Night of the Werewolf (8 page)

“Good grief!” muttered Joe, appalled at their stout chum's face. “The poor guy practically drowns before lunch and now gets doused all over again!”

“Serves him right!” growled Pocahontas just as the front door opened. “That'll teach him not to dump my little girl in the river!”

“Pokey!” exclaimed Alena, taking in the scene at one horror-stricken glance. “Chet didn't dump me in the river! His canoe sank and I dived in to help save it!”

“Huh!” The housekeeper tossed her braids defiantly. “Amounts to the same thing! It was on account of him that pretty embroidered blouse of yours got ruined, after all the time I spent this morning, ironing it just so!”

“My blouse isn't ruined!” Alena scolded. “It just got soaked! And another thing, Poca—”

Before she could finish speaking, the housekeeper withdrew from her perch, and the Hardys heard the upstairs window being slammed.

“Oh, brother!” Alena shook her head in vexation and embarrassment. “That bossy old Mohawk! She'll drive me up the wall one of these days.” The girl added, “I'm so sorry about this. Come on in, boys, and I'll find some dry clothes for Chet.”

The stout youth blushed and mumbled awkwardly, “You d-don't have to go to any trouble, Alena!” He was shivering due to his wetness, but obviously pleased at her concern.

Unfortunately, John Tabor's clothes were too small for Chet's barrel-shaped figure, so Alena dug up an old shirt and a pair of slacks which belonged to her father. After Chet retired to a bathroom to change, it became apparent that they were not a perfect fit, either. But they would have to do until he could get dry clothes of his own back at the cottage.

“Never mind, Chet,” said Joe with a sympathetic chuckle. “At least you won't get busted for sneaking around in your underwear!”

The Hardys turned as they heard footsteps on the stairs. John was coming down to join them. The young architect looked more alert than he had when he had returned home in the wee hours of the morning, but he was obviously in poor spirits.

He shook hands with the visitors, smiled wanly on hearing about Chet's comical mistreatment at the hands of Pocahontas, then settled himself in a chair.

Frank hesitated, not sure how to begin. Finally he said, “Perhaps you've heard of my father. His name is Fenton Hardy.”

John nodded. “The famous detective. Yes, I rather thought you two might be the Hardy boys I've read so much about. I suppose Alena got you up here to get to the bottom of this werewolf mystery.”

“I'm glad you call it a mystery,” Frank said. “That means you don't believe in those old superstitions about werewolves any more than we do.”

John Tabor shrugged unhappily and ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. “Right now I don't know
what
to believe. I can't remember a thing about last night—either where I went or what happened while I was gone.”

“But at least you don't think you turned into a wolf and attacked people or animals?” put in Joe. “Your common sense tells you that's impossible?”

“Maybe so,” John conceded. “But that doesn't explain what I
did
do. You see, I'm not afraid of turning into a wolf. What worries me is that I may become insane, and, if that happens, I might wind up
acting
like a werewolf!”

“Where did you first get the notion that you might be going out of your mind?” Frank inquired.

“While I was studying for my architect's license. I'd be deep in my books, or bent over the drawing board, and then I'd get these calls—”

“What sort of calls, and from whom?”

“Don't ask me. From people I never heard of before. Maybe people I just made up in some sick part of my mind. I used to imagine they were—they were accusing me of being a werewolf!”

Joe frowned. “How do you know you just imagined it? May be you really did get such calls.”

“Sure,” said Chet, trying to be helpful. “It could've been someone playing a dirty trick on you!”

Tabor gave another helpless shrug. “Maybe. But I find that pretty hard to accept. Why would anyone want to play such a trick on me?”

“You can't think of anyone?” Frank prodded.

“Nobody at all. I don't have any real enemies. I'm just not that important. Besides, the delusions got even worse after I checked into the sanatorium. I suppose Alena or my father told you about that.”

“The sanatorium? Yes, your Dad did mention that you'd gone for treatment, to the Pine Manor Rest Home, I believe. What happened? More calls?”

“No. Just voices.”

“From where?” Joe asked.

John Tabor rubbed his head in bewilderment at the disturbing recollection. “I don't know. From the walls, I guess, or just out of thin air. I'd hear them in my room, first at night, when I was just drifting off to sleep. Later on, when it got worse, I'd even hear them during the day when I was wide awake.”

“What did the voices say?”

“Terrible things, about rending fangs and bloodlust and so on. They said they were the voices of my old werewolf ancestors, like the Jan Tabor who was convicted in Bohemia in 1759.”

Seeing that both John and Alena were becoming upset, Frank decided to end the questioning for the time being.

“Look,” he said, “would you mind if Joe and I went to that sanatorium and interviewed the doctor who treated you?”

“Of course not,” the young architect replied. “If you think it'll help in any way.”

“It can't do any harm. But we'll need a letter from you, giving permission to ask questions about your case. And would you write down the name and address of the sanatorium, too, please?”

John nodded and Frank asked for directions to Alec Virgil's wolf farm. After saying good-by to Alena and her brother, the Hardy's drove back to the cabin so Chet could change into dry clothes of his own. Then they took the river road eastward out of town.

The preserve lay spread out on a slope forested with cedar and hemlock, and was enclosed by a high wire fence. A sign over the gate said:

Joe did, and after a short wait a man drove up in a battered-looking jeep to greet them. He was tall and deeply tanned, with a mane of sandy hair.

