The Mystery on the Mississippi Read online

  “Now!” the Bob-Whites chorused.

  “All right. Do you think you can make it by yourselves?”

  “Sure! As my sister told you, we don’t want to be in the way. Don’t bother. We’ll get aboard all right.” Jim herded the Bob-Whites together, and they hurried down to the dock. A deckhand told them where to board the lead barge and helped the girls step over to its flat top. There they all stood, waving to Captain Martin as a busy little harbor tug took the clumsy load out to join the towboat.

  On board the glistening white Catfish Princess, the Bob-Whites were wide-eyed and curious. Passing the galley, they saw the cook and maids busily opening crates of vegetables, huge carcasses of meat being swung into the mouth of a mammoth refrigerator, and cases of canned goods and gallons of milk being unpacked. Already the enticing smell of roasting meat filled the galley, laced with the tang of baking cherry pies.

  “Up this way,” a maid directed them. “Your cabins are down this corridor. The girls are here, and this four-bunk room is for the boys. Officers’ quarters are on either side of you. I hope the new cook and her husband don’t snore, for they’re right next to you girls.”

  Trixie stood at the door of the stateroom, amazed at its snowy whiteness and comfort. “It’s super! See, Honey, isn’t it perfectly perfect?”

  “There’s a lounge around the corner,” the maid continued, “and there are magazines there.”

  “Thanks again, but, jeepers, we want to go out on deck and watch the river!” Trixie and Honey lifted their bag to the bunk. “We’ll just get out of your way,” Trixie told the maid.

  The wide river stretched all around them. It swarmed with craft of every description—speedboats on their way to Alton Dam; rowboats; and puffing, protesting tugs. Across the river lay Illinois and busy East St. Louis. Ahead of them, as the tow assembled length after length of grain barges, the deckhands swarmed. They were checking and tying and carrying rope lines, wire, and steel chains.

  The visitors watched, wide-eyed. “It’s delirious!” Trixie called. “All this running around, all that loading machinery at the dock, all those deckhands out there swarming like ants....”

  “All the loads they carry—heavy ropes and chains! There’s a kid out there no older than I toting a ton of chain. I saw him on shore before we came out here. His name is Paul. Look at him!” Mart leaned over the rail to watch a curly-haired, deeply tanned boy lower his load. He looked up, grinned, and waved his hand in salute.

  “His uncle is a pilot. Paul wants to be a towboat pilot, too.”

  “It didn’t take you long to get his life history. I didn’t even see you talking to him,” Trixie said.

  “You were too busy stalking that Frenchman. Paul’s been working on this boat for over a year. He said he nearly died at first, because the work was so hard. His uncle got his start as a roustabout on the levee, then worked as a deckhand, and years later got his license. That’s what Paul wants most in all the world. Come to think of it, I may want to be a river pilot myself one of these days, instead of a farmer.” Mart sighed blissfully. “All this commotion! All this excitement!”

  “All that hard work!” Brian added. “You can hear those men groan, even above the noise of the diesel engines. It takes muscle and sweat to clamp steel cables to timberheads and lock the barges together. Look at them turning those ratchets. Boy! They have to chain them so close you can’t get a dime in the crevices.”

  “That’s so they won’t break loose. They leave a cable they call a ‘stern line’ running from each side of the after barges back to the boat,” Mart said learnedly. “It holds the barges in line; it keeps them from spreading out like a fan when they have to back up.”

  “Heavens, Mart, did you learn all that from Paul?”

  “Partly. That kid knows everything there is to know about the river, Trix. I asked some other men, too, while we were waiting on the levee. The only way you can find out anything is to ask.”

  “I thought Trixie was our official interviewer,” Jim said.

  “I just pick other people’s brains and take credit for being smart,” Trixie said. “I don’t know what I’d ever do without any one of the Bob-Whites to help me out.”

  Mart put his hand on his hip and spun around with dancing steps.

  “Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold

  An’ the mate of the Nancy brig,

  An’ a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,

  An’ the crew of the captain’s gig.”

