CHAPTER II

Decoy

frank solved the dilemma with a quick decision. "Suppose I stay here and catch the next available plane. Joe, you and Chet go on and wait for me at Chicago."

Chet volunteered to remain but was overruled.

"Okay, Frank. Good luck," Joe said.

As the stranger stood by, glowering, Chet and Joe purchased their tickets and rushed out to the gate. At the loading ramp a stewardess was helping a woman out of the plane.

The passenger was trembling and wrought up. "I can't do it!" she sobbed. "I won't go! Imagine treating three nice boys that way!"

"Good grief!" Joe whispered. "Does she mean us?"

Before Chet could comment, the dark-haired man rushed up.

"Not him again!" Joe muttered. The boys

is

16 The Mystery at Devil's Paw

looked on, amazed, as the man grabbed the woman's arm and snapped to the stewardess, "Have her bags taken off the plane!" Then he marched the sobbing woman back to the airport building.

"That'll mean another empty space!" Chet exclaimed. "We'd better tell Frank!"

But Frank, who had been standing at the gate, had sized up the situation and dashed back to the airline counter. A moment later, grinning and clutching his ticket, he sprinted to the plane.

"I made it!" he exclaimed.

The boys went up the ramp, stepped inside the plane, and took their seats. Luckily, the three were able to sit together. There was a brief wait while the boys' suitcases were loaded aboard. Then, after taxiing into position, the airliner roared down the runway and took off.

"Frank, what about that woman?" Joe asked as he unfastened his seat belt a few minutes later. "Think she was referring to us?"

"She must have been," Frank replied. "We're the only boys on board."

"But what did she mean by that remark about 'treating three nice boys that way'?"

Frank shrugged, frowning. "The whole thing seems fishy to me. I have a hunch, Joe, that we'd better be extra-cautious for the rest of this flight."

To the Hardys' relief, however, the first leg of the trip proved to be uneventful. The plane

Decoy 17

landed at Chicago, where the boys had a twenty-five-minute wait. Then, after boarding the Seattle flight, they winged across the prairie states and the Rocky Mountains.

It was brisk and cool when they landed at Seat-tle-Tacoma airport. Frank, Joe, and Chet strolled into the airport waiting room.

Glancing at the wall clock, Frank remarked, "An hour to go before we board the plane for Juneau."

"Man alive, we sure made good time!" Chet gasped. "It's only one forty-seven."

"Don't forget that we gained three hours flying west," Joe reminded him with a chuckle.

"Look, fellows," Frank put in, "I think I should call Dad and tell him what happened back at Bay-port just before we took off. He might be able to check on that man and woman."

A row of telephone booths lined one wall of the waiting room. Frank stepped into one and put through a long-distance call to the Hardy residence. Much to Frank's amazement, Fenton Hardy knew all about the Bayport episode.

"I drove out to the airport to see if you boys had taken off yet," Mr. Hardy explained. "I reached the outside gate just as you were embarking. The guard, Dick Harper, is a friend of mine. He told me about that woman making a fuss and getting off the plane. The man who

18 The Mystery at Devil's Paw

grabbed her looked familiar, so I played a hunch and followed them."

"Did you find out who he was?" Frank asked eagerly.

"Yes-a wanted spy named Romo Stransky," the detective replied. "I had him arrested and quizzed the woman."

The latter, Mr. Hardy related, turned out to be the owner of a boardinghouse where Stransky had been staying. She was frightened and said that Stransky had bought her a flight ticket to Chicago and paid her an extra fifty dollars to make the trip.

"Why didn't she go through with it?" asked Frank.

"She heard him telling someone over an airport phone that he had reserved all the unsold seats in order to keep three boys from going to Chicago. Later on, after boarding the plane, she got very worried and went all to pieces. Thought there might be something crooked involved and didn't want to get mixed up in it."

Frank chuckled. "Looks as though Stransky outsmarted himself that time."

"He certainly did," Mr. Hardy agreed. "Incidentally, I found out that he posed as a travel agent in order to buy up all those blocks of seats to Chicago."

"Dad, he must have planned on having two of his friends aboard that plane this morning," Frank

Decoy 19

pointed out. "That's probably why Joe and I were able to get seats."

"No doubt you're right, son. The question now is what is behind all this. Stransky won't talk, but you boys may be in real danger. Be careful!"

"We'll watch our step, Dad," Frank promised. "And give our love to Mother and Aunt Gertrude."

After hanging up, Frank stepped out of the booth. Joe was waiting outside. They saw Chet running toward them with a wild-eyed look.

"Hey, fellows, guess what! The guy we saw in Bayport this morning! He's here at this airport!"

"That's impossible, Chet," Frank declared. "Dad had him arrested!" Hastily Frank reported his telephone conversation with Mr. Hardy.

"Then Stransky must have a double," Chet insisted, "because the man I saw was a dead-ringer for him!"

"Where did you spot him?" Frank asked.

"Right over there by the magazine stand." As Chet turned to point, his eyes widened in surprise. "He's gone!"

"Come on! Maybe we can still find him!" Joe urged.

The three boys made a fast circuit of the building. They also checked the parking lot and the out-side gates that led to the flight apron. But Stran-sky's double was nowhere in sight.

"What a way to start this trip!" Chet wailed.

