The Mercer Boys in the Ghost Patrol Read online

  _The Mercer Boys in the Ghost Patrol_

  BY CAPWELL WYCKOFF

  The summer camp of Woodcrest Military Institute was always an excitingevent to the Mercer boys and Terry Mackson. But when the cadets campednear Rustling Ridge, the boys ran into a series of startlingoccurrences: a horse stampede, a mysterious fire, the disappearance of alittle girl, and most frightening of all, the Ghost of Rustling Ridge,who seemed determined to drive the cadets away.

  Don and Jim, along with Terry, were appointed to the camp’s GhostPatrol, and how they solved the mystery of the ghost makes one of themost exciting adventures in the Mercer Boys Series.

  Other books in the _Mercer Boys Series_

  THE MERCER BOYS’ CRUISE IN THE LASSIE THE MERCER BOYS AT WOODCREST THE MERCER BOYS ON A TREASURE HUNT THE MERCER BOYS’ MYSTERY CASE THE MERCER BOYS WITH THE COAST GUARD

  * * * * * *

  _The mass of flame moved quickly down the hill._]

  THE MERCER BOYS IN THE GHOST PATROL

  by

  CAPWELL WYCKOFF

  FALCON BOOKS]

  The World Publishing CompanyCleveland and New York

  Falcon Booksare published by the World Publishing Company2231 West 110th Street · Cleveland 2 · Ohio

  WP 651Copyright 1951 by the World Publishing CompanyManufactured in the United States of America

  Contents

  1 Terry Comes to Grief 9 2 The “Gossip” Runs Wild 21 3 At Rustling Ridge 30 4 Strange Tales from the Ridge 41 5 A Fight and a Stampede 51 6 The Trouble Bug Bites Deep 61 7 The Old Man of the Ridge 71 8 Moving Flame 83 9 Sharp Work as Fire Fighters 93 10 Emergency Service 103 11 The Ghost Patrol 114 12 A Brush with the Sheriff 124 13 The Shape in the Moonlight 134 14 Disobedience Loses the Game 144 15 Dawning Light 153 16 Listening In 164 17 Breaking Up Hydes’ Party 174 18 The Last of the Ghost 190

  THE Mercer Boys IN THE Ghost Patrol

  1 Terry Comes to Grief

  A number of young men in the gray uniforms which formed the ordinarydress of the cadets at Woodcrest Military Institute stood around thecounter in the school supply room. It was early in July and the summerencampment was at hand. It was the custom at Woodcrest for the third andsecond classmen to go to summer camp, while the younger classmen and theseniors went home for their vacation. The score or more of youngsoldiers who were in the supply room this July afternoon were busygetting their camping uniforms.

  During the school year the neat, distinguished gray uniforms were worn,but on the encampment the more serviceable campaign uniforms, patternedafter those worn by the United States Army, were required.

  A tall, red-headed cadet, with twinkling eyes and a humorous expressionperpetually on his good-natured, freckled face, was at the moment thenext one to be waited on. He gave the sizes of his garments and thengrinned.

  “If it is convenient, I’d like a uniform in a shade to match my hair!”he requested. This grin was answered by half a dozen others, for TerryMackson was a great favorite with his classmates in the new secondclass, into which he and his pals, the Mercer boys, had just graduated.

  “We have nothing as red as all that,” the cadet clerk grinned in return.“Would something in deep orange do?”

  “Possibly it would, if you are careful to get something that won’tconflict with my beauty!” returned the cadet.

  “We haven’t a thing in stock that would conflict with or detract fromyour beauty,” said the clerk, gravely. “These uniforms are ugly in theextreme, and I’m sure you won’t find them a drawback in the least, Mr.Mackson!”

  “Well spoken, my lad!” approved Terry. “Let’s have the plainest uniformyou have. Natural beauty ennobles whatever enshrines it, so bring outwhatever you have!”

  “Why bother with a uniform at all?” laughed the cadet clerk. “Thecolonel and the rest of us will be so busy admiring your looks that wewon’t notice anything else!”

  There was a general laugh at this, as Dick Rowen, the cadet in charge ofthe commissary department, stepped to the counter, a frown on his face.

  Rowen was a handsome young man with glossy black hair. He had never beenpopular with the cadet body, however, for he continually remindedeveryone of the wealth and prestige of his family. But he was a verycapable cadet and was respected though not popular. He had been placedin charge of the commissary department much to his annoyance, for heconsidered it beneath him. Rowen was striving for an officer’scommission, and it did not please him to be “dud chucker,” as the cadetscalled the commissary clerks. All day the endless routine of passing outuniforms, blouses, hats and shoes had galled him, and at the presentmoment his temper was ragged.

  “What is the trouble here?” Cadet Rowen demanded crisply.

