“Oh, yes, the former cat burglar. He tried to tangle with your dad. It was a ten-second bout. One clout on the jaw and your friend was in dreamland.”
“Dad sure was busy,” Frank said. “Where is he now?”
“Flew to Montreal in an effort to round up another branch of the fraud outfit.”
“The Canadian Gold Mining Company?”
“How did you know?” Radley blurted.
Frank told him about the business-card clue and mentioned the address of the company.
“Great!” Sam exulted. “Your father overheard one of the prisoners mention the name, but he refused to give the address. Naturally it's not listed anywhere.” He added that Mr. Hardy was to call him soon. “I'll give him this info,” he concluded.
After hanging up, Frank called Chief White and reported the news. The officer thanked him for the Montreal lead. “I don't put much stock in it, though,” he added. “If they really intend to go to Montreal, they'll probably change transportation and abandon the truck.”
“I know,” Frank said.
“We'll alert the various police departments on the route from Hawk Head to Montreal,” Chief White added. “Just in case.”
Next, Joe put in a call to Mrs. Jimerson. He was told that her sons were not in, but that they planned to be at the Rideaus' later that evening.
“Okay, we'll talk to them, then,” Joe said.
The doctor's wife insisted that the Hardys and Chet have dinner. When they had eaten, the three boys sat on the porch awaiting their Seneca friends.
Soon Rod and Paul drove up. They were followed by three other cars. A delegation of Indians stepped out and walked quietly up to the house. The Hardys were surprised to see Lendo Wallace among them. He was limping.
They all went into the living room, and the Hardys wondered what would happen. The doctor and his wife sat on the sofa with the dogs at their feet. Tay and Boots growled menacingly.
“May I ask what brings you here?” Mrs. Rideau questioned the Senecas after silencing the dogs.
Rod Jimerson spoke up. They had come as friends, he said, and wanted to apologize. “We should never have believed the rumor about your stealing Spoon Mouth. Now we know all the facts.”
Paul said the Indians realized that the Rideaus had been framed. “Please forgive us.”
Frank and Joe could hardly restrain themselves from asking questions. But they waited politely until Dr. Rideau replied, “My wife and I accept your apologies. And we were wrong for being suspicious of you Senecas, too.”
Rod nodded. “Now that we're all friends, I think Frank and Joe have some questions.”
“Do we!” Joe burst out. “What about those facts you mentioned?”
Rod and his brother chuckled and Paul said, “Without you they might have never come to light. Wouldn't you say so, Lendo?”
Wallace nodded. He looked more contrite than ill. He started to speak, first looking at the floor, then bringing his eyes to meet the boys'.
“After Spoon Mouth had been stolen from the council headquarters, I was approached by Mockton. He told me that he had been designated as a go-between. Said the thieves wanted one hundred Indian masks in exchange for it.”
“Why didn't you tell the police about it?” Frank asked.
Lendo said that Mockton had threatened to destroy Spoon Mouth if word of this got to the police or the other Senecas. Then he would deny everything.
“Spoon Mouth was more important to the tribe than anything else,” Wallace went on. “Without our good-luck spirit I felt that our people would be doomed!” He told how he had begun to “appropriate” masks from the longhouse itself and various other Indians to “buy” Spoon Mouth. “I also made as many as I could myself,” he concluded.
He fell silent and had to be prodded by Rod Jimerson. “Tell them about your attackers,” Rod urged.
Lendo's story was grim. The two professors had come to his house one night for the false faces. He had asked for Spoon Mouth, but was told that it had been lost. “I wouldn't give them the masks,” he said, “but they beat me and took them, anyway.”
“Did they say what happened to Spoon Mouth?”
The Indian shook his head sadly.
Joe changed the subject. “You knew we were spying on you that night when one of the thieves came to see you, didn't you?”
“Yes. It was Mockton who came to my house.”
“So you tried to protect us by denying you had seen us. But the next day you left a warning, trying to scare us off. Why?”
