Mystery of the Desert Giant (12 page)

“Get me ice cubes—quick!” Mr. Miller ordered. He was a short, capable-looking man, whose face was bronzed by the weather.

Bags of ice were applied to the wound, and the owner gave Joe a shot of an antidote to counteract the scorpion's poison.

“Lucky we were able to treat you so quickly,” the rancher remarked after it seemed that the danger was past. “That sting could have killed you, or at least made you mighty sick. Where were you fellows heading?”

“Here,” Frank replied. Briefly, he described Grafton. The owner and his foreman Hank, who had come in, looked at each other.

“Why—that sounds just like Bill Gray,” the foreman remarked.

“Bill Gray—Willard Grafton ... hmm ... might have changed his name just a little,” the owner agreed.

“You mean he's here?” Frank and Joe cried together excitedly.

“Whoa!” said the owner, chuckling. “This man, Bill Gray, worked for me a couple of weeks. Sounds like the person you're after. Too bad, but I don't know where he went.”

ALTHOUGH excited by the news that Grafton might have worked at the ranch, Frank Hardy was determined to make sure.

“This Bill Gray—can you describe him, Mr. Miller?”

“Guess so,” the ranch owner responded. “Let's see.... He was tall, all right, kind of thin but pretty well put together. Hadn't shaved for days and looked like a drifter. I wasn't going to give him a job, but I was glad to take him on after I saw the way he worked with the ponies.”

“How was that?” Frank asked.

“Easy,” Mr. Miller recalled with approval. “Gentle. Knew just how to handle 'em. I don't mean he just knew horses, either. Horses are a little different. This man knew his Shetland ponies.”

“That's Grafton!” Joe sang out from the bed.

“And was he alone?” Frank went on, somewhat puzzled. “Nobody with him? Nobody came to see him?”

Mr. Miller shook his head. “A nicer, more likable man you couldn't find. Quiet, though—didn't talk about himself. I was sorry to lose him. Wouldn't say where he was going, either. But”—the rancher's chair scraped as he got up suddenly —“I have something that may be a clue. Gray left it in the bunkhouse. I'll get it.” Mr. Miller and the ranch foreman left the room.

Instantly Joe said, “Frank, maybe Grafton broke off with Wetherby for some reason and is still heading north!”

Frank nodded. “Grafton won't talk about himself, and uses an assumed name. He could have become involved in a shady deal and is trying to get away from somebody. But who?”

“Maybe,” Joe suggested, “he has enemies who haven't been able to find him, but they knew we're trying to, so they're following us, hoping we'll lead them to Grafton!”

“Well, if that's true,” Frank said thoughtfully, “Grafton hasn't been out of their hands very long. Otherwise, those hoodlums wouldn't have attacked us in Los Angeles. They would've followed us.”

“All right. Let's turn the tables,” Joe proposed eagerly. “We'll set a trap.”

At that moment Mr. Miller returned, waving an ordinary postal card. “Here we are,” he called. “Doesn't make much sense, though.”

Carefully Frank examined the smudged writing on both sides of the card. Then he handed it to his brother.

“Hmm—postmarked Denver, Colorado,” noted the young sleuth. “Addressed to Bill Gray.”

“Yes, but read the salutation,” Frank urged in excitement.

“Let's see.” Joe squinted at the blurred scrawl. “It says ‘Dear Willard.' This clinches it, Frank!”

“It's the man you're after, eh?” asked Mr. Miller. “What do you make of the rest of it, then?”

The entire message consisted of three letters, scrawled across the card in a heavy dark pencil and blurred by handling.

“Y—E—S,” Joe spelled, frowning. “Yes.”

“Yes—what?” the curious rancher wondered.

“I think I can answer that question, Mr. Miller,” said Frank suddenly. “But first, tell me, did you like Gray, or Grafton? Would you be willing to help him?”

“Best man with a Shetland pony I ever saw,” the rancher repeated emphatically.

Frank smiled. “Grafton's not a cowboy, Mr. Miller. He's an industrialist from Los Angeles. Not long ago he disappeared. We think he may have been kidnaped but escaped.