“Howdy, boys!” he said, unlocking and opening the gate. “Come to see my lobos?”

“That's right, Mr. Virgil,” Frank grinned. “We heard about your place this afternoon. I never knew anyone who actually raised wolves.”

“Someone's got to protect the species! In most places everyone's against them. There's a wonderful preserve on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, where they breed five times as many wolves as I've got here. Still, I'm doing my bit.”

Because of the rough terrain, Virgil suggested the boys ride with him in his jeep. They paid their admission and climbed in.

“Where'd you get your wolves?” Joe asked.

“The original stock came from the Great Plains. They used to run in packs when huge herds of buffalo dotted the plains, but they're all gone now. I bought half a dozen from the descendants of the last few caught by the government trappers in the late 1920s. Now I have thirty-seven.”

“Good for you. Must take a lot of work, though.”

Virgil laughed. “True. I have to be the general handyman, the vet, the animal feeder, the yard cleaner-upper, the purchasing agent, and a few other things. But my wife helps me, and we find it a lot more satisfying than the kind of life we used to lead back in the city.”

As they drove along, more and more wolves came bounding out from among the trees. Virgil slowed the jeep, and several lobos jogged alongside, their tongues lolling. They were magnificent beasts, ranging in color from silver gray and blond to cinnamon brown. Some were seven feet long from nose to hind legs.

At one point, Alec Virgil stopped the jeep and got out to play with his charges. They surged around him, wild with delight at the chance for a romp. He wrestled with them and even rolled on the ground while they nipped playfully at his arms or legs, yet never doing him any harm with their huge jaws and fearsome-looking teeth.

“Are they—er, dangerous?” Chet asked.

“Yes and no,” Mr. Virgil replied. “Most of the stories about wolves attacking men are nonsense. They're actually shy creatures. But they're not lapdogs, either. They should be
respected.”

The boys decided to stay in the jeep. They found the wolves' yellow-eyed stares a bit disconcerting. Finally Virgil drove to his house and invited the guests in for coffee. When he found out that Frank and Joe were the sons of the famous Fenton Hardy, he wanted to refund their admission. But the boys refused, knowing from Alena that the naturalist was often hard-pressed to keep his farm going.

Mrs. Virgil, a smiling, motherly woman, served coffee and doughnuts, then went outside. While the boys sat around the fireplace, her husband told them more about the sad story of the plains wolves.

“When hunters killed off the buffalo herds and thinned out the elk and antelope and deer populations,” he related, “many wolves starved. Others took to preying on livestock. So the ranchers and settlers went after them with poison and traps. It was a long, desperate duel. The wolves learned to refuse the poisoned bait and became incredibly cunning at avoiding traps. But finally the humans won, and the lobos disappeared from the plains.”

As he finished speaking, the distant howl of a wolf was heard from outside, then others joined in. The boys were thrilled by the eerie chorus. But gradually it changed to wilder yelping and barking.

Alec Virgil rose from his chair in alarm. Just then his wife hurried in, her face pale with excitement.

“Someone's cut the fence wire!” she cried. “Our wolves are getting out!”

“What part of the fence?” Virgil asked his wife.

When she told him, he moved into action swiftly, like a man used to handling such crises. He slipped a small whistle into his pocket, got some meat from a freezer in the shed, then climbed behind the wheel of his jeep. With the boys accompanying him, he careened off through the trees toward the section of cut fence.

Some of the wolves, more cautious than dogs might have been, were merely nosing around and sniffing at the freedom that lay beyond the opening. Others had already plunged through and were exploring the brush along the road.

Virgil leaped out of the jeep and blew his whistle. Even though it did not make a sound audible to the human ear, the escaped wolves instantly turned and loped toward the enclosure—slowly at first, then faster and faster as he waved handfuls of meat in the air. Soon he was the center of a frenzied mass of leaping, snapping lobos. Virgil flung the meat in several directions, but all of it away from the fence. The pack raced off, each animal eager to fight for his share.

Satisfied that all his wolves were accounted for, Virgil hastily moved the jeep so as to block any further escape through the hole in the fence. Then, using tools and wire from a repair kit mounted on the back of the vehicle, he and the boys wired the ripped fencing back in place. There was no doubt that it had been cut deliberately.

“Who'd do such a thing?” Frank asked.

“You'd be surprised,” Virgil said wryly. “I've had all sorts of trouble ever since I started my wolf farm. Most people hate wolves and think they should all be wiped out.”

“Maybe they would be, if it weren't for people like you and your wife,” said Joe.

Alec Virgil smiled and nodded. “Yep, Mary and I love the critters. When the mother wolves bring out their pups to show us every spring, the little ones are rather like our own grandchildren.”

He explained that the she-wolves burrowed underground dens in which to raise their litters. At night, the wolf “families” were kept in separate pens or runs, instead of ranging freely over the whole preserve.

“Which gives you double protection against a break-out?” Joe remarked.

“That's right. Good thing, too, with this werewolf foolishness going on. I don't intend to give people around here any excuse to blame those so-called werewolf attacks on my critters!”

“How come we didn't hear that whistle you blew?” Chet asked as they drove back to the house. “Was it ultrasonic?”

“Yep, it's inaudible to human ears, but my lobos hear it! Usually it's the signal for feeding time, but they're trained to respond any time I whistle.”

“Hey!” Frank suddenly snapped his fingers. “That may explain it!”

“Explain what?” Joe inquired.