Authors: Franklin W. Dixon

The Hooded Hawk Mystery (2 page)

BOOK: The Hooded Hawk Mystery

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“What's going on here?” Aunt Gertrude demanded. “Where did you get that monstrous creature?”

“Well, we don't know the person who sent herâ” Frank began. As he told Aunt Gertrude how the bird had arrived, the hawk suddenly lunged at her and grasped at her hands.

“Help! Take it away!” she cried frantically.

Joe yelled, “It's that piece of meat you're holding, Aunty! She thinks it's a lure!”

Aunt Gertrude looked at the raw meat she had absentmindedly brought from the kitchen. Frank took it from her hand and immediately the falcon returned to his glove to eat the meat.

Joe put his arm around Aunt Gertrude. “The falcon was only doing what she has been taught to do. Pieces of raw meat are used as lures for training these birds. The falcon didn't intend to harm you.”

“Well, maybe you're right,” Aunt Gertrude conceded grudgingly. “But falconers don't train their birds in a living room! Take her out of here.”

With this ultimatum, Aunt Gertrude turned on her heel and stalked back to the kitchen.

Joe looked at Frank, grinned, and told him of Chet's invitation. “Let's take Miss Peregrine out to the farm,” he said.

Chet Morton, a school chum, lived on a farm outside Bayport. A chubby, good-natured boy, he had frequently shared in the Hardys' adventures.

Frank took the hood from his pocket and attempted to put it over the head of the peregrine. The bird flew off his gloved hand, but the jesses and leash held her. She soon stopped flapping and perched on the glove.

“Boy, this is harder than I thought,” said Frank.

Joe, recalling what he had read in the falconry book on how to “break” a falcon to the hood, said, “We ought to lay a small piece of meat inside the hood before putting it on her.”

Frank nodded. He said that the falcon is also fed a choice morsel of food after the hood is put on. Thus she connects a pleasant experience with hooding and does not struggle or fear the temporary blindness that the cover imposes.

After Joe had coaxed several scraps of raw meat from Aunt Gertrude, Frank managed to hood the hawk. He was awkward at it and resolved to practice until he could do it deftly.

As he carried the bird to the back yard, Joe ran to the cellar for the block perch. When he reappeared, Frank took the perch and said:

“I'll get the convertible and meet you in the driveway. You bring the hawk.”

“Okay,” Joe agreed, taking the glove and bird.

He paused to call good-by to Aunt Gertrude, then started toward the driveway.

A man, masked by a red-and-white bandanna and wearing a battered felt hat pulled low on his forehead, darted around a corner of the house and crashed into him!

The boy whirled and swung his free fist. But the short, heavy-set stranger dodged and gave Joe a shove that sent him sprawling on the ground. At the same instant the man grabbed the leash, snatched the falcon, and sped down the driveway.

Quickly Joe got to his feet. Yelling to Frank to follow, he dashed off in pursuit of the thief!

CHAPTER II

Peregrine's Prize

BY the time Joe had reached the foot of the Hardy driveway, the thief was half a block down Elm Street. The man forced the bird into a cloth sack as he ran. Then, seeing Joe in pursuit, he leaped a hedge and sprinted up a driveway between two houses.

As Joe reached it, a woman, leaning out a side window, gave a startled shriek. The masked man, evidently frightened, looked back to check Joe's progress. The side of his neck struck a clothes-line, throwing him off balance, and Joe closed some of the gap between them.

“Drop that bird, you thief!” he shouted furiously.

The man staggered a few paces, then regained his balance. He jumped a low fence to the adjoining property and sped down its driveway, back to the street, still holding the bagged falcon!

Joe's shout and the woman's scream had attracted the attention of a policeman on Elm Street. As the thief reached the sidewalk, he slammed into the portly figure of Patrolman Smuff and dropped the sack.

“Grab him!” Joe yelled to the officer.

But the masked man, recovering himself quickly, side-stepped Smuff. Forgetting the bird, he cut across the street and disappeared into the dense, flower-covered foliage behind a house. Just then Frank swung the convertible alongside the curb. Joe picked up the sack and thrust it in beside his brother.

