The Secret of Wildcat Swamp (5 page)

As the beast leaped at the boy, his horse instinctively reared and screamed. The action distracted the cat and gave Frank time to recoil a step, so that the animal missed its target.

A sharp explosion came from behind, and the wildcat sank to the ground. Another quick report, and the snarling, spitting beast lay lifeless.

Frank turned and saw Joe, his gun still smoking, looking coolly at the still form of the wildcat.

Cap broke into a relieved chuckle and remarked, “I certainly knew what I was doing when I picked you boys as bodyguards!”

After making sure his attacker was dead, Frank pushed the carcass over the cliff. Then they took up the trail again.

“This is the longest twenty-five miles I've ever ridden,” Joe remarked after a while. “I feel as if I've been in the saddle a month.”

Cap admitted that they had made slow progress, but he felt that they had done well enough considering the difficulties of the trail. Late in the afternoon they came to a spot where he suggested they make camp. In the morning, the ride toward Wildcat Swamp was resumed with renewed zest.

“The next, and last landmark on the map,” Cap stated, “is a big needle rock with a balancing boulder on top. It's on a ledge, halfway down from an overhanging cliff to a long, sandy slope that ends in the swamp itself. The fossil should be somewhere in that sandy slope.”

Leaving the stream, which whirled away in a southwesterly direction while they continued west, the fossil hunters eventually came to the entrance of a long, narrow defile.

“We must be getting close!” Cap said excitedly. “The map shows this gap leads to the ledge above the needle rock.”

He went ahead through the passageway, with Frank following and Joe trailing with the mule.

“Here we are!” Cap exclaimed as he came out of the dark, shadowy defile onto a wide ledge.

A moment later the boys joined him on the ledge. To their right was a sheer cliff wall rising to a wide plateau.

To their left, the ledge fell away in a sloping, sandy decline, while straight ahead, at a turn in the ledge, stood the towering rocky column on which rested a huge, heavy boulder.

“Look at the size of that boulder!” murmured Joe in amazement. “It's so delicately balanced it looks as if I could push it off.”

“You might be able to at that,” Cap agreed as he studied the phenomenon.

“Look at that wooded mountain beyond the swamp,” Joe said. “There's a fire tower at the top.”

Just then Cap raised his hand for silence.

“Listen!”

From the plateau above them came the sounds of a familiar, steady drumming. Hoofbeats!

“Let's go!” Frank cried, spurring his horse back through the defile.

With Joe and Cap close behind, it was only a matter of minutes before he burst out through the dark ravine to the open terrain.

Just ahead of them was a single horse and rider. With a swoop, the trio surrounded him. To their surprise, the newcomer proved to be a young boy.

“Hi, there!” Frank greeted the youngster, who looked to be about fourteen years old and handled a horse as if he had been born to the saddle.

“Hi,” the boy returned. “Who are you?”

Cap Bailey explained that they were scientists, looking for fossils.

“This is my mother's property,” stated the youngster. “Who said you could dig here?”

“Oh, then your mother must be Mrs. Sanderson!” Cap recalled that his aunt had stated in one of her letters that Mrs. Sanderson had given her approval of the exploration.

“That's right. I'm Harry Sanderson.”

Cap introduced himself and the Hardys, and told Harry why they were there. He added that they would pay for the right to hunt fossils.

“Oh, no, you won't have to do that,” Harry assured him. “Mr. Alex Bailey, when he first talked to my mother, promised that she would get all the money any fossils might bring.”

“We'll go along on the same promise,” Cap assured the boy.

“We liked Mr. Bailey,” Harry remarked. “He seemed to be a nice man, but a short while after he settled things with my mother, he disappeared. We heard later that he got sick and died.”

“We hope to finish the job he started,” Cap told him.

Frank and Joe cautiously questioned the boy, asking who lived in the area.

Harry smiled. “Nobody but us and the sheriff-Lately, though, I've seen campfires and strange men. The other night a couple of 'em stopped me and started asking a lot of questions. But I slapped my horse and got away.”

“What did the men look like?” Joe asked.

“Both of 'em were big, but one was the biggest guy I ever saw! Bet he could be a wrestler if he wanted to. The other man looked like he might be a lawyer or a doctor. He talked in a low voice.”

Frank and Joe looked at each other and knew what the other was thinking. The descriptions fitted Turk and Flint!

“If those big hombres stop me again,” Harry said stoutly, “I'll get the Forest Rangers after 'em.”

“Oh, there are Forest Rangers in this section?” Joe asked.

“Sure thing. They make regular visits through here, and they always stop at our ranch.”

“Is that the fire tower they use?” Frank asked, pointing to the top of the mountain rising beyond the swamp.

“No. That old one's been abandoned. There's a new tower you can't see from here.”

“That's good to know,” Cap commented.

“Yes, and Sheriff Paul's ranch isn't far from us, either. He's a good friend, too.”

“Say, Harry, you must know this territory pretty well,” Frank said. “Are we right in thinking that's Wildcat Swamp down there?”

“Wildcat Swamp? Never heard it called that, or any other swamp around here.”

“Are you sure?” Cap was plainly upset by this revelation.

“That's Devil's Swamp down there,” Harry said.

Cap and the Hardys looked at one another in dismay. Could they be off the track in spite of the map which they had followed so closely?

“Well, I have to get along home,” Harry said. “Hope you'll all ride over to our ranch sometime. My mother'd like to meet you.”

“How do we get there?” Frank inquired.

Harry pointed in a northwesterly direction. “There's a trail along the left side of that mountain.”

He slapped his pinto and was off across the plateau in a cloud of dust.

“So this is Devil's Swamp and not Wildcat Swamp,” Joe said in disgust. “We come over a thousand miles by plane and train and—”

“Wait a minute,” Cap interrupted. “I'm going to check this map again.”

