The Secret of the Forgotten City (11 page)

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Authors: Carolyn G. Keene

BOOK: The Secret of the Forgotten City
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“He ought to stick to singing,” Burt remarked, “and not try to tell jokes.”
When the concert was over, Bess said to Nancy, “I’m terribly worried about your having the tablet. Suppose Fleetfoot or one of his buddies comes in here and takes it!”
Ned overheard her. He answered the question. “Don’t worry. Several of the boys brought good watchdogs along. They’ll take care of any prowlers.” Bess felt better.
Her thought made Nancy decide to produce a faithful drawing of the petroglyphs on the plaque she had found. Then she asked George to walk with her to the kitchen unit.
“There’s always someone on duty there, and I think they’ll let me hide this tablet behind some of the food, where it won’t be noticed.”
The chef, who was just tidying up, was glad to have his place used for the hidden treasure. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Nancy,” he said. “I’ll be like a watchdog around here.”
It seemed to be no more than a few minutes between the time the girls said good night to one another and the time the alarm went off at five in the morning. Nancy, George, Wanna, and the two Nevada girls yawned but got out of bed. Bess merely turned over.
“Bess Marvin,” said George, “you’ll have to get up. We have work ahead of us.”
Bess merely grunted. “Why do I have to get up so early?”
George told her that if she did not, she would be left alone all day. Did she want that? The thought made Bess climb out of bed instantly.
Professor Maguire, the students from the University of Nevada, and all the Emerson boys except Ned, Burt, and Dave, had already chosen a site at which to start digging. Wanna had received permission to take Nancy’s group to another location. Bess and Dave borrowed a small sports model and would follow the others.
Nancy’s car was crowded, with five people and all their working equipment. “I sure hope we don’t get a flat tire!” Ned said.
Wanna directed the young man straight across the desert, which was only reasonably smooth for driving. The bumps set them all laughing, and made the journey seem shorter.
“We stop here,” the young Indian student said a little later. “We’ll walk down this hill to a water hole, which the Indians say is a spring bubbling up.”
When they reached the spot, Wanna pointed out what appeared to be no more than a pool of water that came out of the mountain and ran back into it on the other side.
Wanna saw the looks of disappointment on the faces of her friends. “You expected more, I know,” she said, smiling. “I believe that at one time this was a tributary of the Muddy River. By the way, now it’s called the Moapa after the tribe of Indians that live nearby.
“I haven’t quite figured out just what happened. Perhaps there was a great landslide, and the only spot where the water bubbled to the surface was right here. But that wouldn’t have been enough for maybe a thousand people. So they moved out.”
Nancy asked, “Do you think the Indians needed water badly and might have tried to tunnel into the river so it wouldn’t stop running?”
“It’s a fascinating idea, Nancy,” Wanna replied. “Maybe someday we can find out. One thing I do know is that the well where the poor young man lost his life is very close.”
“Let’s not stand around talking any longer,” Ned suggested. “Come on, fellows, we’ll bring the tools down from the car and see if we can unearth this stream with the hidden gold plates.”
As work started a few minutes later, Nancy reminded the others that they were not to dig fast and furiously.
“Remember,” she said, “we are to take a shovelful at a time and put it through a sieve.”
There was complete silence for a while. Bess sat down to work with a sieve, since her ankle ached a little, while Dave carried shovelfuls of earth for her to sift.
An hour went by. Each one in the group hoped to find some ancient treasure, but so far nothing had turned up.
Nancy walked over to Bess and dropped to the ground beside her. “Would you rather go back to the car and rest?” she asked.
“No, no,” Bess replied, “but what I think I will do is lie back and relax for a while.”
Nancy stayed there and took up one shovelful after another of the soil. No interesting items showed up. She kept digging deeper. In a little while the young sleuth reached a very wet place. Was this part of an underground river?
She called to Wanna, who came over. The geologist was excited.
“Nancy, I think you’ve figured out the direction of the underground stream. Apparently it wasn’t straight.”
