The Golden Boys at the Haunted Camp — Context and Discussion

tell me where I can find the Golden boys?”

“You won’t have to look very far,” Bob smiled.

“Then you are Bob and Jack?”

“Yes, sir, and you are Mr. Stokes.”

“The same,” the man smiled holding out his hand which they grasped in turn.

“We are very glad to meet a friend of Rex Dale,” Bob assured him.

“That’s as good a recommendation as one could well wish,” Mr. Stokes smiled.

“Indeed it is. Rex is the the best ever,” Jack declared.

“A very fine young man,” Stokes agreed. “But may we go somewhere where we can have a talk? Perhaps Rex informed you of the object of my visit.”

“No, sir, he only said that you had a proposition you wished to put up to us,” Bob replied leading the way toward the building. “We can go into the reception room. There’s not likely to be anyone there at this time of day,” he added.

“Now then,” Mr. Stokes began as soon as they were seated in the cool reception room, “my proposition, as Rex called it, is this. Late last fall I purchased a camp at Chesuncook Lake up in Maine. I suppose you’ve been there?”

“A number of times,” Bob replied.

“This camp is situated on the right side of the lake as you go up and is about ten miles from the Ripogenus Dam. It consists of a large central building containing the office, kitchen and dining-room. Then there are ten log cabins of different sizes each having a sitting room and from two to five bedrooms. There are two log stables or, perhaps, you would call them barns, and a fair sized boat house. I have been going there for a number of years and, having, what I thought, an excellent opportunity to buy the place, I took advantage of it intending to run it as an investment.

“The man of whom I bought did not manage it himself and I thought I was fortunate to secure the services of the same man who had run it for a number of seasons. He is a half-breed but a most capable man and thoroughly knows his business. Jacques opened the place early in May as quite a number of patrons like to come there for the early spring fishing.

“I left everything to him as he knows much more about the place than I do. But three weeks ago I received a letter from him which was so startling in its import that I left at once. I found the place almost deserted although Jacques assured me that he had opened with a much larger number of guests than usual.”

“What was the matter?” Bob asked as Mr. Stokes paused.

“You’ll probably laugh at me when I tell you but the truth of the matter is the guests were scared away by a ghost.”

Bob and Jack uttered the exclamation in the same breath.

“Yes, it seems that the camp is haunted.”

“But—” Bob started to ask a question but Mr. Stokes interrupted:

“No, of course, I don’t believe in ghosts, but there’s something mighty strange going on up there.”

“Such as what?” Jack asked.

“Well, this ghost is a most accomplished one it seems: does about all the tricks you ever read of ghosts doing: groaning in a most frightful manner, pulling the bed clothes off one in the middle of the night, banging doors and all the rest of the stunts. I spent nearly two weeks trying to catch it or him and couldn’t learn a single thing. A number of guests came while I was there but the bravest stayed only two nights. Now you can easily see that unless a stop can be put to it my investment is ruined. I can’t keep guests and I doubt if I could give the place away as things are now.”

“It’s too bad, that’s a fact, but I hardly see where we come in,” Bob said as he paused.

“You will in a minute. What I want is for you two boys to go up there and solve the mystery.”

“But if you couldn’t—’ Bob began, but Mr. Stokes interrupted:

“Remember I’ve talked with Rex Dale about you boys and he has told me some of the things you have done, so it seems to me that getting the best of a few ghosts ought to be a simple matter for you.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Bob shook his head. “Rex is very apt to exaggerate about some things but, of course, we’ll be glad to do what we can for you, eh Jack?”

“What you say goes for me,” Jack grinned.

“Then that’s settled,” and Mr. Stokes heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Now I’ll tell you what I think will be best. You can go up there as boarders paying the regular rates which, of course, will be returned to you, and not let anyone know that you are working for me. You’ll find the fishing good, as you probably know, even in the summer, and I don’t think the time will hang heavy on your hands. Now as to terms, how will this suit you? I’ll engage you for one month and will pay you five hundred dollars whether or no and if you succeed I’ll give you a thousand.”

