CHAPTER XV. The Phantom Piper

CHAPTER XV

The Phantom Piper

Nancy and Bess lost no time in scrambling after George, who was now rolling and tumbling rapidly down the mountainside.

Fortunately, a short distance below, the ground leveled off slightly. By digging in her heels, George managed to stop her descent. When the two girls reached her, Nancy asked anxiously, “Are you hurt?”

Before George could reply, Bess spoke up. “Is she hurt! Look at all those scratches! We must get you to a doctor right away, George.”

“Don’t be silly,” George said firmly. “I feel as if I’d just had a good beating, but there’s nothing more serious the matter with me.”

She stood up, and with the other girls’ help, brushed off as much dirt as she could.

“When we get back down, I’ll have a good old cleanup in the river. Then I’ll be fine.” George scowled. “I’d like to catch that red-haired fellow who pushed me!”

Suddenly all three girls realized that Fiona had not followed Nancy and Bess. She was nowhere in sight, and when Nancy called there was no answer.

At once the girls became fearful. Had the red-bearded stranger tried to injure her, too?

“I’m going back up and find Fiona!” Nancy declared.

The cousins insisted upon going too, and the three hastened to the shoulder. Several times they called Fiona’s name, but got no response.

Just then Nancy, standing at the highest point, saw Fiona some distance down the far slope, at the edge of a forested section. She acted as if she were trying to hide from someone.

Nancy waved the cousins on, then went toward Fiona. Reaching the Scottish girl’s side, Nancy asked her what had happened.

Fiona smiled. “Maybe you’re teaching me to be a detective,” she said. “Anyway, I figured that since the red-bearded man was running in this direction, maybe he had come from this side of Ben Nevis. I thought I might spot him.”

“Did you?” Nancy asked, as Bess and George walked up.

Fiona shook her head. “I didn’t see Mr. Red-beard, but I want you all to look down there.” She pointed.

In a narrow glen below them was a flock of sheep. Fiona said she had seen a shepherd there a few minutes before, but now he was gone.

“It is most unusual for any shepherd not to have a collie with him,” she said. “It occurred to me that the man I saw might be an impostor, and the sheep have been stolen and brought here to await transportation.”

“Fiona, you’re wonderful!” Nancy cried. “This is an excellent clue and we should report it to the police.”

“We can’t—from here. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

“If Fiona’s right,” said Nancy, “that red-bearded man has probably been following our movements very closely. Perhaps it was he who first used the bagpipe signal of Scots, Wha Hae to warn his friends when he found out that we were going to camp here. Then, when we were actually hiking up the mountainside and getting too near his area of operation, he had to do something desperate.”

“And he thought,” said George, “that it he threw me down the hill you’d all come to my rescue and give up the climb.”

“Exactly.”

Bess heaved a great sigh. “Since you have been alerted, Nancy, Redbeard won’t dare make another move. So, for the time being, the sheep won’t be taken away.”

Bess’s reasoning seemed sound, so the girls left the spot, made their way back to the summit, and down to the river. George bathed her face and hands in the cool water and felt refreshed.

That evening the Scottish campers entertained for the three American girls. First there was group singing of Scottish songs, old and new. Nancy and her friends were able to join in a few—”Annie Laurie,” “My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose,” “The Banks o’ Doon,” “Sweet Afton,” and “Auld Lang Syne.”

After the singing was over, first the girls, then the boys put on dances to the music of bagpipes which one of the young men had brought. Then two couples danced several reels and jigs.

Presently Fiona, laughing, said to Nancy, “The next one they’ll do is in your honor. It’s a good jig, called ‘Miss Nancy Frowned.’“

“What fun!” said Nancy, and watched closely.

Three couples performed the dance, which looked rather intricate as they went through a series of crossovers and changing of partners. Presently one of the girls dropped out and insisted that Nancy take her place. The American girl, although a good dancer, found the steps a little difficult at first. Nevertheless, the whole group clapped loudly.

The entertainment ended with a lovely solo by Fiona. Nancy, Bess, and George marveled at her clear, birdlike voice as she sang a very pretty tune.

“Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north, The birthplace of Valour, the country of Worth;

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.”

Applause was loud. Next came a midnight snack, then the whole group went to sleep either under tents, in bedrolls, or wrapped in heavy blankets.

But Nancy could not sleep. She thought the sound of the rushing water might have a lulling effect, but instead it seemed to be talking to her. “I can almost hear it telling me I’m on the fringe of a big discovery!”

About an hour later Nancy was startled to hear a distinct whistling that she was sure came from a bagpipe. The piper must be signaling! For what? To whom?

Nancy crept out of her blanket, stood up, and scanned the mountainside. The moon was already out full, bathing Ben Nevis in a brilliant white glow. On a ridge, some distance below the summit and partially screened by mist, Nancy saw the silhouette of a piper. The whistling sound had stopped and now the figure vanished.

Had the piper been a phantom or a real person?

Nancy recalled that when she had heard the bagpipes whistle before, the truck she suspected of carrying stolen sheep had whizzed past Mrs. Drummond’s croft. Was the whistling she had just heard a signal that all was clear to move out the sheep the girls had seen in the glen?

“There’s no way of my stopping them!” Nancy told herself ruefully. “Even it all we campers climbed the mountain to find out, it’s so far we’d be too late.”

She chafed under her helpless position, but finally sheer weariness overcame her and she dropped off to sleep.

Nancy was awake early—before anyone else. When she saw Fiona stirring a bit later, she told the Scottish girl what she had heard the night before. “Would you go up to that same shoulder of Ben Nevis with me?”

“Of course!”

When the girls reached the crest, they hurried down the other side to look down into the glen. Not one sheep was in sight!

“Oh, dear!” Fiona exclaimed. “Your hunch yesterday may have been right, Nancy.”

“Let’s go see if we can find any clues,” Nancy urged.

On the way, Fiona remarked that Scottish flocks are allowed to wander at will around the mountainside. “So we might yet see the missing sheep.”

When the girls reached the glen, there was still no sign of animals or persons around. Nancy did notice a crude, tiny croft, and thought perhaps it belonged to the shepherd.

“We’ll call on him,” she said.

The two walked over and knocked on the door, but there was no response. Fiona suggested that the croft might be empty, and tried the door. It was not locked. She opened it and the girls walked in. They saw a cot, a table, and a small quantity of food in a cupboard. There were ashes in the fireplace.

“Someone certainly has been staying here,” Nancy remarked.

Feeling like intruders, Nancy and Fiona were about to leave when Nancy’s eye was attracted to an open book on the table. She stepped closer for a second look. It was a Gaelic dictionary. Underlined on the exposed page was the word mall!

“Fiona, this was one of the words in that strange message in Mr. Dewar’s hotel room!”

Quickly Nancy began looking through the dictionary for other words in the message.

“Here’s rathad!” she said excitedly. “It’s underlined too!”

Next she found dig, glas, slat, long, bean, ball, gun, ail. All had been marked!

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