Fleetfoot looked shocked. “No, no!” he told the boys. “Not now. The wedding party is just beginning!”

  “Just beginning?” Frank echoed uneasily.

  “Sure. There’s singing and dancing to come,” Fleetfoot explained. “We’ll go tomorrow morning.”

  The Hardys and Ted looked questioningly at one another, trying to conceal their feelings of impatience at the further delay. However, there was nothing to do but yield. Settling back, they prepared to watch the proceedings.

  Soon tom-toms beat. The medicine men started a slow, stately dance, shaking wooden rattles. As the tempo increased, the other Indians joined in and the squaws chanted steadily. The three visitors found themselves absorbed in the ceremony, despite the delay in their journey.

  “Whew!” Joe exclaimed in wonderment. “How long can they keep on dancing?”

  Fleetfoot smiled broadly. “Oh—Indians love to dance. They never get tired.”

  Gradually, as shadows gathered on the forest, the white boys became drowsy. One by one, Joe, Ted, and Frank all dropped off to sleep.

  When they awoke, it was daylight. Fleetfoot was shaking them. “Come on! We’ll start now!” he said.

  The Hardys and Ted returned to the river and uncovered the gear which they had cached. They loaded the supplies, then the canoes were launched.

  Fleetfoot disappeared long enough to get his own birchbark canoe, which was beached farther downstream. A few minutes later he came into sight, paddling with smooth, graceful strokes.

  As he drew alongside, Frank said, “There’s something we meant to ask you, Fleetfoot. The other night a carved wooden paddle was washed up on our island at the mouth of the river.” When Frank described it, a strange expression of fear and awe passed over Fleetfoot’s face!

  CHAPTER XIV

  A Suspicious Campsite

  “FLEETFOOT looks as if he’s seen a ghost,” Frank thought.

  The Indian boy asked slowly, “Did the paddle have cuts in the handle?”

  “Yes,” Joe spoke up. “Two small rounded gouges.”

  Fleetfoot fairly trembled. His eyes grew wide. “That paddle was made before the white man came! Even before my grandfather’s grandfather was born!”

  “You mean back in the days of the ancient Athapascan Indians?” Ted asked.

  “Yes! Yes! It was left on the beach by the spirit of an old Indian!”

  “I doubt it,” Frank said thoughtfully.

  “So do I,” Joe chimed in. “There were live men paddling around the island that night. Probably the same bunch we’re looking for.”

  Ted was eager to push on, so they started upriver. This time, Joe rode the trailing canoe which carried the cans of fuel.

  After pausing briefly for lunch, they continued their journey upstream. Frank and Joe, whose arm muscles had ached at the end of the first day’s canoeing, gradually found themselves swinging their paddles with the same smooth, easy rhythm as Ted Sewell and Fleetfoot.

  Presently Ted pointed ahead to their left “There’s Devil’s Paw!” he called out.

  The weird outcropping of rock loomed against the mountainous skyline like four fingers and a thumb sticking up in the air.

  Fleetfoot paddled close to the other canoes. “This is a bad place,” he confided. “Old men of my tribe say the devil carved it from rock. Indians do not go there.”

  “In that case,” Joe mused, “it would make a perfect hideout for the gang. Indians would stay away from it, and the average white man would have no reason for going there.”

  Frank nodded. “You’re right. We’d better investigate.”

  At first Fleetfoot objected, but as soon as he realized that the boys were not frightened by the old Indian tales, he conquered his fear. Moreover, the prospect of stalking criminals filled him with keen anticipation. His Indian blood rose to the challenge.

  After running their canoes ashore, the searchers cached their crafts and provisions for a second time.

  “Take your rifles,” Ted advised tersely. Each of them shoved a clip of cartridges into the magazine of his firearm and stuffed more into pockets before setting off on the rugged trek toward Devil’s Paw.

  Carrying their weapons in one hand and clutching at trees and shrubs with the other, the four made their way up the steep slope. From time to time one of them missed his footing, sending a shower of rocks and gravel clattering toward the river.

  “We’ll never take the gang by surprise at this rate!” Joe grumbled, pausing to wipe the sweat from
his eyes.

  After half an hour of hard climbing, they reached a point where Devil’s Paw and the entire surrounding terrain stood out in clear view. But there was no sign of a campfire, nor any other trace of human beings.

  “Maybe we’ve been wasting our time,” Ted said, discouraged.

