“A ghost!” Pete cried. “Run, Bob!”
Stumbling over each other, they ran pell-mell from the old saloon. The invisible crowd roared behind them, and the piano still played. Out on the hot street they ran madly towards the mine.
Inside the mine, the long tunnel was lighted! They ran on down the sloping shaft, and saw Jupiter and Cluny ahead.
“Jupe! A ghost attacked —!” Pete began, and stopped.
Jupiter and Cluny were pale and shaking and staring ahead down the dim mine shaft. Bob and Pete became aware of noises — the sound of water dripping, of machinery clanking, and then wild, lost insane laughter. A shot exploded in the mine, seemed to zing past the boys, and reverberated on up the tunnel.
“Wha-what… is it, Jupe?” Bob stammered.
Jupiter swallowed hard. “I… I don’t know. We came in here, and… and… he shot at us! He —”
Pete and Bob saw him!
Not more than twenty feet ahead in the dim tunnel, he stood aiming an old rifle at them — a grizzled, bearded miner in a red wool shirt and buckskin trousers and high leather boots!
“We know how to deal with claim-jumpers!” the apparition said in an echoing voice.
Laughing nastily, the dim shape raised the rifle and pulled the trigger!
Ashen-faced, Pete stood in the shaft with his eyes shut.
“Am… am I… hit?” he wailed.
The tall investigator opened his eyes and looked at the others. They were all pale.
“He missed us!” Bob cried.
Cluny stammered, “He… he’s just scaring us, fellows!”
“But what does he —?” Pete began.
The bearded apparition laughed wildly again, raised the old rifle once more, and called out nastily, “We know how to deal with claim-jumpers!”
And pulled the trigger again!
Two shots exploded once more at point-blank range.
“Missed us again!” Cluny cried. The red-headed boy glared at the old miner and took a step forward. “What do you want from —?”
“Wait, Cluny!” Jupiter said suddenly, staring at the crazy old miner. “Everyone watch!”
They watched the old miner warily. The noises of water and machinery still sounded through the mine. After a long minute, there was a faint click and whir, and the old miner laughed his wild laugh. His rifle rose!
“We know how to deal with claim-jumpers!” he boomed, pulling the trigger. Two more shots rang out — and missed!
“It’s a fake!” Jupiter cried, and began to laugh. “It’s a mechanical dummy, men! With a recording in it. The noises are just some kind of sound track.”
Bob suddenly groaned. “Am I dumb! I remember now! I read about it in the newspaper, fellows. They’re restoring Powder Gulch and making it into a tourist attraction! Rides, and ghosts, and western shows. That’s why the town’s locked up.”
“Of course,” Jupiter said glumly. “I read that, too. Some time ago.”
Pete walked up to the old miner and touched the face. “It’s moulded plastic. Boy, it sure looks real. I guess our ghost in the saloon was a fake, too. They sure do some job on dummies these days.”
“They do,” Jupiter agreed, “but we have other matters to think about. Has anyone seen anything that could be a clue to Angus Gunn’s plans?”
Bob told him about the ledger in the general store, and the food old Angus had bought for a lot of men.
“Or if not many men, a long job of building something,” Jupiter reasoned. “So we know that whatever Angus built for a surprise for Laura was a pretty big job. What we don’t know yet is what it was, or where he built it.” He opened the thin journal and frowned at it. “There just isn’t enough in the entry for October 29 to help.”
“We never did look for messages in the saloon,” Pete said.
“All right, we’ll go back there next,” Jupiter said, closing the journal. “Then we’ll try the jail — the sheriff back then might have left some records — and look for a newspaper office.”
They started back out of the old mine. Pete and Bob noticed details they’d missed on the way in — refurbished mining carts, some old tools, and another dummy — a black-bearded miner with a pick in his hands.
Pete grinned. “Boy, those plastic dummies are real-looking. That one with the pick looks like —”
The black-bearded miner dropped the pickaxe, jumped at Jupiter, grabbed the journal, and ran out of the mine shaft!
“Java Jim!” Bob gasped.
The boys stood paralysed by the shock of the dummy leaping to life. Then Jupiter recovered.
“He got the journal! After him!”
They pounded along the dimly lit mine shaft and out into the hot afternoon sun.
“There he goes!” Cluny cried.
The short sailor was far down the main street, running hard.
“Stop, you thief!” Pete yelled.
“He’s getting away!” Cluny shouted. “Stop, robber!”
Java Jim glanced back with a laugh and ran past the saloon — just as a shadowy figure in black appeared in the doorway. A figure with a big, black pistol in each hand!
“It’s our ghost!” Pete gulped.
