The Mystery of the Monster Mountain - M. V. Carey [25]
“Jupe?”
“Ugh!” It was Jupiter’s voice. “Oh, my neck!”
“What happened?” cried Bob. “Where’d you go?”
Jupiter looked over the edge of the fracture. Bob saw that his head was held to one side and that he was rubbing his neck. “I didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “Somebody came up behind me and hit me.”
“Your neck?” asked Bob. “Did you get rabbit punched, like Mr. Jensen?”
“I got rabbit punched like Mr. Jensen,” Jupiter confirmed. “Also, while I was unconscious, someone went to the trouble of sweeping the earth all around this crevice with a pine branch. There isn’t a single footprint left up here, naked or otherwise!”
Chapter 11
The Photographer’s Notebook
“THERE’S ONE thing we know for sure,” said Bob after Pete had finally arrived with the rope and he had been pulled out of the crevice. “It wasn’t a bear that gave you a rabbit punch, Jupe.”
“It most certainly was not,” agreed Jupiter Jones. “Bears don’t break branches off pine trees and use them to sweep the ground. You were startled by something —
possibly by a very large barefooted man — and it may have been the same barefooted creature who punched me and then erased his own tracks.”
Pete stared at his two friends as if they were losing their minds. “A barefooted man?” he said. “Nobody runs around up here in bare feet.”
“Jupe found the print of a naked foot on the edge of the crevice,” Bob explained.
“A very large footprint,” said Jupe. “I’d say it must have been at least eighteen inches long.”
“Eighteen inches ? A human footprint eighteen inches long?”
“It looked like a human footprint,” said Jupe. “It wasn’t a bear — that I know.”
Pete coiled the clothesline with hands that were shaking slightly. “Monster Mountain,” he said. “The old-timers called this place Monster Mountain. And it looks like there is a monster on it…”
“Monster?” said a sharp voice almost at Pete’s elbow.
Pete jumped.
“Sorry. Did I startle you?” It was little Mr. Smathers. He had come silently through the woods and was standing smiling at the boys. “What’s all this talk about monsters?” he wanted to know. “And what does a monster’s footprint look like?
Where is it? I’d like to see it.”
“Someone swept it away,” explained Jupiter.
“Of course, of course.” Mr. Smathers used the tone of one who will listen politely to a tall tale, but who doesn’t believe a word of it.
“There was a footprint!” insisted Pete. “If Jupe says he found it, he found it.”
Mr. Smathers’ apparent good humor deserted him, and his face took on a reddish color. “You’ve been talking to that Richardson fellow who runs the gas station,” he accused them. “I’ve heard some of his wild yarns. He ought to be ashamed, scaring youngsters that way. I’ve a good mind to have a word with him.”
Mr. Smathers suddenly looked determined.
“Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” he announced. “I’ll have a word with him and tell him to keep his ghost stories to himself.”
Smathers started off at a rapid pace, headed for the village, then turned back toward the boys.
“Not that there aren’t dangers here for you.” he warned. “You’re the intruders here, and the wild creatures don’t understand you the way they understand me. They might not mean to harm you, but accidents do happen. I intend to tell Mrs.
Havemeyer’s cousins to keep you closer to the inn.”
“I kind of agree with him on that last part,” said Pete when Smathers had gone. “I think we ought to stay away from here. A guy could get hurt tangling with monsters.”
“Mr. Smathers has just done a very interesting thing,” said Jupiter. “He has just told us that he intends to make sure no one believes us if we tell what happened here this morning. He has also warned us to stay away from here or we may get hurt. Now I’m sure that some strange creature — human or animal — lives up here, and Mr.
Smathers knows it. But he doesn’t want anyone else to know.”
“I think you’re right,” said Bob. “But I think Mr. Smathers is right, too. We ought to get out of here. I got too close to whatever it is.”
Jupe nodded, and the boys set out rapidly toward the meadow. They came through