Dragonfly turned as white as a sheet, with his eyes almost bulging out of his head. “There’s a-a-a- ghost in here!” He whispered the words in such a ghost-like voice that it seemed like there might be one.
For a jiffy I was as weak as a cat, and my hands holding the paper were trembly so, I nearly dropped it. In fact, as quick as a flash, Poetry grabbed my hand that had the paper in it and pulled it away from the candle or it might have touched it and caught fire.
Whatever was going on, didn’t make sense. My brain sort of whirled and I sniffed again and thought of something dead, and then of the writing that was on the paper and hadn’t been before, and about Dragonfly’s idea that there was a ghost in the old cabin, and I wished I was outside in the rain running lickety-sizzle for camp, and getting there right away.
But it was Poetry who solved the problem for us by saying, “It’s invisible ink, I’ll bet you. Its being in Bill’s pocket next to his body made it warm, and now the heat from the candle is bringing out what was written on it.”
It took only a jiffy to decide Poetry was right, and as we all looked at that crazy drawing, we knew we’d found a map of some kind, and that if we could understand it, and follow it, we would find the kidnapper’s ransom money.
Poetry took out his pencil and because the lines weren’t any too plain in some places, he started to trace them, then he gasped and whistled and said, “Hey, it’s a map of some kind!”
When he got through tracing it, we saw that it was a map of the territory up here, with the different places named, such as the Indian cemetery, the firewarden’s cabin, the boathouse, two summer resorts, and the different roads and lanes running from one to another, also the names of the different lakes on one of which we had our camp.
We all crowded around the table, looking over Poetry’s shoulders, and feeling mysterious and also a little bit scared, but not much ’cause I was remembering that the kidnapper was locked up in jail, and couldn’t get out.
“What’s that ‘X’ there in the middle for?” my Man Friday wanted to know, and Poetry said, “That’s where we initiated you,” and there was a mischievous grin in his duck-like voice.
“WHAT?” I said, beginning to get a let-down feeling.