Java Jim saw the menacing, wraithlike figure in the saloon doorway. With a cry, the bearded sailor veered away from the saloon — and fell sprawling over an old horse trough. The journal flew from his hand. He scrambled up, then stumbled again. “He’s a thief!” Pete yelled. “Grab him!”
The “ghost” looked towards the boys, and then started down the steps of the wooden sidewalk towards Java Jim. His pistols caught the sunlight. Java Jim didn’t wait. He turned and ran off behind the buildings to the fence, scrambled over, and vanished into the thick, dry undergrowth along the creek bed.
The boys ran up to the “ghost.” Outside in the light, he was just a man dressed in black western clothes. Jupiter picked up the thin journal where Java Jim had dropped it.
“You boys shouldn’t be in here,” the “ghost” said. “You better tell me what this is all about, and give me that book if it belongs to this town.”
“It doesn’t, sir,” Jupiter said. “We’re sorry we climbed the fence, but we didn’t know anyone was here, and we had to investigate.” He explained that they were trying to discover Angus Gunn’s business in Powder Gulch. “You certainly scared us with your tricks!”
The “ghost” grinned. “I decided to practise our special effects on you. I’m the caretaker here.” He rubbed his jaw. “Angus Gunn, eh — Maybe I can help. I’ve got all the old records in my office. If your Angus Gunn did anything here, I’ll find it.”
They went through the saloon into a small office. The caretaker opened a filing cabinet. “All the names in the old records have been indexed and cross-referenced, boys. Part of the work of the restoration. Let’s see what we have for Gunn.”
He read a file and shook his head. “Just two references. The purchase you saw in the general store, and a two-line notice in the Gulch newspaper for 1872 offering a short job for miners. That’s all.”
“A dead end,” Pete groaned. “We —”
They heard a voice yelling outside. “Boys!.. Cluny Gunn!.. You boys…!”
“It’s Rory!” Cluny said.
They hurried through the saloon. Rory McNab stood out in the street with the man Bob had talked to at the Historical Society — Professor Shay. The round-faced little professor hurried up to the boys.
“Boys! You gave us quite a turn! I bumped into Mr. McNab outside the gates. He told me you were supposed to be here, and then we found your bikes. We were afraid something had happened to —”
“Trespassing!” Rory snapped. “I knew ye’d get into trouble. That’s why I came after — to see ye didna’ hurt yersels!”
“No harm done, Mr. McNab,” the caretaker said. “Maybe Professor Shay would be interested in the boys’ comments on our special effects. The professor is our historical adviser, boys. The Society is helping with the restoration.”
“Yes, yes, but later!” Professor Shay said, his eyes bright behind his rimless glasses. He waved goodbye to the caretaker and steered the boys down the street. “What is this about a second Angus Gunn journal, boys? You found one? You think there could be a treasure? What a discovery. Historical! Tell me, quickly!”
Jupiter told about the second journal and Java Jim’s interest in it. Professor Shay’s round face turned purple.
“What?” he cried. “This… this person! Java Jim? He’s trying to steal the Gunns’ treasure? To use it for his own gain, sell it in bits, perhaps melt the gold? Monstrous! Why, it would be historically priceless! An East Indian pirate hoard intact! Our Society’s museum would be famous. But you found no clue here?”
“Well,” Jupiter said slowly, “we have learned that whatever Angus built for his wife was a big job.”
“Yes, I see, but not here,” Professor Shay said. “At Phantom Lake! I’m an expert on this area. Perhaps I can see what you boys can’t. Put your bikes in my car, and we’ll drive to Phantom Lake. It would be a crime to lose the treasure to that Java Jim!”
Rory sneered at Professor Shay, “Another fool you are!”
“What? And what do you know, McNab?” the professor said. “I think the boys may be right! Get your bikes, boys.”
The gates were open now. The boys put their bikes into the back of Professor Shay’s station wagon. Rory went off to his own car. Jupiter gave him a puzzled look.
They gathered on the terrace of the big house in the late sun. Mrs. Gunn watched the boys and the professor with sympathy. Rory smoked his pipe with a sardonic smile.
“Nothing,” Professor Shay said in dejection. “Angus Gunn built nothing big except the house, and it’s been searched for years. And there’s no trace of that sluice timber.”
Rory laughed. “You’re all daft! If old Angus did build something of sluice timber, it’d be long gone now. And if any treasure ever existed, which it nae did, ye’ll no’ find it now.”
“We will!” Bob cried.
“Of course you will, boys,” Mrs. Gunn said, looking severely at Rory. “Perhaps the treasure won’t be a real treasure, but I’m sure you’ll find something.”
“Gee, Mum,” Cluny said, “you sound like you don’t believe there’s a treasure, either!”
Jupiter was rereading the letter of Angus Gunn. “If we just knew a little more. I’m convinced there’s a key, but it was all so long ago. What did old Angus love at home?”
