The Red Chipmunk Mystery (14 page)

“I guess ‘cause ‘twa’n’t profitable,” Mr. Scissors said. “It was started before the Revolutionary War but now people ain’t got so much use for slate. Place is all overgrown and wilder’n a wildcat. There’s an old Indian burial ground back in there a piece.”

“A
real
one?” Buddy asked.

“Sure, it’s real,” Mr. Scissors said, and he chuckled. “Wouldn’t surprise me none if there was some live Indians back in there, too.” When Joan and both of the boys began to giggle Mr. Scissors looked at them in mild reproof and dropped the subject.

When Old Blade came to the foot of Slate Quarry Hill no one had to ask him to stop. He looked at the hill and then just stopped and looked round to see who was getting off the wagon. When Mr. Scissors and Buddy and Djuna climbed down he looked very much relieved.

“GIDDAP, BLADE!” Joan said; and Old Blade, to show that he appreciated their co-operation, put his back into it and started up the hill as though he really enjoyed it. He hadn’t gone more than twenty feet when Champ began to bark from the back of the wagon. Djuna ran up and lifted him out to trudge along beside them. The hill was very steep but the road had been built so that it wound back and forth along the side to make the climb more gradual.

Their pace was reduced to a mere crawl as Old Blade took his time up the winding road. Hazy, slanting bars of sunlight cut through the leaves of the overlapping trees that edged each side of the road and danced on the roadway. Joan didn’t urge Old Blade to a faster pace. She just let him take his time as he plodded wearily upwards.

After a bit the tangled underbrush on each side of the road and the thick foliage on the trees overhead shut out all of the sunlight and it seemed as they moved along that they were passing through a tunnel that was strangely dark and silent. Suddenly, something like the slow thump of a muffled drum sounded in the underbrush; and as it gained speed, both Djuna and Buddy looked at Mr. Scissors in startled wonder.

“
Jiminy crimps!
” Buddy said. “
What
was that?”

“Just a partridge,” Mr. Scissors said with a chuckle. “Lots of ’em around here.”

And a moment later the big bird burst out of the underbrush, flew past them like a cannonball and disappeared into the deeper woods.

Then the sunlight began to sift through the leaves in a golden glow and in a couple of minutes they came to a stretch of level ground where all of the trees had been cleared away. On the left was a great pile of slag that had come from the old quarry and on the right a level spot that was well shaded. Joan reined Old Blade into the shade on the right and the minute Mr. Scissors loosened his check-rein he began to drowse in the shafts.

“Tires him out comin’ up this hill,” Mr. Scissors said. “I always give him a good long rest, so if you boys want to look around the slate quarry Joan’ll show you. But be mighty careful. If you ever fell into one of them deep chasms where the slate has been blasted out you’d be a goner.”

The boys turned and looked across the road in the direction Mr. Scissors had indicated. Great oaks, hickories and pines rose majestically out of the thicket below them like tall sentinels guarding the secrets of the old quarry. A grey squirrel twitched its tail in the branches of a hickorv just across from them and went sailing away to another branch and disappeared.

Farther up on the hill there was a spot where rock had been gouged out to leave a great yawning hole that looked like the mouth of some giant ogre waiting to devour them. The very stillness and silence of the place seemed to be a threat. Joan, standing beside Djuna and Buddy, seemed to sense their uneasiness as they gazed into the quarry and she said, “Granpa, why don’t you come with us? You know more about it than I do.”

“You run along,” Mr. Scissors said, without looking at them. “I ain’t rightly had a chance to check over the wagon since last night to see what’s missin’. Don’t be gone too long.”

“We won’t,” Joan said, and she started across the road with Buddy beside her. Djuna waited until they were out of earshot and then spoke to Mr. Scissors.

“Mr. Scissors,” he said quietly, “could I speak to you about something for just a minute?”

“Why, sure, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said. “Ain’t you a-goin’ with Joan and Buddy?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Djuna said, and he scuffed his toe in the dust and was very ill at ease. “But there is something I think I ought to tell you first while Joan isn’t around.”

“Hey?” Mr. Scissors said, and he turned and looked at Djuna as though he had heard him for the first time. “What’s on your mind, boy?” Then, becoming aware of Djuna’s acute embarrassment, he chuckled and added, “He who hesitates is lost, but remember to look before you leap.” Djuna frowned thoughtfully for a moment and then he shook his head in despair and giggled.

