Hans Christian Andersen - "O. T., A Danish Romance"

Mrs. Humphry Ward - "The Coryston Family"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II"

Henry James - "The Portrait of a Lady [Volume 2]"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Call of the Beaver Patrol

V >> V. T. Sherman >> The Call of the Beaver Patrol




"It's a sure thing, isn't it?" Will asked, "that the boys we are in
search of are in the mine? We don't know what they're in there for. They
may be hiding there because of some fool notion they have in their
heads, or they may have been sent here for some definite purpose."

"You bet they've been sent here for some definite purpose," George
replied. "They never came here to work on the breaker without having
some well-defined motive. Boys answering to their description don't
accept such jobs as they accepted here!"

"Well, the boys are in the mine," Will continued. "As stated, we don't
know what they're there for, but we know they're there. Now, this third
boy comes to the mine and works just long enough to get in touch with
the other two. Then he disappears."

"Buys a lot of provisions and goes down the river to leave his hat on
the bank!" laughed Tommy. "I guess that was a pretty poor imitation of a
suicide or a drowning accident, either!"

"But this boy didn't get to be intimate with the two breaker boys,"
contended George. "He talked with them about two minutes after the
fight, according to Canfield, but paid no further attention to them
after that. If he had any secret understanding with them, he must have
done a whole lot of talking in a mighty short space of time."

"The right kind of a boy can say a good deal in a minute and half!"
laughed Tommy. "But suppose we let Will go on and explanation us about
that boy tramp in the railroad yards. I think I know what he's getting
at, but I'm not quite certain. Go on, Will, it's up to you."

"In order to make the connection," laughed Will. "I'll state for the
third time that we know that the boys are in the mine. It may also be
well to state, once more, that we are reasonably certain that this third
boy came to the mine for the specific purpose of communicating with the
other two. Now, this boy didn't drop into the river. He dropped the
provisions he bought for the boat into the coal mine, and left them
there for the consumption of the two boys inside. That's reasonable,
isn't it?"

"Fine deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson!" laughed
George.

"But this third boy," Will went on, "doesn't go into the mine. He stays
outside to serve as a means of communication between the boys who are
hiding in the mine and some interested person or persons on the outside.
That's perfectly clear, isn't it?"

"That'll do very well for a theory," replied George.

"I'll go you a plate of cookies," argued Sandy, "that Will is right, and
that this third boy is hanging around taking messages from the two boys
in the mine and also to the two boys in the mine."

"Didn't I say it was all right for a theory?" chuckled George.

"Now, the point is this," Will continued. "What are those boys in the
mine for? What do they want there? Why didn't they answer our Boy Scout
challenge when we replied to their call of the pack?"

"If you don't ask so many questions, you won't get so many negative
answers," Sandy advised. "We're here to find the boys, and I don't see
that it makes any difference to us what they're in there for."

"But we've found the boys now," contended Tommy. "We haven't got our
hands on them yet, of course, but we know they're in there, and we know
it's only a question of time when we get hold of them."

"Well," Will insisted, "I'm going to find a motive before I quit the
case. I'm going to know who sent those boys here, and all about it,
before I make any report to Mr. Horton."

"Go as far as you like," laughed Tommy. "My bump of curiosity is growing
half an inch a day, and will continue to spread out until I find out
exactly what those boys are doing burrowing in a deserted mine."

"Now, we'll get back to the point we started from," Will explained.
"This boy who is undoubtedly doing duty outside the mine in the
interests of the persons who sent the two boys in, furnishes the clue to
the whole situation! When we find him, and find out what he's up to, and
trace any communications he may make back to their original source,
we'll have the whole case tied up tight!"

"That's right!" declared Tommy. "We'll have the case tied up tight if we
succeed in getting hold of this third boy."

"Oh, go on!" laughed Sandy. "We'll be picking third boys and fourth boys
and fifth boys out of the air, first thing you know. We never went away
on a Boy Scout expedition yet that we didn't find all manner of kids
hanging around on purpose to be discovered. We found them on Old
Superior; and in the Everglades; and on the Great Continental Divide;
and up in the Hudson Bay country, we began to think we had stumbled on
the center of population so far as Boy Scouts were concerned!"

"There's just one thing that's likely to make us trouble," Will resumed.
"And that is the fact that Canfield very foolishly slopped over to
Ventner when explaining the purpose of our visit here. That bum
detective knows now that we're here to search the mine. Of course he
might have received, as Canfield says, the most of his information from
outside sources, but the caretaker should have thrown him off the track
instead of telling him exactly what our mission here was."

