Chapter II: Part 2

Bob smiled. His uncle poked good-natured fun at his abilities as a sleuth, but, at the same time, Uncle Joel was rather proud of his nephew, particularly since the affair of the Golden Eagle.

"Well, I'm glad the old man isn't dead," said Bob. "But how did the robbery happen? How did the thief get in the strong room?"

"I don't know. You'd better go over and find out for yourself. There's no use asking Sam Drayton, for he won't know."

"I understand he came over here to get help from our police," stated Bob.

"I don't know that he's much better off than if he stayed at home," chuckled Mr. Dexter. "But go ahead, Bob. I guess the store will still be doing business when you get back."

"I hope so, Uncle Joel. Thanks," and Bob ran out to his flivver, intending to hurry and pick up Ned and Harry and make a quick trip to Storm Mountain.

However, he found his chums already on hand. They had come over to get him, having prevailed on their fathers to let them off for the remainder of the day.

"Old Rip Van Winkle isn't dead after all--that was a false report, Bob!" exclaimed Ned, who, with Harry, insisted on giving Hiram Beegle the name of Irving's mythical character.

"So I heard."

"But there's been a big robbery," said Harry.

"I heard that, too."

"Say, is there anything you haven't heard?" inquired Ned, admiringly.

"Well, that's really all I do know," admitted Bob. "I haven't any particulars and it seems as much of a mystery as before. Let's go!"

They found a curious throng gathered about the lonely cabin of the old man, with Chief Drayton fussing about trying to keep the crowd back.

"Don't tramp all over the place!" he kept saying. "How am I goin' to examine for footprints of the robber if you tramp and mush all over the place? Keep back!"

But it was a waste of words to admonish the curiosity seekers who crowded up toward the front door. Then out came Chief Miles Duncan of the Cliffside police. He noticed Bob and his chums in the forefront of the gathering.

"Hello, Bob!" he greeted pleasantly. "This is one of those things you'll be interested in--quite a mystery. Come in and take a look."

"Now look here--!" began Sam Drayton.

"It's all right--Bob can do more with this than you or I could," said the Cliffside official in a low voice. "I'll tell you about him later. He's got the makings of a great detective in him."

Bob, much pleased at the invitation, started to push his way through the crowd, envious murmurs accompanying him.

"Stick by me, fellows," he told Ned and Bob. "We'll all go in together."

"Say, look here!" objected Sam Drayton as he saw three lads approaching, "Chief Duncan only told Bob Dexter to come in and----"

"These are my assistants," said Bob gravely, but, at the same time winking at Chief Duncan. And Mr. Duncan winked back.

"That's right," he backed up Bob.

"Oh, well, let 'em in then," grudgingly conceded Mr. Drayton.

Bob's first sight, on entering the main room of the log cabin, was of Hiram Beegle propped up in a chair covered with bed quilts. The old man looked worn and ill--there was a drawn, pinched look on his face, and he was pale.

"What happened, Mr. Beegle?" asked Bob, noting that the door to the strong room stood ajar, and that the oaken chest, in one corner, was also open.

Hiram Beegle opened his mouth, but instead of words there came out only a meaningless jumble of sounds.

"He's been poisoned," explained Chief Duncan.

"Poisoned?" cried Bob.

"Or something like that," went on the Cliffside official. "It's dope, or something that the robber gave him--maybe it's chloroform, for all I can tell, though it doesn't smell like that. Anyhow he's knocked out and can't tell much that's happened."

"Robbed! Robbed!" gasped Hiram Beegle, bringing out the words with pitiful effort.

"Yes, he's been robbed--we're sure of that," said Sam Drayton.

"Box! Box!" and again the old man in the chair brought out the words as if they pained him.

"That's right," assented the Storm Mountain chief. "As near as we can make out he's been robbed of some sort of a small treasure chest. It was taken from that larger chest in there."

"Yes, I know about it," said Bob quietly.

"You know about it?" cried both chiefs at once.

"I mean I saw the small treasure box Mr. Beegle speaks of," said Bob. "I brought him home yesterday with it. But what I can't understand is how the robber got in the strong room."

"No, and there can't anybody else either, I reckon," declared Mr. Drayton. "It's a big mystery."

"Mysteries seem to be about the best little thing Bob runs into lately," chuckled Harry. "He doesn't more than get finished with one, than he has another on his hands. Why don't you open a shop, Bob?"

"Cut out the comedy," advised Ned in a low voice to his chum. "Can't you see that these self-important chiefs don't like this kind of talk--especially this Storm Mountain fellow?"

It was evident that this was so, and Harry, with a wink at Ned, subsided.

"I'd like to hear how it all happened, and I suppose Bob would, too," remarked Mr. Duncan.

"I'd like to hear the details," suggested the young detective.

"We'll tell you all we know, Bob," said Miles Duncan. "You see----"

But at that moment a loud and hearty voice from without cried:

"Where is he! Where's my old friend Hiram Beegle? Tell him Jolly Bill Hickey is here! Where's my old friend Hiram Beegle!"

A man, broadly smiling, his bald head shining in the sun, stumped into the room, one wooden leg making a thumping sound on the floor.

*CHAPTER V*

*A MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY*

Jolly Bill Hickey--for so he called himself--stood staring in the middle of the room--staring at the huddled figure of the old man in the chair covered with bed clothes.