“
Jeepers
, Mr. Scissors! I can’t keep up with the way you say those things,” he said. But Mr. Scissors had put him entirely at his ease and any one could have told that he was bursting with something that he considered vital information.

“Well, let’s have it, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said. “They’re a-waitin’ for you over there.”

“Well,” Djuna said, and he was deadly serious now, “you remember the other morning when I found those footprints over near the spring where we camped near Frenchtown?”

“Why, sure, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said, and he chuckled again. “What’s the matter? Are they chasin’ you?”

“Oh, no, sir,” Djuna said, and then he looked startled as he gazed at Mr. Scissors. “That is, not exactly.”

“
Hey?
” Mr. Scissors said, and his keen eyes studied Djuna’s face with a new intensity.

“You see, Mr. Scissors,” Djuna went on in a rush of words, “yesterday afternoon, after those two men had gone and before we went up to Mr. Harley’s house, I was looking around on the ground and I found some footprints that were just like the ones I found outside our camp at Frenchtown. One of them had just plain smooth soles on his shoes, and the other one had crossed welts on them. Just to be sure, I—I went to the place where they got in and out of their car and found the same kind of footprints in the dust there.”

Mr. Scissors listened intently to what Djuna had to say and when Djuna had finished he didn’t say anything for a moment. Instead, he took his hunting knife out of its sheath and began to clean his finger-nails very carefully with it. His lips were pursed and he seemed to be considering what Djuna had told him, while Djuna watched him anxiously. After a bit he lifted his head and grinned at Djuna to take the sting out of the things he had to say.

“You know, Djuna, when me’n’ Joan met up with you and Buddy the other day I was tryin’ to think where I’d heard about you, or something like that,” Mr. Scissors said slowly. “I couldn’t remember until Socker Furlong came along yesterday an’ then I remembered seein’ a Sunday magazine section of the
Morning Bugle
, Socker’s paper, an’ I remembered seein’ your picchure and readin’ how you helped the Secret Service men to solve a counterfeitin’ case. That right?”

“Yes, sir,” Djuna said miserably. “I couldn’t help it, Mr. Scissors. The first thing I knew I was right in the middle of it and—–”

“Well, we won’t hold it agin you, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said, and he chuckled. “The on’y thing is, you don’t want to let a thing like that go to your head and begin imaginin’ a lot of things. When you just stop to think about it there’s prob’ly a couple o’ million men in this country who’re walkin’ around with smooth soles on their shoes, with ‘nother million who have crossed welts on their soles. Ain’t that right?”

“Oh, jeepers, Mr. Scissors,” Djuna said wretchedly. “I suppose there are. I—I don’t want you to think that I—–”

“Well now, let’s not worry any more about it,” Mr. Scissors interrupted. “Let’s just forget about the whole thing, shall we? You see, Djuna, I think a heap, an’ then some, of Joan, an’ I wouldn’t want to scare her to death with the idea that someone is followin’ us with the idea of do’ us harm. You ain’t scared yourself, are you?”

“Gosh, no!” Djuna said, “and I wouldn’t want Joan to be scared for anything in the world. I was worried about
you
, Mr. Scissors. Those men—–”

“Worried about
me
!” Mr. Scissors said, and his eyes were twinkling as he pointed at himself. “Say, Djuna, I’m a pretty tough old turkey gobbler. I’m pushin’ seventy an’ I couldn’t put up much of a fight, but with Ed Harley’s shotgun in there we ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.”

“
Djuna!
” Buddy shouted from the narrow road that led into the slate quarry. “
For Pete’s sake, come on!
”

“Okay, Djuna,” Mr. Scissors said, and he chuckled. “You run along and just remember that if anybody comes around pesterin’ us we’ll carve our initials in ’em with Ed Harley’s shotgun!” Mr. Scissors gave Djuna a fond pat on the shoulder just as he started to run across the road to join Joan and Buddy.

“
Jiminy crimps!
” Buddy said. “
What
were you doing?”

“Oh, I was just talking to Mr. Scissors about something,” Djuna said, and then as he became aware that Joan was weighing his words with puzzled interest he began to feel guilty. “Suppose,” he thought, “she guesses what we were talking about and gets frightened!” He fell in behind them as they started up the narrow, overgrown road into the quarry and he was more miserable than he could ever remember being in his life before.