  The other Bob-Whites joined Mart in a sailor’s hornpipe. The maid rested her dust mop and stood openmouthed. Down below, on the gunwales, the hands, sweating and straining, heard the singing and looked up, grinning. The beat of the powerful twin-screw diesel engines seemed to accent the rhythm.

  “Cheese it!” Mart shouted suddenly. “Here comes Captain Martin. He’ll think we’ve lost our marbles. The boat must be about to take off. Paul and the other hands down there are standing ready to hitch the tow to the front of the Catfish Princess. Golly, look at the acres of barges up ahead!”

  The captain waved to the Bob-Whites, then went up a few steps into the pilothouse. There he talked with the pilot on duty and took his seat at the controls. Accurately, slowly, he eased the big boat till its snub nose touched the rear of the long chain of barges, hardly jarring them. Then, as the nose of the towboat closed against the barges, deckhands fastened tow and boat together with huge chains and steel cables. The Bob-Whites watched, fascinated, as the struggling, sweating men worked.

  “Boy, it’d take an earthquake to jar that tow loose,” Jim said, his eyes following every move the men made.

  “Yeah!” Brian agreed, awed. “Say, that guy down there is signaling. It looks like we’re ready to move!”

  A whistle snarled. The big towboat shivered, as though with relief. The engines accelerated, and the gleaming Catfish Princess swung her tow into midstream and headed south.

  “It’s heavenly! We’re floating!” Trixie said blissfully. “Do you suppose we’ll stay this close to shore all the time?” She held Honey’s hand and watched, eyes wide and dancing. “I can even see a dog running along that bank.”

  Two sharp blasts of the whistle sounded.

  “I can see your lips moving, Trix,” Mart shouted, “but I can’t hear a word you’re saying. That’s the chow whistle. I’m starved. Let’s get under cover. Dibs on the first place at table!”

  In the dining room, Captain Martin pointed out seats the Bob-Whites should take, drew back Trixie’s chair, and motioned the maid to start serving.

  “We can’t stand on ceremony,” he announced. “We only have half an hour to eat. We’re past the first watch now... over an hour. I usually take over from twelve to six P.M., then from midnight to six A.M. again. Excuse me if I wade into my food. Take all the time you want. You’ve nothing to do but look at the river and eat. Right now, I have to hurry.”

  Food began to load the table—steaming mashed potatoes with rich brown gravy, roast beef, corn, peas, salad, applesauce, hot rolls, jelly, jam, catsup, pickles, milk, coffee, tea. Deep dishes fairly flew from hand to hand. Conversation stopped. Down below, the engines throbbed. A clatter of dishes and the sound of good-natured shouts came up from the crew’s dining room.

  The officers ate hurriedly, slid back their chairs, and disappeared. “Three kinds of pie coming,” Captain Martin whispered to Trixie and Hoñey as he left.

  When the officers had gone, a tired, red-faced woman slid into a place at the table. She was obviously the new cook. “It’s good to sit down,” she told Trixie. “I’m new here, and everything’s hard to find in the kitchen.”

  “It’s no wonder you’re tired,” Trixie said sympathetically. “All this perfectly perfect food!” She patted her full stomach. “Captain Martin said you just joined the Catfish Princess this morning—you and your husband.”

  “That’s right. I’m Elena Aguilera, and my husband is Juan Aguilera. He’s having a harder time of it today than I am, because he’s
out of condition. The work on deck is hard, and he’s not used to it.”

  Trixie listened to the woman’s words, which were spoken in a soft, cultivated voice. Her puzzled expression brought further explanation from Mrs. Aguilera. “We’re glad, my husband and I, to have a chance to join the crew of the Catfish Princess. You see, he is writing a book about the great rivers of America, and I try to take pictures to add to his book. With almost no passenger boats on the river, this is the only way we can get material. I’ve always been a pretty good cook, and my husband knows much about all kinds of boats.”

  “You’re a marvelous cook!” Brian, leaning across the table, told her.

  “How fascinating to be writing a book!” Trixie added.

  “How can you take pictures when we’re on the move?” Dan wondered. “Motion pictures wouldn’t be any good for a book, would they?”

