“Protecting them? From bears?” asked Benny.
“People, mostly,” Bobcat answered.
“Don’t you want trails in the park, either?” asked Jessie. “Are you like Carola?”
“I agree with Carola and I disagree with her,” Bobcat said. “The park belongs to everybody, but that means that everybody has to help take care of it, too. Part of taking care of it is staying on the trails and not tramping through important habitat.”
“What’s a habit ... habit ... ?” Benny asked. He’d never heard that word before.
“Habitat,” Bobcat repeated. “All it means is home. Where the animals live. You could say that your hometown is your habitat, Benny. And I guess you wouldn’t much like it if someone took a walk right through your front door.”
“No way!” said Benny.
“Well, neither would a bobcat. So part of my job is to make sure park trails don’t go through a bobcat’s front door, either.”
Just then, Maris slowed the truck down. “Blizzard Gap,” she announced. “This is Main Street.”
Blizzard Gap was much smaller than Greenfield. Maris drove by a gas station with a sign that said LULU’S GAS ’N’ GO, a building with a general store on one side and a diner on the other, and a neat white house with a post office sign out front.
Above the general store, a sign advertised GROCERIES AND EVERYTHING ELSE.
Maris parked in front of the diner.
“Why don’t you kids get some hot chocolate in the diner while Bobcat and I get some camping supplies at the general store,” Maris said.
“Okay,” said Benny cheerfully. “I like hot chocolate.”
As the Aldens walked into the diner, people turned to look at them. Violet blushed a little. She was shy.
But Benny smiled at everyone. “Hi,” he said. He even waved at a man with curly black hair as they passed his table on the way to the counter.
The man looked surprised. “Hello,” he said in a gruff voice. He smiled a little. His teeth were big and white against his beard.
A tall, thin waitress with silver hair came over to take their order. The name embroidered on her shirt said RAYANNE.
“Menu’s on the wall,” Rayanne said. She nodded toward a big blackboard at the back of the diner. “Regular items on the left, specials on the right.”
“Hot chocolate, please,” said Benny. The others ordered hot chocolate, too.
“And I don’t suppose you would want whipped cream with it?” Rayanne asked.
“Yes! Please!” Benny said loudly.
One side of the waitress’s mouth turned up a little and her eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Henry took a map out of his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and spread it on the counter so Benny, Jessie, and Violet could see it. “Here’s where we are now,” he said. “And here’s where Maris’s cabin is.”
“There’s Blizzard Mountain,” Violet said. “That’s where we’re going.”
“If we don’t have any more bad luck today,” agreed Jessie.
Henry frowned. “I sort of wonder if someone didn’t make that bad luck for Maris,” he said in a low voice.
“What do you mean, Henry?” asked Violet.
“Carola made it pretty clear she doesn’t want anyone building new trails. Maybe she’s been fixing Maris’s truck so it wouldn’t start, to try to discourage her,” Henry said.
“It didn’t work,” Violet pointed out.
“No. We’re still headed for Blizzard Mountain,” Jessie said.
“And she helped fix Maris’s truck both times,” Benny said.
Just then, Rayanne returned with their drinks.
“Blizzard Mountain?” asked Rayanne as she set the four cups of hot chocolate in front of the Aldens. “You kids headed up that old mountain?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“I hear it’s a bad luck mountain,” said Rayanne. “Haunted, too.”
“We know all about Stagecoach George,” said Jessie. “We’re not afraid of ghosts.”
The man with black hair spoke up from the next table. “I wasn’t afraid of ghosts, either, until this happened,” he said. He leaned over and thumped his leg. “It broke my ankle for me.”
“Ah, Chuck, everybody knows you saw your shadow and thought it was a ghost and that’s how you broke your ankle,” one of the other waitresses teased.
“Ha-ha,” Chuck retorted. “I know what I saw up on that mountain. I say if it looks like a ghost and sounds like a ghost, it’s a ghost.”