“For some reason, he hasn't gone to the police but is trying to hide from his kidnapers. I believe we can find him, but the abductors are trailing us. Will you help us trap them?”

“I sure will!” Miller answered.

“Good. My brother has a plan.”

“Here it is, then,” Joe began as the others gave him their attention. “Slim and Curly have given me an idea. They're young and they look a lot like Frank and me. Suppose we lend them our new outfits, and then after supper let them go to Yuma in our boat.”

“Any spies will think they're us,” put in Frank. “Go on, Joe.”

“Meanwhile, we'll go to Yuma by car dressed like a couple of cowboys from the ranch. If we time it right, your men should arrive about dusk —too dark for anyone to tell who they really are. We'll be hiding nearby. Then, if we see anybody following the cowboys, we'll nab them!”

“First rate,” Frank approved. “What do you say, Mr. Miller?”

The rancher was a step ahead of them. Already he had gone to the door and called to his wife, “Edith, ask Curly and Slim to step in here!”

After thanking the two cowboys who had rushed him to the ranch, Joe explained his plan.

“I'm game,” said Curly Jones, who resembled Frank. “Bill Gray was a good
hombre.”

“Count me in,” Slim Martin added. “Sounds like fun.”

When the two cowboys had gone out again, Mr. Miller turned to Frank. “We'll give you an early supper, and then you can go in to Yuma and get set.” He grinned. “But before you receive one mouthful to eat, you must explain to me what that postal card means!”

“Fair enough,” Frank answered, laughing. “Put yourself in Grafton's place, Mr. Miller. He escapes out of Mexico with no money, nobody to go to for help, and perhaps kidnapers on his trail. He knows a lot about Shetland ponies. So he takes this job with you, to earn some money and to rest up. But then he starts worrying again—”

“Why?” the rancher questioned.

“Too close to Mexico,” Joe replied. “Too easy for the gang to find him.”

“Right,” Frank agreed. “He wants to get farther away. So he writes to a friend in Denver, telling some of his troubles and asking for a job.”

“And he tells the friend to address him as Bill Gray and just to answer yes or no!” Joe joined in excitedly.

“Right again.” Frank smiled. “But the friend was careless. He wrote ‘Dear Willard' on the card. ”

Mr. Miller gave a whistle. “I think you've figured it out! So he left for a job in Denver. But what kind of job?”

“Mr. Miller, you said he was wonderful with ponies—really expert,” the young detective reminded him. “We'll find him on a Shetland pony ranch not far from Denver, I'll venture to guess!”

“I'll bet you will, at that!” the rancher exclaimed with admiration. “Now, why couldn't I figure that out myself?”

Shortly before sundown that night, two youthful figures, dressed in the Hardys' new dungaree outfits, walked from the Miller pony ranch toward the Colorado River. Slim carried a rucksack on his back. When they reached the boat dock, the two walked directly to a red-and-white motorboat powered by twin outboard engines.

“Everything as we left her, Joe?” Curly Jones asked.

“Right, Frank!” his companion answered, throwing the rucksack aboard.

“So Grafton's in a Yuma hotel,” said the other. His voice carried easily to the fisherman and men loafing along shore. “Well, let's go!”

As the craft sped across the river toward the boat docks at Yuma, the young man steering her asked the other, “Well, how'd we do, Slim?”

“Pretty good, Curly. We make a good Frank and Joe Hardy!”

Two hours earlier a jeep had left the Miller ranch, throwing up a cloud of dust as it sped along the road to Yuma. At the wheel, wearing the big Stetson hat and checkered flannel shirt of the cowboy Curly, was Frank Hardy. Next to him was Joe Hardy, although from a distance he looked like the ranch hand Slim.

When the brothers reached Yuma police headquarters, they were not recognized by the desk sergeant who had been cordial to them a few days earlier. “What can I do for you fellows?” he asked gruffly.

“Let us see the chief. Tell him Frank and Joe Hardy are here.”

Startled, the sergeant looked closer. “Well, I'll be ... I didn't know you boys. What's up?”

“We're going to spring a little trap, Sergeant,” Frank answered.