  “We can’t be sure,” Frank replied, “without making a closer search.”

  Now, however, the approaches were so steep that it was impossible to climb farther. Tired and disheartened, the boys retraced their route to the canoes.

  “If the gang is really using Devil’s Paw for a hideout,” Ted remarked, “they must have some easier way of getting to it.”

  “Right,” Joe said, removing a pebble from his shoe. “There must be a secret trail somewhere.”

  Fleetfoot spoke up eagerly. “You wait here. I’ll go look for the trail.”

  “Hey! Wait!” Frank called out.

  The boy did not seem to hear. He darted nimbly up the mountainside, and was soon lost to view among the scrub evergreens and underbrush.

  Frank, Joe, and Ted waited, sprawled comfortably on spongy pine needles among the rocks. All were glad of a chance to rest. As time passed, however, they gradually became uneasy. More than an hour had gone by since Fleetfoot’s departure.

  “Wonder what’s keeping him,” Frank glanced at his watch for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “Let’s hope he didn’t stumble into the gang,” Joe remarked.

  “We should have given him one of the rifles,” Ted said gloomily.

  The words were hardly spoken when the underbrush parted and Fleetfoot stepped into view, a wide grin on his coppery face.

  “I found the trail!” he reported proudly. “The ground showed a lot of footprints. Looks like men went back and forth many times!”

  “How about their camp?” Joe asked eagerly. “Did you find where the trail led?”

  “Yes. But no one was there. Let’s get the canoes and go up the river,” he urged. “Then we can look here again on the way back.”

  Frank and Joe rejected this suggestion. Being good detectives, they were determined to follow through on their plan, leaving no stone unturned in their search for clues.

  “You’ve done fine, Fleetfoot,” Frank told him. “But we’d like a look at that campsite ourselves. Will you take us to it?”

  Fleetfoot agreed willingly, and after gathering up their rifles, the other three youths followed him. He led them upriver for a short distance, following a twisting route among the trees and rocks. Then he turned left, up a narrow draw.

  “Now you can see the trail.” Fleetfoot pointed to a well-beaten path. It sloped gently up the mountainside by easy stages.

  “Nice work, Fleetfoot!” Joe congratulated him. Bending close to the ground, he added, “Frank, here are more of those star-in-circle heelmarks!”

  Pressing forward up the trail, they found the campsite. It lay at the base of one finger of Devil’s Paw. Here again were many of the odd heelprints, as well as the blackened ashes of a recent campfire. A number of empty, discarded food cans had also been tossed carelessly aside.

  “Pretty sure nobody would ever find this spot, weren’t they?” Joe commented.

  “Are you positive none of the gang is lurking around?” Ted asked Fleetfoot.

  “No one here,” he replied confidently. “I scouted for strangers before I came up the trail.”

  “The question now,” Frank said, “is whether they’re coming back? And if so, how soon?”

  “Let’s take a look around while we’re up here,” Joe suggested. “We might spot a smoking campfire.”

  He led the way as they followed the shelf-like rock which rimmed the base of Devil’s Paw. The ground sloped away below in a steep, brush-covered incline.

  Rounding a corner of the weird finger-and-thumb rock formation, Joe stopped suddenly and looked down. “Hey! Come here quick!” he yelled to the others, beckoning frantically.

  CHAPTER XV

  The Singing Wilderness

  STARTLED by his brother’s shout, Frank looked up, barely in time to see Joe suddenly drop out of sight.

  “Oh no!” Frank exclaimed. Fleetfoot and Ted rushed to his side, then all three climbed to the spot where Joe had just been standing.

  In utter amazement they stared down a long, rocky slope. At the bottom lay a helicopter. Joe was scrambling toward it.

  Near the edge of a barren, desolate area of forest-tufted rock formations, the wide-spreading branches of a tall cedar effectively concealed the craft from the air. The boys’ vantage point, however, gave them an unobstructed view.

  “Come on, fellows!” Joe yelled up the steep mountainside. “Let’s see if Robbie’s anywhere around!”

  Frank, Ted, and Fleetfoot followed eagerly. Grabbing for a handhold on any rock or clump of shrubbery that offered a grip, they made their way down the incline at breakneck speed.

  Joe was already examining the helicopter as they approached. “The fuel tank’s empty,” he reported. “No sign of Robbie, either.”

  A weird silence lay over the desolate scene. Except for a hawk circling overhead, there was no other indication of life. While Ted and Fleetfoot watched curiously, the Hardys subjected the helicopter to a careful scrutiny.

