The Secret of Shadow Ranch (11 page)
Read The Secret of Shadow Ranch Online
Authors: Carolyn G. Keene
They crossed the desert without trouble and arrived at the ranch in time for supper. At the table they learned that the telephone, lights, and water had been restored, but four of the palominos were still missing.
“The critters are up on Shadow Mountain somewhere,” Bud remarked gloomily as he passed the biscuits to Nancy. “We have our work cut out to track ’em.”
“And we might as well face it,” said Uncle Ed, “they might be badly hurt.”
To lighten the conversation, Aunt Bet reminded everyone of the barbecue next day. “It’s customary for us ranch folks to take a dessert. Any suggestions?”
Tex grinned. “I sure do cotton to chocolate cake.”
“Nancy makes scrumptious ones,” said Bess.
“Then I guess she’s elected,” Mrs. Rawley said with a smile.
Nancy laughed. “Thank you for the job, my friends! Now, who’s going to help?”
“I will!” chorused Dave, Tex, and Bud.
“Good,” said Nancy. “You boys can shell the walnuts for topping the icing—that is, if you have any, Mrs. Thurmond.”
“We have plenty of everything,” the cook declared. “Just step right up and take hold!”
“We’ll all help,” Bess said happily. “Let’s make it an extra big cake.”
After supper the girls dried the dishes for Mrs. Thurmond. Then Nancy put all the cake ingredients on the big kitchen table. The cook gave her several large bowls.
Tex grinned as he picked up a nutcracker. “Boys, we hired out to punch cows and here we are peelin’ nuts!”
While Nancy and her assistants worked, they talked about the phantom. Mrs. Thurmond listened intently.
“Where do you think the ghost horse is kept?” Alice asked.
“Folks say Valentine had a hideout on Shadow Mountain,” Mrs. Thurmond spoke up, “and I figure that’s where the critter stays now—same as it did in life.”
The girls tried to convince the cook that the apparition was a mere trick, but they could not do it.
Nancy changed the subject. “If Valentine did have a hideout in this area, very likely he kept his horse in a corral there. It’s possible that the persons who are attacking the ranch have discovered the place and are using it for their trick horse.”
Mrs. Thurmond shook her head gloomily. “If it was real folks doin’ the damage, I’d face right up to ‘em,” she declared. “But I’ve seen that spook with my own eyes. I tell you it’s too much for my nerves!”
By the time the baking was finished, Mrs. Thurmond had excused herself and gone to bed.
“Now for the icing,” said Nancy.
When the cake was cool enough, she covered it with thick creamy swirls of dark chocolate and studded the top with whole walnuts.
Bess sighed. “It’s too bad we can’t have just a teeny piece now, isn’t it?”
“I sure could go for a slab,” Tex agreed hungrily.
“Come on, cookie,” Dave coaxed Nancy.
“Think how good that would taste to us poor riders out on the midnight watch,” Bud said in his soft drawl. “Saddlesore, weary—”
“You’re breaking our hearts,” George said cheerfully.
“Graham crackers and milk tonight,” Nancy announced with a chuckle. “You’ll get your cake tomorrow.”
In the morning Alice could hardly contain her excitement over the trip to the cabin. Not wanting their destination known, Nancy had warned Alice to say nothing of her hopes at the breakfast table. When Aunt Bet asked the girls about their plans, Nancy said, “Alice and I would like to go for a ride in the mountains.”
George had letters to write and Bess said she wanted to wash and set her hair.
“I’ll saddle up for you,” Shorty volunteered. Nancy was surprised at his friendly gesture. She and Alice thanked him, then hurried to change into riding clothes.
When they were dressed and waiting on the portico, Tex walked up, leading Nancy’s bay. Just behind him came Shorty with a sorrel for Alice. Nancy stepped into the yard and mounted easily. With a shrill whinny, the horse reared.
“Hang on!” Tex shouted.