A few minutes later Joe explained their plan to the chief, who nodded in approval. “Sounds good. I'll send Wes Benton with you. He's on our plain-clothes squad.”

Wes Benton turned out to be a tall, sturdily built man who had a great respect for Fenton Hardy as a detective. After briefing the man on the case, Frank and Joe set out with him for the water front.

The three took up a position on a bank overlooking the Yuma boat docks. Numerous small craft kept coming and going, churning up the water constantly. On the dock itself were a great many boat enthusiasts who, Benton said, went boating in the evening.

Among them, a Mexican instantly caught Frank's attention. He was the only person on the dock who did not appear to be interested in some boat or other. The man stood fairly close to the three sleuths, and was peering across the water toward the other shore.

Just then Joe announced in a low whisper, “Here they come now.”

The Hardys' red-and-white boat chugged into sight and headed straight for the dock. As the cowboys moored, Frank saw the mysterious Mexican stare at them intently. When Curly and Slim climbed the bank toward the street, the man followed.

Without a word, Frank pointed out the suspect to his companions. Then the trio also walked up the street, keeping as far behind the man as he kept behind the two ranch hands.

As Curly and Slim entered a hotel, the Mexican ducked into an alley. From there he edged up to the hotel window and peered inside.

“That's our man, all right,” said Wes Benton gruffly as he closed in.

The Mexican was so intent on his spying that he did not notice the three come up behind him. Wes Benton seized his arm in a strong grip.

“You're under arrest!”

Whirling, the man tried to run, but he found himself face to face with Frank Hardy. Joe blocked the other side, and at the same time the two cowboys burst from the hotel door. Hopelessly outnumbered, the Mexican went along quietly to the police station.

“His name is Rivera Acuna,” declared the chief, examining the man's papers. “No record of legal entry into the country. Book him as an alien, since he won't talk, and put him in a cell.”

An officer led the prisoner away. Delighted with the capture, Curly and Slim shook hands with the Hardys, who thanked them for the impersonation.

“We'll be headin' back now in the jeep,” said Curly. “The boss will want to hear what happened.”

“Too bad you'll miss the rest,” Frank replied.

“How's that?”

“I have a strong suspicion our prisoner will escape from here in a very short while. What do you say, Chief?”

The officer grinned. “Yes. And if we let him go, he'll take us right to his friends.”

“To bad we'll miss it.” Slim and Curly shook their heads regretfully. “But we got to go.”

No sooner had the cowboys driven away than an officer hurried in to report: “He finally discovered the cell wasn't locked and sneaked out the back way.”

“Let's go!” said Wes, slapping his holster.

“No shooting when we find his companions,” pleaded Frank. “We want these men to talk.”

Slipping into the alley, the boys saw the Mexican disappear behind the corner of a building. Stealthily but swiftly, they followed. Wes and four officers came some distance behind.

The fugitive hurried through a series of back alleys, made his way to a little shack, and slipped inside. Fearing that the man might warn his friends, Frank and Joe made a rush for the entrance themselves.

“You're all under arrest!” Frank cried out as they burst into the room.

Three startled Mexicans whirled to face the Hardys.

“Only two kids,” said the man who had escaped, advancing threateningly. “Get them!”

Ducking low, the boys met the rush of the three men head on. The only lamp was smashed instantly. In the pitch-dark room a wild and furious struggle began.

SUDDENLY the beam of a powerful spotlight cut through the darkness of the little shack. Police whistles screeched outside. The three Mexicans scrambled to their feet and bolted for the door—straight into the arms of Wes Benton and the other officers!

The prisoners were hustled into two waiting police cars, one of which was carrying the spotlight. At the police station the Mexicans, sullen and bruised from the fight in the shack, would answer no questions.

“We want to go home,” Rivera Acuna repeated over and over in a dull voice.

“Nothing much we can do with them,” admitted the chief, disgusted. “They're only small fry. I was hoping for bigger game.”

“Still, they won't be following us any more,” Joe reminded him. “Now Frank and I can go ahead and find Grafton. We'll go back to Blythe, pick up the plane. and fly to Denver.”