Chapter XX: Riding a Moose

As Red Rodgers raced after the floating figure of the girl he gained little by little. Boat length by boat length he decreased the distance. Now she was twenty yards away, now ten, now five, as he pulled madly at the oars.

And then, as he glanced over his shoulder a cry of surprise and dismay escaped his lips. With a snort and a mad splashing of water a dark bulk sprang from the water, rattled over the pebbly shore, and then disappeared into the dense forest that covered the narrow island.

For one full minute he looked in vain for Berley Todd. Then, catching the sound of what seemed a low laugh, he whirled about to find her two white hands clinging to the prow.

“Please give me a hand!” she pleaded. “I’m soaked. And boo! It’s so cold!

“I always wanted to do it,” she chuckled as she tumbled into the boat.

“Do what?” Red was dumbfounded.

“Ride a moose.”

“Ride—a—moose?”

“Sure! Didn’t you know it was done? Easy enough. All you have to do is to find one swimming and run him down with a canoe or an outboard motor, and then hop overboard and seize him by the antlers. As long as he is in the water he can’t harm you. But on shore, just look out!

“That,” she added quietly, as Red once more swung the boat about and rowed for shore, “was Old Uncle Ned.”

“Old Uncle Ned? Oh, yes, you spoke of him once before.”

“He’s huge, and is quite a character on the island. Comes coughing around timid ladies’ windows at night.” She laughed quietly.

“When you ran into him he must have been feeding on grass off the bottom. He came up quick and pitched me out. Somehow I was thrown on top of him, and I got hold of his antlers. The rest was too good to lose, so I just hung right on and took a ride.

“I hope,” she ended quite meekly, “that you don’t mind.”

“N-no.” Red was rowing hard. “But you’ll be frozen before we reach the cabin.”

“Oh-o nn-o.” The girl strove in vain to prevent her teeth from chattering. “I-I’m all—all right.”

The instant they touched the dock she was out of the boat and on the dock doing a wild dance. She stopped suddenly right in the midst of this to stare away at the black water.

“Wha-what’s moving over there?” She sank away into the shadows.

For a time Red could discover nothing. Then it seemed to him that he did make out something moving close to the surface of the water.

“It may be a boat. Perhaps we had better—”

“See!” She whispered excitedly. “It _is_ a boat!”

Suddenly a bright light shone across the water. A figure crouching behind the light was faintly seen. He was in the prow of a boat.

But now the thing within that circle of light caught and held their attention. A moose, splendid in his glory of shapely body and wide-spreading antlers, stood at the point of the island. Apparently blinded by the light, he stood there like a statue.

“How perfect!” Red breathed.

“Monarch of the forest!” the girl whispered low.

And then stark tragedy came crashing across the waters. A high-power rifle roared. The moose leaped high and then fell with a splash into the black water. The light blinked out, and again all was night.

As if to escape the sight, Berley Todd turned and glided silently up the hill. She was closely followed by the Red Rover.

* * * * * * * *

While the Red Rover and Berley Todd were meeting with strange adventures on the “Mystic Isle,” Drew Lane and his companions were striving in vain to unravel the tangled skein of mystery that surrounded their disappearance.

“Everything’s gone haywire!” Drew exclaimed disconsolately, thrusting out his feet before him and staring moodily at his littered desk.

“Not so bad as that, I’m sure,” Johnny Thompson put in hopefully.

“Just exactly as bad, and worse!” Drew struck the desk a blow with his fist that set even a “Meditating Buddha” dancing. “Why, look at it; we raid two well-known headquarters, and what do we get? A quart of pocket knives. The Galloping Ghost suggests that we whittle soft wood with each one of these, then examine the cuttings for irregularities on the edge of the knife, after which we are to compare each with the shavings found on the night of the now famous kidnaping. And what do we find? Exactly nothing. The whittling was not done by any one of these knives. So back they go. And where are we? Nowhere.

“The Chief’s yelling his head off. People are saying the police are asleep. Daily papers are impatient. University people are furious. The Red Rover is still a captive, and each day brings the great game nearer. Football! Why did anyone ever invent the game?” He sprang to his feet and began pacing the floor.

“Why did they kidnap Red anyway?” he demanded fiercely. “I ask you that. No ransom money has been demanded. Why?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Johnny, “they mean to wait until the very day of the game. They may figure that is the psychological moment for making a demand.”

“There might be something to that,” Drew said earnestly. “Might be a lot. And if there is—” Once again his voice rose. “If there is, we’ve got to get them before that time comes! Kidnaping’s been too easy. Too many soft-livered millionaires have paid large sums for their release or the release of some child. We’ve got to give ’em a lesson!”

“But how are you to get them?”

“We must find a way. There’s still that invisible footprint on the sleeping car bed sheet.”

“And there’s my jimmy bar,” said Johnny hopefully.

“Yes, that’s the very bar, right enough. But where did you find it? In the speed boat of a boy in his ’teens. You can’t very well pin a super-kidnaping on a mere boy.”

“N-no,” Johnny said slowly, “and you wouldn’t want to. Young Angelo is a fine chap. Good looking, and all that. Got everything—speed boat—going to have a faster one—big car—going to college, and all that.”

“All that?” Drew sat up and stared at him. “Didn’t know there was that much in the cut flower business, not these days. Flowers, you’d say, are a luxury. And luxuries have been hit hard. Guess I’ll quit being a cop, and go in for flowers.”

Johnny thought of the rough reception accorded him in the place beneath the flower shop, and wondered a big wonder. Should he tell Drew about that? Well, perhaps, some time. Not now. He hadn’t quite thought the thing through yet.

“But the man with the scar and the fiery eyes!” he suggested. “You’ve got the goods on him. That was his gun. He fired that shot at Tom, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he fired the shot. But he’s vanished off the earth, so far as we can see.

“And besides,” he added, pushing a sheet of paper toward the boy, “besides, there is this.”

“The old G.G. again!” Johnny said, catching his breath.

“None other. Read it.”

Johnny read:

_Drew Lane: You are on the wrong track. The man who fired the shot was
not the kidnaper. For his motives consult the Rogues’ Gallery. The
trail you seek leads north._

“_The G.G._”

“North!” Drew exploded. “How far north? Which way? How? By train, plane or boat? If he wishes to help us, why doesn’t he be more explicit?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Johnny, “that’s all he knows at present.

“And,” he added thoughtfully, “we ourselves might go on from there.”

“How?”

“Well, you know, in the newspaper offices they have what they call an Exchange Department. Papers from all over the world are on file there. If a fellow went there and studied all the papers published up north in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Canada, he might discover a clue. Some paragraph telling of some mysterious occurrence might just put a fellow on the right track.”

“It might.” Drew’s tone was dubious. “Sounds a little like it came out of a book. But you go ahead and try it. Jimmie Drury over at the News will see that you get a look at the files. Tell him I sent you.

“And while you’re on the ramble, just drop over to the State Street Station and see if you can find the picture of a crook with a cross branded on his temple. Old G.G. suggested that.

“But I’ll tell you what I am beginning to think of that Galloping Ghost! I think he’s a fake! Or even worse, a crook that’s giving us a bum steer, throwing us off the trail. I’ve more than half a notion to burn every other love letter he sends us before I read it.

“Because, look!” Once more he was pacing the floor. “If an honest fellow was wearing a sheet and posing as a ghost, if he had some real information about a case like this—one that interests the whole country—why wouldn’t he let us in on his secret, come right round in his street clothes and tell us his story? What I say is—”

He broke straight off to stare at the door. Some one had begun rattling it violently.

“Johnny, see who’s there.”