THE HAUNTED FORT.
FRANKLIN W DIXON.
CHAPTER I.
Scalp Warning.
"CHET MORTON inviting us to a mystery-I don"t believe it!" Blond seventeen-year-old Joe Hardy smiled as he and his brother bounded off the back steps toward the garage.
Frank Hardy, dark-haired and a year older than Joe, eagerly keyed the car motor to life. Soon they were headed out of Bayport for the Morton farm. Dusk was falling.
"Chet seemed too excited to say much on the phone," Frank explained. "But he did mention there might be a vacation in it for us-and a haunted fort."
"A haunted fort!"
When the brothers pulled into the gravel driveway of the rambling, brown-and-white farmhouse, pretty Iola Morton, Chet"s sister, danced off the porch to greet them.
"Frank and Joe! What a surprise! You"re just in time for our homemade hootenannyl"
"And I can play two chords!" Callie Shaw waved from the front doorway, a large guitar hanging from her neck. Callie, a slim blonde, was Frank"s special friend, while vivacious Iola often dated Joe.
"It sounds great," Frank began, "but Chet called us over to-" He glanced suspiciously at Joe. "Say, do you think these two got Chet to lure us over here about a mystery?"
"Of course not, sillies," dark-haired Iola protested, her eyes snapping. "Besides, who wants to talk about murky old mysteries? Wait until you hear Callie"s new ballad records."
As the four entered the house, a round face beneath a c.o.o.nskin cap peered from the kitchen. Then the stocky figure of Chet Morton made an entrance.
"Hi, Hardys! Anybody for a haunted vacation?"
"Chet! Then there really is a mystery?" Joe"s face brightened as Chet nodded and motioned the brothers upstairs to his room. But not before the girls frowned disdainfully.
"Meanies!" Callie said. "Don"t be forever!"
As the Hardys took seats, Chet reclined on his bed and began, "My uncle Jim phoned late this afternoon from Crown Lake in New England. You know, he"s chief painting instructor at a summer art school there."
Chet explained that the place, named Millwood, was sponsored by a millionaire for the benefit of talented teen-agers.
"Sounds like a swell arrangement for aspiring artists," Frank remarked.
"Uncle Jim loves his job," Chet continued, "or at least he did before the painting thefts started."
"You mean thefts of students" paintings?" Joe interrupted, puzzled.
"No. Something much more valuable. Uncle Jim didn"t go into details, but he did mention somebody called the Prisoner-Painter. Two of his pictures have disappeared."
"What about the local police?" Frank asked.
"They"ve already tried to solve the case. No luck. That"s why Uncle Jim wants us to live at the school for a while."
"How"d he know about us?" Joe put in.
"I mentioned you fellows in letters. "Course, I didn"t tell him any of the bad things about you-only that you were a couple of great detectives."
Frank grinned and arced a slow-motion swing toward his teasing pal, but in a flash Chet was on his feet, twirling his c.o.o.nskin cap. "I"m half-packed already." He brightened, a hopeful look in his eye. "Will you fellows come along?"
"Try and keep us away!" Joe exclaimed. He was as excited as Frank at the prospect of adventure.
Both boys, sons of Bayport"s famous detective, Fenton Hardy, had already tackled and solved many mysteries. From the baffling secret of The Tower Treasure to their most recent case, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior, the boys welcomed each new challenge. Chet, their loyal and close friend, though sometimes reluctant to sleuth with them, often proved to be of great help, "Chet," Frank added, "didn"t you mention a haunted fort on the phone?"
"Oh that!" Chet groaned. "Yes, I did. Uncle Jim said something about an old French fort nearby, but maybe it"s not important. Gee, fellows, haunted places don"t agree with me I"
"I don"t know," Frank mused, winking at Joe. "I hear some ghosts are pretty well-fed. Think we could introduce Chet to one or two up at Crown Lake?"
Chet could not repress a smile as the brothers chuckled, then patted him on the back. Suddenly they heard a scream from the front porch.
"That"s Callie!" Joe cried out.
The three boys rushed downstairs. Iola stood trembling in the doorway. Callie, pale with fright, pointed to a hairy object on the lawn.
"What happened?" Frank asked in alarm.
Callie said that a speeding black car had slowed in front of the house and somebody had tossed out the object.
"It looks like-like a scalp!" Iola shuddered.
The Hardys rushed out to the lawn and Frank knelt over the strange thing.
It"s a scalp!" Frank exclaimed "It"s a scalp all right-made of papier-machie! Looks pretty real with all this red paint."
Joe picked it up. "There"s a note attached!" He removed a small piece of paper from the underside.
Frowning, he read the typewritten words aloud: " "Use your heads, stay away from Crown Lake""
"Did you get a look at the driver?" Frank asked, as Iola and Callie joined the boys.
"No, but I think it was an out-of-state license plate," Callie replied. "I thought he was just a litterbug until I saw-that."
The gruesome-looking object was made from black bristles of the sort used in paintbrushes. Frank turned to Chet and Joe. "What do you fellows make of it?"
Joe shrugged. "Who would want to stop us from going to Crown Lake-and why?"
"Also," Chet added, "how did anybody even know we had been invited up to Crown Lake by my uncle?"
The young people discussed the strange warning as the Hardys returned to their car, where Frank deposited the fake scalp.