"Why, Hiram--why--what has happened?" cried the man with the wooden leg--an old-fashioned wooden peg, his stump strapped fast to it--and the wooden leg showed signs of wear. "What has happened to my old shipmate Hiram?" demanded Jolly Bill Hickey.

Again that pitiful effort to talk, but only a meaningless jumble of sounds came forth.

"Hiram, did they ram you?" demanded he of the wooden leg. "Did they let go a broadside at you? Did they try to sink you?"

Hiram Beegle nodded his head.

"Look here!" spluttered Chief Drayton. "You're not supposed to come in here, you know."

"But I _am_ in, you see!" chuckled the wooden-legged man. "I am in and I'm going to stay with my old messmate Hiram. You can't keep Jolly Bill Hickey out when he wants to come in."

That was very evident.

"Are you a friend of his?" asked Chief Duncan.

"Am I? I should say I was! Ask him--ask Hiram I But no, what's the use. He's been rammed--the enemy has broadsided him and he's out of action. But I'll tell you I'm a friend of his, and he'll tell you so, too, when he gets going again. But what happened here? Tell me--tell Jolly Bill Hickey!" demanded he of the wooden leg.

"Hiram Beegle has been nearly killed and completely robbed," said Chief Duncan.

"No! You don't mean it! Almost killed--and robbed! Who did it? Where are the scoundrels?" Jolly Bill Hickey did not seem very jolly now. He looked around with a vindictive air and fanned his bald head with his cap.

"That's what we're here to find out," spoke Chief Drayton. "Do you know anything about this crime?"

"Do I know anything about it? Say, I just got here!" exclaimed Jolly Bill. "I came in on the morning train to see my old messmate Hiram Beegle, and I find this crowd around his bunk and him knocked out like a broadside had been delivered right in his teeth! How should I know anything about it?"

"Well, I just asked," said Chief Drayton rather mildly for a police official. Truth to tell the manner of Jolly Bill Hickey was a bit overpowering.

"If you're a friend of Hiram's you might as well stay in and see if you can help us," suggested Chief Duncan.

"Sure I'll help!" said Jolly Bill. "But we don't want too much help. Who are these lads?" and he glanced sharply at Bob and his chums.

"Friends of mine," said the Cliffside chief, shortly.

"Oh, well, then that's all right--friends of yours--friends of Jolly Bill Hickey. Shake!" He extended a hard palm and gave the lads grips they long remembered. "Shake, Hiram!" and he clasped hands with the stricken man, though more gently, it seemed.

"No use letting all outdoors in," went on Jolly Bill as he stumped over and closed the outer portal, bringing thereby a chorus of protests from the curious ones assembled outside. "Now let's spin the yarn," he suggested. "But first has anything been done for my old messmate Hiram Beegle?"

"A doctor has been here--yes," said Chief Drayton. "He says Hiram has had a shock. There's a lump on his head----"

"He got that yesterday!" broke in Bob. "I picked him up right after it happened. He thinks a man named Rod Marbury did it."

"And he did!" burst forth Jolly Bill. "A scoundrel if ever there was one--Rod Marbury! So he whanged Hiram, did he?"

"There are two lumps on Hiram's head," went on Chief Drayton. "We know about the first one--the one you spoke of," he said to Bob. "But he was hit again last night. He was also either given some sort of poison that knocked him out--some sort of dope, the doctor thinks, or else it was some sort of vapor that made him unconscious. And while he was that way he was robbed."

"But how did it all happen?" asked Bob Dexter. "How could a thief get in the strong room when he didn't know the secret of the big brass key?"

"Whoever it was must have known some of the secrets," said the Cliffside chief, "for he got in the strong room when it was locked, and when Hiram was inside, and the thief got out again, leaving Hiram and the key inside."

"He got out leaving Mr. Beegle and the key inside?" asked Bob. "Why, it couldn't be done! There's no way out of that room except by the door, and if the key was inside, and the door locked--why, it's impossible! Mr. Beegle showed me that yesterday afternoon. The only opening to the outer air is the chimney--no man could get in or out that way."

"But somebody did!" said Chief Drayton. "And that's where the mystery comes in."

"Let's hear how it happened--from the beginning," suggested Harry. "Suppose you tell your story first, Bob, so we'll know just how much of it you saw."

"Do you want me to tell, Mr. Beegle?" asked Bob, for he remembered his promise to the old man.

Hiram Beegle tried to talk, but about the only words Bob could distinguish were "cupboard" and "key." He judged from this that the old sailor, for so he seemed to be, did not want disclosed the information as to where he kept the big brass key of his strange strong room. The key was not now in sight, but Bob understood. He resolved to keep quiet on this point, but to tell the rest.

Thereupon he related how he had found the old man stricken beside the road the afternoon before. How he had gone with him to the office of Judge Weston, who told of the brass-bound box coming as an inheritance to Hiram Beegle from Hank Denby.

"That's right!" chimed in Jolly Bill. "I can testify to that. We were all shipmates together--Hiram, Hank, that scoundrel Rod Marbury and me. Hank Denby was the richest of the lot. He left the box to Hiram--I know he promised to, and what Hank promised he carried out. He gave you the box, didn't he, Hiram?"

The stricken man nodded.

