Joe took the saddle off its resting place and stroked the leather fondly. It was a big Western saddle-the kind one can ride in all day without tiring. Joe grasped the horn. A cowboy"s rope, snubbed on this pinnacle, could pull any cow off its pins!
The boys were expert riders. For this reason, both were disappointed not to be going out West and riding range.
"We"ll go sometime," Frank consoled his brother. "Right now we have a mystery to solve, and when that"s finished we"ll take a little trip of our own."
After breakfast the next day the telephone in the Hardy home rang. Frank answered, spoke a few words, and hung up.
21 "It"s the chem lab," he said to Joe. "They"ve completed the a.n.a.lysis of the watch strap."
"Let"s go!" cried his brother eagerly. "I want to get going on that mystery." He ran into the kitchen and flipped the car keys off a hook near the back door. "I"ll meet you in front."
Joe guided the coupe out of the long driveway. Frank stepped into it at the curb, and the boys hurried to the laboratory. When they reached the place, the chemist greeted them with a smile.
"You boys just get back from Yellowstone Park?" he asked.
The brothers exchanged puzzled glances. "No," Frank said. "What makes you ask that?"
"Your interest in Indians," the scientist said.
"Indians?" Joe asked.
"Yes," the chemist replied. "I gather from the leather strap you brought in yesterday that you two are knee-deep in a case involving Indians."
"You"ve got me," said Frank, looking puzzled.
The chemist held up the watch strap in his hand.
"This strap," he began, like a professor lecturing a cla.s.s, "has been worn by an Indian."
"How can you tell?" Joe asked.
"Simple enough. By the chemical properties of the perspiration it absorbed."
"Do you mean Indians have a different scent from white people?" Frank asked in surprise. "Say, 22 I"ve heard that all races don"t smell alike, but I thought that was only a story."
"No, it"s true," replied the chemist. "Every race has its own peculiar scent. That of the American Indian, like the odor of other races, has oftentimes been remarked upon."
"What"s different about it?" Joe grinned. "Just to next time I"ll know an Indian when I meet him in a breeze."
"Good question." The scientist laughed, tapping his pencil on the strap as if to emphasize hk point.
"Travelers and explorers say the scent of American Indians is very agreeable. Seems to resemble the faint odor of cooking hominy. It doesn"t have the heavy animal or musky smell that those of some other races have."
"I wonder why that is?" Frank asked.
"Perhaps," continued the chemist, "it"s because the Indians have feebly developed scent glands."
"Do Indians think we smell different to them?" Joe put in. "Kind of musky?"
"Unfortunately, yes." The chemist smiled. "And what"s more," he went on, "Indians say that they can tell a half-breed among them simply by the odor!"
"Well," Frank said with a long sigh, "so the watch strap belonged to an Indian."
23 The chemist smiled at the Hardys. "Does that help you?" he asked.
"Sure does," Frank said. "Now we"ve got to be on the lookout for Indians."
With that the brothers paid the chemist"s fee and departed in their car.
"Say," Joe exclaimed, "do you think that guy who hit Slow Mo could be an Indian?"
"Could be. Or maybe an Indian owns the mysterious car, if he doesn"t."
"That silver tie clip you found, Frank-an Indian might have made it."
"We"ll soon find out," said his brother, pulling the clip from his pocket.
Examining it, he declared it was hand-wrought and looked like silverwork he had seen on Indian-made jewelry.
"Where you going?" Joe asked suddenly as Frank took a street leading out of town.
"Straight to Slow Mo"s."
As he drew up in front of the weather-beaten garage in Pleasantville, the boys saw its proprietor seated on a straight-backed chair tilted against the side of the building. Upon seeing the Hardys, he sat forward.
"Did you solve the mystery?" he asked, showing a slight bit of excitement "No," Frank said.
24 "I didn"t think you would," said Slow Mo and settled back again.
"We came to ask you some questions," Frank said. "Those people who left the car here, did they look like Indians?"
"Injuns?" Slew Mo pondered. "The man, he didn"t look like one, but the woman-I never thought of that."
Slow Mo rolled his eyes skyward in deep meditation, "The woman," he continued slowly, "she could have been an Indian. Had straight black hair."