For several minutes he studied the map in silence, then a smile of understanding slowly broke over his face.

“This has to be the place,” he insisted. “There couldn't be two such spots so much alike. Uncle Alex probably named it Wildcat Swamp on his own, not knowing what the local people called it.”

“There's one way to make certain,” Frank remarked. “That's to find the sign about the twenty wildcat.”

“If it's still here,” Cap said hopefully. “Anyway, let's pick out a place to make camp. Then we can look around.”

After scanning the territory they agreed upon a wooded section of the plateau just above the mouth of the defile. All three occupied themselves with unpacking their gear and setting up the tent.

Cap and Frank found some suitable stones for a fireplace, and laid a small grate across the top. This done, the boys were eager to start exploring.

“Don't do any wandering around here without wearing your high boots,” Cap warned. “No telling what you'll run into down at the swamp.”

Frank dug out the three pairs of thick wading boots which they had purchased in Red Butte and they all donned them, along with sturdy corduroy breeches. Light jackets would suffice, they decided, because the sun was still high in the sky.

Cap, still sure that this was the right spot and eager to see if there were any signs of his uncle's work, told the boys to go ahead. They pigeon-toed their way down the sandy slope to the edge of the green marsh.

“What a mixture of growth!” Joe marveled at the lush, odorous tangle as Frank led the way into the swamp, keeping to the high hummocks and leaping over the black, watery, evil-looking expanses that spread everywhere.

“It's amazing,” observed Joe, “how we passed through such a barren region only a few miles away and wind up in a water-logged spot like this!”

“Cap said that's the way this section of the country is—all extremes,” Frank said.

Excitedly Joe grabbed his brother's arm. “There it is! The old sign!”

Nailed to a shaggy willow tree, almost completely enveloped with vines that grew up its trunk and wound around its branches, was an old, weather-beaten board. The Hardys cleared five feet of muck and landed next to the tree.

“This is it!
‘Here
lie the bodies
of twenty wildcat'!”
Joe read.

They hurried back to camp. Cap was delighted to hear that the boys had found the sign. “From now on I can see that we're in for some plain, old-fashioned hard work with pick and shovel.”

The trio unpacked digging tools, and then headed back to the spot on the slope which Cap had selected.

Swinging the heavy picks, they soon loosened the top layer of sandy soil. But then the harder work began.

“This is really packed down,” Frank grunted as he swung the pick into hardpan and penetrated only a few inches.

They had worked for an hour when Cap unearthed an old tin can. He was about to throw it away when he took a second look and let out a yell.

“Bonny Briar smoking tobacco! That's the kind my uncle used to smoke.”

“Then we're working in the right place!” Frank exulted. “Unless,” he amended, “some other guy was around here who smokes the same brand.”

Cap refused to be talked out of his belief and dug with renewed energy. It was only a few minutes later when Joe's pick hit into the dirt with an odd ringing sound.

“Ouch!” he howled, wringing his hands as he dropped the wooden handle hurriedly. “I could feel that shock all the way up to my elbows!”

“What did you hit?” Cap queried.

“I don't know, but it sent a vibration right up the handle of this pick.”

More careful this time, Joe probed in the same spot, and gradually scraped dirt away from what appeared to be a length of metal.

As he worked, it became apparent that the object was heavy, rusted piping. Finally he uncovered its entire length.

“How in creation did that get in here?” Frank asked, turning to Cap.

The young man was completely stumped. “Uncle Alex wouldn't have used piping,” he mused. “And to the best of his knowledge, there had never been any previous exploration here.”

They were still studying their unexpected discovery when high above them they heard a great thud and a rumble. Frank, first to look up, gave a shout.

“The boulder! It's toppled off the column! Here it comes!”

With a roar the great stone gathered momentum, sending smaller stones scurrying to all sides, then hurtling down the incline, straight to where the three were digging!

“Look out!” Joe screamed, jumping as far to one side as he could. Frank was already in midair, leaping to the other side.

With a crash the boulder tore across their excavation, pulling what seemed to be half the hillside with it, and thundered into the swamp with a tremendous splash.

Thankful to be alive, Frank and Joe gazed at each other, then looked for their companion.

But Cap Bailey was nowhere in sight!

 

 

 

“CAP! Cap Bailey!”

There was no answer to the Hardys' frantic calls. Following the thunder of the crashing boulder, the stillness was frightening.

“Quick! We'd better clear away some of this rubble!” Frank ordered.

Rocks and shale of all sizes and shapes had broken loose in the landslide. Sand had been scooped from one spot and piled high in another. Desperately the boys rooted through the debris.

“Joe! It can't be! Cap just couldn't be—”

“Frank! Down there! Something's moving!”

They tore wildly at the rubble until they had cleared Cap's face and shoulders. Groggy, the teacher drew in great lungfuls of air, until they pulled him free.

Finally he was able to sit up and move his arms and legs to show that he was unharmed.

“Boulder ... must ... have ... been ... tipped,” he said huskily. “Go... see ...”

Frank and Joe rushed up the slope but could find no trace of any person on the ledge. A quick glance revealed no one near the rock column from which the boulder had become dislodged.

“Let's take a look on the plateau,” Joe said, and they hurried along through the defile.

Atop the flat ground, they saw nothing at first that could be connected with the fall of the boulder. Then off toward the trail around the left side of the mountain, Frank's keen eyes spotted a cloud of dust.

“Two riders!” he shouted.

The Hardys knew they could not hope to overtake the men.

“Anyhow, we've got to get back to Cap,” said Joe.

When they reached the rock ledge, the boys could see that Cap felt considerably better. As they skidded down the incline toward him, he gestured excitedly.

“Look at this!” he exclaimed, and pointed to a large object he had picked out of the debris.