The Haunted Showboat by Carolyn Keene Page A

that chills were going up and down her spine. “Maybe Uncle Rufus is here and is going to give the woman a treatment,” she murmured.
    “I wish I knew,” Nancy replied. “Let’s see what she does next.”
    The woman reached the top of the ladder and nimbly stepped over the rail. At once she walked to the entrance where theater patrons would enter if coming to see a show.
    Taking a position near the doorway, the costumed, elderly woman stopped and turned toward the spot where a gangplank had once been placed. She smiled gaily, then began nodding and shaking hands as if with imaginary passengers.
    “Poor thing,” said Bess. “She must have lost her mind.”
    “It looks that way,” Nancy agreed.
    For nearly ten minutes the little pantomime continued. Then the woman’s companion called up from the rowboat:
    “Everyone’s aboard, Louvina dear. The show will start soon. You’ve seen it so many times, honey. Suppose you come for a boat ride with me while it’s going on.”
    The woman hesitated a few seconds and peered into the dark interior of the showboat theater.
    “But there might be something new tonight,” she protested.
    “Oh, I think not. You’d better come now, dear. I want to show you how lovely the wild orchids near here are in the moonlight.”
    Finally Louvina, though obviously reluctant, came to the ladder. The elderly man assisted her in climbing down and getting into the boat.
    As he started to row away, George whispered to Nancy, “Let’s go ask him what’s going on! He can probably solve the whole mystery in one minute.”
    “Wait!” Nancy said in a low voice. “I think the woman is in a trance. It might be disastrous to awaken her. I’d rather follow the two of them and find out what I can from the man later when he’s alone.”
    “I guess you’re right,” George agreed.
    Despite his age, the elderly man was a swift rower and the boat was soon out of sight.
    The girls stepped back into their canoes and in whispered tones talked the matter over with their escorts.
    “Somebody should stay here and watch the River Princess,” Nancy declared. “Are any of you willing to go aboard?”
    Frank and Jack were eager to, but insisted that Bess and George remain outside in the canoes.
    “No point in you girls taking any unnecessary chances,” Frank said, and Bess gave him a grateful look.
    In the end it was decided that only Nancy and Charles would follow the mysterious couple.
    Charles paddled swiftly in pursuit. Soon only about a hundred yards separated the two crafts.
    “Do you want me to overtake them?” Charles asked Nancy in a low voice.
    “No,” she replied quietly. “Just keep them in sight. I’d like to find out where they’re going. It may have something to do with the mystery.”
    The stream was so overgrown with weeds that it was difficult to find a dear passageway. But apparently the man in Colonial costume knew his way perfectly. Nancy concluded that he must be a native of the area.
    “I wonder who he and Louvina are,” Nancy asked herself. “The woman may have been an actress and—oh, ouch!”
    The tangled growth pulled at Nancy’s hair and whipped her face as Charles wound his way in and out among the lush vegetation. Once they lost the elderly couple completely. But finally the canoe emerged from the tangled mass into an open stream.
    “Do you see the couple?” Nancy asked, turning around to look at him.
    “No—yes, I do. They’re over on the right and way ahead.”
    Fortunately, the moon went under a cloud at this moment. Nancy said she wished they might slip up unobserved and perhaps hear the couple’s plans.
    “I’ll try to get closer,” Charles said. In the dim light he almost overtook the strange pair and after that followed more cautiously.
    A few minutes later it became apparent that the oarsman was heading for a dock concealed in a small cove. Nancy and Charles came very close, so they would not lose their quarry when the man and woman