Patrolman Smuff had taken up the chase, and now Joe joined him. They searched the area thoroughly for two square blocks but were unable to find the fugitive or anyone who had seen him. As they retraced their steps to the convertible, Smuff asked:

“What's this all about, anyway?”

“That fellow tried to steal our bird.”

“What kind of bird is itâa parrot?”

“No,” Joe replied. “A peregrine falconâa hawk.”

“One of those hunting birds? I didn't know they had them around this part of the country.”

“This one was sent to us. It's valuable.”

The patrolman nodded. “Valuable, eh? Did you notice anything special about that thief?”

“Well,” Joe replied, “his face was masked. But this might help. When he grabbed the falcon, I got a good look at his hands. They were deeply tanned, so I guess he spends a lot of time outdoors. And he was wearing a carved ring with a ruby in it.”

Patrolman Smuff jotted down this information. When they reached the convertible, he said good-by to the boys and hurried off.

As Joe climbed into the car, Frank gently lifted the falcon from the sack. Apparently, because the hood had prevented the bird from seeing, she had not become frightened by the experience.

“Since Miss Peregrine seems to feel okay,” Frank said, “let's go on to Chet's as we planned.”

With the falcon perched on Joe's wrist, the boys rode out of town. A short time later they arrived at the Morton farm. They saw Chet near a corner of the barn, making repairs on a door. The stout boy was alternately munching on an apple and hammering.

“Wow!” Joe grinned. “Chet's working!”

Although the Hardys needled their easygoing pal a great deal, they were close friends. Chet had been helping them ever since the days of their first mystery,
The Tower Treasure.
Just recently, in the boys' latest case,
The Yellow Feather Mystery,
his skill with machinery and the operation of his motor sled had been instrumental in rescuing the Hardys from death in a sealed-up ice fort.

As Chet hurried over to see his friends, he called cheerfully, “Hi, fellows! Did you bring the hawk?”

The Hardys slid out of the car, and the falcon was transferred to Frank's wrist.

“Pretty neat!” Chet remarked. “Let's see her without her hat.” He reached out to remove it.

“Wait a minute,” said Frank. “She's been through a rugged experience this afternoon,” and he told Chet what had happened.

Chet's eyebrows lifted. “Sounds like the beginning of another mystery for you fellows.”

“Sure does,” said Joe.

Chet looked at the hawk. “She seems really tame,” he commented.

“She is,” Joe replied as Frank removed the hood from the falcon.

Chet studied the notched beak and the long, tapered wings, which Frank said were characteristic of all falcons. “She's streamlined, all right,” he declared.

“Yes, and she's a powerful flier,” Joe added. “According to one of Dad's books, she's very courageous-but gentle, too. Notice her dark eyes and the way she holds her head up. The ancient falconers called the peregrines noble and gentle birds. This breed was the prize of medieval kings.”

Chet was visibly impressed. “How about a trial flight?”

At that moment his sister Iola, appeared on the back porch of the farmhouse and called, “Hi, boys! Would you like some lemonade?”

Frank waved and said that he would have some later. But Joe immediately hurried toward the house. The slender, pretty girl, with dark hair and eyes, was his date on many occasions as well as a capable sleuthing assistant.

Meanwhile, as they walked toward an open field, Chet asked Frank to let him fly the falcon.

“Better let me try it first,” said Frank. “I'm not sure how successful I'll be, since all I know about falconry is what I read in the book.”

He stopped, unfastened each jess from the swivel, and then, with a somewhat awkward movement of the glove, he threw the hawk into the air. With long, powerful wing beats the falcon circled, rising higher and higher until she was merely a dot above them in the sky.

“Now what?” Chet asked.

“See this,” said Frank, holding out the feathered lure.

“What on earth is that?”

“According to the book, the falconer waves this lure in the air and the falcon immediately drops earthward and strikes it.”

“You mean she'll come back to that thing?” Chet asked incredulously.