“You saw the ghost of Stagecoach George?” Benny said. He almost spilled his hot chocolate, he was so excited.
“That’s right, young man,” Chuck said. He flashed his teeth in another big smile. “That’s what made me fall down the mountain and break my ankle.”
“Stop telling tall tales, Chuck Larson,” Rayanne said. “You know there’s no such thing as a ghost. And you a history teacher!”
“That’s how I know so much about it,” Chuck said. “It’s a history teacher’s job to know the history of a place he’s visiting. And Stagecoach George is known to haunt Blizzard Mountain.”
As Chuck finished speaking, Bobcat came in and sat down next to Benny.
“Mr. Larson says he saw the ghost of Stagecoach George,” Benny reported excitedly.
“I know,” said Bobcat. “I was part of the group that rescued Chuck. A hiker found him and got us, and we carried him down off the mountain. Chuck told us and everybody else to stay off Blizzard Mountain because he’d seen a ghost.”
Jessie turned toward Chuck Larson’s table. “If you saw Stagecoach George’s ghost, you must have been near the treasure, right?” she asked Chuck.
“I don’t know about that,” Chuck said. “I think the ghost is still looking for the treasure, not guarding it. He doesn’t want anyone to find it before him, so he haunts the whole mountain. But you know what else I think?”
Rayanne rolled her eyes. “Of course I know what you think. You think that the avalanche swept the stagecoach gold down the mountain and it’s somewhere near the bottom and the ghost is haunting the wrong place,” she said.
Chuck blushed a little. “I guess I’ve said it all before. It’s been a few months now. But I’ll never forget seeing that ghost. White and misty and floating through the trees,” Chuck said. “And howling. When it started to howl, that’s when I tripped and broke my ankle.”
Bobcat said, “You’re lucky that hiker found you when he did. You could have been stuck up on the mountain for a long time.”
Again Chuck’s teeth flashed in a smile. “I got pretty lost. I thought I was hiking up Pam’s Peak. I guess I’m not much of a woodsman.”
“If it’s been so long since you broke your ankle, why are you still on crutches?” Jessie asked.
“I stumbled and reinjured it, that’s all,” Chuck said. “But now even a busted ankle can’t keep me away from these mountains. I’m doing a history project on Blizzard Gap and this park. And according to my research, it has been a bad luck mountain ever since Stagecoach George. Look at everything that’s happened up there. Floods. Lost hikers. Rock slides.”
“There hasn’t been an avalanche in these mountains in over sixty years,” Rayanne said. “And floods happen all over these parts when the spring snow melts and it rains.”
“How do you know that?” asked Bobcat. “You must like these mountains better than you think, to know all that about ’em, especially since you’ve only been here since the summer.”
Rayanne shrugged. “I’m not a big hiker, but the mountains are pretty to look at,” she said.
Chuck stood up and reached for a pair of crutches propped on a chair next to him. His chair fell over with a crash. When Chuck made a grab for the chair, he overturned the sugar bowl. Packets of sugar slid across the table.
Jessie jumped up and righted the chair. Then she put the sugar packets back in the bowl.
“Thanks,” said Chuck. Then he began to limp aw
kwardly toward the bathroom in the hall between the restaurant and the general store.
“If you ask me, he broke his ankle just being plain clumsy,” said Bobcat.
“Ghosts. Bad luck. Phooey,” said Maris, who’d just come in. “The only reason people still talk about that old story is because nothing ever happens in Blizzard Gap. The last big crime around here was when someone painted the doors of the firehouse blue!”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rayanne said suddenly.
Everyone looked at Rayanne. She said, “Remember the burglary at the Seven Mountains Museum over in the county seat?”
Maris said, “How did you know about the robbery, Rayanne? You didn’t move to Blizzard Gap until after it happened.”
“Heard about it,” Rayanne said. “All the news in town goes through this diner and a waitress is just naturally going to hear most of it.”
“Folks around here are saying it was the work of professionals,” said Bobcat. “I mean, look at what the robbers took. Gold bricks. You have to plan a robbery to haul away gold bricks. They’re heavy!”
