The Mystery on the Mississippi

anything that looks like a place where crooks have been? It seems to me strange things could happen back there... maybe murder. Don’t you think so, Mart?”
    Mart nodded. “I guess strange things never happen here, though.”
    “Then you guess wrong,” Lem said. “If you’ll promise never to tell a livin’ soul, I’ll tell you what I seen with these very eyes just last week.”
    The Bob-Whites quickly crossed their hearts and promised.
    “Well, me and Soapy—he’s my best friend—we was campin’ back yonder.” Lem pointed his thumb toward the woods. “Long about midnight, Soapy was asleep, and I was jest droppin’ off, when a boat slid onto the sand out there.”
    The Bob-Whites leaned forward, all ears.
    “I watched three fellas get out of the boat an’ drag a big bundle after ’em. I was so scared I thought my teeth would rattle outen my head. Soapy, he didn’t wake up. They put one bundle down an’ went for another. I thought it was about time for me to let Soapy know what was goin’ on, ’cause sometimes he talks in his sleep. I thought if they heard him, it would be good-bye for us. I whispered real low till I woke him up. Do you know what that dumb clunk did?”
    “What?” the Bob-Whites shouted.
    “Grabbed his rifle from under his blanket an’ let it go! You coulda heard it clear to St. Paul, Minnesota. Was I scared? I’ll say, but not half as scared as them fellas. They dragged the bundle back, heaved it into the boat, grabbed their oars, an’ hightailed it out of here like a bear was after ’em.”
    “You never found out who they were? You never found out what was in those bundles?” Trixie held tight to Lem’s arm and gazed into his face.
    “No, ma’am, I never did. The onliest thing I ever found was this. Wait till I git it.” He went off into his secret place in the woods and came back with a soiled envelope. Out of it he drew a piece of paper and handed it to Trixie. She took one look at it and passed it around to the other Bob-Whites, without a word.
    It was a sheet of graph paper covered with scrag-gly lines—a blood brother to the papers Lontard had left in the wastebasket, the papers now in the hands of the federal agents.

St Peter • 12

    WHERE DID YOU find this paper?” Trixie asked, her voice excited.
    “Layin’ smack on the sand, right there. I didn’t pay any attention to it at first; then Soapy said it looked like pirates’ writin’. This is our pirates’ lair.” Lem swept his hand to include the woods back of the beach.
    “May we please look at the pirates’ lair?” Trixie begged. “It’s terribly important.”
    “No, ma’am. That’s somethin’ I couldn’t let you do. You see, we promised in blood, us pirates, never
    to let anybody see our lair. I don’t know what they’d do to me for jest tellin’ you this much. I guess we better git out of here now.”
    Trixie was persistent. “Can’t you just lend us the paper, then, for a little while? We’ll honestly see that you get it back.”
    “No, I can’t do that, nuther. That paper belongs in our chest. I don’t know now why I ever told you anything. Why are you so nosy? I guess I told you in the first place ’cause I thought anybody from way off in New York wouldn’t pay any attention to kids here on Jackson’s Island. Let’s git out of here, right now!”
    “What we want to know is pretty important to the whole United States,” Dan tried to explain. “How about letting us have a look back there?”
    “No, sirree! Never! Supposin’ you’d find out some of the secrets us pirates got. Don’t you never tell nobody ’bout that paper or ’bout the pirates or ’bout them men we seen. Remember, you promised before I told you. Remember?”
    “Yes,” Trixie admitted unhappily. “I remember. We haven’t seen your pirates’ lair, so we can’t tell anything about it. I do wish we could take one look.”
    “Well, you can’t,” Lem said, herding them toward the raft. “An’ don’t get any ideas about sneakin’ back here, either. Soapy’s rifle ain’t the onliest one we use to guard our lair. So keep out! Come on, let’s git goin’. I gotta get home, or I’ll get a hidin’ from my ma.”
    It was late afternoon when the Bob-Whites turned the crowded car toward the airport and their motel. At Trixie’s suggestion, they agreed to return to St. Louis by another route. Trixie thought they might discover other places to remind them of the sketches on the river