CHAPTER III

Potato Annie

"FRANKl Help!"

It was Joe calling. Frank felt a sudden fear. Had his brother been injured by a falling rock?

"I'm coming, Joe!"

He crawled hurriedly out of his tent, then stopped short and began to laugh. Some of the debris had fallen on Joe's tent and knocked it down. Joe was floundering under the canvas like an angry sea lionl

Frank shook off a few of the pebbles and twigs, then lifted a corner of the canvas. Joe crawled out from under it.

He took a deep breath. "Whew!" he said. "The darn thing nearly smothered me!"

The boys heard voices in the shack and through a window saw Bob light a lantern.

"What happened?" asked Joe. "One minute I was dreaming about one of Aunt Gertrude's pies- and the next, I thought the sky was falling on me!"

20

Potato Annie 21

·'You know as much as I do, Joe," Frank told him. "Put some clothes on. We'll have a look."

The boys dressed quickly, picked up their flashlights and met Bob and Dick, who came out with a lantern.

It did not take them long to find the spot where the explosion had occurred. A huge, jagged hole had been torn in the ground.

Bob examined it briefly. "Dynamite," he reported. "Just like the other explosions."

Frank and Joe trained their flashlights on the hole.

"What's the purpose of the explosions, Bob?" asked Frank.

"So far, they seem to be part of a sort of 'war of nerves,' " Bob replied. "Whoever sets them off probably hopes we'll crack under the strain and go away."

"Let's hope the explosives are never used for anything more serious than that," Dick added.

The boys agreed soberly. The next charge of dynamite set off might be an attack on the dam-or on their lives!

"I wish I could lay my hands on that guy," Joe said as they started back. "That cackle of his gives me the creeps."

Suddenly Frank stopped. His flashlight, beamed on the ground to his left, had spotted a half-eaten turnip. He ran to it, the others close behind him.

22 The Secret of Skull Mountain

Beside the turnip were the prints of naked human feet. And the print of the right foot showed the small toe to be missing!

"These look as though they might be the tracks of the man of the mountain," Frank said.

Joe nodded in agreement, and the boys decided to follow the footprints the first thing in the morning.

The rest of the night was uneventful. The sun was well up when the boys awoke in the morning with the aroma of frying bacon tickling their nostrils. Breakfast over, they returned to the spot where they had seen the prints and set out to follow them.

In some places on the hillside the prints were barely distinguishable, in others they were strikingly clear. Almost without knowing it, so intently did their eyes search the ground for the mysterious tracks, Frank and Joe found themselves a stone's throw from a stretch of cleared land where row upon row of potato plants and other garden vegetables were growing. Behind the garden patch was a small shanty.

"That must be Potato Annie's place," Frank said.

"Yes," agreed Joe. "And the footprints are heading straight for it!"

As they approached the tidy garden, the boys saw a woman working in it. She wore a sunbonnet with an enormous peak that completely shaded her face, a faded cotton dress and a huge checkered apron

Potato Annie 23

that hung below her knees. Both Frank and Joe noticed that although she was barelegged, Potato Annie was wearing shoes.

Annie straightened up at their approach and stared at the boys.

"Who be you?" she cried.

"We're from Mr. Carpenter's camp," Frank began. "We-"

"Oh, you be, be you!" Annie cut him short. "Then you git on back there, if you know whut's good fer you! Ain't no engineers goin' to traipse on my land!"

"We're not engineers," Joe tried to explain. -We're-"

But Potato Annie was deaf to any voice but her own. "You hear me! Git! Good-fer-nothin' loafers-drivin* self-respectin' people off their prop-pity!"

Annie bent double and rocked with sudden pain. She looked up at the boys, her eyes reflecting her misery, and whispered, "If I didn't have the rheu-matiz, I'd run you off myself!"

Frank went to her quickly and held her arm. "Let me help you," he begged.

Annie peered at him suspiciously. Then she said grudgingly, "They's some pills in the house-on the table. If I could have one o' them, it would relieve me some."

"I'll get the pills!" Joe told her.

24 The Secret of Skull Mountain

He ran into the house and returned a moment later with a small green bottle. Potato Annie unscrewed the lid, swallowed a pill with a grimace, screwed the lid on again and put the bottle in the pocket of her apron.

She studied the boys carefully. "Whut you want?" she said at last.

"We came for some information," Frank told her.

He described the column of smoke he had seen, and the explosion, but although Annie admitted having seen the smoke and having heard the explo* eions, she claimed she knew nothing about them.

"Have you ever come across any skulls around here?" Joe put in.

"Skulls?" scoffed the old woman. "Why, they's a million of 'em buried on the other side o' this mountain! And they's plenty o' skulls scattered on this side, too! My grandpaw told me the whole Injun tribe died o' cholery. No water from this mountain'll ever be fit to drink!" She cackled with sudden mirth. "Tell that to your engineer friends!"

Frank tried another tack. "Do you know an old man who lives on the mountain?" he asked. "A gaunt-faced man, with long, shaggy hair-?"

Annie's head jerked up suddenly, and into her eyes crept an undeniable look of fright!