As she was speaking, Nancy dug up another shovelful of sandy dirt. She put it into the sieve and began to shake the contents.
“Oh, I’ve come across something!” she exclaimed.
Nancy picked up a small round object and cleaned it off as best she could in the muddy water.
“It’s a turquoise bead!” she cried out. “Exactly like those in your necklace, Wanna!”
Before Wanna could pick up the gem, Bess screamed. “Nancy, throw that bead away! Throw it away! That’s bad luck!”
CHAPTER XV
Gold!
AT Bess’s frantic request, Nancy laid the turquoise bead on the ground. Now she looked toward Wanna and asked her if she believed the lovely little light-blue gem would harm her.
The young Indian geologist smiled. “No, I think not. Keep it.”
As Nancy slipped the turquoise into her pocket, Bess set her lips primly. She said nothing but Nancy knew she was worried.
“Please don’t panic, Bess,” she said. “At the first sign of my becoming ill or acting strangely, you take the turquoise away from me.”
“I don’t want it!” Bess said firmly.
The others laughed and finally Bess’s dimpled cheeks broke into a grin. “You win,” she said.
The little group of young archaeologists continued to work industriously for some time before anything else was found.
George sighed. “This is becoming monotonous. If I could only find a piece of a bowl or an arrowhead or something, it would be more exciting.”
Wanna looked at her. “Archaeologists must develop an unbelievable amount of patience. They sometimes work for weeks before making a discovery.”
There was silence again for some time. Suddenly it was broken by Bess, who gave a loud squeal of delight. “Here’s a real treasure!” she exclaimed.
Her shovel had brought up a small clay doll, which had broken into several pieces.
“You’re lucky,” Dave remarked. “If you like I’ll help you put it together.”
“Thanks a million,” Bess told him.
The two carefully worked on the doll as if it were a jigsaw puzzle. Finally they figured out exactly how to put it together. Only one small piece was missing.
“Suppose you hunt for that little piece,” said Dave, “while I go for the cement. It’s up in the car.”
While he scrambled up the hill, Bess took a sieve and carefully put the remaining dirt from the shovel into it. The missing piece was not there.
“Too bad,” Wanna remarked. Then she smiled. “Maybe it will make the clay doll look more authentic.”
Dave returned in a little while with a tube of statuary cement and half an hour later the ancient doll had been repaired.
Nancy had been looking on. Now she said, “Since the doll was not buried very deep, it probably belongs to the fourth, or top, layer of civilization here—the people who lived in pit houses.”
Wanna nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. Bess, you may have the honor of presenting it to the museum. The curator and the state will certainly be thrilled.”
Bess would have liked to keep her interesting souvenir, but she knew this was against the rules. She must turn it in.
Meanwhile the other searchers had been concentrating on digging straight down, with the hope of eventually finding the underground river. By now the hole was fairly deep.
Nancy looked at her watch. “Time for a mid-morning snack,” she called out.
Everyone was glad to stop work in the terrific heat. At that moment Ned and Burt, suspended on ropes, were down in the hole, working.
“It’s much cooler down here,” Ned called up. “How about sending something down?”
“No,” Nancy said. “Our instructions were to stop work at a certain time. We must eat and rest a while.”
Reluctantly the two boys pulled themselves up. Everyone sat down while Nancy passed around the food the chef had packed for them.
George served the cold drinks. As she walked around, she began chanting:
Time to rest and eat
In 102 degrees,
Oh where is there a place
Where I can slowly freeze?
The others laughed, and Burt suggested that the next archaeological dig she went on had better be at the North Pole.
All of them found that the ground was getting hotter, and they wondered how long they could stand it. While they were discussing this, the group suddenly became aware of a low roaring sound.
“What is that?” Bess asked quickly. It was evident she was nervous.
The sound grew louder. Then, before anyone had a chance to run, a geyser of water gushed from the hole where the boys had been digging! The force of the water soaked the young people and knocked some of them down. The others scattered.