Mrs. Gunn shook her head. “While you boys were at Powder Gulch, I took the time to reread most of Laura’s letters. She writes a lot of Angus’s love of the Gunn land in Scotland, of the magnificent view down the narrow loch, but that’s all. Nothing at all specific, Jupiter.”
“It does seem almost hopeless,” Professor Shay said.
“I admit it seems a most difficult problem,” Jupiter agreed with a long sigh.
Cluny cried, “You’re not going to give up, Jupiter?”
“Hunh!” Pete said. “You sure don’t know Jupe! He’s only getting started!”
“I wouldn’t blame you boys for giving up,” Mrs. Gunn said.
“I don’t think it’s time to give up yet,” said Jupiter. “Old Angus didn’t say where we’d find a clue, and we’ve taken only the first step. It’s time for the second step.”
He opened the thin journal. “The next entry that appears significant is for November 11, 1872.
The next week or so is just his daily round at home.”
“Jupe! He says his boat was loaded,” Pete pointed out.
“Yes,” Jupiter nodded. “The island may be the answer.”
“But,” Cluny asked, “where is it? I’ve never heard of any island of cypresses round here.”
“Neither have I,” Jupiter admitted. “Pete?”
Pete, who was the yachtsman of the trio and knew the local waters well, took the journal. “I don’t think that’s its name. It might not have had a name then. All the big Channel Islands did, so this one is probably a small island just off the coast. It has to be near, because Angus got there and back in half a day. It sounds like it was owned by one family, and it must have had cypresses. I’ll look it up.”
“I’ll go, too,” Professor Shay exclaimed. “I own a sailing-boat, and we can take it — if the island isn’t too far from Rocky Beach.”
Rory stood up. “Phantoms, ghosts, islands without names, a man dead a hundred years! Ye’ve all gone crazy!”
The Scotsman stomped off the terrace as Mrs. Gunn shook her head and smiled.
“Don’t mind Rory too much,” she said. “He has a terrible temper and no use for impractical things, but he’s really a good man. We’ve had a difficult time since Cluny’s father passed away, and Rory made the last year much easier. I think he’s tired out from his trip.”
“Trip?” Jupiter asked sharply. “Rory’s been away, ma’am?”
“To Santa Barbara, yes. He went for three days to sell our avocados. He only returned last night.”
Jupiter’s face clouded. “Just who is Rory, ma’am? He’s only been here a year?”
“He’s a distant cousin of my husband’s from Scotland. He came for a visit, and stayed to help. He’s a proud man, and stubborn, and won’t take any pay. Just his room and board as part of the family.”
Jupiter stood up on the terrace and nodded to Bob and Pete.
“We better get home now, ma’am. It’s late,” he said.
“I’ll drive you,” Professor Shay said. Their bikes were already in Professor Shay’s Station wagon. Soon they were driving down the side road and out on to the highway to Rocky Beach.
“Professor Shay,” Jupiter said suddenly, “one thing puzzles me. How do you think Java Jim knows so much about the Gunns and the letter?”
“I’m not sure, Jupiter,” the professor replied. “The rumours of the treasure are well known locally, of course. Still, your Java Jim doesn’t appear to be a local. Perhaps he’s some descendant of another Argyll Queen survivor! Even the Captain.”
“Gosh,” Bob said. “That could explain it, Jupe.”
“I suppose so,” Jupiter said slowly.
Professor Shay dropped the boys at the salvage yard half an hour before dinnertime. They scrambled through Tunnel Two into Headquarters.
“Jupe, I’ve been thinking,” Pete said. “How can we be sure old Angus didn’t build a mine at Phantom Lake — a hidden mine — secret!”
“We can’t, Second,” Jupiter said. “But we’d need some definite clue to find it then. And what would the legend of the phantom in Scotland have to do with a mine? Or a mirror?”
Bob said, “Mrs. Gunn told us that the phantom was supposed to watch for Vikings on the lake in Scotland. Maybe old Angus meant that! The phantom stares at the lake — the treasure’s somewhere in that pond!”
“That’s possible, too, Records,” Jupiter agreed. “But we’d still need a clue to know just where.” Jupiter paused. “Did you two hear what Mrs. Gunn told us about Rory, men?”
“Sure,” Pete said. “He’s a big help and a hard worker.”
“And he’s got a bad temper,” Bob said. “Some news!”
“And,” Jupiter said, “he was away from Phantom Lake for three days until last night Which means, fellows, that he could have been in Rocky Beach yesterday when Java Jim attacked us, and at the roadside museum, and in San Francisco the day before!”
“You mean he could be working with Java Jim to steal the treasure,” Bob said. “He’d sure know all about the letter and Phantom Lake and maybe the things Mrs. Gunn sold.”