Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

The Hardy boys were astonished as the little boy ran up to them through the deep snow. Curly blond hair stuck out from beneath his cap and tears streaked down his sooty face.

"Where in the world did he come from?" Frank wanted to know.

"Poor little tyke," Callie gasped. "He's terrified!"

Joe had stooped down as the boy approached and, seeing this, the frightened child ran right up to him. He flung himself at Joe, erupting into a new deluge of frightened tears.

"My daddy! My daddy! I can't find him! Where'd he go?"

Joe wrapped his arms around the lad and hugged him. "Now, now, sonny. We don't know where your daddy is. Try to calm down now and tell us what happened."

"Right," Frank said, squatting down next to them with a puzzled expression. "When did you last see your daddy?"

The boy looked at Joe and Frank, then up to Callie with wide frightened eyes. His two front teeth bit his lower lip and his entire body trembled.

Callie pulled out a handkerchief from an inner pocket. "Poor kid, he's scared all to beat the band." She stooped down next to Joe and began to dab the youngster's face with the fresh cloth. "There now, honey, let me clean some of this soot from your face. You're a real cutie-pie."

"But ... but my daddy!"

"Did he go into the cabin by the fire?" Frank asked, brushing soot from the boy's coat.

"Yeah, when did you see him last?" Joe added.

The boy looked at all three of them for a moment, then, "I ... don't ... remember! We were here ... by the cabin. And I think Daddy got in a fight with somebody. Then there was a big fire and ... and I lost Daddy!" The boy ended his tale with a loud wail.

Joe's brows knitted as he screwed up his face and frowned. "How did you get out here to the island?"

The boy narrowed his eyes, trying to remember. Then he burst into a fresh volley of tears. "I don't know. I just remember a big ... a big ... sail!"

Frank and Joe exchanged glances.

"Must've been an ice-boat," Joe hissed. "I bet Ike and Tad..."

Callie interrupted him as she dabbed at the boy's face. "What if his father was in the cabin?" she whispered in a tone so low the boy couldn't hear.

Frank and Joe gaped at each other again.

"We'd better go check," Frank muttered, as both he and Joe jumped to their feet.

"You stay with Callie," Joe instructed the lad. "She'll take care of you, all right."

"But where ya goin'?" the boy wailed, holding onto Joe.

"We have to look for your daddy. Don't worry, we'll find him."

The boy reluctantly let go and Callie encircled her arms around him. "That's a good fellow. Now let me brush off more of this soot from your clothes."

Frank and Joe set off toward the burning cabin. The fire was ebbing now and the volume of smoke ascending from the ruins had slowed to a lesser plume billowing up to the sky. But there was no doubt that the cabin was a complete loss.

"That poor kid," Joe was saying as they hurried on. "He must be in shock. He can't remember anything. What in the world did he and his father come out to the island for?"

"It's a mystery!" Frank expounded. "But I'll bet you that Tad and Ike drove them out here on their new ice-boat. The question is Why, and what happened to the kid's dad?"

"Well, I hope he's not in ... in there!"

They had stopped a few feet from the smoldering ruins and Joe pointed at the devastation. Frank shuddered at the thought of the boy's father being in there, but he led Joe on as they crept closer until the emanating heat was too hot to bear and it made them cough so hard it hurt their throats. Then they backed away a foot or two and began to circle the burned cabin, peering into the remaining shell of the building to see if an unfortunate victim lay within.

"It sure doesn't look like anybody was in there," Joe declared, as they completed a circle around the old cabin.

"Let's check one more time just to be sure," Frank advised.

Once again the boys walked a ring around the remains, edging up a little closer to bear as much of the heat as they could in order to see better. The furniture was all burned, almost to a crisp, the conflagration had been so intense. Very little was left of the internal furnishings, not even the beds, only the charred mattress springs.

When they had completed their second trip around, Frank propounded, "You can be sure there was no one in the cabin when it burned. There'd be some remains. A skeleton, at least."

"You're right," Joe readily agreed. "But now what? What in tarnation happened to the kid's father?"

They both looked at the thick woods at the same time.

"He must be somewhere on the island," Frank reflected. "Maybe he got hurt in the fight the boy mentioned and wandered off?"

They started back toward Callie and the boy, trudging through the deep snow. There seemed to be footprints everywhere, as if a great deal of activity had taken place within the clearing. Frank stopped and grabbed Joe's arm to halt him.

"Look here," he pointed. "Looks like there was a fight right here, the way the snow is all beat out. Then tracks lead off into the woods. Let's check it out."

"We'd better let Callie know we're taking off," Joe suggested.

They returned to Callie and the child, who had calmed down quite a bit in the time since they'd left him. Callie was standing next to a tall fir tree with her arms around the little chap, who was holding onto her for dear life.

"His name is Bobby," Callie told them. "Or, that is, he thinks his name is Bobby."

The boy gave them a look of grim dismay. "I feel ... funny. I can't remember stuff. Did you find my daddy?"

"Not yet, Bobby," Frank answered. "But that's good news, so far. Nobody was in the cabin to get hurt by the fire. We're going to look around the rest of the island for him now."