Nancy gripped the pommel tight and hung onto the reins. The horse pitched high and landed stiff-legged on all fours!
Tex seized the bridle and held the bay down, giving Nancy time to fling herself from the saddle.
“Hey, boy! Easy now!” Tex said as he tried to calm the excited animal.
“Nancy, are you hurt?” Alice asked worriedly.
“I’m all right,” Nancy replied breathlessly. “But what’s the matter with the horse?”
Shorty had hurried to Tex’s assistance, and now the snorting steed was standing still. The red-haired cowboy’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as he loosened the saddle girth and reached up under the blanket.
“I thought so!” He brought out his hand and held it open for the others to see. In his palm lay a nettle.
Shorty’s eyes grew wide. “Well, what do you know about that!” he drawled.
Tex looked at him levelly. “What do you know about this?”
“Me!” exclaimed Shorty. “Some mean coyote pulled that trick, not me!”
“You saddled the animals,” Tex retorted and turned to Nancy. “I was passin’ the stable when Shorty came out with these mounts. He asked me to bring this one over to you.”
“Now hold on thar a minute,” Shorty put in. “When I went to the stable after breakfast I found this bay already saddled. I throwed the saddle on the other one and brung ’em out. That’s all I know about it. You got no call to accuse me. No sir! Not me!”
Tex’s face flushed with anger. “If you’re tellin’ the truth, Shorty Steele, I apologize.”
Before the stocky cowboy could answer, Nancy suggested that Tex check Alice’s saddle blanket. He did and reported that it was all right. The girls mounted and rode toward the meadow.
“Hang on, Nancy!” Tex shouted
“I don’t believe Shorty was telling the truth,” said Alice.
Nancy said nothing, but she was inclined to agree. Aloud she said, “Someone has not given up trying to get me out of the picture.”
When they finally sighted the cabin, Nancy reined up behind the clump of big boulders. She swung from the saddle and ground-hitched her horse, but was not so quick as Alice. The younger girl dashed to the cabin and knocked on the door. As Nancy ran up, it was opened by a slender gray-haired man.
With a shock Nancy recognized him. He was the one who had put the snake’s rattle into her knitting bag and dropped the warning note into the car!
CHAPTER XV
A Perilous Ride
ALICE was on the verge of tears. The man in the cabin doorway was not her father!
He scowled at the two girls. “What do you want?”
Nancy was sure the man must have recognized her, but he gave no sign of it, so she pretended not to know him. Quickly she thought of an excuse for coming. “Are you Mr. Bursey?” she asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“We’d like to buy one of your pastels,” Nancy replied.
“My what?”
“Pastels—your pictures,” Nancy said.
“Oh.” The man paused. “I haven’t any more. How did you know I was here?”
Nancy explained casually that Mary Deer had told them the artist lived on the mountain. “Several days ago we happened to see this cabin and we thought perhaps it might be where you live.”
He gave Nancy a long, hard look. “My paintings are all gone,” he said. “No use coming back.”
Nancy apologized for bothering him, and as the girls turned to walk back to their horses, he closed the door.
Alice was deeply upset. “I just can’t believe that man drew those pictures.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Nancy replied as the girls mounted. “He’s no artist. He didn’t know what I meant by pastels and he called the pictures paintings. He should have known they’re drawings made with special crayons.”
She told Alice how she, Bess, and George had encountered the man before.
Alice was excited. “Maybe he’s holding my father prisoner somewhere!”
Nancy agreed that was possible. But where? she wondered. There had been no one else in the one-room cabin. Recalling how Chief had appeared mysteriously from behind it, Nancy surmised there was a hiding place nearby.
“What shall we do, Nancy?” Alice asked.
“Report to the sheriff as fast as we can.”
Nancy added that if Alice’s father was a prisoner of Bursey, the gray-haired man and his pals might very well be the Chicago bank robbers. “And since Bursey is also mixed up with the ranch trouble, his gang is probably responsible for the phantom horse.”