"Well, I brought him home here with the box," went on Bob, "and he brought me into this room. He explained how it could only be entered from the door which he unlocked with a big brass key. He said he was going to put his treasure in that chest," and the lad pointed to the open one in the strong room.

"He did put it there, it seems," said Chief Duncan, "but it didn't stay there long. In the night somebody got in and took the little treasure chest away, nearly killing Hiram before doing so. Then they left him locked up in the room, with the brass key near him, and came out."

"But how could they?" cried Bob. "They couldn't get out of the room if it was locked. They couldn't leave the key inside. There's no other way of getting out except by the door. And if that was locked, and the key was inside----"

"That's where the mystery comes in," interrupted Chief Duncan.

"And it sure Is a mystery," added Chief Drayton. "If Hiram could talk he might explain, but, as it is, we can only guess at it. I needed help on this--that's why I sent for you, Miles," he said to his fellow officer.

"Hum! I don't know as I can do much more than you," ruefully replied the Cliffside chief. "What do you think of it, Bob?"

"Huh! A lot he can tell!" sniffed Mr. Drayton.

"You don't know Bob Dexter as well as I do," stated Mr. Duncan quietly. "I should like to have his opinion on this."

For the Cliffside chief remembered the case of Jennie Thorp, in which he and his men had not shone very brilliantly.

"Let me see if I understand this," said Bob, looking at Hiram Beegle. "Will you nod your head if I'm right?" he asked. "Don't try to talk--just nod your head, will you?"

Hiram gave a sign of assent and understanding. Then Bob began to make a statement of the mysterious robbery as he understood it, while those in the room listened eagerly.

*CHAPTER VI*

*STRANGE MARKS*

"When I left you yesterday afternoon, after we drank the buttermilk together," said Bob, speaking slowly, "you were going to put the brass-bound box in your chest and lock it up, weren't you?"

Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously an assent to this.

"You did this, we'll say," resumed Bob, "but after I had gone, or after you had locked up your treasure, you took it out to look at it again, and count it perhaps--and you sat here in your strong room to do that--with the door open--is that it?"

Again Hiram nodded to show that this was the truth.

"While you were doing that," continued the young detective, "some one--an enemy or a robber--slipped in and overpowered you, taking away the treasure box and locking you in the strong room. Is that how It happened? And can you tell us who it was that struck you the second time and who robbed you?"

Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously, but in both directions. Now his head indicated an affirmative and again a negative.

"What does he mean?" questioned Harry.

"He's making queer motions," said Ned.

The stricken man was moving in an odd way the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair. And then Bob Dexter guessed what it was he wanted.

"He will write it out!" exclaimed the lad. "Give him pencil and paper and he can write out what happened since he can't talk straight. Why didn't we think of that before?"

"I said it would be a good thing to have Bob here," remarked Chief Duncan while Chief Drayton looked for pencil and paper. And when these were given to Hiram Beegle a look of satisfaction came over his face. He began writing more rapidly than one would have supposed an old sailor could have done, and he handed the finished sheet to Bob.

"Read it," suggested Harry.

Bob read:

"The young man has partly the right of it. After he left me I locked up the box Judge Weston gave me. It was mine by right but I knew some who might try to take it from me. Never mind about them now.

"After supper I sat here thinking of many things, and then I wanted to look in my box again. I opened my strong room, left the door ajar, took the brass-bound box out of my chest and sat looking over the contents when, all of a sudden, I felt faint. Then I fell out of my chair--I remember falling--and that's all I remember until I woke up early this morning.

"I was lying on the floor, and beside me, close to my right hand, was the big brass key to my strong room. But the door was locked, and my box was gone. I couldn't understand it. First I thought I had just fainted from the blow I got in the afternoon. I thought maybe I had put my box back in the chest, but it wasn't there. I had been robbed, and there was another lump on my head. Whether I was hit again, or whether I hit myself when I fell out of my chair I don't know.

"But there I was, locked in my own strong room, the key was beside me and my treasure was gone. That's all I know about it."

"But didn't he see anybody?"

"How did he feel just before he keeled over?"

"Didn't he hear any noise?"

"Did anybody make him drink anything that might have had poison or knock-out drops in it?"

These were some of the questions from Ned, Harry, Jolly Bill and the two police chiefs when Bob finished reading the document.

"Wait!" begged the young detective. "One at a time. I'll ask him the questions and let him write the answer. We'll get along faster that way."

"Let's see, first, how he got doped, if he was," suggested Chief Duncan. So Bob wrote that question.

"No one gave me anything that I know of," was the written reply. "And the only thing I drank was some buttermilk."

"I had some of that and I know there was nothing wrong with it," testified Bob. "But did you see any one around your cabin just before you fainted and were robbed?"

"I saw no one," wrote Hiram, "It was very strange."

"I'll say it was!" exclaimed Harry.

"What did you do after you came to?" was the next question.

"I sat up and looked around. I couldn't understand it at all. I felt sick--I couldn't talk--something seemed to have hold of my tongue. It's that way yet but I can feel it wearing off. I saw that I had been robbed.

"But the queer part of it was that whoever had robbed me had gone out, locked the door from the outside and then, in some way, they got the key back in here, so that it lay on the floor close to my right hand, as if it had dropped from my fingers."

