Chapter Eighteen ~ Deer-Trail Shortcut

as told to Ryl by Ron Duncan

“Are—are you suggesting that Tank made that suit so he could dress up like a sasquatch and scare us?” Honey asked in utter disbelief.

Ron raised an eyebrow and waited for an answer. If any of these New Yorkers thought that Tank would do such a thing, he had severely underestimated them.

“No, someone else is trying to scare us,” Trixie said, shaking her head vigorously. “The same person who stole Tank’s snowsuit, messed up his cabin, and made off with Tank and Cap.”

As ridiculous as it sounded, Ron had to admit the explanation was far more plausible than Tank building a snowsuit for the sole purpose of scaring people.

“You could be right!” Knut exclaimed. “Except that’s an awful lot for one person to do.”

“And what’s his motive?” asked the sturdy redhead who looked as if he knew a thing or two about living off the land.

“Gold,” Trixie guessed shrewdly. “Tank’s gold.”

Ron’s stomach churned. A lot of people mistook Tank for an easy mark. They were wrong, dead wrong, but greed was a strong motivator. If someone had decided to use physical force, it was possible that Tank was in a whole lot of trouble.

“I just can’t get over that that was a man who chased us down the road and threw rocks at us! I think that’s mean!” The girl Ron had pegged as the least outdoorsy of the New Yorkers tossed her dark hair and stared down the inky darkness surrounding them. “And he’s out there right now, waiting to plunk us with that slingshot.”

“Thank goodness he has a slingshot and not a gun,” Trixie said, but she didn’t sound nearly as certain as Ron wanted her to be.

“The fake sasquatch can’t be Opie Swisher,” she muttered to herself. “He wouldn’t have had to get dressed up and chase us down the road.”

“You mean Fred Swisher,” the other curly-haired blond said.

“Opie Swisher,” Trixie repeated. “The one who asked us to babysit his kids.”

Ron shook his head and wondered if his hearing was going. Babysitting? Out here?

“Are we talking about the same guy?” Mart demanded. “Fred Swisher ate our biscuits, remember?”

Someone ate their biscuits? Was that code? He’d heard that New Yorkers had their own slang, but darned if he could figure out what they meant.

“Two Swishers!” Trixie whispered. “Of course!”

“Are you suggesting,” said the serious dark-haired youth who wasn’t Knut, “that those two characters who came into camp Tuesday have caused all this trouble and may know where Cap is?”

“Exactly,” Trixie agreed. “And Tank, too.”

Jim’s mouth tightened, and Ron decided that he didn’t want to be on the wrong end of the young man’s temper. “Then what are we waiting for?” he asked.

“We need a plan,” Honey urged.

“First we block the road,” Hallie said. “Let’s turn the truck across it.”

Knut agreed readily. “Near the bridge there’s a tree that leans out across the road. Ron, you can chop that down while Jim puts the truck across the road at the foot of the hill. Brian, Mart, and I will close in on the station wagon. Trixie, you have to show us where the wagon is, and the rest of you will be stationed along the road as lookouts, in case the men run.”

It wasn’t a half-bad plan, but Ron frowned at the responsibility falling on the shoulders of such young people. The girls were, what, thirteen? Fourteen?

“I’m not sure I can do that,” Di faltered, and Ron couldn’t blame her. Gloria was several years older than these girls, and he wouldn’t have felt right sending her to be a look-out for potentially dangerous men.

“You kicked a bear, remember?” Mart reminded her.

This time, he hoped it really was code. Kicking a bear was a terrible decision in the best of times! The reminder, however, seemed to give Diana a boost of confidence.

“That was an accident,” she admitted, but buttoned her sweater and reached for her flashlight. Who kicked a bear by accident?

“We’ll use the Bob-White signal,” Honey said, and gave a demonstration.

It was a good imitation, and Ron had to admit that it was an effective means of communication in desperate situations. The New Yorkers might be strange, but they were also smart and worked well as a team.

He hopped on to the tailgate of the truck while the others piled in and watched Miss Trask set out the first aid supplies. Practical, but hardly encouraging.

When they reached the road, he slid down from the tailgate, bringing the axe with him. He walked alone down the dim ribbon of dirt road to the bridge. The tree was easy enough to find, even in the fading light. While the others continued on, he set to work. Not only was the tree already leaning over the road, it was leaning because it was dying. The dry and hollow trunk split easily, though it seemed to take forever before it finally tumbled to the ground, sending dirt and leaves flying. Ron didn’t like to disrupt the natural life cycle of the trees in the park, but this tree had already been well on its way to decomposing. If it served the purpose of thwarting the Swishers, who seemed to have no respect for the land or other people, so much the better.