“That’s altogether too much,” Bob declared and Jack nodded his head in agreement.

“Please let me be the judge of that,” Mr. Stokes smiled. “I am ashamed to say that I’m a pretty rich man and the money doesn’t count. Buying the place was just a fad, but I hate to fail at anything I undertake, so we’ll say no more about the money end of it.”

“If that’s the case we’re more than satisfied and we’ll do our best to earn the thousand,” Bob said.

“I’m sure of it and I certainly hope you will succeed.”

“But have you any suspicion as to who’s at the bottom of it?” Bob asked.

“Not a glimmer,” Mr. Stokes declared. “Of course someone is at the bottom of it, as you say, and I think I know why even if I do not know who.

“What would you consider the most likely reason? I’d like to see if your idea agrees with mine.”

“Well, I should say that someone wants to get hold of the place cheap and thinks that he’s taking a good way to do it.”

“My idea exactly. I hardly think there can be much doubt about it as I have no enemy in that part of the world who might be trying to injure me.”

“How about the man who’s running it? Jacques, I believe you said his name is,” Jack asked.

“Yes, Jacques Bolduc. Of course, I’ve considered him, but I’m pretty sure he’s not guilty. In the first place he’s run it for several years and has always been perfectly honest so the man who sold it to me assured me. And then, when I bought it, I offered to let him have a half interest in it and pay for it out of the profits.”

“And he turned down an offer like that?” Bob asked.

“Yes. He thanked me very prettily, but said he’d always worked for wages and would rather keep on that way. I thought it rather strange but you know those fellows well enough to understand that there’s no accounting for the way their minds run.”

“That’s true too,” Bob declared, “but it seems strange that he should turn down so good an offer as that.”

“And there’s no one else you suspect?” Jack asked.

“Not a soul, and mind, I didn’t mean that I suspect Jacques. It was only an idea. You see, although I’ve been going up there for some years I really know but a few people, almost no one you might say.”

“That’s not strange seeing it’s a pretty wild and unsettled country,” Bob suggested.

“And how soon can you get up there?”

“Let’s see,” Bob mused. “Commencement is day after tomorrow, which will be Wednesday. We’ll start for home early Thursday morning and we ought to get there Friday night or Saturday at the latest. We’re going to make the trip on our motorcycles which we had shipped to us a few days ago.”

“You run them with an electric cell. I think Rex told me,” Mr. Stokes broke in.

“That’s right. We’ll have to spend a few days with the folks and it’ll probably be about the middle of next week when we get there.”

“That’ll be all right. I don’t want to hurry you although you can, of course, understand that the sooner the matter is cleared up the better it will suit me.”

“Well, as I said before, we’ll do our best but I hope you haven’t got your expectations up too high. We may fall down on the job, you know, and I’d hate to have you disappointed,” Bob smiled.

“If you do I’ll know it’s not your fault,” Mr. Stokes assured them. “But I’m betting you won’t. And now I’ll not keep you any longer, only I want you to know that my mind’s at rest now that you’ve taken the job.”

“What do you think of it?”

They had accompanied Mr. Stokes as far as the gate and were walking slowly back to the building. It was Jack who asked the question.

“That’s a hard question,” Bob replied slowly. “You see we haven’t much of anything to come and go on so far. It may be a simple thing and then again it may not.”

“And I’m rather inclined toward the latter view,” Jack declared decisively.

“How did Mr. Stokes strike you?” Jack asked instead of answering Bob’s question.

“Like a pretty keen business man.”

“Well, that’s the answer. He impressed me about the same way and I figure that if he couldn’t find out who’s cutting up those monkey shines, it’s not going to be a very simple problem.”

“Your reasoning’s good all right: no doubt about that,” Bob assured him. “I reckon we’ll have our work cut for us fast enough. But, tell me, do you think it’s that fellow, Jacques?”