  Mrs. Aguilera glanced at him quickly. “You’re right. But I think we will tie up at shore from time to time between here and New Orleans. I think they will stop to let off barges and take on new ones. If it happens when I’m off duty, I’ll get some pictures. What are you girls going to do after you finish your lunch? I’ve been all over the boat, and I know it pretty well. Would you like to go exploring with me?”

  “We’d love it! That is, if it isn’t too much trouble. But aren’t you too tired?”

  “No. This cup of tea was just what I needed. My quarters are right next to yours, I think. I’ll see you there.”

  “Now, what do you think of that?” Trixie asked in a low voice as the girls went up to their cabin. “What do I think of what?”

  “That cook. What’s an educated woman like her doing in a job where she has to work so hard?”

  “She wanted to get on the river. You heard her say that. Just the same as we did. It’s the only way she can get to see the country from the river. That’s what she wants for her husband’s book.”

  “I wonder what he’s like,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “He must look like a normal man, of course, but who is he, really?”

  “An author, I suppose, just as Mrs. Aguilera said.” Trixie didn’t seem to hear Honey. “She said she was so tired, and now she’s going all over the boat with us. It’s just odd, that’s all. I can’t figure her out.”

  “Oh, Trixie! She wants to be kind to us. Maybe she has daughters of her own. Sometimes I think Mart may be right—that we’re always imagining things.”

  “All right. You just wait and see. Something very

  strange is going on around here.”

  “It’s funny, but I have the same feeling, Trixie. Oh, not about Mrs. Aguilera. I like her. But there’s something in the air, as sure’s you’re born.”

  Moonlight Music • 5

  HONEY AND TRIXIE, led by Mrs. Aguilera, climbed the few steps to the pilothouse. Captain Martin, seated in front of the levers, greeted the girls cordially. Then he looked inquiringly at Mrs. Aguilera.

  “I’m showing the young ladies around, sir,” she said. “They didn’t seem to know where to go. The sandwiches are made, and dinner is under way.”

  “It’s so beautiful up here,” Trixie sighed. The pilothouse windows were open. The boat drifted slowly, its engines little more than idling. They were hugging the shore so closely that they could hear birds chattering in the willows. From beyond the trees, a bobwhite whistled, clear and loud. Without thinking, Trixie answered the call with a shrill bob-white!

  Captain Martin, startled, looked up quickly. Trixie covered her mouth and giggled. Honey laughed, too. Then Trixie explained. “You see, the name of our club at home in Sleepyside, New York, is the Bob-Whites, and the call of the bobwhite is our club whistle. We all belong to the club—Jim, Brian, Dan, Mart, Honey, and I. Oh, yes, and another girl, Diana Lynch. She couldn’t come with us. The Bob-Whites always answer the call when we hear it, and that’s what I did, without thinking.”

  “Interesting, I must say,” Captain Martin remarked, evidently still a little confused. “Now, right ahead you can get a clear view of the river.” He pointed way ahead, past the tow. “On your right you’ll see Cahokia. It used to be inhabited by Indians —mound builders. If you’ll look through these binoculars, you can see some of the mounds. Cahokia was the first settlement in Illinois; it is older than Chicago. The old paddle-wheeler Shepherdess struck a snag just about here, in 1844. Seventy people went down on her. In 1849, the Bates caught fire, then drifted toward shore and set a whole fleet of boats burning. Happened right over there.” He shook his head at the thought.

  Fascinated, the girls listened to river history and legend, while Mrs. Aguilera made notes for her husband’s book.

  The captain showed how the boat controls worked. He even let Trixie move one of the levers and watch the tow respond to her slight touch.

  “You’ll find plenty to do, girls,” he told them when they thanked him and started down the stairs. “Hunt around anywhere you want. Nothing can harm you. Just watch your step when you walk on the barges. Go way to the end if you want. The boys are halfway there now. They look like pygmies from here, don’t they? If the cook doesn’t have time to go with you, you can easily get around by yourselves.”

  “We don’t want to take your time,” Trixie told Mrs. Aguilera politely. “As Captain Martin said, we’ll just hunt around by ourselves.”

  “Oh, I have plenty of time. I like to go over the boat and tow myself. I’ll go with you, at least along the catwalks on the barges. It may be safer if I do.”