"But Ventner came here to search for the boys himself!" George broke in.
"At least, he says that he did."

"There's a mystery about the whole matter," Sandy declared, "and I'd
like to help clear it up from beginning to end!"

"We're likely to have a chance!" laughed Tommy.

"What are we going to do all the afternoon?" George asked.

"Wander around town," smiled Will, "and find out about the evening
train, and ask fool questions about the pumps and the mine, and laugh at
the idea of anybody living in there. That'll give Ventner the idea that
we're going for good, I reckon. He's a pretty bum skate to pose as a
detective!"

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do most of the afternoon!" Tommy
declared. "I'm going to the hay! I never felt so bunged up for want of
sleep in my innocent life."

"Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Sandy.

"Sure!" shouted Tommy. "I'm forgetting to eat!"

"And you're forgetting something else!" insisted Sandy.

"Nix on the forget!" declared Tommy. "When I forget my eatings and
sleepings, the world will come to an end!"

"You forgot to read a chapter in your dream book!" said Sandy.

"Never you mind that dream book," Tommy replied. "Whenever you want to
find the answer to any puzzle, you look in that dream book!"

After eating another hearty meal the boys, having already packed their
wardrobes, locked the door of their room and addressed themselves to
slumber.

They were awakened about five o'clock by a loud knocking on the door,
and presently they heard the voice of Canfield calling to them.

"Wake up, boys!" he cried. "I have good news for you!"

"All right, let her go!" shouted Tommy.

"The pumps are working, and the water is lowering in the mine!"

"That's nice!" laughed Sandy.

"And we've found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker
went on. "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth and
the Mixer mines unaccountably gave way. The Mixer mine has been flooded
for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the Labyrinth, the
water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as the wall was down."

"But what caused the partition to fall?" asked Will, opening the door
for the admission of the caretaker.

"No one knows!" was the answer.

"If you look about a little," Tommy suggested, "I think you'll find
traces of dynamite. Who discovered the break in the dividing wall?"

"A gang under the leadership of Ventner, the detective!" was the reply.

The caretaker was very much surprised and not a little annoyed at the
effect his answer had upon the four boys.

"I don't see anything humorous about that!" he said as the lads threw
themselves down on the bunks and roared with laughter.

"It looks funny to me!" Tommy replied. "If we had never showed up here,
the mine wouldn't have been flooded. As soon as we start away or promise
to leave the district, which amounts to the same thing, this cheap skate
of a detective finds the break, and all is well again!"

"Why, you don't think that he had anything to do with the trouble at the
mine, do you?" questioned the caretaker.

"Oh, of course not!" replied Sandy. "Ventner had nothing to do with
cutting the ladder! That fellow will land in state's prison if he keeps
on trying to murder boys by sawing ladder rungs!"

"I had forgotten that," said Canfield.

"Well, don't forget that this man Ventner is playing the chief villain's
role in this drama!" Tommy advised. "And another thing you mustn't
forget," the boy continued, "is that you're not to say a word to him
that will inform him that he is suspected."

"I think I can remember that!" replied the caretaker.

The boys prepared a hasty supper and then, suit cases in hand, started
for the little railway station. There they inquired about the arrival
and departure of trains, bought tickets, and made themselves as
conspicuous as possible about the depot.

"Keep your eye out for the third boy," George chuckled, as the lads
walked up and down the platform.

"Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied. "We'll find him
when the right time comes!"

"There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down
the platform. "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid us
farewell!"

"I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy.

"I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will.
"He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!"

"News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling.




CHAPTER X

THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY"


"Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product of
his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in search of
are somewhere on the Pacific slope!"

"He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll tell!"
whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game ought to
be locked Up in the foolish house!"

"I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to
the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in search
of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I don't just
recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by looking on the
map! It seems the lads left here on the night following their departure
from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little town I'm
telling you about."

"Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will. "We should have been
out of town in ten minutes more!"

"Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great
interest in the statement made by the detective.

"It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer.

The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a
map. It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he
finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid his
finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad.

"Nankin is the name of the place. Strange I should have forgotten the
name of the place. They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are
believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot."

"But you said they were seen leaving the car at Nankin!" Tommy cut in.
"Now you say they were put out of the car!"

"Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both
statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously.

"Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train
the boys were to take came rolling into the station. "The pointer is
undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about
Nankin."

There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where the
boys had taken the train, and they were all ready to jump when the
engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning. It was quite
dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over
with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of the
windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to leave
the train by any of the passengers.

In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the
roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town.

"Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy.

"It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy.

"I can always tell when anything's for my own good," Tommy contended.

"You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy.

"When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always
disagreeable! It makes me think of a story I read once where the man
complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either
expensive, indigestible or immoral."

"Well, get on the hike!" laughed George. "You can stand here and
moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch in
the direction of the mine!"

"And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade, "when
we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must scatter and
keep our traps closed! We can all make for the mine by different routes.
Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the chances are that he'll be
plugging around trying to accomplish some purpose known only to himself.
For my part I don't believe he is employed on the same case we are! He's
working here for some outside parties!"

"That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed. "If the detective had
been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been flooded,
the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors would have
been found in excellent working order."

"Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at the
station?" asked Will. "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?"

"It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point. "And there
was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by
the scraping of a saw! I guess if you'll match the shreds we found on
the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the saw got
in its work, all right!"

"And there was a cut on his hand, too!" Sandy observed. "Looked like he
had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger."

"Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in. "But he forgot
to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into that
ladder! If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll be
sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months
older."

When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights,
they parted, Will and George turning off from the right of way and Sandy
and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods. When the four boys were
finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods apart,
and at right angles with the right of way.

"Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep your
eye out for Ventner and this third boy. They are both likely to be
chasing around in the darkness."

The route to the mine taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network of
tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As they
came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a movement in
one of the empties and crouched down to listen.

"There's some one in there!" declared Tommy.

"Some old bum, probably!"

This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties and
was not in a very pleasant humor.

"It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy.

Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin
vigorously, muttering and protesting against railroad yards in general
and this one in particular as he did so.

Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost
against the bottom of the car. Presently he heard a movement above and
then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was being
dragged across the floor. This was followed in a moment by a slight
groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door and
started away in the darkness.

Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death if
he caught sight of him. He saw this figure bounce out of the car and
start away. Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and tripped the
unknown to the ground.

He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders
which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking. In the meantime,
Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to seize any
second person who might make his appearance.

Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty.

Instead of starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped
where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it.

"Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice.

"Who is it?" asked Sandy.

"Don't know!" was the reply.

"What was he doing to you?"

"He was trying to rob me!"

"I don't think a man would get rich robbing people who ride in empties!"
laughed Sandy. "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would make much of a
hit with a bold, bad highwayman!"

"There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy for
a dime! If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this fellow
a beating up right now. He tried to drag me from the car by the leg and
nearly broke my ankle!"

"I heard him dragging you across the floor!" Tommy said, coming up to
where the two boys stood. "Can you see who it is?" he added.

"He's just a tramp!" the other replied. "I saw him sneaking around the
empties just before dark."

"Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy.

"Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle.

While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over the
ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three
youngsters.

As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had
dropped out of the car to ask him a question.

The boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy.

"I guess we have!" agreed Tommy. "We've let the third boy get away from
us! And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on, "because the
boys in the mine will know that we are still in this vicinity!"

While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf pack
came to them.




CHAPTER XI

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR


When Will and George came to the back of the weigh-house they heard some
one moving about at the front.

"That's probably the caretaker, taking his last look for the night,"
suggested Will. "He pokes around all the outbuildings every night before
he goes to bed. At least, he is supposed to."

"But this fellow hasn't got any lantern," urged George.

"The plot deepens!" chuckled Will.

"Can you crawl around there and see who it is," asked George, "or shall
I go? It may be a thief, or it may be Ventner, or it may be this boy
we're looking for. Anyway, we want to know who it is!"

"I'll go!" Will suggested, "and don't you make any racket if you hear
something doing there. The one thing to do at this time is to keep our
presence here a profound secret."

Will moved cautiously around the angle of the weigh-house just in time
to see a figure leaving the side of the building and moving toward the
breaker. There was a little side door in the breaker not far from the
weigh-house, and it was toward this that the prowler was making his way.

Half way to the little house the fellow stumbled over some obstruction
in his path and fell sprawling to the ground. He arose with an impatient
oath and moved on again, but not before the watcher had recognized both
the figure and the voice. Will turned back to where George stood.

"That's Ventner," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Dead sure!"