“I knew trouble was brewing. Didn't want to see you get hurt. That's the reason I carved Frank's face in the tree, too. I thought it might make you leave!”
The boys told him they appreciated his kind motives.
“But where are the false faces now?” Dr. Rideau broke in.
“Mockton and Glade probably took them along,” Frank said. “There's one thing I'd like to do, though. And that is check the Zoar College property for any clues they might have accidentally left.”
Since it was already dark, the Bayporters and Paul, Rod, and Wallace agreed to set out early the next day for the Zoar campus.
Frank, Joe, and Chet stayed overnight with the Rideaus and the next morning, just as they were finishing breakfast, the Senecas came to pick them up.
The procession of cars headed up the highway, and when they reached the turnoff, they proceeded down the wooded hill and around the bend to the dilapidated campus.
It looked just the same as the first time the Hardys and Chet had seen it, with one exception. Lendo Wallace was quick to detect evidence that someone had recently walked through the tall grass.
“How long ago would you say these tracks were made?” Frank asked.
“Only a few hours,” Lendo replied.
“Then we all have to be pretty careful,” Frank said. “It could mean that some of the gang are still around!”
The sun was dispelling the early-morning mist and shone brightly on the flimsy buildings. The Indians searched keenly, like beagles after a rabbit, all around the area. Then everyone went into the first building.
Dust motes rose into the slanting sunlight as they poked in every drawer, searched all the closets and looked into corners, wastebaskets, and behind the blackboard.
Finally Paul hauled himself up through a trap door into the low attic.
“Anything up there?” Frank called out.
Paul sneezed from the dust, then let out a whoop of joy.
“The masks!” he yelled. “They're stacked neatly under the roof and covered with sheets of plastic material!”
In bucket-brigade fashion the Indians retrieved the false faces from their hiding place. Frank and Joe took them outside and set them in the tall grass in front of the building.
Frank shook his head. “Wow! What a caper!”
“I still don't get it,” Chet mused. “No doubt those crooked professors wanted the masks for a purpose. So why'd they leave them here?”
“Maybe they had no time to take them along,” Frank explained. “Since they used the Rideaus' âcrime' as an excuse to clear out, they probably didn't dare to come here and load them.”
“They must have been planning to send somebody later to get them,” Joe deduced.
Paul climbed down from the attic and reported that it was now empty. A quick check of the other building netted no clues, and the boys started picking up the masks to take them to the cars.
As Frank bent down, there was a noise in the underbrush. He motioned for the others to be silent.
“Somebody's in those bushes,” he whispered. “We'd betterâ”
He was interrupted by Elmont Chidsee springing out from behind a tree. He had a wild look in his eyes and a dart gun in his right hand. In his left he flourished a mass of fused gold coins.
The real Spoon Mouth!
“Drop those masks!” he called out. “Or I'll shoot!”
CHAPTER XX
A Rebellious Youth
EVERYONE stopped short as Chidsee brandished the dart gun.
“Don't shoot!” Frank said. “You'll be sorry if you do!”
“I don't care!” Elmont shouted, his voice rising hysterically. “All my life I've been nobody, and now
I am somebody!”
“What do you mean, you're somebody?” Frank asked. He kept his voice even, trying to talk Chidsee out of his fanatical act.
“I'll tell you,” Chidsee said, with a nervous smile that flickered on and off. “I'm going to take those masks and get myself some moneyâmoney that's all mine, that I don't have to ask my uncle for. Then I'm leaving this country and get far away from that rat fink!”
The Indians began to murmur and Rod started to say something.
“Shut up!” Chidsee shouted.
Just then Chet, from the corner of his eye, picked up a movement in the distance. A man was walking up the path behind Elmont. He was wearing a light-brown suit and carrying a gold-topped cane.
“Hey, look behind you!” Chet said.
Chidsee only sneered. “You won't get away with that ruse, fat boy,” he said. “I've seen too many Western movies for you to fool me!”
