The Phantom Town Mystery

Safely outside of the wall of rocks, the four young people drew their restless horses to a standstill. Mary’s nettlesome brown pony was hard to quiet until Jerry reached out a s...

The long rope with which Jerry had captured many a wild cow was dropped over the outer edge of the wide ledge. Since the distance was not more than twenty-five feet, the lariat...

“Sven Pedersen hisself never tol’ me nothin’ about that Evil Eye Turquoise o’ his’n. _That’s_ why I cal’late it was a yarn he used to skeer off onweloome visitors to his rock ho...

While the four young people ate the delicious chicken sandwiches which Mrs. Newcomb had prepared for them and drank creamy milk poured into aluminum cups from a big thermos bott...

Jerry assisted Mary up onto the front seat without question, then slipped in under the wheel. Dora climbed nimbly to her customary place in the rumble. Dick leaped in beside her...

The road to Tombstone was narrow, rutty and lonesome. Every now and then it dipped down into a gravelly wash, arroyos in the making, that were, year after year, being deepened b...

“In the old barn loft, snug and safe,” he replied. Then he sat beside her. Dora and Dick, on the opposite side of the long table, beamed across, eager anticipation in their eyes...

In the lumbering old police ambulance, the four young people returned to Tombstone and found Harry Hulbert sitting in a rocker on the hotel porch waiting for them. He ran toward...

The four young people in the loft listened as Mr. Newcomb closed the gate to the hen-yard, then, when they heard him leaving, Jerry said, “I reckon we’re alone now, so let’s get...

As they were nearing Gleeson, Dick leaned forward and called, “Jerry, Dora and I were wondering if we ought to tell old Silas Harvey that we have found Little Bodil’s trunk?”

Etta Dooley, evidently unused to receiving calls, stood in the open door, her rather sad mouth and her fine hazel eyes unsmiling. Her plain brown cloth dress hid the graceful li...

Harry’s glance at the fairer, younger girl was undeniably admiring and Dora thought, “I wonder if _he knows_ that Pat has given him to Mary. Poor Jerry, he looks sort of miserab...

Old Mr. Harvey was dozing in a tilted armchair close to his stove. He sat up with a start when his discordant-toned bell rang, and blinked into the half-darkness near the door....

Someone in the crowd saw the approaching plane. A shout went up which was augmented to a roar of welcome. Once again a space was cleared; this time without the command from the...

A whirl of gleaming sand and dust on a cross desert road in Arizona. The four galloping objects turned off the road, horses rearing, riders laughing; the two Eastern girls flush...

Early that afternoon Jerry and Dick drove the small car around to the side door of the ranch house and hallooed for the girls, who appeared, one on either side of a beaming Aunt...

The return to the car was not without difficulties. At the spot where the natural steps were not close together, Jerry, finding the merest toe-hold in the cliff and only the scr...

The girls held tight as they had been commanded, their nerves taut and tense. Jerry’s prophecy that they might yet have another thrilling adventure and narrow escape filled them...

Upstairs, in Mary’s room which was furnished as it had been when she had been there as a child, curly maple set with blue hangings, the two girls changed from riding habits to h...

The girls, with the lantern Jerry had given them, tip-toed through the darkened hall to their bedroom. Mary placed the lantern on the table, and, after having kissed the little...

The next day, directly after breakfast, Mary and Dora began to expect someone to arrive. The roof of the front porch was railed around and when they had made their bed and tidie...

There was an almost breathless silence for a moment as the small silver plane swooped gracefully down and made an easy landing; then the enthusiasm of the crowd burst forth in s...

Dora, who had been listening for her friend’s footsteps, threw the door wide. Her olive-tinted face told Mary that something had happened even before Jerry exclaimed: “Little Si...

Harry said, “Don’t you think that possibly someone is hurt and fearing that his call wasn’t heard, he fired his gun to attract our attention? He may have heard our cars climbing...

The boys took turns in throwing the sand out of the crack. The faces of the three girls, standing idly near, expressed different emotions. Mary’s sweet sensitive mouth and tende...

Jackie wakened and opened wondering eyes at the moment when a kind-faced woman in nun’s garb entered from an inner corridor. With a glad cry he slipped from Jerry and ran with a...

“If there is any rest to it,” Dora remarked. “Look!” she interrupted herself to point laughingly at the little car that was rattling toward them. “Dick is waving his sombrero. H...

It was midnight when Mary Moore awoke with a start and sat up, staring about her wild-eyed. “Where am I? Where am I?” her terrorized cry, low though it was, wakened Dora, who, s...

Mary, slender, light of foot, sprang like a gazelle from step to step feeling safe, since Jerry towered in front of her. The firm clasp of his big hand on her small white one ma...

“What was that?” Mary sat up in bed, blinked her eyes hard to get them open, then leaped out, and, keeping hidden, peeped down into the door yard. Near the back porch stood Jerr...

The boys took turns carrying the heavy box back to the cars and the girls walked three abreast, laughing joyfully in their efforts to keep each other from stumbling in the sand....