For the past two days Djuna had been trying to piece together certain events that had perplexed him and each time that he had given voice to them, both to Mr. Scissors and Socker Furlong, they had scoffed at his ideas. Now, he was almost certain himself that they were
crazy
ideas, and yet he couldn’t help thinking about them.

He was so deep in his own thoughts as he followed Joan and Buddy that he didn’t even notice his surroundings until he heard Joan say, “That’s one of the biggest holes. Doesn’t it scare you?”

Djuna came out of his reverie and looked at Joan and then in the direction she was pointing, to find that he was standing not far from the brink of a great chasm cut from solid rock. Three sides of the chasm were sheer precipices of solid rock, and the bottom was filled with brackish water, green with scum. On the lower side a hole had been blasted through the rock to drain off the water as they took out the slate. As they went deeper into the quarry there were great yawning chasms on each side of the narrow road and a labyrinth of connecting tunnels, with here and there a grotto with overhanging ledges above still waters. “Gosh, but this is a spooky place,” Buddy said in a hushed voice. “There must be all kinds of wild animals in here.”

Joan nodded her head. “Granpa says there are lots of deer,” she said.

Buddy said, “Where’s that Indian burial ground Mr. Scissors spoke about?”

“I’m not sure,” Joan said. “He showed it to me once but I can’t remember just where it was. It was just an old mound, anyway.”

“I think we’d better be getting back,” Djuna said, suddenly. “Mr. Scissors told us not to stay in here too long.”

“We’re starting back now,” Joan said. “But we’re not going back the same way we came in. We’ll, circle around to the west and come in on the road above the wagon. I want to show you a place up here where there is the most be-u-u-tiful view of the valley.”

Djuna and Buddy dutifully followed Joan along another narrow road that curved up the side of the hill until she stopped and pointed at the fertile Herring River valley nestling below them. They could see Ferry Crossing and Cliffton Valley and the dim outline of Frenchtown and Dean’s Mills along the banks of the rapid little river. They stood there, gazing down on the lovely panorama, until Djuna said again, “I think we’d better get back to the wagon.”

“You seem to be in an awful hurry,” Joan said, as she drank in the view below her.

“I’m not in a hurry,” Djuna said, “but I don’t think we ought to keep Mr. Scissors waiting if he is ready to go.”

When they came out on the valley road a few hundred yards west of the wagon Djuna started impatiently towards it, with Joan and Buddy a few yards behind him. Any one who knew Djuna well would have known definitely that he had something preying on his mind as he walked along the dusty road with his head bent.

As he came to a bend in the steep road he saw the slag pile and the level stretch where Old Blade was drowsing just below him, and then he gasped as he saw something else. For an instant he stood there horrified, and then he turned quickly and put his finger to his lips and pointed off to the right when Joan and Buddy came up to him.

“
What is it?
” Buddy whispered, his eyes wide.

“A deer, I think,” Djuna said in a low voice. “I just saw it out of the corner of my eye as I came to the bend there.” They all stood there silently, not stirring, waiting for the deer to appear over the crest of the knoll on the right.

But after a few minutes Buddy said, “You an’ your old deer! I’m going to look.” He rushed up to the top of the knoll and looked all around him, and then he turned around to jeer at Djuna. But the jeer froze on his lips as he saw Djuna standing a little behind Joan with his finger to his lips. He stared at him for a moment and then he came silently down the knoll with an expression of complete bewilderment on his freckled face. Joan, seeing the expression on Buddy’s face, turned and looked at Djuna; and
she
looked a little bewildered too, at the way they were both acting. But she didn’t say anything and they all made their way down the slope to the wagon.

When they arrived at the wagon and didn’t see Mr. Scissors, Joan began to snicker. “I bet he has taken a blanket and has gone off some place to take a nap,” she said. “He does that every once in a while. He was pretty tired when we went to bed last night.”

“I hope he has, if he was tired,” Djuna said quietly. Then he turned to Buddy and said, “Come on over here to the slag pile. There’s something I want to show you.”

Buddy looked at him without saying anything, and then he followed Djuna across the road and down to a position behind the farther end of the slag pile. “
Hey!
” he said, when they got there. “
What’s
the
matter
with you?”