The Sinister Signpost Part 13

"I can't fix your car tonight," growled Gus.

"Well, then, I'll just have to leave it here, I suppose. I'm in a hurry. Let me use your phone and I'll get along."

The big fellow stepped back from the door.

"O.K.," he said. "You can use it if you like."

Joe stepped inside the place and went over to the telephone, calling the Hardy home.

Gus stood leaning 13!.

against the counter, evidently ready to hear anything that would be said. Soon Aunt Gertrude's snappy voice answered: "Yes? Yes? Who is it?"

"h.e.l.lo, is that Frank?" asked Joe.

"Frank?" snapped Aunt Gertrude. "Of course not. Don't you recognize a lady's voice when you hear it? Who is speaking?"

"Listen, Frank," continued Joe for the benefit of Gus but to the intense fury and bewilderment of Aunt Gertrude, "I'm at a service station just outside the city. The car is stalled and I'll have to leave it here all night."

"What on earth are you talking about?" clamoured Aunt Gertrude. "Have you gone crazy? I'm not Frank and you know it. Frank isn't here-----"

Joe ploughed on regardless.

"I'll be coming along presently, Frank. There ought to be a bus along in a few minutes.

O.K. I So long, Frank!"

"If this is some kind of practical joke-----" Aunt Gertrude was fuming, but Joe did not hear the rest of her sentence? He merely threw his worthy aunt into a positive rage by calmly hanging up the receiver.

"Thanks very much," he said to Gus. "Will you help me bring the car into your garage?"

The man nodded, and they went outside. Between them they pushed the roadster into the shelter. The proprietor did not volunteer to examine the car, nor did he appear to be at all appreciative of Joe's business.

"I'll be back for the machine tomorrow," Joe told him.

132 "All right," said Gus, and went into the station.

As Joe waited for the bus, he reflected that he had learned nothing beyond the fact that Gus probably had made use of some sort of code in conversing by telephone with an unknown party. The other man might have been Vilnoff, or perhaps Pete, the truck-driver.

Eventually the lights of the bus appeared. The big vehicle came rolling swiftly down the highway and Joe walked across the road to get aboard. As he did so a truck rumbled up and stopped directly in front of the petrol station. Joe recognized it at once.

It belonged to Pete!

The lad lost all interest in getting the bus. Already it had stopped, the door was open and the driver was waiting impatiently.

"Sorry," exclaimed Joe. "I've changed my mind."

The man at the wheel looked annoyed, then pulled away. The boy remained in the shadows and watched the truck. He saw someone climb down from the vehicle and hurry into the service station.

At that distance, and in the uncertain light, he could not be sure of the man's ident.i.ty but he thought the fellow looked like Pete. As soon as the driver had disappeared into the building Joe scuttled across the road and crouched beneath a window. He was just in time to hear the voice of Gus.

"We've got something to worry about, I tell you," the proprietor was saying. "I don't like the look of things."

"What's the matter?"

"I think you know what's the matter. Don't act so innocent with me. I'll bet you've gone and squealed."

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"You're crazy!" snapped the other man. "Why should I squeal?"

"I think you did. I never did trust you, Pete-----"

The sentence was left unfinished. Joe heard sounds of a scuffle. Then there came a cry, followed by a heavy crash.

A moment later the door was flung open violently and a man leaped across the threshold. Joe had barely time enough to slip back into the shadows out of sight. In the light that came streaming through the doorway he recognized Pete.

The driver flung himself out of the place, slamming the door behind him. He looked neither to right nor to left, but rushed over to his truck, jumped on board, and scrambled in behind the wheel. Inside of a few moments the vehicle was roaring down the highway.

Joe opened the door and peered inside the service station. Gus lay on the floor in front of the counter. He was unconscious, and there was a dark bruise on his forehead.

The Hardy boy went inside and knelt by the man. He was alive, and evidently not seriously injured; simply knocked out for the time being.

Suddenly the phone rang sharply. Joe was undecided whether or not to answer it.

Finally he concluded that he might take a chance, so got up and went over to the instrument.

Imitating the voice of Gus as closely as he could, he growled: "h.e.l.lo!"

"Fifty-nine," answered a man's voice.

Joe recalled the strange conversation Gus had had previously. He risked the countersign.

134 "h.e.l.lo yourself!"

"It may rain tomorrow," answered the other.

"Shake hands," said Joe.

Evidently his replies were considered quite satisfactory.

"All right. Road one is open."

"Road one?"

"Yes. Death beyond the red hand. Be careful!"

The other man rang off. Joe heard a groan. He looked around. Gus was stirring, regaining consciousness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STEALTHY SPEED-BOAT.

joe slipped quickly out of the room. Gus was not in need of help, and the boy had no desire for an interview with the man at that time.

How could he reach Frank, now that the bus was on its way to Bayport? The roadster provided the only answer to this problem.

He hurried into the garage. Fortunately Gus had not locked the door. Whipping out his flashlight, the lad hastily raised the hood of the car, replaced the detached wire, scrambled into the machine, and backed out. He then swung the auto around and sped away.