"Why, that's easy!" chuckled Jolly Bill. "They locked the door--that is the robber did, and threw the key in over the transom. I've heard of cases like that."

"There isn't any transom over this door," said Bob, pointing. "There isn't a single opening to this room, either from inside the cabin or out of doors. The keyhole is the only opening, and it Is impossible to push a big key, like this, in through the keyhole."

"I have it!" cried Ned. "They climbed up on the roof and dropped the key down the chimney. You said the chimney was barred inside, and too small for a man to climb down, Bob, but a key could fall down."

"Yes," admitted the young detective dryly, "a key would fall down all right, but it would drop in the fireplace, or in the ashes of the fire if one had been built Mr. Beegle says the key was lying close to his hand, and he was on the floor, ten feet away from the hearth. That won't do, Ned."

"Couldn't the key bounce from the brick hearth, over to where Mr. Beegle lay?" asked the lad, who hated to see his theory riddled like this.

In answer Bob pointed to the hearth. There was a thick layer of wood ashes on it, for a fire had been burning in the place recently.

"Any key dropping in those ashes would fall as dead as a golf ball in a mud bank," stated the young sleuth. "It wouldn't bounce a foot, let alone ten feet, and land close beside Mr. Beegle's hand."

"Then there must be two keys, or else the door was locked with a skeleton key," said Harry.

"No! No!" suddenly exclaimed the stricken man. He wrote rapidly.

"There is only one key, and no skeleton key would fit this lock," which was easy to believe when its ponderous nature was taken into consideration.

"Um!" mused Harry, when this had been read to those in the room. "Then it's simmering down to a question of who it was knocked him out, and how they managed to lock the door after they had left with the treasure, and how they got the key back inside."

"That's the question," assented Bob.

"But why should the thief go to such trouble to get the key back in the room, after he had left Mr. Beegle unconscious?" asked Ned. "That's what I can't understand."

"He probably did it to throw suspicion off," suggested Bob. "By leaving the key close to Mr. Beegle's hand he might have thought his victim would come to the conclusion that he hadn't been robbed at all--or else that in a sort of dream or sleep-walking act he had taken away his own valuables and hidden them."

"Of course that's possible," said Chief Duncan.

"No! No!" cried Hiram, with more power than he had yet spoken since he was stricken. Once more he quickly wrote:

"I did not hide that box. Why should I? It was mine and is yet, no matter who has it. Someone sneaked in here while I was looking at my treasure and overpowered me with some powerful drug, I believe--some sort of gas, maybe the kind they used in the Great War. When I toppled over they came in, got the box, went out and locked me in."

"But how could they get out and lock you in?" asked Chief Duncan. "The key was here with you all the while."

Hiram Beegle shook his head. It was beyond his comprehension, and, for that matter, beyond the comprehension of all present. Even Bob Dexter, skillful and clever as he was, shook his head.

"I don't see how the key got back here," he mused. "But there are some other things to find out yet. How did this robbery become known? Did any one find Mr. Beegle in the strong room? They couldn't see him lying there, for there aren't any windows. There aren't any panes of glass in the door. Did he call for help? And if he did, how did he get the key out to some one to come in and pick him up?"

"He didn't have to do that," said Chief Drayton. "He managed to crawl to the door and unlock it himself. Then he staggered out doors and hailed Tom Shan, a neighboring farmer, who was driving past. Shan did what he could and then came and told me."

"I see," murmured Bob Dexter. "Then the two important points in this mystery are to discover who robbed Mr. Beegle and how it was they got the key back in the room after they went out and locked the door. And that's the hardest nut to crack, for there isn't any opening in this room through which a key could be put back."

"Except the chimney," commented Jolly Bill.

"We've eliminated that," declared Bob. "But, just to be on the safe side, I'll climb up on the roof and drop the key down. We'll see where it lands."

"Better first find out where the key really was," suggested Ned. "I mean where Mr. Beegle was lying on the floor with the key near his hand."

"A good idea," declared Bob. "Can you show us how it was?" he asked.

The old man seemed rapidly to be getting better, for he arose from his chair and tottered into his strong room. There he stretched out on the floor in the position he had found himself in when he became conscious. He laid the key in the position where he had first noted it on opening his eyes.

"Well, we have that to start with," remarked Bob, as the old man arose and went back to his chair. "Ill just mark the spot on the floor with a pencil." As he stooped over to do this he seemed to take notice of something, for Ned saw his chum give a little start.

"Did you get a clew then, Bob?" he asked.

"A clew? No--no clews here, I'm afraid."

"I thought you saw something."

"No--nothing to amount to anything. Now I'll get up on the roof and drop the key down. You fellows stay here and tell me where it lands. I'll try it half a dozen times."

They helped Hiram Beegle back to his blanketed chair, and by this time the doctor had come back. He said his patient was much better and that gradually all the effects of the attack would wear off.

"But you had better not stay here all alone," the physician suggested. "I stopped at Tom Shan's on my way here and he and his wife want you to come and stay with them a few days. You'll be well taken care of there."

"Yes--yes," slowly assented Hiram. "I'll--go. There's nothing here, now, to be taken. They have my treasure."

He spoke sadly, as one who has lost hope.

"We'll get it back for you," said Chief Duncan cheerfully.

"Sure we will!" cried Jolly Bill. "I'll get in the wake of that scoundrel Rod Marbury and take it away from him. Trust an old messmate for that!"

