"I pretended I was still out. He dragged me down a pa.s.sageway, past a room with a barred door, then under the low door to this room, and dumped me on this cot. I've been here ever since. My only hope has been that your father had received my letter and would try to find me."

"And all the time Dad was working on the same case over in New Jersey!" Joe marveled.

Quickly Frank informed the captain of the boys' own sleuthing, including Webber's claim that Maguire owed him money.

"A lie," said the captain in disgust. "Just an excuse to spy on you boys at the cabin."

162 Frank concluded his account with the boys' suspicion that the owl sounds were being made by humans and used as signals.

"You're right there," confirmed Maguire. "I've learned that much since I've been here. Donner warns the hijackers not to come by faking the screech of the barn owl. I guess he's been using it a lot since you boys got here!"

"Then the wailing of the screech owl means that the coast is clear. It's okay to deliver the goods," Joe finished.

"That's absolutely right!" came a deep, familiar voice from the door leading to the cabin.

Whirling, the Hardys found themselves facing the long, silver barrel of Walter Donner's pistol. The gang leader had quietly pushed open the door to the cell and heard the last part of the conversation. He was followed by a big, rough-looking man and the lawyer, Wyckoff Webber.

54 "My congratulations," said Donner in a mocking tone. "You've solved the case very cleverly through the clue of the screeching owl. By the way, I did the screeching and wailing myself. Pretty good, eh?"

Then the big man's voice took on a tone of menace. "But it won't do you any good. Your reward will be to meet the screaming witch herself!"

Wondering, Frank and Joe were prodded by the muzzle of Donner's gun down the rock pasFrank and Joe were prodded by Donner's gun down the rock pa.s.sageway 164 sageway toward the cabin and into the cell with the barred door that Captain Maguire had mentioned.

"Socky!" called Donner harshly to the rough-looking man. "Go get that third kid!"

Meanwhile, Frank and Joe looked around the rock-walled room by the feeble light of Donner's flashlight. They noticed that the rear wall was covered by a tarpaulin. The air was heavy and moist, as in most underground chambers, but there was also a strange, rank odor.

"Like your new quarters?" taunted Donner, indicating the rock walls. "All these chambers and pa.s.sages were hewn out of natural caverns by the Abolitionists when they built the cabin against the front of the rock wall.

"Very clever people," he went on affably. "They were the ones who revived the witch legend by stealing dogs and faking screams to keep people away from the hollow while they hid runaway slaves. Don't you admire my extensive historical research?"

"At least they had a good motive," said Frank defiantly. "They didn't steal dogs to cover up a hijacking racket. By the way, we know where Bobby Thompson's Skippy is."

Donner looked startled for a moment, then said, "I don't know what you're talking about." He went on mockingly, "I fooled you boys with the hideous face in the woods. It wasn't Si165 mon. I wore a rubber mask and a black wig."

"Skip the talk!" snapped Joe. "What are you going to do with us?"

Realizing that he could not shake the boys' nerve, the tall man abruptly crossed the room to the tarpaulin-covered wall.

"Meet the witch!" cried Donner, ripping away the canvas. The faint light showed the bars of a cage, and behind them, the fierce green eyes and powerful body of a big, tawny-brown puma!

"Some of the screams were his," said Donner. "When I heard that my brother William-Colonel Thunder-was going to have this beast destroyed because it almost killed him, I sent Socky to get the animal from him. I felt that such a 'pet' would be helpful in reviving the witch legend. But William wasn't told / wanted it, nor why.

"The puma knows who's master here, at any rate," the gang leader added in a cruel voice. "William and I don't have anything to do with each other, but he did warn my lawyer that some snoopers said I was stealing dogs."

"And then Webber set Captain Maguire's cabin on fire and tried to burn us to death," said Joe, looking sharply at the lawyer's ragged left shoe. But the youth did not reveal his clue as to the telltale prints found near the scene of the razed cabin. He was sure Sheriff Ecker's casts of the footprints would be conclusive evidence.

166 "I deny that!" cried Webber. "You can't prove it!"

"Oh, yes, we can," Joe told him.

Frank interrupted. "This puma was loose in the hollow tonight, wasn't it?"

"That's right," Donner admitted. "I sometimes let him out through the door you see at the rear of his cage. It leads out onto the rocks. But I only let him out after I've put a sleeping pill in his food. He usually comes back quietly.