“The museum didn’t have much security,” remarked Rayanne. “It couldn’t have been such a hard place to break into. They say there was no sign of a break-in.”
“Doesn’t that just prove the burglars were professionals?” asked Chuck, who’d come back in and settled again at his table. “Probably a whole gang of thieves. From a big city somewhere.”
“What else did the robbers take?” asked Henry.
“Nothing else except a purple velvet cape. But it was historically priceless,” said Rayanne. “It was worn by Jenny Lind, a famous singer who visited the town once. She left her cape behind with the owner of the old opera house as a memento.”
“Maybe that’s what the robber used to escape!” said Chuck, and several people snickered. “Put on the velvet cape and flew away.” Chuck flapped his arms, enjoying the audience.
Maris rolled her eyes. “Time to go,” she said to the Aldens and Bobcat. They finished their hot chocolate and got up to go.
“Let’s not forget the robbery wasn’t actually in Blizzard Gap. It was all the way over in Millpond,” Bobcat reminded everyone as they walked out of the diner.
“That’s about as close as we get to crime these days,” said Maris.
But then she stopped so quickly that Bobcat bumped right into her. “Oh, no!” she said. “What happened to my truck?”
CHAPTER 4
Stay Away from Blizzard Mountain!
The red pickup truck was just where they had left it. But now it was tilted to one side, like a sinking ship.
“Look,” said Henry. “Both tires on one side are flat.”
“Great!” fumed Maris. “This is just great!”
“It’ll be okay,” said Jessie. “We can fix the tires.”
“Better yet, I’ll get Lulu the mechanic to come over from the gas station. She can patch and pump those tires in no time flat,” Bobcat said.
“Oh, okay,” Maris said grumpily.
While Bobcat was gone, the Aldens all examined the tires very carefully. But they couldn’t find a nail or a piece of glass or anything that would have made a hole in the tires so they would go flat.
“Someone must have let the air out of the tires,” said Henry at last.
“That’s what I think,” Maris agreed. She folded her arms. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was out to get me.”
“But why would anyone do that?” asked Violet.
Just then, a big white tow truck pulled up. Lulu got out of the tow truck, along with Bobcat.
“Bad luck,” said Lulu, raising her eyebrows. With that, she went to work pumping air back into the tires. “No leaks,” Lulu reported when she finished. “Looks like someone played a mean trick on you, Maris, and just let the air out of those tires.”
Maris sighed. “Let’s get going,” she said.
“Or we won’t even be able to start today.”
“I just hope we don’t have any more bad luck,” said Violet in a low voice.
Jessie frowned. “Bad luck? No. I think it’s more than that. A dead battery. Two flat tires.”
“And all that talk about ghosts on Blizzard Mountain,” said Henry. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to go to Blizzard Mountain.”
“Is it a mystery?” asked Benny eagerly.
“It might be, Benny,” said Henry. “It just might be a mountain of a mystery.”
Bobcat had picked up his truck at the park ranger office in town. Now he led the way in his truck, while Maris and the Aldens followed. The narrow winding mountain roads seemed to get bumpier and narrower with each passing mile. At last they came to a bare patch of dirt along one side of the road. Bobcat pulled over. So did Maris.
“Where’s the trail?” Benny asked.
“Right there,” Maris said, pointing.
Benny squinted and frowned. He didn’t see anything but trees.
They put on their packs and reknotted their hiking boots and they each took a drink of water. Then Maris led the way toward the trees. She stepped between two trees and over a small boulder, and there it was: a faint trail threading through the trees.
Jessie could see white blazes of paint on the trees before them now, marking the trail ahead.
“It’s almost like a secret trail,” said Violet.
“There’s been a rough trail here ever since I can remember,” Maris told them. She made a face. “People using it to look for Stagecoach George’s treasure, I guess.”
