The Mystery of the Monster Mountain - M. V. Carey [35]
Hans ran out from behind the inn. “Anna!” he shouted. “Anna! Konrad! Come quick. The mountain is on fire!”
The woman in the car cried, “Harold, let’s go!”
The man stepped on the gas and started so suddenly that his wheels spun on the dusty road.
“Hans! Konrad!” Joe Havemeyer was moving now. He ran down the front steps of the inn and seized a garden hose that lay coiled near the porch. “The ladder!” he shouted to Hans. “Get the ladder. We’ve got to wet down the roof.”
A deer broke from cover across the road and ran blindly up the drive, past the startled humans, toward the ski slope.
“Dear heaven!” Mr. Smathers was so upset that his voice was almost a croak.
“Those dreadful people. Criminals! Murderers!”
The wildly excited little man scampered after the deer.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Jensen grabbed at Smathers’ arm.
A frightened squirrel dashed past Jensen and Smathers and up the ski slope.
“Let me go!” shouted Smathers. “Don’t you see? The animals are heading for the high country.”
“But the fire’s coming this way,” warned Jensen. “You’ll be trapped up there.”
Smathers pulled away from the younger man. “I have to go,” he said, and he sprinted toward the slope.
Cousin Anna ran from the house.
“Joe!” she cried. “Joe, we have to get out.”
“No!” Havemeyer had the water turned on. He backed away from the faucet and aimed the hose toward the roof. “We have to save this place. I know we can save it if we stay with it.”
Konrad came up and took Anna’s arm. “We will take our cousin and we will get out,” he told Havemeyer. “Anna, you come with us, huh?”
Anna turned and looked at the fire. It seemed quite close now, less than a mile from the inn. The wind was hot, and ash speckled the ground.
“You come with us,” said Konrad again.
Anna nodded.
“Jupe,” said Konrad. “Pete. Bob. Get in the truck.”
“Wait a minute!” said Jupiter Jones.
“We cannot wait.” Konrad started to lead Anna to the parking area. “Get in the truck!”
“But we have to find Anna,” said Jupe.
“What?” Konrad stared at Jupe, then at the woman next to him. She froze in an attitude that had something fiercely defensive about it. It seemed to Jupe that she went pale, but he could not be sure in the murky light.
“Where is Anna?” he demanded.
Havemeyer let the hose drop. “You’re crazy!” he said.
Jupe ignored him. “You are Mrs. Havemeyer,” he said to the woman called Anna.
“Where is Anna Schmid? Tell me. Quickly!”
“Where is Anna Schmid?” Jensen looked like a man who had been struck and stunned. “You are not Anna Schmid?” he said to the woman.
She straightened and seemed to get some grip on herself. “I was Anna Schmid,”
she said. “Now I am Anna Havemeyer. You know that.” She looked Jensen squarely in the face. “I was Anna Schmid, and I will go with my cousins.”
“No!” Jupe took two quick steps toward her.
She broke then, and started to run toward her car.
“Hey!” Jensen ran, too, reaching for her shoulder. “One second there.”
Anna dodged and stumbled as Jensen’s hand caught at her, and she fell. The fair hair with its circle of braids came off like some bizarre hat and rolled for a foot or two before collapsing into a limp heap. Instantly Anna was up again and running. The boys saw that under the wig she had short, bleached hair.
“You are not Anna!” cried Hans.
Konrad caught the woman as she tugged at the door of her car. “Where is my cousin?” he said. He sounded as if he might strike her. “Where is Anna?”
The woman cringed back against the car.
“There’s a cabin up near the meadow, isn’t there?” said Jupe. “Is she there?”
The woman nodded.
Konrad released her, and a second later he and Hans and The Three Investigators were racing up the slope toward the high country.
Chapter 15
The Monster
SMOKE WAS THICK on the upper meadow when the boys reached it. Jupiter felt that his lungs would burst. He dropped to his knees in the long grass and turned his face away from the hot wind that swept across the mountainside.
Ahead of him and to the right, a cougar stalked