He seemed so hale and hearty that one could not help having a friendly feeling for him, and his weather-beaten face shone with the honesty of his purpose, while his shiny bald head seemed to give promise of a brighter sun rising on the affairs of Hiram Beegle.

"I'll take you over to Shan's place now, in my car," offered Dr. Martin. "You need rest and quiet more than anything else. The police will look after things here."

"Yes, we'll look after things," promised Chief Drayton. "I'll lock up the cabin and bring you the key after this young man gets through dropping the key down the chimney, though I don't see what good it's going to do. I'll lock up the place for you."

"There isn't much--to--to lock up--now," said the old man slowly. "The treasure is gone!"

"Oh, we'll get it back!" promised Chief Duncan. "What was in the box--diamonds or gold?"

"Neither one," was the answer.

"Neither one? Then what was the treasure?" Chief Drayton wanted to know.

"Papers! Papers!" somewhat testily answered Mr. Beegle.

"Oh, stocks and bonds, I reckon. Well, you can stop payment on them. Better tell Judge Weston about it."

"Yes! Yes! He must be told," mumbled Hiram. "Now I want to sleep."

He closed his eyes weakly, and the physician and others helped him into the auto. Bob had taken the big brass key, and as he and his chums went outside, followed by the police officers and a curious crowd, the young detective said to Jolly Bill:

"How long have you known Mr. Beegle?"

"Off and on all my life."

"Do you know anything about this Rod Marbury and what sort of inheritance it was that Mr. Denby left?"

"I don't know anything good about Rod Marbury," was the answer. "As for Hiram's treasure, well, I can tell a story about that if you want me to."

"I wish you would," said Bob, as he looked about for a way of getting up on the roof to drop the key down the chimney in the experiment. "It might help some in solving the mystery."

Ned, who had gone on ahead a little way, around the side of the house where the chimney was built, suddenly uttered a cry of surprise.

"Look at these queer marks!" he called. He pointed to broad, flat impressions in the soft ground--impressions as though made by the foot of an elephant!

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE KEY EXPERIMENT*

Bob Dexter, when he had caught sight of the carious marks, to which attention was called by his chum Ned, found himself wishing that he was a little more alone on this mystery case.

"There are altogether too many cooks here--they'll spoil the broth," mused Bob, as he saw the ever-growing crowd following him and his companions around to the side of the cabin where the chimney of the fireplace was erected.

True though the "murder" had turned out to be only a mysterious robbery, coupled with an assault on the old hermit, and in this way spoiling a sensation, there was still much curiosity regarding everything connected with the matter. Even though Hiram had been taken away in the physician's automobile.

"Where they going?" asked more than one in the throng, as he followed the milling crowd, when the police chiefs, Bob and his two chums and Jolly Bill Hickey had started away from the front door of the cabin. "What are they after?"

"I guess they think the murderer is hiding around here," was one of the answers.

"Shucks! There ain't been no murder!" declared a teamster who had left his load of sand near the home of Hiram Beegle. "It's only a robbery, and not much of one at that I'm going to quit!"

Then, unexpectedly, there came a burst of hand organ music out in front, and Storm Mountain was such an isolated place that even the wheezy tones of an ancient hand organ was sufficient to create diversion. Coupled with this was a cry from some one:

"He's got a monkey!"

This was enough to attract away most of the crowd that was following Bob and his friends (much to the annoyance of the young detective) so that by the time he reached the place of the queer marks, to which Ned had referred, the most interested investigators had that side of the cabin comparatively to themselves. And by the term "most interested investigators," I mean Bob and the police chiefs. Of course, Jolly Bill Hickey, a lifelong messmate of the stricken man, must be included. And, of course, Ned and Harry were always anxious to help Bob.

The wheezy organ continued to grind out its "music," if such it could be called, and accompanying it was the shrill chatter of a monkey. The crowd of men and youths laughed in delight. It did not take much to make a Storm Mountain crowd laugh.

"Well, I'm glad that dago happened along," remarked Bob to Ned, as he bent over the marks in the soft ground.

"Do you mean you think he can help you solve this mystery?" asked Harry.

"No, but he'll keep the crowd back while we experiment with the key by dropping it down the chimney, though I know now what the result will be."

"Yes, he'll keep the crowd busy," agreed Ned. "But what do you suppose these marks are, Bob?"

Well might he ask that, for the impressions were curious. They were about a foot in diameter, and roughly circular in shape. As much as anything they resembled the marks left by an elephant's foot.

And yet it needed but an instant's thought to shatter that theory. There had been no small circus in the vicinity of Cliffside in many months. The place was not large enough to attract the large traveling shows. And even if it had been no show would go so far off the beaten path as to ascend Storm Mountain with a herd of elephants.

Granting that a circus had been there, and that a lone elephant had wandered off to tramp around the lonely cabin of Hiram Beegle, the marks were too few in number to have been made by any normal elephant.

"What are they, Bob?" asked Ned again. "How could they be made by an elephant?"

The young detective did not answer for a moment, but he was rapidly thinking. The elephant idea was absurd, of course. An elephant has four feet. Taking ten steps would result in forty marks having been made, and there were not half this number visible. Granting that an elephant could jump from one stand to another, and so leaving a place without any marks for a considerable distance, did not fit in with the theory.