  The clerk who was waiting on Terry turned to stare at him. “There’s notrouble, Rowen,” he said.

  Rowen looked across the counter at Terry. “Is there any trouble, Mr.Mackson?”

  Terry shook his head gravely. “No, Mr. Rowen. I am simply trying to drawa uniform that will match my beauty, that’s all!”

  Rowen frowned more deeply. “Have the goodness to understand, Mr.Mackson, that we are very busy here, and that such infant’s prattlemerely wastes our time!”

  “All right, Papa!” returned Terry sedately. The others snickered andRowen grew angry.

  “Please don’t be funny, Mackson! That comes natural to some people, andothers work hard all their lives without ever managing to be reallyhumorous!”

  Terry turned to the others back of him. “Gentlemen,” he observed, “Mr.Rowen has turned philosopher! Some of you fellows are naturally funny,ask Mr. Rowen!”

  A dull red flush mounted in the other’s cheeks. “How long are you goingto waste our time?”

  “Look here!” exclaimed the redhead. “If I’m not mistaken, you arewasting your own time! Here I am, waiting with the patience of an angelfor my uniform, and are you getting it? No, twenty times no! Don’t youknow that time wasted can never be recovered, Mr. Rowen?”

  “I’ll tell you what I do know!” Rowen fairly hissed. “I know that youand those Mercer brothers are too confounded stuck on yourselves! Youare the colonel’s own particular pets!”

  “Well, well, the Mercer brothers get a tongue lashing, too!” commented abrown-haired, good-looking youth back of Terry. “Brother Don, weep on myshoulder!”

  “I cry better outdoors,” grinned Don Mercer, behind his brother Jim.“Gee, how distressing this conversation is getting!”

  “You are making us feel dreadful, really, Mr. Rowen!” Terry told theclerk mournfully. At the laugh that went up Rowen lost his temper.

  “I’ll make you feel dreadful, all right,” snapped the disagreeablecadet, and before anyone could guess as to his purpose he hit Terry onthe point of the jaw, knocking him to the floor.

  There was a moment
of hushed expectancy while Terry stared up at thesupply clerk in surprise. Most of the good-natured grin had faded fromhis face, and a slight redness had suffused his cheeks. He jumped to hisfeet. But at that moment Colonel Morrell walked into the office.

  Colonel Morrell was a little fat man with gray hair, laughing gray eyesand the air of a real man’s man about him. By the cadet corps he wasbeloved greatly, and to a man they respected him thoroughly. His keeneye swept over the cadets and he noted that something unusual was in thewind, but with characteristic rare judgment he made no comment on it.

  “Is everything going smoothly?” he asked the nearest clerk.

  “Yes, sir,” answered the cadet, saluting. The colonel returned thesalute, turned on his heel and left the room. They heard his footstepsecho down the hall.

  “Now, Mr. Rowen,” murmured Terry. “This is what you need most of all!”

  With that he seized the unprepared cadet by the collar, hauling himbodily over the counter. Rowen was unprepared for the act and floppedacross the boards, his head hanging over the side. Although he struggledfuriously Terry managed to hold him down while he administered a soundspanking to the surly one. Then he pushed him backward. The assembledcadets had enjoyed every moment of it.

  “That’s for you,” said Terry, unheeding the sputtering of the other. “Ifyou act like a baby someone will have to play papa and spank you! Ihappened to be the nearest one. Next time be careful who you punch onthe jaw. It might be somebody who’ll lose his temper and muss you up!”

  “You—you red-headed calf!” cried the enraged Rowen. “I’ve—I’ve half amind to thrash you!”

  “Well, if you have half a mind, that means that your whole mind is busyon the one subject, because sometimes I think you have only half a mind.Now, you’re wasting my time! One uniform, if you please!”

  With very bad grace the uniform was handed to him and the line moved on.As Terry stepped away Rowen spoke to him between half-shut teeth.

  “I’ll fix you for this yet, Mackson!”

  Jim Mercer halted at the counter. “Was there some complaint about theMercer brothers, Rowen?” he asked quietly.

  “I just said that you two were the colonel’s pets,” replied the clerk.“Just because you two once helped the colonel out of a mess he bows downbefore you.”

  “With all due respect to the colonel,” drawled Don Mercer, “he is alittle too fat to bow down! Calm down, Dick.”

  “Aw, you guys give me a pain!” roared the clerk.

  Terry impishly picked up the telephone, carefully holding down the hook.“Hello, is this the nurse?” he spoke into the transmitter. “If you havetime I wish you’d stop in at the commissary department. Mr. Rowen has avery bad pain. I beg your pardon? Oh, it seems to be a Mackson-Mercerpain, if you know what that is! It seems to be——”

  Laughing, Jim Mercer caught him by the arm. “Come on, get out of here,you!” he admonished his friend. “Come on up to the room.”