“Hardly. What do you think?”

“Well it won’t be the first time we’ve had a run in with ghosts,” Jack laughed.

“But not just this kind,” Bob reminded him.

“I reckon we’ll find that this or these are not so much different from the others,” Jack insisted.

“Maybe not. If we’re successful I believe I would write a book entitled, ‘Ghosts I have met’.” Bob laughed as they mounted the steps at the front entrance.

“What did you think of my friend Stokes?”

The last taps following the sham battle of commencement day had sounded and Bob and Jack had hurried to greet their friend Rex Dale whom they had spied in the stand. They had not seen him for several weeks and had hurried him up to their room and he was sitting on one of the “downy cots” while they were getting into “cits.”

“He impressed me as being a mighty fine man,” Bob replied.

“Same here,” Jack added.

“I’m very glad to hear that,” Rex told him. “He is a fine man, one of the best and, if you’ll turn your heads so as to hide your blushes, I’ll tell you that he was very favorably impressed with you.”

“I wish you were going up with us,” Bob declared a little later, after they had talked over the matter of the “ghost.”

“Don’t I? But it’s impossible just now. You see we’re tremendously busy at the office and father’s not at all well and I’ve simply got to stick for awhile. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can get away for a few days and if I can be assured you’ll see me just as quick as I can get there. I can smell the spruce and the pine right now to say nothing of the fun of hunting down that ghost.”

“Mr. Stokes said he was a rich man, is that right?” Bob asked.

“He’s worth several millions. Why?”

“Well, you see, he offered to pay us a thousand dollars in case we are successful and five hundred if we’re not and it’s a pretty big sum of money to pay a couple of boys and—”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Rex interrupted laughingly. “The money’s nothing to him and you needn’t hesitate to take it. I fancy he’d pay a million right this minute to have the mystery cleared up.”

“That’s all right then. I just wanted to be sure about it.”

“I suppose Sherlock has the matter all figured out,” Rex laughed nodding at Jack. “You notice that he hasn’t said much. Regular ‘still waters run deep’ sort of fellow.”

“But when he does talk it usually makes sense,” Bob declared with a proud look toward his brother.

“I’ll tell the world it does,” Rex said hitting Jack a resounding whack on the back.

“My natural modesty, of course, prevents me from taking part in the conversation at this point,” Jack said soberly.

Rex had insisted on taking the boys up to his Philadelphia home for supper and afterward to the theatre so it was after twelve o’clock when they got back. They were to leave early so they lost no time in getting to bed after setting the alarm clock for four o’clock.

Day was just breaking when the two boys sprang into the saddles of their motorcycles and with a farewell wave of the hand toward “Old Main” headed for Philadelphia. Noiselessly they turned into the pike, for the wheels, equipped with electric motors in place of the usual noisy gas engine, gave forth no sound as they sped through the morning mist.

“There’ll be no traffic for three hours and we ought to make a hundred miles in that time,” Bob had said just before they started.

They did better for it was but a few minutes after six o’clock when they drove on to the ferry boat at Dykeman Street a hundred and fifteen miles from their starting point.

“At this rate we’ll be home easy tomorrow night,” Jack declared as he shut off his motor.

“But we can’t go so fast the rest of the day,” Bob cautioned him. “We don’t want to get pinched and you know the cops are pretty plenty along the Boston Post Road.”

“I know, but we’ve got a dandy start and ought to have no trouble in making Uncle Jim’s by six easy. It’s only about three hundred miles from here.”

“But that’ll be averaging pretty close to thirty miles an hour.”

For another hour they found the traffic light and it still lacked a few minutes to eight o’clock when they reached New Haven.

“Half an hour for breakfast,” Bob announced as he brought his wheel to a stand in front of a restaurant.

“Sounds good,” Jack declared as he joined his brother.

“And here’s hoping it’ll taste better,” Bob laughed as he pushed open the door.