"I can tell you what made these marks," broke out Jolly Bill with his characteristic laugh, while Bob was on the verge of saying something.

"What did?" asked Harry. "A bird?"

"No," replied the bald-headed, and wooden-legged man who had appeared so unexpectedly on the scene, claiming to be a friend of Hiram Beegle. "No! They were made by some one carrying a sack of potatoes, and setting it down every now and then to rest. Isn't that it, my young detective friend?" he asked, appealing to Bob. If the latter wondered how Jolly Bill knew his claims to being a sleuth, the lad said nothing. He only remarked:

"Yes, a heavy bag of potatoes, set here and there to ease the arms of whoever was carrying it, would make just such marks as these."

"That's right!" cried Chief Drayton. "I'd never have thought of that--a potato sack sure enough! What do you know about that? I s'pose, Chief," he went on, addressing the head of the Cliffside police, "that it wasn't a sack of potatoes though, at all."

"What do you mean--not a sack of potatoes?" asked Mr. Duncan.

"Well, I mean the scoundrel that robbed old Hiram Beegle piled his booty in a potato sack and carried it off this way. He left us a good clew, I'll say. We can see jist which way he went with his potato sack full of booty!"

The chief seemed to relish this word "booty," rolling it around on his tongue as if it were a choice tidbit.

"We've got him now!" he declared. "Come on over this way!"

"Just a moment!" spoke Chief Duncan. "We came out here to let Bob experiment with a key dropped down the chimney. We want to see if it was possible for the thief to have assaulted Hiram, gone out, locked the door after him and then have gotten the key back inside."

"Sure we want to find that out," agreed the Storm Mountain police force.

"Well, let's stick to business," proposed Mr. Duncan.

"What, and let this feller get away with his potato sack of booty?"

"There wasn't any potato sack or any other kind of a sack of booty!" somewhat testily declared Mr. Duncan. "The only thing stolen was a small box belonging to Hiram. The thief could have tucked it under his arm. He didn't need to carry it in a sack."

"Oh," murmured Mr. Drayton, somewhat crestfallen, "that's so. I forgot about the booty being in a small box. But who was here with a sack of potatoes?" he demanded, as if no one could answer.

"Might have been Hiram himself," suggested Jolly Bill. "He always was a great hand for potatoes when he and I were shipmates together. Like as not he lugged some spuds in for the winter."

"Or some farmer may have brought him a bag," added Harry. "I guess, Ned, this clew isn't going to amount to anything."

"Just my luck!" said Ned with a quizzical smile. "We'll have to let Bob work this out. What say, Bob?"

"It looks as if it was a sack of potatoes that had been set down and picked up again, several times," answered the young detective. "I guess it doesn't mean anything in connection with this robbery. Though, of course, it won't do any harm to ask Mr. Beegle if he carried the sack around or if some one brought him potatoes. But I'd like to try this key experiment now."

"Yes, let's clear up one thing at a time," suggested Mr. Duncan. "I can't spend all my time over in Storm Mountain. It's the folks in Cliffside who pay my salary, and I've got to do my work there."

"But I'd like to have you help me out a bit," complained Chief Drayton. "Course Storm Mountain isn't any such place as Cliffside, but we police chiefs ought to stick together."

"Oh, I'll help you all I can," readily agreed Mr. Duncan. "But Bob here can do more than I can."

"Shucks! a youngster like him!" sniffed Mr. Drayton.

"That's all right--he's got an old head on young shoulders," declared Mr. Duncan in a low voice.

Fortunately Bob was engaged just then in climbing up a tree by which easy access could be had to the sloping roof of the log cabin. The lad carried with him the brass key, which he had first carefully examined for any marks that might lead to the discovery of anything. So Bob heard nothing of this alternating talk against him and in his favor.

His examination of the key had disclosed nothing. It was a heavy, ponderous affair, almost as if it had been made by a local locksmith who might have forged it by hand, as he might also have done in respect to the lock on the strong room where Hiram Beegle had been overpowered and robbed.

And aside from numerous scratches on the key Bob could see nothing. The scratches, he knew, must have come there naturally, for they would have resulted from the many times Hiram must have taken the lock-opener from his secret niche and put it back. Also, the key would have been scratched by being put in and taken out of the lock.

"And as for looking for fingerprints on it, I believe it would be worth while to have this photographed with that end in view," thought Bob. He knew the value of fingerprint comparisons as a means of tracing criminals.

But Bob knew the brass key had passed through many hands that very morning, since the discovery of the crime. And Hiram's own fingers and thumbs would have left on the surface marks that would have obliterated any of the whorls, curves and twists of the criminal.

As you doubtless know if you take up a shiny piece of metal in your fingers you will leave on it the impression of the tips, or balls, of your fingers or thumbs, as is also the case if you thus handle a piece of looking-glass. And it is possible, by taking a photograph of these marks, to get a picture of the fingerprints of the person handling the metal or glass. Sometimes prints invisible to the unaided eye are brought out in the photograph.

And by comparing these reproduced prints with the finger marks of criminals on file in all large police headquarters, it is sometimes possible to trace the guilty ones.