  “You don’t know the places we’ve been,” Trixie began.

  “Or the risks Trixie’s taken!” Honey added quickly. “Jim—he’s my brother—often calls her ‘Intrepid Trixie.’ ”

  “So, you see, we really can get along without—” Trixie interrupted sharply.

  She stopped suddenly as Honey nudged her. Startled, Trixie continued. “Er... that is, we’ll just stop in our cabin and get our scarfs. The wind is coming up.” Trixie hurried off, with Honey close behind her.

  “Now, why did you have to act so impolite to her?” Honey asked Trixie when Mrs. Aguilera was no longer in sight. “She’s probably lonesome and trying to be kind.”

  “That’s what you think. She’s following us. That’s what she’s doing.”

  “Trixie Belden, you have the most suspicious mind!”

  “Look who’s talking! We have to be suspicious to be good detectives. I told you before, and I’ll tell you again: Something strange is going on.”

  “If there is, I don’t think she’s involved in it,” Honey declared firmly. “Say, what’s that noise? It’s coming from the Aguileras’ stateroom. She’s not there. She’s waiting for us downstairs.”

  The girls stopped and stood quietly before the door of the cabin next to their own. Just then a blast from the whistle atop the pilothouse shrilled.

  “Darn!” Trixie shouted into Honey’s ear. “I can’t hear a thing now. What did you think you heard?”

  “I don’t know. There is someone in there.”

  “If it hadn’t been for that old whistle we could have been sure... What did you say?”

  “I said we’re both pretty silly. Mr. Aguilera lives in that stateroom, too. He’s probably taking a nap.”

  “Of course. There’s Mrs. Aguilera down there on deck. Hi!” The girls hurried over to meet her.

  The three of them stepped down carefully from the deck of the Catfish Princess onto the nearest barge. Mrs. Aguilera pointed out her husband, working over a rope. When he saw his wife and the girls, he waved, then bent over his work again.

  “Now what do you think?” Trixie whispered as they stepped ahead of the cook. “If you did hear someone in that stateroom, it certainly wasn’t Mr. Aguilera.”

  “Oh, I heard someone, all right. What that someone has to do with the mystery, and what the mystery is, I don’t know. I’ve never been so puzzled. Look here, we’re not being very polite, running way ahead of Mrs. Aguilera.”

  “We didn’t mean to run so far ahead,” Trixi
e called back to the cook. “I guess we were just excited.” Aside to Honey, she whispered, “If she really is a cook professionally, then I’m a chimpanzee.”

  Honey made a gesture of impatience at Trixie’s suspicion, then lagged to examine a marking on the side of the barge.

  Mrs. Aguilera and Trixie walked on to the farthest barge. “How small and far away the towboat seems from here!” Trixie said. “It’s miles!”

  “Cool and quiet and still,” Mrs. Aguilera said slowly, her eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “Far away from everything, from everyone.”

  Something in the tone of her voice and the expression on her face sent a wave of icy fear over Trixie. Before she could analyze the reason for her feeling, Mrs. Aguilera crowded her close to the edge of the barge. “Right over here, Trixie. There are very interesting things to see down below in the water. Bend your head. Closer! I’ll hold your purse.”

  As the cook spoke, Trixie’s feet shot out from under her, and she plunged forward, screaming in fright. Frantically she clutched at the slack stern line and hung, struggling for a foothold, above the swirling current. “Honey! Honey! My purse!” Her frenzied call was drowned in the sound of water as it slapped against the barge side. In a split second, Honey was leaning over the edge, looking down at Trixie. “Hold tight!” she commanded. “Hold on to that rope, Trixie! Mrs. Aguilera! Mrs. Aguilera! Reach down for her! Save her!”

  As though she were startled from a trance, the cook threw herself prone on the barge deck, seized Trixie’s arms, and drew her up to safety. Shaking convulsively, Trixie looked around her, dazed. “What happened? Where’s my purse... my purse?” Her voice trembled. She looked from Mrs. Aguilera to Honey, questioningly.

  “Can’t you see? Mrs. Aguilera has it!” Honey cried. “She caught it as you went over. She saved it for you.

  She saved you, too, Trixie. Oh, she did save you!”