There was a short silence.

"What can we do now?"

"I don't know of anything we can do, unless it is to watch the rascal
and see where he goes," answered the other. "The chances are that he's
trying to get into the mine!"

"That shows that the fellow's a crook," Will contended. "He has full
permission to enter the mine at any time he sees fit."

"Of course, he's a crook!" agreed George. "What would he be sneaking
around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand
game? You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued, "and
we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for a while."

As Ventner approached the little side door leading into the breaker, a
light flashed in the window of the room which the boys had occupied, and
directly Canfield's voice was heard asking:

"Who's there?"

"Now if he's on the square, hell answer!" whispered Will.

There was no reply whatever, and in a moment the caretaker called again,
this time rather peremptorily:

"What are you prowling about the yard for?"

The detective dropped to his knees and began crawling away.

"If I see you around here again," the caretaker shouted in a braver tone
now that the intruder was taking his departure, "I'll do some shooting!"

Evidently giving over the attempt to enter the mine at that time, the
detective arose to his feet as soon as he gained the shelter of the
weigh-house, and walked away, passing as he did so, within a few feet of
where the boys were standing.

"That settles that bum detective, so far as we are concerned!" Will said
to his chum, in a whisper. "We knew before that he was playing a rotten
game on us, but we didn't know that his plans included such
surreptitious visits to the mine."

After making sure that the detective was not within sight or sound, Will
and George tapped softly at the little door and were admitted by the
caretaker. Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy and Sandy.

"Were you boys out there a few moments ago?" asked Canfield.

"Nix!" replied George. "That was Ventner. We saw him from the
weigh-house. He was trying to sneak his way into the mine!"

"But he has full permission to enter at any time he sees fit!" urged the
caretaker. "It doesn't seem as if he would attempt to steal his way in
during the night. You must be mistaken!"

"Yes, and perhaps we were mistaken about the sawing of the ladder, too!"
Tommy broke in.

"Yes, we may all be mistaken about that."

"Not so you could notice it!" declared Sandy. "If you look at the
thief's coat, you'll see that he didn't do all the sawing on the rungs
of the ladder. We've got him too dead to skin!"

Without any lights being shown on the surface, the boys were conducted
down the ladder to the first level. There they found a room very cosily
furnished, indeed. A lounge from the office, a couple of good sized
cupboards, and a large table had been brought down, together with a
serviceable rug and numerous chairs, and the apartment presented an
unexpectedly homelike appearance.

The current was on, and two electric lamps made the room as light as
day. The cooking was to be done over electric coils so that the presence
of the boys would not be disclosed by smoke. One of the ventilating
pipes which supplied the offices in the vicinity of the shaft with fresh
air passed through the room, so there was no lack of ozone.

"Have we got plenty of eatings?" asked Tommy.

"Plenty!" was the reply. "I have arranged for fresh meat, milk and
vegetables to be brought in every evening."

"Talk about your bull-headed, obstinate men!" exclaimed Tommy, as the
caretaker finally took his departure. "That fellow takes the cake! He
knows very well that we caught Ventner in the act of sawing on the
ladder, and he knows, too, that we heard Wolf calls while we were in the
mine. Still, he shakes his head and says that he don't know about the
boys being there, and don't know about that bum detective being crooked.
If you could get a saw and operate on his head, you'd find it solid
bone!"

"You'll feel better after you get supper!" Sandy declared.

"This isn't any grouch!" insisted Tommy. "This is the true story of that
man's life! If I had a dollar for every time he doesn't know anything,
I'd be the richest boy in the world!"

"Are you thinking of going down the mine tonight?" asked George, with a
wink at Will. "We might try another midnight excursion."

"If you kids go into the mine tonight," declared Will, "I'll send you
both back to Chicago on the first train!"

"Aw, how are you going to find these boys if you don't go into the
mine?" demanded Tommy. "I suppose you'll want us to wait till daylight
when the owners will be looking around to see if any damage was done by
the inundation. The best time is at night!"

"Look here," Will argued, "we've got to do more than lay hands on the
boys! We've got to find out why they are hiding in the mine."

"That's the correct word," agreed George. "Hiding is the word that
expresses the situation exactly!"

"There is no doubt," Will continued, "that the boys were sent here by
some one for some specific purpose. They are hiding in the mine with a
well-defined motive. I have an idea that we might be able to find them
in twenty-four hours, but what is more important, is to find out what
they are up to."

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