The Mystery on the Mississippi

shouted. They all piled into the car.
    “Don’t you think we’d better at least drive by Tom Sawyer’s house?” Dan asked.
    “And Becky Thatcher’s?” Trixie added. “And the famous fence?”
    “That’s the house right over there.” Lem pointed it out. “That’s the museum next to it, with a whole lot of things from Mark Twain’s day, like a big paddle wheel from a steamboat.” Lem’s eyes glowed. “An’ right alongside of the museum, you can see the fence Tom Sawyer whitewashed... right there... ain’t it white, gleamin’ in the sun? They whitewash it twice a year.”
    Trixie gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “What’s the matter?” Jim asked, slowing the car. “Did you see someone?”
    “No,” Trixie said soberly, “it’s the teeth. Don’t you see? It’s the teeth!”
    “Have you lost your marbles?” Mart asked, leaning over from his perch in back. “What do you mean by ‘teeth’?”
    “That drawing we thought looked like teeth on that map of the Mississippi River. That map Lontard seemed so worried about. Why didn’t we know it was a fence instead of teeth? That fence is the most famous thing in this town, I guess.”
    “It really is, Trixie.” Mart whistled. “My, but you’re smart. Out in the river, beyond the fence, there was a sketch of an island.”
    “Jackson’s Island!” Brian snapped his fingers. “Golly!” Mart said admiringly. “We’ve just got to get over there now.”
    Trixie nodded vigorously. “I honestly believe we’re on the trail at last. The fence and the island were the topmost sketches on that map of the river. That could mean it’s the end of the trail.”
    “Or the beginning,” Jim said.
    “If we get over there, we may find out,” Mart said. “What’s holding us up? Let’s get to a grocery store and then to the raft!”
    Without even a thought of the promise they had made to the authorities, they piled onto the big old raft. It was hidden among the willows at the foot of a street that led to the river’s bank.
    Lem pushed off, jumped onto the middle of the raft, and grabbed a long pole. Mart, grinning from ear to ear, took the pole on the other side.
    “I ain’t had so much fun in a long time,” Lem said. “We’ll fry us some fish an’ fry us some bacon an’.... Say, hanged if I know what you meant when you was talkin’ about teeth.”
    “Forget it!” Mart said. He poled manfully as Lem guided the raft skillfully across the river and up onto the white, sandy, island beach, where he fastened it to an oak stump.
    “You gather up some wood,” he ordered, “an’ I’ll get a mess of fish. Start fryin’ up the bacon, girls,” he called back as he disappeared into marshy underbrush.
    For an hour, the Bob-Whites lived in a world of pioneers. The island was deserted. It was as primitive as it had been when Tom Sawyer (The Black Avenger), Huckleberry Finn (The Red-Handed), and their friend Joe Harper (The Terror of the Seas) had walked its sandy shore.
    After they had scoured a long-handled skillet with river sand, Honey and Trixie fried thick bacon and heaped it on a plate of oak leaves. They had hardly finished, when Lem arrived from his secret fishing spot with two fat bass and half a dozen small catfish. With his many-bladed knife, he cleaned and scaled the bass, then skinned and slit the catfish. Then he quickly popped them into the bacon fat.
    While the girls were preparing the bacon, the boys had been off in the blackberry bushes that covered the island. They returned with briar scratches but triumphantly holding two large cans filled with plump, juicy blackberries.
    What followed was the best feast the Bob-Whites could ever remember. They were ravenous, for they hadn’t eaten since very early morning at Vacation Inn.
    When they finished, they scoured the pan and gathered up the debris. Then they sat around the fire, waiting for it to get low enough to “stomp out,” as Lem said.
    “Doesn’t anyone live on this island?” Dan asked Lem. He put his hand over his eyes and peered back into the woods.
    “Nope—leastways nobody who has a right to. This place is federal property. Nobody’s allowed to come here, really; but the police, they don’t mind if kids come, long as they behave theirselves.”
    “It looks like a good place for a hideout for criminals,” Dan offered. “Is anything hidden back there in the woods?”
    Lem’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Whaddya mean?”
    “Don’t you ever run across