“Jupe?” cried Bob. “Hey, Jupe, be careful, huh?”

Jupe didn’t answer, but Bob heard him give a little gasp.

“Jupe?” shouted Bob.

Still there was no answer, but Bob heard a branch break in the woods, and then a shushing, swishing sound from the edge of the crevice.

“Jupe, what are you doing up there?” Bob was shouting, and he felt the back of his neck prickle with fear.

The scraping, sweeping sound above ceased and there was complete silence. Bob called again and again, but Jupe didn’t respond. Filled with a dread that was almost panic, Bob tried to find a foothold in the walls of the crevice. There was none. He looked around for something — a fallen branch, anything — that he could use to try to climb out of the pit. There was nothing but the snow and the sheer walls of earth.

Bob finally stopped calling. He stood at the bottom of the pit and waited and listened. And he heard a groan.

“Jupe?”

“Ugh!” It was Jupiter’s voice. “Oh, my neck!”

“What happened?” cried Bob. “Where’d you go?”

Jupiter looked over the edge of the fracture. Bob saw that his head was held to one side and that he was rubbing his neck. “I didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “Somebody came up behind me and hit me.”

“Your neck?” asked Bob. “Did you get rabbit punched, like Mr. Jensen?”

“I got rabbit punched like Mr. Jensen,” Jupiter confirmed. “Also, while I was unconscious, someone went to the trouble of sweeping the earth all around this crevice with a pine branch. There isn’t a single footprint left up here, naked or otherwise!”

 “There’s one thing we know for sure,” said Bob after Pete had finally arrived with the rope and he had been pulled out of the crevice. “It wasn’t a bear that gave you a rabbit punch, Jupe.”

“It most certainly was not,” agreed Jupiter Jones. “Bears don’t break branches off pine trees and use them to sweep the ground. You were startled by something — possibly by a very large barefooted man — and it may have been the same barefooted creature who punched me and then erased his own tracks.”

Pete stared at his two friends as if they were losing their minds. “A barefooted man?” he said. “Nobody runs around up here in bare feet.”

“Jupe found the print of a naked foot on the edge of the crevice” Bob explained.

“A very large footprint,” said Jupe. “I’d say it must have been at least eighteen inches long.”

“Eighteen inches? A human footprint eighteen inches long?”

“It looked like a human footprint,” said Jupe. “It wasn’t a bear — that I know.”

Pete coiled the clothesline with hands that were shaking slightly. “Monster Mountain,” he said. “The old-timers called this place Monster Mountain. And it looks like there is a monster on it… ”

“Monster?” said a sharp voice almost at Pete’s elbow.

Pete jumped.

“Sorry. Did I startle you?” It was little Mr. Smathers. He had come silently through the woods and was standing smiling at the boys. “What’s all this talk about monsters?” he wanted to know. “And what does a monster’s footprint look like? Where is it? I’d like to see it.”

“Someone swept it away,” explained Jupiter.

“Of course, of course.” Mr. Smathers used the tone of one who will listen politely to a tall tale, but who doesn’t believe a word of it.

 “There was a footprint!” insisted Pete. “If Jupe says he found it, he found it.”

Mr. Smathers’ apparent good humor deserted him, and his face took on a reddish color. “You’ve been talking to that Richardson fellow who runs the gas station,” he accused them. “I’ve heard some of his wild yarns. He ought to be ashamed, scaring youngsters that way. I’ve a good mind to have a word with him.”

Mr. Smathers suddenly looked determined. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” he announced. “I’ll have a word with him and tell him to keep his ghost stories to himself.”

Smathers started off at a rapid pace, headed for the village, then turned back toward the boys.

“Not that there aren’t dangers here for you” he warned. “You’re the intruders here, and the wild creatures don’t understand you the way they understand me. They might not mean to harm you, but accidents do happen. I intend to tell Mrs. Havemeyer’s cousins to keep you closer to the inn.”

“I kind of agree with him on that last part,” said Pete when Smathers had gone. “I think we ought to stay away from here. A guy could get hurt tangling with monsters.”

“Mr. Smathers has just done a very interesting thing,” said Jupiter. “He has just told us that he intends to make sure no one believes us if we tell what happened here this morning. He has also warned us to stay away from here or we may get hurt. Now I’m sure that some strange creature — human or animal — lives up here, and Mr. Smathers knows it. But he doesn’t want anyone else to know.”

“I think you’re right,” said Bob. “But I think Mr. Smathers is right, too. We ought to get out of here. I got too close to whatever it is.”

Jupe nodded, and the boys set out rapidly toward the meadow. They came through the trees and into the open in time to see Mr. Smathers start down the ski slope. By the time they reached the top of the slope, Smathers was at the bottom.

“He moves fast,” said Bob. “It’s downhill all the way,” Pete pointed out, and he began a slipping, sliding, half-running descent of the slope. Bob and Jupe followed more carefully.

They were nearly at the bottom when they saw Joe Havemeyer start up the slope. Cousin Anna’s husband had a knapsack on his back and his tranquilizer gun slung over his shoulder. When the boys approached him, he stood still. There was a scowl on his face.

“What have you boys been doing?” he asked.

“Hiking,” said Pete innocently. Havemeyer pointed to Bob. “Smathers told me one of you fell in that earthquake fracture. It was you, wasn’t it?”

 “You knew about the fracture?” asked Jupiter Jones.

“It’s not a secret. It’ll be a big attraction if we can get the hikers here in the summer. But in the meantime, I want you boys to stay out of the high country. Anna and I would feel responsible if you got hurt. There’s not only the chance that you’ll fall, but the bears… ”

“Bears?” Jupiter said. He looked steadily at Havemeyer and then at the tranquilizer gun. “Is that why you carry that gun, Mr. Havemeyer?” he asked. “It’s a tranquilizer gun, isn’t it? Are you planning to capture a bear with it?”

Havemeyer laughed. “Capture a bear? Now, why would I want to do a thing like that? No, I’m not planning to capture any bears and I think it would probably be against the law. I just want to be ready if I meet one, and I don’t want to hurt anything.” He paused and grinned. “Mr. Smathers would never forgive me if I hurt a bear!”

Havemeyer passed them and toiled on up the slope.

“Mr. Smathers just made a mistake,” Bob said.

“Right,” said Pete. “We didn’t tell him that you fell in the hole, so if he knew it, he must have been there when it happened — or when Jupe got hit.”

“He may even have been the one who hit me,” said Jupe, “and he is probably the one who swept away the footprint from the edge of the crevice. Our Mr. Smathers may not be as nonviolent as he seems. There is something in the high country — monster or not — that both he and Havemeyer have seen, and they both want to keep it a secret.”

The boys reached the backyard of the inn just as Konrad climbed out of the swimming pool excavation. “Hey, Jupe!” he called.

Jupe waved. The Three Investigators went to the hole and looked down to see Hans sitting on the bottom, taking a rest. The forms for the cement were almost finished. “Good hike?” asked Hans.

“Very interesting,” said Jupe.

“Hardly a dull moment,” Pete added.

“You make Mr. Smathers very nervous,” Konrad said. “He does not want you up near that meadow. He tells us we should make you stay down here.”