A couple of miles outside of Hartford, Jack had a bad blowout in his front tire and it took the better part of an hour to make the repair.

“I told you you’d better get a new shoe for that wheel before we started,” Bob said as he rode slowly back to where Jack was looking at the hole.

“And you were right as usual,” Jack laughed. “Lucky I’ve got a good strong patch.”

The remainder of the day’s trip was uneventful and it was just beginning to get dark when they rode up to their uncle’s home in Winthrop a few miles outside of Boston.

It was nearly ten o’clock before they could get away the next morning. Jack had been down to the town before going to bed and purchased a new shoe for his front wheel and it took some time to put it on and a much longer time to convince their Uncle and Aunt that it was impossible for them to stay over a few days.

“But we’ll make you a good long visit the first of September, before we go back to college,” Bob promised as they mounted the wheels.

“Two hundred miles to go,” Jack cried as they got under way. “We ought to make it by supper time.”

“Either that or jail,” Bob laughed back.

The traffic through Boston was very heavy and, do their best, it was over an hour before they were outside the city limits.

“I’d like to see the cow that laid out the streets of Boston,” Jack declared as he pulled up alongside his brother as the traffic began to thin out. “I’ll bet it was a blind cow or at least one with the blind staggers.”

“The streets aren’t exactly what you’d call straight.”

“Straight! I know my way about fairly well, but honestly all the way through I was expecting to meet myself coming back.”

“Twenty-five miles an hour along here,” Bob shouted about three hours later.

Jack, who was a few yards ahead, slowed down and allowed Bob to pull up beside him.

“What’s the idea?” he asked. “This is a good straight road.”

“That’s just the idea, it’s too good and the cops are right on the job along here. You see it’s only about five miles into Portland and it’s a favorite ‘pick ’em up’ stretch. Don’t you remember Slim Jones telling how he got pinched last year for doing thirty-eight and it costing him thirty-seven dollars and ninety-two cents? Well it was right along here that it happened. Safety first, you know.”

Put-put-put-put-put-a-put put.

“There’s one of ’em now,” Jack said as he turned his head. “Hope to goodness he isn’t after us.”

A few minutes later the approaching motorcycle drew up alongside and the driver, a young fellow about the age of Bob, dressed in the uniform of the cycle corps of Maine, waved his hand for them to stop.

“Say, for the love of Mike, what kind of machines have you got there?” he asked as they dismounted. “At first I thought you were coasting but when you went up that hill a piece back I knew you couldn’t be, but you didn’t make a bit of noise. What kind of a muffler you got?”

“None at all.” Bob smiled. “You see these wheels are run by an electric motor.”

“But how about the battery? I don’t see any place for one.”

Bob opened a small case strapped behind his saddle and took out a brass cylinder about eight inches long and an inch thick.

“This is the kind of cell we use.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Then you must be the Golden boys.”

Bob smilingly acknowledged the accusation.

“I’ve heard of you and I’m mighty glad to meet you,” and the officer held out his hand.

“And we thought we were pinched,” Jack grinned as he grasped his hand.

“Not this time,” the officer smiled, “and you can go the limit for all of me but you’d best not go over thirty-five as I’m not the only cop along here.”

Bob took several minutes explaining the working of the motor to the officer and then he accompanied them into Portland.

“If you ever get held up along here send for Jim Pratt,” he told them as he bade them good bye in front of the Congress Square hotel.

Bob invited him in to the hotel to take dinner with them, but he refused on the ground that he was on duty and might get into trouble.

“Pretty nice chap, that,” Jack said as they entered the hotel.

“Yes, he seemed to be, but you might not have thought so if he’d happened along a little sooner when we were doing forty-five,” Bob declared.

A few minutes later Bob gave his brother a kick beneath the table just as the latter was conveying a juicy bit of steak to his mouth.

“What’s the—” Jack began and then stopped warned by the look on Bob’s face.