"However," he added meaningfully, "tonight the effects of his last pill wore 55 off sooner than I expected. That's why I had to warn my men to lie low right after I'd given them the all clear. Fortunately, my pet came back without harming anyone.

"By the way, the grating between yourselves and this animal can be raised-just yank the chain here. At the same time, the puma's outside door will be raised.

So if you want to escape, the way out is very simple. All you have to do is get past the puma!"

Walter Donner stepped back into the pa.s.sage, slammed the door to the boys'

prison, and shot the heavy bolt into place.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," came his mocking voice from the corridor, "there is another chain, with which I can raise only the grating between you and the puma. I'll get around to it sometime tonight."

167 Luckily, Joe had hidden his flashlight inside his shirt. Now, left alone, the brothers carefully examined the walls of their prison.

"No way out," concluded Joe. "Our only hope is that Chet got away all right and can return with the State Police before Donner lifts that grating!"

Switching off the flashlight, the two boys waited tensely in the pitch darkness. A few feet away the big cat could be heard pacing nervously. After a long silence, Frank and Joe heard voices in the corridor outside.

"Did you get that fat kid?" asked Donner.

"You can forget him, boss," came the rough voice of the strong-arm man, Socky.

"I see him pull out in this yellow convertible. So I take off after him in the truck. Pretty soon I see his lights, pretty far ahead, goin' round a turn.

Then in a couple minutes I hear this terrific crash-like a car goin' right over the edge and down in the hollow. I come up, and there's the wreck way down below-burning up like mad. n.o.body could've lived through it."

"Good!" snapped Walter Donner. "That takes care of him!"

Frank and Joe stood as if frozen, in utter horror!

CHAPTER XX.

Triumphant Sleuths for one long moment the Hardy brothers were too stunned to speak.

"Not Chet! It can't be true!" Joe faltered at last.

"We mustn't believe the story," Frank told him, his voice trembling. "We must get out of here and learn the truth!"

Together the two boys moved up to the grating to study the only possible escape route: past the dangerous puma and out the far door. The beast gave a menacing growl as it stalked to the bars.

"Let's take off our socks, shirts, belts, and sweaters," Frank commanded. "I have a plan."

In a moment the two boys were squatting, stripped to the waist, before a heap of clothing.

"There's one thing every animal respects," muttered Frank. The youth doubled the heavy 168.

169 belts together for a stiff core, and began wrapping the sweaters and shirts around them.

"Fire!" Joe exclaimed, catching on. "You're making a torch! But what about matches?"

"After Donner's lecture about preparedness, I vowed I'd never be without them," Frank returned, drawing a watertight cylinder from his pocket.

A match flared in the dark, square room. The puma growled apprehensively.

Slowly the flame crawled up the impromptu torch, growing brighter and brighter until it was a ball of fire.

Panicky now, the big cat loped back and forth, snarling viciously.

"Now, while it lasts!" cried Frank. "Yank that chain, Joe!"

With a sc.r.a.ping sound the iron bars rose upward. Holding the flaring torch before him, Frank advanced upon the puma. Plunging, snarling with fear, raising its powerful paws, the beast backed through the outer door, which Joe 56 had opened.

"It's working!" Frank cried as he too stepped outside.

But at that very instant Joe was seized by powerful arms from behind. The snarls of the puma and the sound of the chain had warned the hijackers.

"Sockyl" shouted Donner. "Get that other one!"

170 "Keep going, Frank!" Joe shouted.

One backward glance told Frank what was happening: Joe was going down under two attackers, another one coming for him. Desperately Frank rushed forward and hurled the ball of flame straight into the puma's snarling face. Maddened, the big cat turned tail and plunged for the freedom of the woods. Frank by now was sprinting at top speed in another direction. Socky emerged, hesitated, and started off in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Joe was slowly regaining consciousness after being dealt a stunning blow. His head throbbed. His wrists and ankles stung where ropes cut into the flesh. He was on the damp floor bound hand and foot.

"Now, what kind of 'accident' can we arrange for these two?" It was Donner speaking.

Opening his eyes, Joe saw that he had been moved to Captain Maguire's cell.

The captain, also bound, lay above him on the cot. A hijacker stood over the two with a pistol, while Walter Donner, holding a lantern aloft in one hand, coolly plotted their murder.

