The Auto Boys' Mystery

Excerpt

CHAPTER I
PROLOGUE

The Auto Boys had been camped on the unfrequented shore of Opal Lake for several days. At first hunting and fishing were the only enlivening features of this, their unusual summer outing.

Opal Lake, far up in the big northern woods, had at this time no other campers. True, there was an abandoned clubhouse on a nearby point not far from where Phil Way, Billy Worth, Dave MacLester and Paul Jones selected the spot for their Outing Camp. But, until within a day or two, even the clubhouse had seemed to be as it looked, deserted.

But a smoke being seen one day, the boys had become curious. Without actually entering the house itself, they had made individual or collective trips that way. Also strange sounds had been heard, and even human presence had been detected. Finally Paul, the youngest of the boys, made a cautious trip thither and even entered the house where he had heard voices, and otherwise had detected that real folks were undoubtedly there; though why they were there Paul could only guess. Perhaps they were in search of a bag of money, said to be twenty thousand dollars, stolen three years before and supposed still to be hidden somewhere in that region.

Strange men had been seen near the end of a gravel road which the Longknives Club (owners of the now abandoned clubhouse) were then constructing for their own use and convenience. The unexpected loss of this money caused the work to stop, while the workmen, including a Swedish foreman, Nels Anderson by name, remained unpaid to this day.

Aside from the clubhouse, the nearest inhabitants to the boys' camp were this same Anderson and his family, who lived in a small clearing five or six miles away on the trail leading to Staretta, a small town perhaps a dozen miles further on. This was the nearest town to Opal Lake which was, indeed, a veritable "Lake of the Woods."

When Paul Jones, finally escaping through the cellar window, left the clubhouse without being discovered, he ran across in the dark another somebody who vanished, uttering strange and savage oaths. Paul also made himself scarce in another direction and happened upon Chip Slider, whose merry response to Paul's greeting caused both soon to become so friendly that Paul took Chip to their camp, where a warm meal soon loosened the boys' tongues and there was a general interchange of opinions about game, fish, the big woods, and at last the abandoned house on the point.

Here the boys learned from Chip that a man named Murky was also in the woods and supposedly after that lost or stolen satchel, thought by many to be hidden somewhere near. They learned from Chip more of the robbery of Grandall, the treasurer of the Longknives, by this same Murky; also that Murky himself, through the connivance of Grandall, was held up by Chip's father by the order of Grandall. The scheme seemed to have been for Grandall to get the money thus entrusted to his care in a way that would divert suspicion against himself and direct it elsewhere. After sufficient time had elapsed, then Grandall would manage to use that money, meanwhile placating Chip's father, supposedly by bribes.

So open, frank and friendless was young Chip that he won the Auto Boys' confidence, and stayed on at the camp, proving himself a valuable aid and an added link in their narrow social life.

Shortly before this Chip, encountering Murky in the woods, had been badly beaten by the other, and had been seen with a bandaged head by some of the boys. This induced much pity for the homeless lad, while Chip's knowledge of Murky and matters connected with the robbery just alluded to, made him serviceable in the matter of knowing more about what was going on in and about the house on the point....