Only moments after the dust had settled from the falling tree, Ron heard the distinctive Bob-White whistle, followed by shouts. He raced down the path, hoping that no one had been injured, and that maybe, just maybe, they were about to find out exactly where Tank and Cap were. When he caught up to Hallie, Di, Honey, and Trixie, they were about to start up the deer path that led to Tank’s cabin.

Though he had misgivings about the safety of the path in the dark, he knew there wasn’t a moment to lose if they were going to save Tank and Cap. The trail was narrow, but they used their flashlights to illuminate the hard-beaten earth. Even running at a ground-eating pace, he could hear the peaceful sounds of the night forest. When a deer bolted across the path in front of them, he was almost as surprised as Di. The cougar that followed it, however, had his heart racing even more than the run.

“Don’t kick it,” Hallie drawled, and Ron began to think that he had severely underestimated these girls.

“Chalk it up to a good deed,” he said. “We just saved that deer’s life.” And maybe it was an omen, he thought. They had saved the deer, and with any luck, they would find Tank and Cap, wherever they were. Even though the park was huge, he couldn’t think of very many places for them to be. The underbrush was too thick to travel off the deer paths, and there were very few cabins, abandoned or otherwise. In fact, the only one that came to mind in this neck of the woods was Tank’s.

“I think it’s getting light,” Di said as they paused for a short rest. “I can see a kind of band under the stars.”

“We’ll see first light from the peak,” Hallie said wearily. “That’s something to behold, isn’t it, Ron?”

Ron nodded absentmindedly. “If I had a couple of bodies to hide—”

“Bodies!” Trixie gasped.

“Live ones,” Ron corrected himself hastily. “I think I know where I’d stash them away.”

“They weren’t in the cabin or the ice cave,” Hallie cried. “We’ve already been there.”

“The mine?” Trixie asked.

“Oh, no, not the mine,” Hallie moaned, and Ron wished that he’d kept his mouth shut. “It’s so cold in there, and Tank has rheumatism.”

“I wish I’d known Tank was missing, too,” Ron said. “Sheriff Sprute would have sent the Search and Rescue Squad pronto. If he sent them out every time Cap and I hit the trail, that squad would be all search and no rescue.”

As the group resumed its climbing, Trixie said, “Let’s go over what we know so far. I think one of the Swishers was sniping on Champion Creek before we moved in and the sasquatch scare drove everyone else out. When we didn’t leave, Opie tried to get us to take his kids. That would have kept us in camp while he and Fred went right on doing as they pleased. Hallie, do you think they could have known about Tank and the gold he didn’t take to the bank?”

“Sure,” Hallie panted, obviously feeling the strain of the rapid pace they were maintaining.

“Tank’s a legend in gold country,” Ron said. “He’s been crowding his luck for years.”

“If Fred was hanging around, he could have heard us talking about the nugget bag,” Di said.

Trixie paused to catch her breath. “Or maybe Frank had been hanging around Tank’s cabin and mine before we came. He had seen Tank working on the fur suit. When the panic started, Frank got the wild idea of scaring us out of our wits. He found out we were unarmed, then went straight to the mine, where he stole the nugget bag and the suit. He could have pinned the suit with the safety pin when he tried it on and found that it had no zipper. He must have snagged it on the door hasp.”

“When he almost got caught by Tank,” Hallie put in.

“Well, if I was a thief and I knew a bag held gold that didn’t have to be picked up with tweezers, I’d help myself,” Di declared.

Ron seriously doubted that she would do any such thing, but held his tongue.

“That’s what Fred thought,” Trixie said. “But we kept getting in his way. Probably Opie and Fred took turns pestering us and hunting for Tank’s gold. I’m sure—” She paused, and Ron could practically see the wheels turning in her brain. “I’m certain that Fred was on the mountain when Cap visited Tank.”

“Probably Fred jumped Tank the minute Cap left,” said Hallie. “Judging from all the damage, it must have been some fight.”

“But why would Fred have fought with Cap?” Di asked. “Does Cap know where Tank’s cache is?”

“Nope,” said Ron. “Nobody knows.”

And if Cap didn’t know, Ron thought grimly, what would the Swishers do to him?