No one appeared at either the window or the door of the service station. Gus, still half stunned, evidently had heard nothing.

Joe thrust his foot down on the accelerator, making the car race down the highway. He wondered about his brother. What had happened to Frank Hardy?

Meanwhile that lad had steered the Sleuth Sleuth down Barmet Bay, and then headed up down Barmet Bay, and then headed up Willow River, pa.s.sing the airport. At a reduced rate of speed he had scanned the bank, searching for the inlet where they had seen the men unloading boxes from the speedboat.

135.

136 After consulting a map of the countryside near Bayport, and doing a little figuring on their own account, the Hardy boys had decided that the cabin in the clearing was somewhere in the locality of the inlet on Willow River. It was their conclusion that the place could be reached by roads from both the main highway and the river.

Frank's plan now was to wait for Joe, when both of them could look for a route to the mysterious clearing. The older lad anch.o.r.ed the Sleuth Sleuth in the deep shadows of the inlet and in the deep shadows of the inlet and sat down to wait.

"Might as well be doing something with my time," he said to himself. "I wonder if it would be or any use to explore that road where the men caught us?"

He left the boat and went ash.o.r.e, using his flashlight sparingly to find his way. Vilnoff or some member of his gang might be lurking about, and any light would certainly arouse curiosity.

Cautiously Frank advanced up the river bank. The night was dark and calm. He could hear no sound save the steady lapping of tiny waves on the beach. He blundered about in the weeds and thickets for some time before he finally emerged upon a road.

The lad looked back. There was still no sign of Joe.

"I'll go ahead a little distance anyway," Frank decided.

He trudged on up the dark road. At first it was little more than a trail, but later on it widened, and some deep ruts indicated that a truck had pa.s.sed that way recently. He reflected that it probably was the one upon which the men had loaded the mysterious cases taken from the launch. Frank's intentions at first had been 137.

to proceed not more than a hundred yards or so, but as the road curved and wound through the woods before him he kept on.

Suddenly from a little distance ahead he heard a sound. He instantly dived toward a ditch and crouched among some dead leaves.

With wildly beating heart he waited, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. If any of VilnofFs men should find him there the consequences would be unpleasant and perhaps fatal to his plans. The sound was not repeated, and Frank began to feel relieved.

His outstretched hand came in contact with a crumpled sheet of paper. He turned on the flashlight for a second, and in the brief moment of illumination he could see that it was marked with oddly scrawled lines broken by crosses in red ink.

Frank was interested. He picked up the paper and got to his feet. Then he retired to the shelter of some bushes nearby, where he could use the flashlight with little danger of its glow being seen by anyone who might chance to be coming down the road.

"This looks like a map!" he said to himself in growing excitement when he had examined the sheet again. The criss-cross lines were marked with various numbers, beginning at i and ending at 7. On one line he saw the scribbled words: Danger- Electrically charged wire. Electrically charged wire.

At the bottom of the plan was a raggedly indented line beneath which was written the one word, "river".

There was no doubt in Frank's mind that he had come upon a map that had been dropped by one of the men unloading cases from the speed-boat. It indicated 138 various roads, or paths, to a common destination. One of the lines ended at an inlet on the river-probably the very road he was now exploring.

With mounting excitement Frank continued his journey. About a quarter of a mile farther on he came to a fence, constructed of wire, and bearing a close resemblance to the one that had encircled the section of woods which the boys had entered at such great risk when they had found the hidden cabin.

Frank now remembered the warning on the map he had just discovered-the warning that mentioned electrically charged wire. Perhaps it had reference to this very fence.

In the distance he thought he could see two figures moving about in the darkness. One of them was coming toward the fence. Frank crouched behind a clump of bushes.

The dark form came closer until at last a man was standing on the other side of the wire, only a few feet away from him. Then there was the flare of a match as the unknown lighted a cigarette.

A face was clearly revealed in the flicker. Frank gasped with surprise.

It was that of Ivan Evans, the jockey!

"Ivan!" Frank called out involuntarily.

The fellow started, looked around, then came closer to the netting.

"Who is it? Who's there?"

Ivan had spoken loudly, and Frank was in terror thinking he might have been heard by the other man in the enclosure, for he was sure he had seen someone other than the jockey.

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"Quiet!" he whispered. "This is Frank Hardy."

"How did you get here?" asked Ivan in a low voice as the Hardy boy arose and approached the fence.

"How did you you get here?" countered Frank. get here?" countered Frank.

"I was forced to come," replied the jockey. "I couldn't help myself. Oh, if I could only get back to my riding. I don't know what they'll think of me at the race-track. I was due to report there and didn't show up, but it wasn't my fault."

"Joe and I thought something might have happened to you," said Frank. "We were afraid you had been kidnapped as we couldn't find any trace of you. Who brought you to this place?"

Ivan evaded the question.

"Will you help me get away?" he asked.

"Sure thing. Climb out and I'll have you in Bayport within half an hour."

"Good!"

Ivan reached out his hands toward the wire.

"Careful!" Frank said suddenly. "Those wires may be charged with electricity."