"Perhaps a nice, hot fire that won't leave any evidence," the gang leader suggested. "And we mustn't forget to include your brother-if Socky gets to him before the puma does."

"Hands up!" came a sudden, sharp command. "Drop that gun!"

Wheeling, Donner found himself covered by a 171 Tommy gun. Two state troopers stood in the doorway where he and Webber had surprised the Hardys earlier!

As Donner's pistol clattered to the floor, he swung his lantern viciously at the nearest officer. There was a crash, and total darkness for a moment. In the confusion, the wily gang leader slipped down the pa.s.sage to the puma's cage and dashed to freedom.

Frank, meanwhile, had kept sprinting through the woods. He weaved in and out, seeking always to keep some trees between himself and his pursuer. Now and then a pistol cracked behind him. A heavy bullet thumped into a tree, or ripped the leaves above his head.

Completely drenched from his flight through the wet underbrush, Frank reached the rocky side of the hollow and clambered upward. A bullet exploded in the rock beside him, sending painful splinters into his hand.

Realizing that he was too exposed on the open slope, in the pale light of early dawn, Frank ducked behind a big rock and waited.

As the burly Socky toiled upward in the gray light, Frank lunged toward him in a tremendous football tackle. The heavily built man went down with a crash, still clutching his revolver in one hand. Desperately Frank grabbed the man's wrist, knowing that control of the gun meant life or death.

172 Locked together, the two struggling bodies rolled down the steep slope, bouncing from one level to another. Finally Socky rolled on top, and raised his weapon. But at this moment a figure hurtled out of nowhere, knocking the hijacker's head against a stone and wresting the pistol from him all in one movement.

"Simon!" cried Frank joyously. "How'd you-?"

But the mute boy only indicated by pointing upward that Frank should continue climbing.

"You're right, Simon. I must get help!"

Once more, Frank clambered toward the road at the top. By now it was very light, though the sun had not risen. Frank, looking around, suddenly spotted a man not fifty yards above him going in the same direction. Walter Donner!

57 The gang leader turned. For a moment he and the young detective stared at each other. Frank set himself for another struggle. But, to his astonishment, Donner turned and began climbing upward again as fast as he could.

Calling on his muscles for one last all-out effort, Frank scrambled upward in pursuit.

In another minute Frank hauled himself onto a ledge. Now Donner's legs dangled just above him. Thinking of Chet, lying entangled in the wrecked car, Frank pulled the man down savagely. But a snarl from the ledge just above him, and a sudden terrified scream from Donner, checked his poised fist.

173 Instinctively Frank pressed both himself and his antagonist against the rock wall, as the two-hundred-pound body of the furious puma hurtled past within inches of their heads. Landing off balance, the beast skidded and tumbled rapidly downhill.

Donner jerked loose. But Frank quickly sent a swift punch to the man's midsection, following it up with a smashing blow to the jaw. "That's for Chet!" he panted as Donner slumped, unconscious.

"Hi! Up there!" came shouts from below.

Looking down, Frank saw the rocky slope swarming with state troopers. Three of them were throwing a net over the spitting, scrambling puma. Several others had almost reached Frank himself.

"Nice work, boy!" cried the first trooper to come up. "Donner nearly got away!"

Brushing aside congratulations, Frank asked urgently, "Is my brother Joe all right? Have you examined the auto wreck?"

The friendly trooper looked puzzled. "Joe Hardy? Sure, he's okay. But I don't know what wreck you're talking about."

Quickly Frank scrambled back down to the valley floor. "I'll get Joe and we'll-we'll look for Chet," he thought, while jogging swiftly among the trees to Donner's cabin.

The door of the stone cabin was wide open.

174 Frank dashed in, then stopped short in utter astonishment.

An appetizing aroma, the sizzle of bacon frying in a pan, the sound of happy voices all talking at once reached him from the kitchen. Frank opened his mouth and stood in speechless wonder.

Joe and Captain Maguire were standing by the secret door, laughing. Seated at the kitchen table were Simon and Fenton Hardy. And presiding over the stove, flipping pancakes vigorously into the air and talking loudly the whole time, was Chet Morton!

"Frank!" his father cried out. "So good to see you! I'm certainly glad this case is solved."