The approaching stranger drew closer, stopped, and surveyed the situation.
“Listen, Chidsee, there is someone behind you,” Joe said and took a step forward.
“Get back!” Elmont cried. He waved the gun and retreated several steps.
At that point the confused stranger spoke in a thick German accent, “Am I interrupting something?”
Amazed, Elmont wheeled around. In a flash Frank and Joe leaped on him and Joe grasped the gun hand. Frank lamped a headlock. Chet, running as fast as he could, threw a rolling block. Chidsee hit the ground with a thump.
The dart gun lay in the grass, and so did Spoon Mouth. As the Senecas rushed forward to collect their heirloom, the stranger picked up the weapon.
“Good night!” Joe Hardy thought. “Is he another one of the mob?”
“Be careful with that,” Frank warned. “It shoots poison darts!”
“I've heard of those,” the stranger said in halting English. “But I've never seen one.”
The man handed over the gun to Paul Jimerson, who asked, “Who are you? And what do you want here?”
“I am Herr Johann Lothar,” the man replied, “an agent from the Nuremberg Museum.” Introductions were made and the German explained he had left his car around the bend.
Elmont Chidsee, now thoroughly subdued, looked at the visitor in astonishment. “Youâyou were going to buy the false faces?”
“Yes.”
Lothar said he had come all the way from Bavaria to collect the masks which the Magnitude Merchandising Mart had agreed to sell him.
“We sent them a large deposit,” he declared, “but heard nothing more. I came here to investigate. Upon inquiring, I was told that the False Face Society was at Zoar College right now.”
When informed of the gang's activities, Mr. Lothar was shocked. “Germans have a deep interest in the American Indian,” he said. “Our museum already was priding itself on the Iroquois collection of false faces.
“Mr. Lothar,” Rod Jimerson said, “the Senecas will not disappoint you.” He promised that the tribe would make a set of masks and send them to the museum free of charge.
Mr. Lothar was overjoyed and gave Rod his card. Then, still bewildered by the scene he had witnessed, he excused himself and left.
The Hardys now turned to question Chidsee. The youth was pale and looked like a deflated balloon.
“Tell us all about it,” Frank said. “You're in real trouble with that dart gun, you know. But maybe we can help you.”
Chidsee put his hands over his face and his shoulders began to shudder.
“Come on now, buck up!” Joe said.
The boy pulled himself together and began to tell his story. When his parents died, his uncle had become his legal guardian. “He was mean to me,” Elmont said. “Finding fault all the time. I got such an inferiority complex that I couldn't even pass exams to get into a regular college.”
“So that's the reason you enrolled in Zoar,” Frank said.
“What else could I do? My uncle cpntrols this phony joint.” Chidsee looked straight at Chet Morton. “You were almost suckered into the deal, too, like a lot of other fellows.”
“Not quite,” Joe said.
“I know,” Elmont went on. “That's what made my uncle so furious with you guys. An investigation was something he couldn't take. Then, when your father started investigating the mail fraud â” He shook his head. “You don't know Uncle!”
“Well, he can't hurt you any more,” Frank said. “He's in jail.”
Chidsee seemed to be relieved. “He made me help Mockton and Glade keep an eye on you,” he confessed.
“Did that include plugging me with the dart gun?” Frank asked.
“Yes. You and the dogs. He wanted you all out of the way.”
Paul Jimerson, holding Spoon Mouth with both hands, stepped forward. “Where did you get this, Elmont?”
It turned out that Chidsee had taken the relic from the professors, who had stolen it from the Indians. He intended to cash in the gold after having a replica made.
“The imitation wasn't ready and Mockton wanted it back,” Elmont said.
“We heard the conversation. It was in the motel, wasn't it?” Joe said.
Chidsee nodded. He had gone to Buffalo the next day and picked up the duplicate. When he gave it to the professors, they recognized it as a phony.
“They knew Wallace would spot it, too. That's the reason they didn't try to return it to him in exchange for the hundred masks,” he said.