As the girls rode down the trail, Nancy’s thoughts dwelt uneasily on the man who said his name was Bursey. Could he possibly believe that she had not known him? “I’m afraid my trumped-up story didn’t fool him,” she decided. “He must know I’ll report him to Sheriff Curtis. But why didn’t he try to stop me?”
The answer was plain. The man believed that people knew the girls’ destination. “He doesn’t want us to disappear at his cabin,” Nancy told herself, “so he’ll arrange an ’accident’ for us on the way down the mountain.”
She turned in her saddle and warned Alice to keep alert for signs of pursuit. A little farther along they came to a fork in the trail.
“Let’s follow this other path,” Nancy suggested.
They soon found the new route a hazardous one, however, and were forced to slow down. The horses were picking their footing on the narrow trail which wound back and forth across a sheer cliff.
Alice glanced up. “Uncle Ed says that Westerners call this kind of path an ‘eyebrow trail.’ I can see why.”
A few minutes later the girls rode under a rock overhang, which prevented them from seeing the turn of the path above them. Suddenly pebbles and dust started falling from above. Someone was following them!
Nancy signaled to Alice, who nodded her understanding. The riders sat in tense silence as their horses slowly proceeded to the bottom of the cliff, where the trail became less steep. But it was narrow and precarious. The girls urged their horses to go as fast as they dared. Soon they heard the clatter of a horse’s hooves behind them.
Nancy knew they had no defense against the surprise attack she feared was coming. It would take only a few boulders rolling from above to spook the horses and cause the “accident.”
Nancy looked ahead for shelter. Some distance below, the trail disappeared among high rocks. “If we can reach that spot before our enemy strikes,” she thought, “we may have a chance!”
Again the girls urged their mounts on and rode desperately toward the screen of rocks. Jolting hard, Alice clung to the saddle horn all the way.
“We made it!” she gasped as they rounded a curve and were hidden between huge boulders which lay on either side.
Swiftly Nancy dismounted, signaling her companion to do the same. The younger girl followed as Nancy led her horse into a cluster of the giant rocks. Alice held her mount firmly and kept one hand soothingly upon his nose. If only the animals would stand quietly! One jangle of the bridle, or a hoof scuffing a stone, and their hiding place would be revealed!
Hardly breathing, the girls heard the clatter of stones as their pursuer approached. The sounds came closer, then suddenly stopped.
“He sees we’re not on the trail ahead,” Nancy thought. Would the rider figure that they had rounded the next curve but were hiding? For a long moment there was silence from the other side of the boulders.
“He’s listening!” Nancy thought.
The girls stood frozen. Then came the creak of a saddle and the sound of hooves as the rider moved on.
Nancy and Alice gave sighs of relief, and after waiting a few minutes, led their horses out of the boulders. Quickly the two remounted.
Alice said fearfully, “When he reaches open mountainside again, he’ll see that he has missed us and come back. We’ll meet him head-on!”
“I know,” Nancy replied. “We must look for another branching trail.”
Presently she spotted a side path among the boulders and the girls guided their horses onto it. The way downward was narrow and rough, but the two riders were sheltered first by rocks, then tall fir and tamarack trees. They reached the valley a mile from where the other trail came down.
“We made it safely!” Alice cried in relief. “Oh, Nancy, how can I ever thank you?”
Her companion smiled. “Don’t think I wasn’t scared myself!”
It was noon when the girls dismounted at the stable. They hurried to the living room where they found the Rawleys chatting with Bess and George.
While Alice excitedly reported all that had happened to them, Nancy telephoned the sheriff. She told him her suspicions of the man calling himself Bursey, and also the possibility that Ross Regor, Alice’s father, was being held prisoner on the mountain by the same gang responsible for the phantom-horse trick.
Sheriff Curtis said, “I’ll go up to the cabin at once with two men and arrest this hombre Bursey and his confederates.”
Nancy hastened back to the living room and reported the conversation.
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