They were passing a spooky-looking group of twisted dead trees. Jessie couldn’t help asking, “Has anybody else ever seen the ghost of Stagecoach George? Besides Chuck?”
“People say they have,” said Maris.
“Like that couple that got lost on Blizzard Mountain a couple years back,” Bobcat said. “When the rescue team found them, they both said they’d seen a ghost.”
“They’d been lost in the woods for three long, cold days,” said Maris. “They were so scared they thought you were a ghost at first. Ghosts don’t exist, Bobcat. Keep that in mind.”
“Some of the other rangers have seen and heard strange things in these mountains,” Bobcat argued stubbornly.
“But not ghosts,” said Maris.
“I’d like to see a ghost,” said Benny. “Then we could catch it. And if it was Stagecoach George, we could make him help us find the treasure.”
Maris looked over her shoulder in surprise at Benny. “You’re not afraid of ghosts?”
“No!” said Benny. “Boo to ghosts!”
Everyone laughed.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Bobcat. “It’s always good to have brave company in the mountains.”
They walked quietly after that. Bobcat pointed out red squirrels that dashed up trees as they went by. Jessie saw a crow flapping heavily through the branches above them. Something slid into a stream with a splash when the hikers scrambled across the rocks in the streambed.
After a while, Violet said, “It’s so quiet. And empty!”
“Oh, animals are everywhere around us,” Bobcat said. “They can see us. Hear us, too, probably from miles away.”
“I haven’t seen any animals except squirrels and crows,” Benny said.
“But they see you,” said Bobcat. “Right now, they’re sitting back and saying, ‘Now, who do you suppose that is, walking right through our front yard?’”
Jessie laughed. “We’ll have to be good guests and not make a mess,” she said.
“Right,” Maris said over her shoulder.
They hiked, stopped for lunch by another stream, then hiked some more. It got later and later.
Benny’s feet began to hurt.
Suddenly Henry said, “I see a house!”
“The lean-to,” said Maris. “Good. We’ve got just enough daylight left to set up camp.” She led the way off the trail to a rough low building that looked like half of a triangle made of logs. A slanted log roof and log wal
ls ran down to meet a log floor on the sides and in the back. The open front of the lean-to faced a stone fire pit.
“We’ll camp here tonight,” said Maris.
“Do we put our tent inside?” asked Benny.
Bobcat laughed. “Nope. The only things you put inside are balsam tree branches. You put those on the floor and put your sleeping bags on top. I’m going to put my tent right over there, and I’m going to put balsam tree branches in it, too.”
Henry shivered. “It’s getting colder,” he said. “Let’s build a fire right away.”
“We need to hurry,” Maris said. “It’s getting dark.”
Quickly everyone went to work. Soon the lean-to was piled with soft, sweet-smelling balsam and a fire was roaring in front of the lean-to. They sat down on the edge of the lean-to in front of the fire and made a dinner of soup mix cooked with boiling water over the fire, cheese, fruit, and bars of chocolate for dessert.
After dinner, the Aldens and Bobcat set out to explore the woods around their campsite. They had gone a little way when suddenly Jessie held out her hand. “Look! It’s snowing!” she cried.
“Time to get back to the lean-to,” Henry said.
They hurried back to camp. As they got closer, they saw Maris standing at the edge of the light cast by the fire. She turned a big flashlight in their direction and said, “Bobcat? Is that you?”
“It’s us,” said Bobcat.
“What is it?” Jessie asked. “You look worried.”
“We weren’t lost,” Benny said.
“It wasn’t that.” Maris smiled. “I thought I heard something.”
Everyone stopped to listen. They heard wind whispering in the trees. They saw shadows made by the fire leap up in the darkness. They felt the cold touch of snowflakes.
But nothing more.
At last Maris said, “It must have been an animal.”
“That’s about the only thing that would be up here,” Bobcat said.
“True,” said Maris. “Okay. Let’s get some rest.”
Maris banked the fire so it would stay hot through the night. Then everyone got into their sleeping bags on top of the sweet-smelling balsam branches.