  “At least there’s no blood or signs of a struggle,” Joe commented. “That may mean Robbie is still safe.”

  Frank asked Ted and Fleetfoot to stand guard over the helicopter while he and Joe investigated the surrounding wilderness for clues. “Keep an eye up there toward Devil’s Paw,” he added, “in case the gang comes back.”

  “Okay,” Ted replied. “You fellows watch your step, too. If any of that bunch are around, they might try to spring an ambush.”

  Gripping their rifles firmly, the Hardys began combing the terrain around the helicopter in widening circles. The silence was broken only by the scuffing sound of their footsteps among the brush and gravel. A lone birdcall suddenly echoed among the pines, then died away in a twitter.

  “Boy, this place is eerie!” Joe muttered.

  “It’s hard to believe any human being was ever here!” Frank said.

  Not a footprint or broken twig gave the slightest indication of recent visitors to the area. Overhead, the hawk was still soaring and circling in search of prey.

  Suddenly Frank stopped short and clutched his brother’s arm. “Joe!” he hissed. “Do you hear something—or am I imagining things?”

  “Hear what?” Joe inquired. Then his questioning look gave way to an expression of blank amazement. “It’s music!”

  The strains of a dance orchestra wafted faintly through the wilderness!

  “Must be a radio playing somewhere,” Joe said finally.

  “But where?”

  Stiffly tense, the Hardys looked cautiously about. Were members of the gang hidden nearby, watching every movement? Was a trap about to be sprung on them? Hearts pounding and eyes alert, Frank and Joe walked on, holding their rifles cradled at the ready. They poked into the underbrush and peered among the trees.

  “The sounds are coming from over there,” Frank said, pointing to a formation of granite boulders.

  The boys approached cautiously, fearful of a possible trap. They scouted around the rocks, but saw nobody. Neither was there any sign of a radio.

  Abruptly the music died away. A few seconds later the Hardys were electrified to hear a voice speak clearly in a foreign language! But neither Frank nor Joe could identify any of the words.

  Then a second voice replied—this time in English: “The salmon are going up the river. The bears will have a feast.” As the voice finished speaking, the music resumed.

  “What do you make of it?” Joe asked his brother, completely baffled.

  Suddenly an idea occurred to Frank. “Wait a second! Let’s check some of those other rocks!”

  They put their ears to several boulders. All were broadcasting the music. Frank snapped his fingers excitedly.

  “Joe, I’ve got it
! Somehow these rocks are acting as natural receivers and picking up a broadcast signal! I’ve read about cases like this before! Remember that man in Newark who picked up broadcasts in the fillings of his teeth? It nearly drove him crazy.”

  “That must be the answer,” Joe agreed. “But I still don’t understand how it happens.”

  “Neither do I, exactly,” Frank admitted. “It has something to do with their resonating frequency, I guess, just like a crystal detector. Maybe there’s something about these rocks that intensifies the signals, too. Anyhow, I think we’re getting the gang’s broadcast.”

  “No doubt about that,” Joe replied. “The voices that broke in didn’t sound like commercial announcers or ordinary radio hams!”

  “Those words in English must have been in code,” Frank went on.

  “You’re right!” Joe exclaimed. He conjectured further about the reference to salmon. “It ties in with what Fleetfoot overheard on the river.”

  “And,” Frank said thoughtfully, “I didn’t like the remark about the bears having a feast.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The salmon going up the river may refer to us,” Frank explained. “And ‘the bears will have a feast’ could mean our enemies are laying a trap.”

  “Good night!” Joe stared at his brother in dismay. “That makes sense, all right! But what can we do about it?”

  Frank shrugged. “Just keep our guard up, I guess. Come on,” he added. “Let’s go back.”

  By the time the Hardys returned to the helicopter, the music had ceased. But Ted Sewell and the Indian lad were still tense with alarm at the strange sounds of the “singing wilderness.” They, too, had heard the broadcast, although much more faintly than Frank and Joe. Fleetfoot was frightened at what seemed to him to be spirit noises.

  “Devil’s Paw is a bad place, I tell you!” he kept repeating. “Evil spirits live here!”

  Frank reassured him, explaining the strange phenomenon as best he could. Fortunately, Fleetfoot had listened to the portable radios of sportsmen on several occasions, and the Hardys were finally able to convince him that this was just another broadcast.