The water continued to squirt from the hole. Everyone was wet but uninjured.
As suddenly as it had shot up, the stream subsided. Not another drop came from the big hole.
“Thank goodness Nancy made us come topside,” Ned remarked to Burt.
“Yes, we’d have shot into the air like a couple of rubber clowns,” Burt replied.
“That geyser was the strangest thing I ever saw,” George commented. “Wanna, what’s the explanation for such a phenomenon?”
The geologist said there could be several explanations, but the one she favored was that the geyser had come from the underground river. Something had given it great impetus. The stream must have found an opening, and the force behind it had sent the water shooting into the air.
“Now that force is gone,” she said. “It’s my guess the river is continuing to run along peacefully.”
Nancy wondered if such a geyser had ever erupted down at the water hole. Perhaps this was how it had been formed in the first place. Everyone in the group continued to talk for some time about the strange phenomenon.
Then George remarked, “You know I was singing about giving me a place to freeze. That geyser was like ice water, but it sure felt good.”
In the heat not only their clothes but the terrain dried up in a very short time.
“I’d like to go down to the bottom of that hole and investigate,” Ned said.
There was a short discussion about this. Some thought it was too dangerous. There might be a cave-in, or another geyser might shoot up.
Ned laughed. “Let’s take a vote! Everybody in favor of my going, put up a hand!”
Bess and Dave did not raise theirs, but they were the only ones who were opposed. Ned was tied securely, and the other boys held the rope to help him descend slowly. George grabbed the end of it to lend extra strength if necessary.
Ned reported that while the sides of the hole were muddy and it grew narrower, he could see the bottom with his strong flashlight.
“It looks like water down there all right,” he said.
For several minutes there was no report, and the two holding the rope began to wonder if everything was all right.
Finally Burt called down, “You okay?”
There was a muffled answer of “Yes, I’m okay. This is some hole.”
Less than a minute later, there was a tug on the rope, and slowly Dave and George pulled Ned to the surface. He was a sight, and the others began to laugh. Ned was covered from head to foot with mud.
He ignored the laughter and said, “He who laughs last laughs best. This time I have the last laugh. Look here!”
Ned held up a gold nugget.
Now everyone became excited. Ned said he was sure that he had reached the underground river. “Digging along its banks may reveal an ancient Indian village—the Forgotten City.”
Nancy’s eyes were shining with excitement as she added, “And eventually the golden sheets!”
Wanna was happy too. But she was less demonstrative.
“We mustn’t allow ourselves to be disappointed if we’re wrong,” she said, “even though I want to believe this fairy tale as much as you do.”
Nancy advised that the group keep the whole matter a secret. “I’m afraid if the story leaks out, we’ll be overrun with gold seekers!”
The others agreed.
Bess giggled. “Cross my heart!”
At this point the group became aware of a motor. They were surprised and looked up. Coming down the slope was a beach buggy.
“That must be Archie,” said Ned. “He brought one of those along. Well, I’d better get down to that water hole and clean up a bit so he won’t ask too many questions.”
Ned scooted off, and a few minutes later Archie arrived. He stopped a short distance beyond the hole and jumped out.
“Well, I must congratulate you all,” he said pompously. “This looks like a lot of work. How did you get so much done in a short time?”
George spoke up. “Oh, haven’t you heard about the wizards of Emerson and River Heights?”
“Now what kind of an answer is that?” Archie demanded. “I’m part of this expedition. I have a right to know what’s going on. Did you find anything?”
Bess dimpled and squinted her eyes at him. In a childish voice she asked, “Would little Archie like a baby doll to play with?”
The young man was furious. “I don’t deserve such sarcasm,” he said pettishly. “By the way, where’s Ned?”
Burt answered. “Oh, he has gone to the Roman baths.”
This remark was too much for Archie. “I’m leaving,” he said.
In his anger he put his beach buggy into reverse gear and shot backward. The car backed into the hole!
CHAPTER XVI
A Skeleton Dance

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