But Bob Dexter knew that it would be worse than useless in a case like this, for the reasons I have mentioned. So he resolved to do the next best thing, use the key to learn whether or not it was possible to have gotten it where it was found--near the hand of the prostrate Hiram Beegle on the floor of his strong room--by dropping the lock-opener down the fireplace.

"Is any one in the room to notice where the key falls when I drop it?" asked Bob, when he was up on the roof.

"I'll go in," offered Chief Drayton. "I'd like to see just how it does fall."

"I'll wait until you call up the chimney that you're ready," said Bob. "You can call to me up the flue."

"All right, but don't drop the key down on me while I'm hollering at you," begged the Storm Mountain chief. "It's heavy and it might bang me in the eye."

"I'll be careful," promised Bob, with a smile, in which his chums joined.

The hand organ music was still wailing away out in the road, and the antics of the monkey must have been amusing, for the crowd was kept interested, and thus held away from the cabin for a time, for which Bob was glad.

The lad, up on the roof, was looking at the edges of the brick chimney, but they told him nothing. They were covered with soot from the wood smoke, and this did not appear to have been disturbed.

"Though," mused Bob to himself as he waited for word from inside, and looked at the black stuff on the chimney, "there might be all sorts of marks and evidence here and I couldn't see it without a magnifying glass. Guess maybe I'd better get one of those things. I'd look like a regular Sherlock Holmes with one, I reckon. But a photograph camera is better. I wonder how they could take any pictures of this black stuff?" and idly he lingered the soot on the edge of the chimney. "Guess it won't pay to bother with that on this case," he went on with his thoughts. "But if I'm going to continue in this line of work I'm going in for all that sort of thing."

He heard a slight noise down below him and stood at attention.

"All ready--drop the key!" called up Chief Drayton from within the cabin. The voice came to Bob as through a speaking tube, carried up the fireplace flue.

"Here it comes!" answered the lad.

The next instant he had dropped the brass key down the black opening.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*JOLLY BILL'S TALE*

Tense was the silence that had fallen over the little group of experimenters--Bob on the roof of the log cabin, Ned, Harry, Chief Duncan and Jolly Bill Hickey on the ground below--Chief Drayton inside the cabin, squatting down near the embers of a dead fire on the hearth.

The key had fallen.

What was the result?

They were not long left in doubt. Up the flue came the voice of Chief Drayton reporting on the first test. "No good!" he called to Bob.

"What do you mean?" asked the young detective, and his words, as well as those of the chief inside the cabin came plainly to his listeners.

"I mean the key just plopped into the ashes and stayed there."

"Didn't it bounce out at all?"

"Nary a bounce."

"Well, then we'll try it again."

Which they did--a dozen times or more--but always with the same result. The key fell down the flue with many a tinkle as it struck the cross pieces of iron bars which Hiram had set in to prevent night-prowling animals from entering his strong room. Then the brass implement fell into the soft ashes where it remained.

"Well, that settles one point," declared Ned, as they all went inside the cabin after the test. "The man who robbed Mr. Beegle and locked him inside the room, putting the key back in after he went out, didn't use the chimney."

"That's right!" chimed in Harry.

"And yet what other opening is there by which the key could have been gotten back in this room, and placed close to the hand of Mr. Beegle, so it would look as if he had locked himself in, robbed himself and made himself unconscious with chloroform or something?" asked Ned. "What other opening is there?"

"None!" declared Chief Drayton. "I went all over that Hiram made his room as tight as a bank vault. The fireplace is the only opening in or out, and the key didn't come down there!"

"There must be some other opening!" insisted Ned.

"Well, the best way is to have a look," suggested Bob. "Now the crowd seems to be gone for good, let's have a look." For the throng of curious ones had followed the organ grinder down the mountain trail, it seemed. Not often did one of these traveling musicians, if such they may be called, invade Storm Mountain, and the simple inhabitants of that isolated and rural community welcomed their visits.

Such careful examination as Bob and his chums, with the aid of the police chiefs and Jolly Bill Hickey, gave to the strong room, or vault in the log cabin, revealed no visible means by which a large brass key could have been passed inside after the door was locked.

The keyhole theory was, obviously, not to be mentioned again. A moment's test proved the utter impossibility of forcing the key through the opening by which the lock was operated. And, granting that the key could have been pushed through the hole into which it was intended to be inserted, it would merely have dropped on the floor inside, and would not have fallen near the hand of the stricken man.

The walls of the room appeared very solid, nor was any hollow sound developed when they were tapped.

"How about a trap door in the floor?" asked Ned, when it had been fairly well established that there was no opening through the walls.

"That's so!" cried Chief Drayton. "I never thought of that! There must be a trap door!"

There wasn't much he really thought of until some one else suggested it, be it noticed.

But hopeful and feasible as this plan seemed when Ned had mentioned it, nothing developed. The floor was smooth and without any secret flap or trap door, as far as they could see.

"Well, I guess well just have to give it up," said the Storm Mountain officer with a gesture of despair. "I'll have to work along the line of catching the criminal. If I do that and get back Hiram's box of valuable papers I guess that will be all I'm expected to do."

"Yes, if you do that you'll be doing well," said Chief Duncan with a laugh.

"Oh, I'll do it!" declared the other. "After all, the key mystery doesn't amount to much. I'll drop that."

