“Why not?” the young sleuth asked. “I’m hoping to solve the mystery in connection with it.”
Pappy Cole frowned. “I guess you haven’t heard that there’s a ghost on board. It’s a haunted showboat.”
“What does the ghost do?” Nancy asked.
“Oh, all kinds of things, Miss Nancy,” Mammy Matilda replied. “Every time a workman goes there an’ tries to fix the boat up, that there ghost comes along an’ ruins all that he’s done.”
“Hm,” said Nancy, thinking that such destruction sounded more like the work of a human being than a ghost!
“To tell you the truth,” Mammy Matilda went on, “I think our folks here are makin’ a big mistake tryin’ to move that there boat.”
“Why do you think so?” Nancy asked her.
The old couple looked questioningly at each other. Then finally Pappy Cole said, his voice rising excitedly, “The River Princess was sent into the bayou by a great flood. It’s Providence that did it. Providence. We got no right to change things. Mammy an’ I think that boat should rest there in peace.”
Nancy was amazed at this point of view. Instantly she wondered if there were others in the neighborhood who felt the same as Mammy Matilda and Pappy Cole. If so, they might be responsible for what was happening!
“Well, whether the old boat is moved or not,” Nancy said, “I’d love to look at it.”
“Well, if you insist, Miss Nancy,” said Pappy Cole, “I think there’s no better man than Uncle Rufus. He knows that there bayou like the alligators do an’ he’s as wise as the old owls in it, too.”
Nancy asked Pappy Cole if he would arrange for Uncle Rufus to come to Sunnymead so that she might talk to him.
“I’ll have him here directly after breakfast,” Pappy Cole promised. “Just come to the kitchen, Miss Nancy.”
Delighted, she thanked the couple for the information and went back upstairs. Nancy stopped at Bess and George’s room to tell them about her plan and ask them to go along. George at once accepted. Bess said she would go if her arm felt better in the morning.
By breakfast time Bess insisted that while her elbow was still sore, it did not bother her very much and she would like to see the old showboat.
At nine o’clock they went to the kitchen. A white-haired Negro immediately stood up. He was tall and slender, and his face had the look of a trustworthy, helpful person.
“This is Uncle Rufus,” Mammy Matilda introduced him. “Uncle Rufus, these here girls are the ones who want to go to that showboat. Miss Drew, Miss Fayne, and Miss Marvin.”
The elderly man made a low bow and said he would be very happy to take them.
“I got my ka-noo outside,” he said. “When you all is ready, Uncle Rufus will paddle you up the stream.”
As Nancy and George started upstairs to change their shoes, Bess walked out to the porch where the Havers were talking. Alex had gone out, they said. When Bess told them of the girls’ plan, the Colonel said:
“Fine. Perhaps you’ll find some clues to help solve our mystery.”
“But do be careful,” Mrs. Haver cautioned.
When Nancy, Bess, and George met Uncle Rufus at the rear of the garden, they looked at the canoe in amazement. It was a handmade dugout, very old and fragile looking.
“Are you sure it’s safe for all of us to go?” Bess asked nervously.
Uncle Rufus smiled. “This here ka-noo has taken me an’ my nieces and nephews miles an’ miles,” he said proudly. “Don’t you all worry about it.”
The girls stepped in and the old man started paddling. Soon the house vanished from sight. For some time there was no conversation as the girls tried to accustom themselves to the eerie stillness. The dismal atmosphere of the swamp and its rank odor disturbed Bess.
Uncle Rufus, seeing her holding a handkerchief to her nose, remarked, “Pretty soon you all won’t mind this stench. Right hereabouts it’s scarce in moss. Deeper in the swamp there’s plenty of it. You know, moss is one o’ God’s gifts to the swamp. It purifies the air.”
Farther on, the girls noticed quantities of moss growing on stumps and stones. The air did seem purer!
The sight-seers also noticed that on both sides of the stream, among the trees, was thick coarse grass.
“That’s crawfish grass,” Uncle Rufus told them.
He explained that the natives let down net baskets on the end of a pole among the blades of grass.