20 The Mystery at Devil's Paw

"Here I was just going along for some nice salmon fishing. Now you've got me all mixed up with a bunch of spies and even seeing double!"

"Cheer up," Joe said. "You leave the spies to us, and we'll still get in some fishing!"

Within an hour, a voice boomed out over the loud-speaker, "Flight for Juneau, Alaska, now loading at Gate Ten!"

The three boys trooped aboard the huge clipper plane with the other passengers and fastened their seat belts. Minutes later, they were soaring high above the Pacific coast.

After winging high over Vancouver Island, the clipper flew steadily northward up the rugged Canadian coast. Majestic green-clad mountains towered up to snowy peaks, and the blue waters offshore were dotted with rocky islands.

"Boy, what vacation country!" Frank said enthusiastically.

Even Chet was now relaxed. "I'm sure glad that Tony sent for us," he said, beaming.

Favorable tail winds speeded their trip, and in a few hours the boys sighted Juneau. The city lay nestled at the foot of a steep mountain. A bridge connected it with Douglas Island across narrow Gastineau Channel.

"Where do we land?" Chet wondered aloud.

His question was answered a few minutes later as the plane came down on an airfield several miles to the north.

Decoy 21

From here, they were whisked by car back to Juneau along the beautiful Glacier Highway. Frank and Joe watched, but noticed no one trailing them. Soon the forested slopes of the moun> tain gave way to the outskirts of town.

"Jeepers, it's a real city," Chet remarked, eying the modern buildings.

"What did you expect-log cabins?" Joe chuckled. "This is the capital of Alaska."

The airport car stopped and unloaded in front of a white building.

"Baranof Hotel," the driver explained proudly.

Chet whistled in amazement as they entered the attractive lobby of the modern hotel.

"Boy, I sure never expected anything like this in Alaska!"

As soon as the bellhop had taken them to their rooms, Chet sank down on his comfortable bed. "Think I'll catch forty winks," he yawned. "That meal on the plane made me sleepy."

The Hardys grinned. "Okay," Joe said. "Frank and I will look up Ted Sewell."

Chet's heavy breathing indicated that he had drifted off to sleep even before the Hardys had unpacked their luggage.

"Well, Chet's in good country for sawing logs," Frank quipped quietly as the brothers slipped on sweaters and left the room.

At the desk in the lobby Joe asked directions to

22 The Mystery at Devil's Paw

the seaplane dock. It was a five-minute walk. When the boys arrived there they were surprised to see a huge floating dock which lay low in the water. Two seaplanes lay alongside it at the foot of a steep wooden ramp. Behind the floating dock was a large stationary one, set on tall wooden pilings.

"Wow!" Joe remarked. "The tide here must rise to about twenty feet. It's at ebb now."

"Right. And at flood tide these docks must come about level."

Walking briskly, the brothers descended the ramp and talked with a mechanic servicing one of the seaplanes.

"Is a fellow named Ted Sewell around?" Frank asked. He was told that Ted had been there the day before, but so far that day had not shown up.

"We'll come back later," Frank told the mechanic.

The brothers walked along the waterfront, where rows of fishing boats thrust up a forest of masts.

"I guess that people in Alaska either sail or fly," Joe said.

"With no roads to speak of, they have to," Frank pointed out. "You can't very well drive a car into the bush."

The boys made several more inquiries about Ted Sewell, but he had not been seen that day. They also asked a dock guard about renting a

Decoy 23

motorboat to take them to Tony's camp on the Kooniak River.

"Sure, you can rent one easily," the watchman told them. "But you'll have to wait till morning and talk to the owners."

After walking up a steep hill the Hardys found themselves in front of the Alaska Historical Museum, which was open that evening. They went inside and studied the exhibits. Besides mounted birds and animals, there were Indian and Eskimo jewelry and wood carvings, bright-colored blankets, and baskets woven of fine rye grass.

"Look at this!" Joe said, pointing to a paper enclosed under glass. It was a photostat of the United States Treasury check to Russia for $7,-200,000 for the purchase of Alaska.

"And think of all the gold that has been mined here since then," Frank remarked. "Some bargain!"

They left the museum and wandered about the city for a while, then returned to the dock.

"Eight o'clock and the sun is still high," Joe marveled.

"We're almost in the land of the midnight sun," Frank said. "The clerk told me the sun won't set until eleven p.m."

The air was quite cool and held a faint aroma of fresh-caught fish mingled with the tang of mountain pines. As they stood on the dock, a motorboat came put-putting toward them. Its

24 The Mystery at Devil's Paw

lone occupant was a grizzled old man. His face was heavily whiskered and he wore a sea captain's cap.

"You fellers lookin' for a boat to rent?" he shouted up to them.

Frank nodded. "That's right. How did you know?"

"Watchman told me," the old man explained. "I'll hire this 'un out cheap. Come on down an' look it over. I'll even take you out for a spin."

The Hardys agreed eagerly and climbed down the nearest ladder to a pile of rocks near the water line. As they were about to board the boat, two shadowy figures loomed out from under the dock, grabbed the boys, and pinioned their arms in a viselike grip.

"A trap!" Joe shouted. "Help!"

His outcry was silenced by a blow on the head. Both boys were knocked unconscious.