But there was one present who had made up his mind not to drop the mystery of the brass key, and that individual was Bob Dexter. For here was a mystery just to his liking--no sordid crime was involved, nothing like a sensational murder, such as rumor first had it--only a mysterious robbery, and that of papers which perhaps were of value only to the recent inheritor of them.

"I'll have a go at it!" Bob Dexter told himself. "But I want to look around when there aren't so many present. I'm not altogether satisfied that it isn't possible to get a key in through the walls of this strong room. And I'd like to know why Hiram Beegle built such a strong room. What did he have to guard? What was he afraid of, or, rather, of whom was he afraid? I'd like to find out about these things, and I'm going to."

He was enlightened on some of these points sooner than he expected.

With the taking away of Hiram by the physician, to the home of Tom Shan, where the old man would be nursed back to health, there was little more that could be done at the lonely log cabin.

"I'll just lock it up and keep the key," said Chief Drayton who, in the absence of any relatives of the old man, would seem to have this right under the law. "I'll keep the brass key, too, though I reckon there isn't much left in here to steal."

They were in the strong room at the time, taking a final look around, and the empty chest in the corner bore mute evidence of the futility of keeping guard over the place. Other things of Hiram's than the brass-bound box might have been taken, but he said nothing about them. His most valuable treasure seemed to be that which Judge Weston had given him the day before, and now that was gone.

"Yes, lock up and we'll get out," suggested Chief Duncan. "I've got to be getting back to Cliffside. You boys coming with me?" he looked at Ned and Harry.

"We'll ride back with Bob in his Rolls Royce," chuckled Harry.

"All right, but don't speed in my territory or I'll have to lock you up," laughed the police head.

"And I think I'll be pulling up my mud hook and making for some port myself," said Jolly Bill Hickey with a laugh. "There isn't any hotel around here," he added as he stumped around on his wooden leg. "How about it over in your port, my lads?" and he looked at Bob and his chums.

"There's the Mansion House," Harry informed him.

"Suits me!" cried Jolly Bill. "I came here to spend a few days with my old shipmate Hiram Beegle, but since he's in the sick bay I'll have to make other plans. So I'll stay at the Mansion House for a while. I've got the shot in my locker to pay my passage, too!" he cried, pulling out a plump wallet, and showing it with a flourish. "Don't be afraid that the Mansion House will see me skipping my board bill, even if I have a wooden leg," and he tapped against his tree-like ember a heavy knurled and knobbed stick that assisted him in his hobbling walk.

"That's between you and the Mansion House," observed Ned.

"If you like I'll drive you down," offered Bob. "You know you said you could tell us something about Mr. Beegle," he added as he and his chums were left alone with this odd bald-headed character, while the two police chiefs saw to securing the cabin. The crowd of curious ones seemed to have followed the organ grinder away, as did the children after the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

"That's what I said, and that's what I'll do!" cried Jolly Bill. "I can tell you almost as much about old Hiram Beegle as he can himself. Man and boy we sailed together!"

"Come on then," urged Bob.

Jolly Bill, chuckling to himself as if at some joke he had not shared with the others, stumped in the wake of Ned and Harry as Bob led the way to where he had parked his flivver.

"I can talk while we breeze along," said the odd character as he took his place beside Bob, Ned and Harry occupying the rear seat. "For when I get to the Mansion House I'm going to take a rest. I've traveled a long way to get here. Thought I'd be in time for old Hank Denby's funeral, but I missed him."

"Do you know him?" asked Bob.

"I did, son," replied Jolly Bill with the trace of an accent on the second word. "I knew him well. Had a letter from him just before he went on his last long voyage. Pals we were--Hank and I and Hiram."

"What about Rod Marbury?" asked Bob.

"Bah! That pest and scoundrel! He sailed with us, of course, but he wasn't a true messmate in the real meaning of the name. You never could trust Rod Marbury--that's why Hiram built his strong room."

"I was wondering why he had the place so much like a bank vault, with the key hid in a secret place," spoke Bob.

"Secret place--for the key--say, boy, what do you know about that?" cried Jolly Bill, all the jollity gone from him now. "What do you know?" and he gripped Bob's arm, so that the latter had to shake loose the grip in order to steer down the trail.

"Don't do that again," he said, somewhat sharply. "This is a bad hill."

"Excuse me," murmured Bill, obviously ashamed of his show of feeling. "But I was wondering if Hiram had showed you any of his secrets."

Conscious that he had made a mistake in betraying any knowledge of the place where the old man hid the key to his strong room, Bob tried to shift it off with a laugh as he said:

"Oh, well, it stands to reason that careful as Mr. Beegle was of that room, he'd keep the key to it in a secret place, wouldn't he?"

"Oh, yes, I reckon he would," admitted Jolly Bill. "I see what you mean. I beg your pardon." Bob was glad it had passed off this way, for, truth to tell, he had not meant to say what he did.

"Well, Mr. Hickey, we're ready to hear your story," said Harry, when they had reached a place in the road from Storm Mountain where the going was safer and easier. "It seems like a sort of pirate yarn to me."

"Pirate yarn!" cried Jolly Bill. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you three--or four if you like to count in Rod Marbury----"

"I don't like to count Rod in and I'm not going to!" cried Bill.

"Well, then, you three, yourself, Mr. Beegle and Mr. Denby--seem to have been associated in some voyages where you got wealth--not to say a fortune," went on Harry.