"What about the color of her skin?" Joe put in.
"Let"s see. Yes, "twas kinda dark," he replied.
The boys thanked the garage owner for his help and headed back toward Bayport. If Slow Mo"s memory served him correctly, they had a good clue.
"But what I can"t understand," Joe said, "is, if Indians are involved in the case at Slow Mo"s, how it ties in with the crime wave in Bayport."
*"Dad didn"t say anything about Indians being involved in the thefts," Frank added, "but maybe they are."
"If that woman with the man who left the car at Slow Mo"s is around here," Joe reasoned, "it shouldn"t be hard to spot her."
"How about looking for her right now?" Frank said with determination.
25 The two boys drove up and down the streets of each town they came to but had no luck.
"People must think we"re batty, looking at all the women," Joe said, grinning.
"It"s in the line of duty," Frank laughed.
After they had combed the streets of Bayport, they finally gave up.
"Now what?" Frank asked.
"I"ve got it," Joe exclaimed, as if he had guessed the jack-pot question. "Let"s look for the watch that went with the strap! It may still have the other piece of the strap attached."
"That"s a long shot, but we can try," his brother said.
The boys stopped briefly for a bite to eat, then continued their search. First they went to all the jewelry repair shops in town.
"Got a watch with a broken strap to fit this piece?" Frank asked in place after place.
Always the answer was no.
"Let"s try secondhand shops," Joe suggested.
After canva.s.sing half a dozen places and looking at scores of timepieces, they gave up.
None had a broken strap to match the one they had found in the mysterious car.
"Only one kind of shop left," Joe sighed. "The p.a.w.nshops."
"Right. Let"s try that one down there."
26 Frank and Joe gazed into the window of Maxby"s three-ball, dingy store. It displayed p.a.w.ned cameras, knives, and watches.
"I"ll know enough about this to go into the hock and repair business myself," Joe said as they entered the shop.
"Got a watch with a broken strap to match this band?" Frank tossed the routine question.
"Think I have."
The answer shocked the boys into alert attention.
"Let"s see it," Joe exclaimed.
The p.a.w.nbroker went to the back of the store and came out with a man"s wrist watch.
Part of the leather strap that flopped from it matched the piece Frank held in his hand!
"We"ve found it!" Joe exulted.
Frank said nothing. As the shopkeeper looked on curiously, he examined the watch.
Holding it close to the light of the store window, he uttered a sharp exclamation.
"What"s the matter?" Joe asked.
"Look, Joe!" Frank cried, pointing.
Across the top, cleverly etched into the design around the face of the timepiece, was a crooked arrow!
CHAPTER IV.
An Alarming Message.
in amazement Frank and Joe studied the sweeping S crook of the arrow.
"What did you find?" asked the p.a.w.nbroker. "An heirloom?"
"No," answered Frank, "just an old watch we"ve been hunting for. Where did you get this?"
"I"ll look," the man answered, thumbing through a worn ledger. "Let"s see."
Each day"s transactions were listed on a separate page of the book. The shopkeeper went back day after day until he came to a page bearing the same date as the day the black sedan had been left in Slow Mo"s garage.
"Here it is," he said. "This watch was p.a.w.ned by Annie Smith, 66 Grove Terrace."
"Did she look like an Indian?" Joe asked.
"She didn"t look like an Indian to me," replied the man, raising his eyebrows. Then he asked nervously, "This isn"t-er-a stolen watch, is it?"
Frank told the man he thought not. Then, thanking him for his trouble, he and Joe hastily left the store.
"Let"s get to 66 Grove Terrace quick!" Frank said. "I"d like to meet this Annie Smith."
"Maybe you won"t after you see her," Joe quipped, as he took the wheel and headed for Grove Terrace on the outskirts of Bayport.
"A pretty good street," Frank said. "Doesn"t sound like a place where anybody poor would live."
"Never can tell," Joe remarked. "Maybe Annie Smith is a maid."
Soon he turned off the main thoroughfare onto a little street bearing the sign Grove Grove Terrace.
Frank spotted the even numbers on the left side as they drove slowly down the road.
"Here"s 50," Frank said. "And 62," he added as the coupe crept along. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Joe, there isn"t any 661" there isn"t any 661"