Frank nodded, watching the hawk intently. “See how she keeps circling us!” he exclaimed. “That's called âwaiting on.' She'll maintain her pitch there until I call her back, either by waving the lure or flushing a bird.”

Frank swung the lure several times, then let it drop to the ground. Immediately the falcon turned and plummeted toward them at terrific speed.

“She's stooping!” yelled Frank. “Listen to the wind whistle through her feathers!”

The falcon came within a foot of striking the lure, then swung upward and mounted almost to her previous height in the sky.

“That was sensational!” breathed Chet.

The falcon made a wide circle and then headed off with deep, powerful wing beats.

“Hey! She's flying away!” Chet cried out.

“No,” said Frank. “Look! She's after something!”

“It's a pigeon!” Chet gripped his friend's arm.

“I'll call the falcon to the lure,” Frank said tersely.

But it was already too late. With unbelievable speed the falcon closed the distance and then streaked earthward, striking the pigeon in mid-air.

The boys saw a tuft of feathers fly and heard the sharp report of the impact. The pigeon dropped to the ground, and the falcon, after mounting from her stoop, dropped down again to claim her prize.

Frank and Chet went toward the two birds, hoping to rescue the pigeon. Slowly, in order not to frighten the hawk, Frank reached for the jesses. With wings and tail spread, the bird looked defiantly at him but made no attempt to fly off. The boy secured the jesses and put on the leash.

“Too bad,” said Frank, “but the pigeon's dead.”

He stroked the hawk, and then slowly lifted both the pigeon and falcon. As he did, he saw a small red capsule on one of the pigeon's legs.

“Gosh, it's a carrier pigeon!” exclaimed Chet.

Frank, concerned that the falcon had killed someone's prized bird, asked Chet to twist the cap off the small container. Chet did so and shook it gingerly over the palm of his hand. To the boys' amazement, instead of a message, out fell two glittering red stones.

“That's strange,” Frank remarked.

Joe, who had been watching the falcon's performance, joined his brother and Chet. The trio bent over the stones in Chet's hands. Frank asked Joe to check the pigeon's other leg for an identification band.

“Nothing here,” he reported.

Frank rubbed his fingers over the stones and recognized an oily feel to them.

“I believe that these are rubiesâvaluable rubies!”

CHAPTER III

Smugglers

“RUBIES !” Chet exclaimed in amazement. Then he laughed. “You're fooling, Frank. In fact, if those stones are anything but colored glass, I'll treat you both to a dinner.”

Joe grinned. “We couldn't refuse an offer like that!”

“Let's get a jeweler's opinion!” Frank urged.

Wrapping the stones in a handkerchief, he put them into a pocket of his sports jacket. The boys buried the pigeon, then drove to the center of Bayport and parked close to Bickford's Jewelry Store. While Joe stayed with the falcon, Frank and Chet went into the shop. The owner, Arthur Bickford, knew them well. He looked up and smiled.

“Well, what brings you here?”

Frank opened the handkerchief and revealed the two red stones. “We found these,” he said, “and we'd like you to tell us whether or not they're genuine.”

Bickford studied the gems for a moment, ran them through his fingers, then picked up his eyepiece. He peered at the stones one at a time, then marveled, “I've never seen more flawless rubies. They're quite valuable. Where'd you get them?”

Frank evaded the question but remarked, “If they're so valuable, we'd better turn them over to the police.”

The two boys thanked the jeweler and returned to the convertible. As Frank and Joe were discussing their great find, Chet reminded them that the rubies had been found on his farm.

“That's right,” Joe admitted, “so it means you'll have to help solve the mystery.”

Chet winced at the thought of the work involved, but said, “Sure, and then I'll get my share of the reward for the rubies.”

Frank chuckled. “And you can use the money to treat us to dinner.”

“Okay, okay,” Chet said with a grin. “Any time you say.”

“Let's make it right after we turn these gems over to Chief Collig,” Joe said. “Chet, will you stay here to mind the falcon?”

BOOK: The Hooded Hawk Mystery

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