"This grisly clue indicates one thing," Frank concluded. "Somebody wants us to stay away from Millwood Art School! If that"s where our "scalper" is from, it might explain how he learned of Mr. Kenyon"s invitation."
"Speaking of invitations," Joe said, "what time do you want to leave tomorrow, Chet?"
"Leave!" Iola and Callie exclaimed.
"Sure." Frank grinned. "I"ve always been interested in Indian haircuts-that is, unless Chet wants to back out."
"Me-back out?" Chet swallowed, then resolutely replaced the c.o.o.nskin cap on his round head-backward. "Fur Nose Morton will pick you up tomorrow morning at ten sharp. Don"t forget to pack some warm duds!"
The girls protested in vain. After making the boys promise not to be away for the whole summer, they wished them a safe and pleasant trip. As Frank drove the car down the drive, Joe leaned out the window.
"We"ll take a rain check on that hootenanny, girls. See you in the morning, Chet!"
Full of antic.i.p.ation about their new mystery, the Hardys drove directly to their tree-shaded house at the corner of High and Elm streets. After securing permission from their parents for the trip to Crown Lake, the excited boys spent the rest of the evening packing three large suitcases. Before retiring, they quickly perused several school-books on the history of the Crown Lake region. It had been an area of conflict during the French and Indian War.
"Here"s a fort!" Joe remarked. "Senandaga! That may be the place Chet"s uncle mentioned.
According to this, Senandaga was an impressive stronghold, though it didn"t play a large role in the campaigns."
"If a fort"s haunted, we can"t expect it to be historical too," Frank said, grinning.
"Wait a minute!" Joe looked up. "There"s a small painting of this fort right in the Bayport Museum!"
"The same one?"
"Yes. What say we have a look at it tomorrow before Chet gets here?"
After a sound night"s sleep the boys awoke a half-hour earlier than usual the following morning and quickly arranged their luggage on the front porch. Leaving word that they would be back by ten, they drove in their convertible to the Bayport Museum.
A small, pug-faced man carrying a large sketch pad was just leaving the building as they reached the top of the marble steps. After b.u.mping into Frank, he bowed nervously, then hastened down the steps and up the street.
"He"s sure an early-bird artist," Joe remarked.
They pa.s.sed into the cool, echoing foyer and were just about to enter the American Collection Room when they heard running footsteps and a cry for help. A distraught, bespectacled man waved to them and pointed ahead.
"That man-stop him-he"s stolen our fort painting!"
CHAPTER II.
Highway Chase.
"FORT painting!" The words set Frank and Joe racing after the thief. They darted outside and down the marble steps three at a time! Frank went in one direction, Joe the other. But there was no sign of the fugitive.
After the Hardys had checked several side streets, they headed back and met at the museum.
"No luck," Frank said.
"He must have had a car," Joe declared.
"Another thing," Frank said, "I"ll bet he hid the painting in that big sketch pad of his."
In the foyer of the museum, the brothers were questioned by two policemen. After Frank and Joe had given their statements to the officers, they spoke with the museum director, the man who had alerted them to the theft. As Frank suspected, the thief had apparently concealed the small painting in his sketch pad.
"I don"t know why he chose the picture of Fort Senandaga," the director lamented, "but I"m sorry he did.
So far as I know, ours was the only work of the Prisoner-Painter in this area."
The Hardys started in surprise. This was the same artist whose pictures had been disappearing from Millwood Art School!
After the director had thanked them for their efforts, they returned to their car, each with the same thought: Had the morning"s theft any connection with the art school mystery?
When they reached home, Chet was sitting disconsolately on the porch steps fanning himself with a blue beret.
"Leaping lizards! What a morning you fellows pick for going to a museum," he moaned. "I could have had a second breakfast while I"ve been waiting for you."
"We"re sorry, Chet," Frank apologized, "but it turned out to be a four-lap, dead-end workout."
While the Hardys loaded their bags into Chet"s freshly polished yellow jalopy, the Queen, they told him of the museum theft. Chet whistled.
"Do you think the thief"s the one who threw that scalp on our lawn?"
"It"s likely," Frank replied.
When the jalopy had been loaded up to the back windows, Mrs. Hardy came out and embraced the boys warmly. "Do take care of yourselves." She smiled. "Dad will be home in a few days. I"ll tell him about your case, but I feel sure you can solve it by yourselves."
Amid good-bys, Chet backed the car down the driveway, and soon the jalopy was headed north out of Bayport. After following the county road for half an hour, Chet guided the car onto the wide-laned state thruway extending like a white ribbon beneath a light-blue sky.
The boys conversed excitedly about their destination and the mystery to be solved there.
"You really did some tune-up job on the Queen, Chet," Joe commented from the back seat. "One of these days she may be a threat to approaching the speed limit."
Chet smiled good-naturedly at the gibe, then frowned, tugging at his beret to keep it from being blown off by the brisk wind. Finally he gave up. "Alas, what we artists must bear." He sighed and stuffed the cap into the glove compartment.
Frank grinned. "What happened to that c.o.o.n-skin job you had yesterday?"
"Oh," Chet said airily, "I thought I"d get into the artistic spirit."
As they drove by a gasoline-and-restaurant service area, a black sedan pulled out onto the thru-way from the service area exit. When Chet moved to the middle lane to pa.s.s, Joe glanced at the sedan and sat up sharply.
"Frank! The driver of that car-it"s the picture thief!"