“They puts in fish bait,” he said, “an’ in no time they gets themselves a basket full o’ crawfish.”
For some distance the cleared stream through the swamp was about thirty feet wide, then it suddenly narrowed. Uncle Rufus explained that this was as far as Colonel Haver had cleared it out.
As they entered the narrow part, Uncle Rufus pulled in his paddle and let the boat glide. “Want ol’ Rufus to tell you ’bout the time—”
At that instant the canoe hit an underwater obstruction head on. The craft shuddered violently, then overturned, throwing its passengers into the murky water!
CHAPTER VIII
The Voodoo Preacher
UNCLE RUFUS and the girls came to the surface, shaking the mucky water from their faces. The four of them waded to the overturned dugout.
“There’s a big hole in it!” George exclaimed.
Uncle Rufus shook his head in dismay, then with the girls began to look for the cause of the accident.
Suddenly Nancy cried out, “There’s a barricade here!”
She had dived under the water. In its murkiness she had spotted a stout net of vines which had been strung across the narrow part of the stream and tied to trees on each side. The impact of the dugout had torn it apart.
“Hm!” said Uncle Rufus. “But that sure wasn’t what put a hole in my ka-noo.”
He went down under the water himself and felt around. A moment later he surfaced. He told the girls that several sharp-pointed stones had been used to weight down the vine net. These had pierced his craft.
“Someone did this on purpose to keep us from going any farther!” George declared.
Uncle Rufus looked startled. “You mean you all got some enemies around here?”
“It looks like it,” Nancy agreed. “But, Uncle Rufus, maybe you know of some other reason why the vine might have been put here.”
The old man shook his head. “Nobody in this here bayou has got anything against Uncle Rufus.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Well, I’ve got to go an’ get another boat. You ladies climb some trees, else some hungry ole alligator may bother you.”
Bess gave a little squeal and instantly started wading toward a swamp oak.
“Where are you going to find a boat?” Nancy asked Uncle Rufus.
The old man said a friend would lend him one. He knew a short cut to the man’s cabin. With a smile Uncle Rufus added that he was used to sloshing through the swamp on foot. “I won’t be gone more’n half an hour,” he said.
“Half an hour?” Bess wailed. “You mean I have to stay up in this tree all that time?”
“I’se afraid you do,” Uncle Rufus replied.
As he was about to start off, Nancy suddenly said, “Listen! I think I hear a boat coming!”
They all remained quiet and presently a canoeist turned a bend just ahead in the narrow part of the stream.
“Alex!” Nancy exclaimed.
The young man looked up. Seeing the girls and Uncle Rufus, he called out, “What in the world is going on?”
Quickly Nancy explained. As Alex came closer he said, “A mat of vines, you say? That’s strange. Apparently it wasn’t here half an hour ago when I went up the stream.”
“Did you see anyone else around?” Nancy asked him.
“No, I didn’t,” Alex answered. Then he added, “Well, all of you climb aboard and I’ll take you home. I suppose you were on your way to see the showboat?”
Nancy confessed that they were. She expressed amazement that Alex had dared paddle up to the River Princess alone.
r /> The young man laughed. “Oh, I’m not afraid of ghosts,” he said. “These stories about that showboat being haunted are a lot of nonsense. But just the same, I’m convinced it would be foolhardy to try clearing out the rest of the stream and moving the showboat to the Havers’ estate before Mardi Gras time. In fact, I think it would be silly to move the River Princess at any time. She isn’t worth it.”
“You mean the boat’s in bad shape?” Bess asked.
“She sure is. Practically rotting away.”
There was no further conversation on the subject until they neared the dock at Sunnymead. Then Alex remarked, “I’m going to advise Colonel Haver to call off all work and investigation. Nancy, I hope you’ll back me up. Then you won’t have to bother with any mystery and all of us can have a good time together.”
Nancy did not reply. Instead, as the group stepped out of the canoe, she suggested to Uncle Rufus that he come inside the house. “You can bathe and borrow some clothes from Pappy Cole.”