  The three boys were devoted pals, having been friends from childhood.They had been in many scrapes and adventures together, sharing their funand dangers on land and sea. In the first volume of this series, _TheMercer Boys’ Cruise in the Lassie_, they had gone on a long cruise, andfrom there they had come to Woodcrest, their fun and adventure at thattime being related in _The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest_. On their followingsummer vacation they had encountered some strange events in _The MercerBoys on a Treasure Hunt_ and later on had worked together on a schoolmystery, details of which will be found in _The Mercer Boys’ MysteryCase_. Early in the spring of that same year the boys had faced a man’stask on the Massachusetts coast, all of which will be found in the fifthvolume, _The Mercer Boys with the Coast Guard_. Now, after a few monthsof uneventful school life, they were preparing for their firstencampment.

  Once in their own room the three boys hung up the new uniforms that theywould wear the next day. There were no lessons and they had nothing todo except wait until morning, when they would set off for camp. All ofthe boys looked forward eagerly to it.

  “I hear that we are going to a new camping ground this year,” Jim said,as he sat on the edge of his bed. “Rustling Ridge, they call it.”

  “Yes,” nodded Don. “Other years they have held the encampment atPerryville, but the colonel hunted up new grounds this time. I heardthat there had been quite a bit of building going on near the old campand the colonel wants to get as far away from civilization as he can.”

  “Rustling Ridge is none too far, at that,” observed Terry.

  “No, it isn’t,” agreed Jim. “But it is far enough away for campingpurposes. Even the colonel doesn’t know much about this new location.”

  “About thirty miles from here, isn’t it?” Don asked.

  “I heard that it was,” returned Terry. “Well, the whole outlook suits meperfectly. I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself this vacation,anyway.”

  “We might have made a cruise,” Don suggested. “We haven’t been sailingon the good old _Lassie_ for so long that I’m afraid I’ve forgotten howto manage it!”

  “Camping might bring us some good adventures,” Jim put in. Don shruggedhis shoulders.

  “I rather doubt that. What adventures can we run across on a campingtrip? We’ll have a lot of fun, I grant you that, but I don’t look foranything out of the way. We’ll be very busy drilling and practicing allsorts of tactics.”

  “We might have some excitement with Mr. Rowen!” Terry grinned.

  “Rowen is a natural sorehead,” said Don briefly. “The best thing we cando is to let him alone. That kind isn’t made any better by stirring up,and he isn’t worth getting into trouble over. We can just be decent tohim and let it go at that.”

  “I guess you’re right,” nodded Terry.

  Supper that night was a slightly unruly affair, tempered only by thepresence of the colonel and the other officers. The young soldiersthemselves were in high spirits.

  Rowen, after the meal, went into conference with his two roommates,young men who had borrowed from the unpopular cadet and, therefore, feltobligated to him. What went on in that conference was not designed forTerry Mackson’s peace.

  When the orders of the day were read that evening all cadets werecommanded to be in place at bugle call in the morning, with fullequipment and ready to march. It was announced that no excuses would beaccepted for failure to report on time.

  When the bugle sounded the next morning the cadets sprang from bed,dressed and ate a hearty breakfast. There was still half an hour beforeassembly and the cadets were at leisure. Just as Terry was turning awayfrom the table a member of the kitchen force approached him. In his handhe had a note.

  “This is for you, Mr. Mackson,” he said.

  “Thanks, Pete,” said Terry, accepting the note. “Who gave it to you?”

  “Jack Olson,” replied the cook. “He said Captain Rush gave it to him,but he didn’t have time to give it to you himself.”

  Terry nodded and read the note. Captain Rush was the leader of theartillery division to which Terry belonged. The note was brief and tothe point.

  Mr. Mackson:

  Go to the storage room in the barn and get out the extra harness that you will find there.

  Rush, Captain.

  “Funny he didn’t tell me, instead of sending me a note,” reflectedTerry. “Well, orders are orders, and I’m ready as it is. I’ll go outthere now.”

  He made his way to the barn, finding it quite empty. He knew that therewas a small storage room at one side and he made his way to it, openingthe door and peering in. There was a pile of harness on the floor and hewent toward it.

  At that moment the door back of him closed with a bang. A bolt on theoutside was shot at the same moment. Terry rushed to the door, pushingagainst it.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Open this door, whoever you are!”

  His only answer was the sound of retreating footsteps and the point ofit all came to him
in a rush. He kicked against the door, finding itsolid and then looked around the cell. But there was no window and noopening of any kind.

  “Tumbled right into the trap!” he groaned, grinding his teeth. “If Idon’t get out of here before assembly it will be too bad for me!”