William Arden - The Secret Of Phantom Lake

“No, Records, I considered that all last night,” Jupiter said. “I’m convinced that Angus wouldn’t have buried the treasure. First, he knew that the Captain of the Argyll Queen was after him, and newly dug dirt is easy for anyone to see. Second, he wanted Laura to find it, and even a few months could obliterate all traces of something buried.

“No,” the stout leader of the trio went on, “I think he would have hidden it somewhere, but marked it with a clear sign that Laura would recognise. A sign that would last a long time, because he couldn’t be sure how long Laura might take to find it!”

Cluny had an idea. “Could Angus have built something here for Laura? Maybe bought some land on the island as a surprise?”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that,” Jupiter said. “We’ll look for something built of timber, or something identified with the Gunns.”

“The letter says to follow his course and read what his days built,” Bob said. “That’s the general direction. Then it talks about the phantom and a mirror. Those could be the signs!”

“Exactly!” Jupiter said. “But the journal says Angus made some proposal to the squire of this island — maybe for permission to hide something here! So we’ll look at the house with the chimney up there first. There could be records in the house.”

They climbed up the saddle between the two small hills, and reached a sheltered hollow near the top. The chimney stood tall in the hollow-but nothing else! The chimney, a massive stone fireplace, and a stone hearth, surrounded by bare, rocky ground.

“The house is gone,” Pete moaned. “There goes our chance of finding a mirror or records, Jupe.”

“Look!” Bob pointed.

Fresh dirt outlined a big, flat slab in the centre of the stone hearth. The slab had evidently been pried up, then dropped back into place.

“Someone’s been here ahead of us,” Professor Shay cried. “Not long ago from the look of that dirt!”

They looked uneasily round at the bleak hills and twisted cypresses. Nothing moved but streamers of mist.

“Let’s see what’s under that slab,” Bob said.

He and Pete moved the heavy stone slab away. Everyone looked down into an empty hole.

“Nothing in the hole,” Pete declared, “and I don’t think there ever was — at least recently.

The dirt’s dry and loose, with no marks in it, fellows.”

“But someone thought there might be,” Jupiter said. “See, he scraped dirt from the hearth until he found the slab.”

“There wasn’t another boat in the cove,” Pete said, “but there’s a small beach round a point just beyond the cove.”

“We’ll spread out and find him!” Professor Shay decided. “But be careful. I’ll be in the centre. If you see anyone, yell, and run to me.”

“Look for anything that might be a sign, too,” Jupiter added. “Maybe a cave, a pile of rocks, or something carved in rock.”

Everyone nodded nervously. Facing north, they spread out in a line towards each side of the tiny island. As they moved forward through the thickening mist, they began to lose sight of each other. Cluny, on the far left, could see only Pete through the mist.

Cluny was moving up the steepest edge of the westernmost hill. The sea and thicker fog lay to his left. A tendril of thick fog drifted round him until he couldn’t even see Pete. Nervous, looking hard for the stranger and listening for any sound, Cluny missed his footing and fell. He slid down the slope in a hail of loose stones.

“Oooof!” he grunted, and scrambled up — and saw it!

Through the drifting fog, a ghostly figure stared down at Cluny from an incline! A twisted black shape with a hump on its back and an evil, pointed face with a hooked nose and one enormous eye!

“It’s the phantom!” Cluny screamed. “Help!” The phantom moved towards Cluny, reaching its long, misshapen arms out to grab him!

“Help! Help!” Cluny shouted, cringing from the menacing phantom.

Pete came pounding up through the fog. “What is it!”

“The phantom!” Cluny pointed. “There!”

Pete gulped and shrank back from the grotesque figure. The phantom’s single eye moved, followed him.

Then Professor Shay arrived, and Jupiter and Bob came panting up. As they stared at the ghostly shape, the fog suddenly thinned. Bob cried:

“It’s a tree!”

“One of the cypresses, twisted by the wind!” Professor Shay added.

The hunchbacked phantom was only a twisted, stunted tree trunk with branches bent out like arms. The “head” was a gnarled stump at the top with a hole in it. Fog drifting behind the hole gave the effect of a moving eye.

“Phew!” Cluny said with relief. “It sure looked like the phantom!”

Suddenly Jupiter exclaimed, “Fellows! It is the phantom! Don’t you see? It must be old Angus’s sign!”

“The sign?” Pete asked.

“You really think so, Jupe?” Bob cried.

Professor Shay narrowed his eyes behind his rimless glasses. “By Caesar, I think Jupiter must be right! Search round the tree, boys, for a hiding place! The treasure could be here!”

“I’ll look on the left!” Cluny said.

“I’ll take the right!” Bob joined in.

Professor Shay said, “You climb up above, Jupiter. I’ll look round the base of the rise!”

Pete was left standing alone as the others swarmed round the grotesque little tree. He looked to the right, and then to the left. He looked behind him, and then up the rise.

“Fellows,” Pete said slowly.

They didn’t hear him, or ignored him. They were poking at the thin dirt round the tree and turning over every rock they could find. Professor Shay was probing a crevice with a long stick.

“Fellows,” Pete said again, “I don’t think you’re going to find anything.”

Jupiter stopped scraping the dirt. “What? Why, Second?”

Pete shook his head. “I don’t think old Angus would have used that tree for his phantom sign, guys.”

“What are you talking about, Peter?” Professor Shay snapped. “Why don’t you help us?”

“Look over there.” Pete pointed to the right.

“Up on the slope — it looks to me like two more phantoms!”

Two ghostly shapes loomed in the mist.

“And there.” Pete motioned behind him. “Three more phantoms!”

As the rising wind blew away the thicker mist, more and more of the twisted trees appeared. Everyone stopped digging and looked at them. Professor Shay groaned and threw his stick away.

“They’re all cypresses! Seen from the right angle, almost every one of them would look like some kind of phantom!”

Jupiter nodded sadly. “Pete’s right. There are too many phantom trees for old Angus to have picked one as a sign. Or else —”

“Or else what, Jupe?” Pete asked.

“Or else Angus made a mistake and did pick one to mark the treasure,” Jupiter said. “It would take months and months to dig round all the cypresses! We might never find it!”

“I’m afraid,” Professor Shay said, “we’re beaten, boys.”

“Only if old Angus did hide the treasure on the island,” Jupiter said. “But —”

The stocky boy was interrupted by a sudden shower of pebbles and rocks that rolled down the slope. He looked up. The mist was almost gone now, and he could see another phantom shape standing on the crest of the hill.

“Just another cypress!” Cluny laughed.

“But,” Jupiter said, “a tree can’t make stones roll unless —”

“Unless it can move!” Pete said.