Uncle Rufus laughed. “Thank you kindly, miss, but I’se used to the swamp mud. I got a little bathin’ pond of my own up to the cabin. I’ll just amble along through the water till I git home.”
He had gone only fifty feet when a new idea occurred to Nancy. Running along the shore, she caught up to him. In a low voice she said, “I’d still like to visit the showboat. Would it be possible for you to take the other girls and me some time today?”
“Why, yes, miss,” Uncle Rufus answered. “Could you all come to my cabin when you git fixed up? I’ll be ready an’ I’ll borrow that ka-noo I was tellin’ you about.”
Nancy asked directions and was told how to reach the cabin by car. “We’ll be there in an hour,” she said.
When Nancy returned to the rest of her group, Alex adroitly tried to find out about her conversation with Uncle Rufus. But the young detedective side-stepped his questions.
“What’s next on the program?” Alex inquired, as he and the girls walked toward the Haver mansion.
“A bath and a shampoo!” George announced firmly.
When the girls reached their adjoining bedrooms, Nancy whispered her plan about starting again for the showboat. Bess said that she would be glad to go but wondered how they could keep Alex from accompanying them or finding out where they were going.
“This time we’re not going to tell anybody where we’re going,” Nancy said. “You remember Colonel Haver telling me I’d have free rein in solving this mystery and wouldn’t have to report to anybody. Let’s keep this trip a secret.”
“Why the secrecy, Nancy?” Bess asked. “Surely you don’t suspect anyone in this house of being mixed up in the mystery, do you?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Nancy answered. “If our plan becomes known, we may be interrupted again to go sight-seeing.”
George chuckled. “Also, Bess, you don’t have to be suspicious of people like Alex just because you don’t like them. I suppose he means well, but I can’t stand that man and I know Nancy can’t.”
“Well, I can’t either,” admitted Bess. “But, Nancy, surely you don’t think he put that barrier rope across the river to keep us from seeing the showboat, do you?”
“No. But he’s not very consistent. First, he wanted to join forces with me and solve the mystery—undoubtedly to make a hit with his future father-in-law. Now he says he’s going to advise him to drop the whole proposition and even wants me to back him up!”
George laughed. “Talk about women changing their minds!”
The girls were ready in half an hour and went downstairs. Donna Mae and Alex were playing tennis on a court near the house. Colonel and Mrs. Haver, Nancy learned from Mammy Matilda, had gone to town.
Nancy and her friends left the mansion by a side door and walked to their car. Taking the service road, Nancy avoided the tennis court and drove off. Following Uncle Rufus’s directions, she turned from the main road onto a bayou lane.
In a little while she came to a modest brown wooden shack in a grove of cypress trees. The girls got out and walked toward the building.
“Wait!” Bess cried out. “This can’t be the right house. Do you hear what I do?”
From the cabin came the sounds of doleful chanting and the rise and fall of a wailing voice, evidently praying.
“Sounds like a voodoo session,” George observed.
The girls stood still and listened. Singsong mutterings followed the chanting.
A moment later a small boy came from the cabin and ran toward the girls. “What you all want?” he asked.
“Is this Uncle Rufus’s home?” Nancy inquired.
“Yassum, it is,” the boy replied. “But you cain’t see him now.”
“But we have an appointment with him,” said Nancy.
“Uncle Rufus had a ’mergency case,” the boy said.
“Emergency case?” George asked. “Is Uncle Rufus a doctor?”
“Yassum,” said the little boy. As he ran off, he called back, “Uncle Rufus is a voodoo doctor!”
The girls were amazed.
“I don’t want Uncle Rufus casting any spells on me!” Bess said firmly.
Nancy was thoughtful. Finally she asked, “Do you suppose Uncle Rufus could head a group of voodoo believers who hold secret meetings on the showboat?”
George said it was very likely. “And perhaps they’re deliberately haunting it so the boat won’t be moved!” she suggested.
“We’ll try to find out. But we mustn’t make Uncle Rufus suspicious,” she warned, and her friends nodded.
At that moment Uncle Rufus’s “patient,” an elderly colored woman, came from the cabin. She was singing a hymn. As she passed the girls she smiled at them happily but did not speak.