Callie looked at them with caution. "We really should get Bobby back to Bayport, to the hospital maybe. At least somewhere inside and out of the cold."

"We'll take him to our house," Frank decided, "and then call Dr. Andersen. But first we have to search the woods in case his dad got hurt. It won't take us long. The island isn't that big."

The boys returned to the spot in the clearing where it appeared there had been the scuffle, then followed the tracks off toward the woods on the side of the island facing the mainland. They had explored the entire island the week before and thus were familiar with its terrain. The footprints led to a narrow path through the trees and then out to a steep embankment that led down to the rock-strewn shoreline.

"It looks like two or more people came this way, both back and forth," Joe said, eyeing the broken trail ahead as they walked along the narrow cliff path. "If Tad Carson and Ike Nash were in on this deal, I wonder how long they stayed on the island?"

Frank pushed aside a low hanging snow-laden spruce branch. "Perhaps they only dropped the boy and his father off. Maybe Bobby's dad was going to meet someone else here."

"Could be," Joe agreed. "And that might be the person he got in a fight with."

Frank nodded. "And then for some reason they took off down this way."

"Maybe the mystery person had a gun?" Joe surmised.

The brothers looked at each other and immediately quickened their pace.

Frank gulped. "The boy's father could be in a great deal of danger!"

Joe tromped forth steadfastly, his lips grim with anger. "If our mystery man forced Bobby's father off the island at gunpoint and left the little tyke here alone ... why, I'll ... I'll..."

Frank clapped his younger brother on the back. "Take it easy. Don't work yourself up over it. It's only a guess. We really have no idea what happened here today."

"I guess that's the real story," Joe huffed, shaking his head regretfully. "All we know is that whatever happened, it had to be so terrible that it caused that little boy to go into a state of shock."

The trail along the cliff narrowed even more and then the embankment changed into a slightly more gentle slope down which a path led through clumps of scrub brush and pine, and a profusion of large snow-covered rocks. The confusion of footprints followed the trail down to the shore. The boys trudged on, using the utmost caution in descending the treacherous slope.

The cliffs of the mainland and the wintry rolling hills beyond were about a mile away from this point of the island. There was no one on the ice in this part of the lonely Cabin Cove, as few people ever ventured this far out into the bay away from Bayport. The group of ice-boats that had sailed out to the point by the burning cabin were probably the most craft that had been out this way in ages.

The boys arrived down on the shore and began to pick their way through the big rocks and boulders that lined it until they were out on the ice.

"There was an ice-boat here," Frank said, pointing to the runner marks in the snow at the ice's edge. "The driver must've anchored to one of these rocks."

Joe stood looking around, his hands on his hips and a grim frown on his face. "It sure looks like the two people who were fighting came down this way and took off in an ice-boat."

"Ditto on that," Frank agreed readily. "And they left little Bobby all alone on Cabin Island . Sheez! Like an orphan, and right by all those flames!"

"This is sure a deep mystery," Joe said with quickening pulses. "We've got to find that boy's dad! But we'll need some clues. Maybe if Bobby has something to eat when we take him home, and a nice nap, too, he'll be able to remember things."

"I hope so," Frank said soberly. "Otherwise we're totally stumped, unless we can get Tad and Ike to tell us what they know."

"Chief Collig will get them to talk when he hears about little Bobby," Joe ventured, making a fist. "Otherwise you and I will beat it out of them."

Frank grinned at him. "You bet we will. It'll be a pleasure making those troublemakers talk. I'll bet ..."

Suddenly his eyes widened as his words broke off in mid-sentence, and he scurried over to one of the big rocks a few feet away. With a grunting exclamation, he dropped to his knees in the snow.

"Joe! Get a load of this!"

By the time Joe reached his side, Frank had turned and was holding a bright object in his gloved hand.

"Gosh, Frank, what is it?"

The bright gold and silver object glittered and shone in the cold sunlight. It had an intricate shape with a great amount of detail and design, and many rows of glistening colored stones added great beauty to the highly stylized object.

"It's a stick-pin, like the ones the Shriners wear on their fez hats. These stones here that are shaped like a question mark form the insignia of some exclusive or secret society. In fact, it's so secret that it bears no name. Usually the gems spell out the society name, or at least it's engraved on the pin."

Joe picked it out from his brother's hand and turned it over. On the back was a sturdy pin and clasp. "Maybe it's from one of those weird cults people talk about?"

Frank jumped back up to his feet. "Possibly. But it sure is a good clue. Someone ought to be able to recognize that design. Perhaps one of the jewelers in town."

Joe's eyes widened in excitement. "Bobby might recognize it! Maybe it belongs to his father?"

"If it does, I bet he threw it here purposely to leave a sign in case someone came looking for him. It sure looks like ..."

Again Frank's words broke off as a shrill scream from up on the island pierced the quietude.

"That's Callie!" he burst out.

Not a second later, the girl's scream rang out again loud and clear high above them.

Joe shoved the glittering pin into his pants pocket and jumped forward. "Hypers! Something's wrong up there!"

Frank was right behind him. "You bet there is! And we'd better get back up to the clearing pronto!"

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.