After the woman was out of hearing distance, Bess remarked, “She acts as if she were in a trance!”
“She sure does,” said George.
Just then Uncle Rufus appeared. As if reading the girls’ thoughts, he explained that when the woman had come to visit him she had been limping. A radiant expression spread over the old man’s face when he added, “Now through prayer she’s cured. We sang an’ we prayed together.”
In unison the girls said, “We’re glad,” but made no other reference to the woman or the subject of voodooism.
For several seconds Uncle Rufus stood looking after his “patient,” then he turned to the girls, “I’se ready to take the trip now.”
CHAPTER IX
The River Princess
THE CANOE proceeded along the bayou stream in leisurely fashion. Uncle Rufus paddled evenly but slowly. Now and then he would stop along the edge to point out an herb.
“Are some of them spices?” Nancy asked.
Uncle Rufus said a few were, but most of the swamp herbs were used for medicinal purposes.
Now that the old man had started talking about the bayou, he went on and on, telling about its wild life. “Take spiders,” he said. “They represents the devil on this earth. They pi-son folks, an’ snakes do, too. You got to be mighty careful of ’em.”
Uncle Rufus said that on the other hand the turtle represented great patience. “Just like God’s patience with man,” he added, smiling. “And a turtle knows enough not to stick its neck out an’ get into other folks’ business.”
As the girls chuckled, Uncle Rufus suddenly called their attention to a screeching sound. “Know what that is?”
“Oh, it’s a birdcall, isn’t it?” George asked.
Uncle Rufus nodded. “Do you know what kind?”
“A wild duck?” Nancy guessed.
“No,” Uncle Rufus replied, “but somebody’s sure ’nuff tryin’ to imitate one.”
“Is it being used as a signal?” Nancy asked.
“Mebbe so,” Uncle Rufus answered. “But it’s an awful bad imitation. Nobody who knows the bayou would be fooled by that.”
Just then from the opposite direction came another call, exactly the same as the first. The girls exchanged meaningful glances. Who was imitat
ing a wild duck’s cry? Suddenly Uncle Rufus chuckled and said that a couple of city boys must be playing a game in the bayou.
Nancy and her friends, although they did not say so aloud, did not come to the same conclusion. It was possible that persons were signaling with some sinister purpose—perhaps to set another trap for the girls!
Meanwhile, the canoe had already entered the narrow part of the stream. Fifteen minutes later Uncle Rufus sang out:
“The River Princess is just ahead!”
He paddled around a bend and the girls found themselves facing a small pond. At the far side of it, against a backdrop of moss-covered oaks, lay the old showboat.
It was about a hundred feet long, twenty-five feet wide, and had two decks. The craft had listed slightly and its lookout tower had been damaged by a falling tree.
Uncle Rufus chuckled. “I—I guess the River Princess was plenty proud in her day. Hundreds of gentlefolks used to come to see the shows.”
Bess gave a great, audible sigh. “I don’t blame Colonel Haver for wanting to restore the River Princess. She’s the most romantic thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
“And one of the worst wrecks,” George retorted.
Nancy smiled. “I agree, partly, with both of you. But really I don’t think this showboat is beyond repair. Let’s go aboard and look for ourselves.”
At that moment hammering started on the craft. Bess involuntarily gave a shudder and Uncle Rufus looked startled.
Nancy grinned and said quickly, “Don’t worry. Ghosts rarely work in the daytime.” In a louder voice she called, “Anybody home?”
A moment later a tall young man appeared on the lower deck and walked toward the railing. He was fine-featured and had reddish hair.
“That must be Charles Bartolome,” Bess said in a low voice. “I’ve seen his picture.”
“That’s Mr. Bartolome all right,” Uncle Rufus spoke up.
The young man, after his first look of surprise at seeing callers, smiled at the group in the canoe. “Hi!” he called.
Introductions were quickly exchanged. Under her breath, Bess murmured, “How in the world could Donna Mae ever have switched from him to Alex Upgrove?” Nancy and George shared the same feeling but made no comment.