The Secret of the Forgotten City (14 page)
Read The Secret of the Forgotten City Online
Authors: Carolyn G. Keene
“You’re sure,” George spoke up, “that this plaque is one of the set?”
Nancy laughed. “You think I might have been gypped and this is a clever copy? But remember, I didn’t pay anything for it!”
After lunch Wanna and Don joined Nancy and her friends and gazed at the tablet. Nancy pointed out that it was almost entirely covered with wild animals, large and small, all the way from the giant sloth to the little chip fox.
She turned to Ned. “I think we should return our two tablets to Mrs. Wabash immediately. Want to go to town with me? And how about any one else?”
Burt and George decided to go. “You may need my judo protection in case of a holdup,” George stated, grinning.
“We’ll go in the daylight so it won’t be so risky,” Nancy replied. “But I’d love to have you along.”
The four set off in Nancy’s rented car. They reached Mrs. Wabash’s house without incident at five o’clock. She was overjoyed to receive the tablets and kept reiterating how amazing the whole story was.
“You’re going to so much trouble for me,” she told the young people. “I never could repay you.”
Nancy smiled. “Let’s just say that if we can be of use to our country by uncovering the secrets of the past, that will be a great big reward for us.”
“Oh bless you!” the Indian woman said. “I’m sure my ancestors did not want the history of the people here forgotten entirely. It was pure luck that our paths crossed, but I am very happy about it.”
“We’ve bought stolen property!” the woman shrieked.
“We all are,” George assured her.
Mrs. Wabash insisted that the young people stay to dinner. They were very glad to and watched her prepare it. Later, after helping the woman tidy up, the visitors said they must leave.
Burt suggested that they park the car downtown and walk around a little. “I’d like to stretch and exercise after that big meal, and before our long trip back.”
Ned left the car in a parking lot and took the key to the attendant.
As they walked along the main boulevard, he said, “Maybe I should go back and lock the car. I forgot to.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” Nancy told him. “There’s nothing in there worth stealing and we won’t be gone long.”
After covering several blocks, the group turned around and started back. When they reached the corner, they were held up by a red traffic light.
An instant later Burt said, “I really suspect we’d better go back. This tired man wants to go to the car. Please walk behind me, George.”
Nancy and the others realized that this was a coded message, saying, “Suspect man behind.”
The group turned so suddenly that they nearly knocked the man down. He balanced himself, then scooted off on the crowded sidewalk.
“Shall we follow him?” Ned asked Nancy.
“I doubt that it would do any good,” she said. “But I did recognize him. He’s one of the two men whose picture Dave snapped that night in the motel garden.”
“I wonder why he’s here,” George asked. “I’ll bet he’s up to something!”
Burt laughed. “If he is, we’ve nipped his idea in the bud.”
The two couples reached their car and climbed in. Again Ned took the wheel with Nancy alongside him.
They had gone less than a block when suddenly George from the rear seat cried out, “Nancy, there’s a snake beside you!”
George made a lunge for the reptile just as its fangs were ready to strike her friend.
CHAPTER XIX
Nancy Disappears
As George grabbed the back of the snake’s head with one hand, she opened the car door with the other.
“Stop! Stop!” she cried out.
Ned pulled up short, and instantly George got out. She had a good grip on the snake, which was wriggling and trying to free itself. The snake was not large but it whipped its tail up over her hand.
“Turn the flashlight on him!” she requested.
By this time Burt had climbed out of the car too. He held the light on the snake, which seemed to be confused by it and stopped wriggling.
“Want me to kill it?” Burt asked.
George looked disdainful. “Certainly not. This little creature is needed in the desert. If he weren’t around, the place might be overrun with rodents.”
“Okay, lady professor,” Burt replied. “Now tell me what it is.”
George admitted she was not sure, but thought it was a sidewinder. “I’ll know when I put it down, but I’m not going to do so here in town. We’ll take it out in the desert and let the poor thing loose.”
Still grasping the reptile, she got back into the car, and once more Ned drove off. When they reached the turn to go into the desert road, George asked him to let her out once more.
Burt trained his flashlight on the snake as George set it down on the ground. The little creature seemed stupefied for a few seconds; then it began to move. The snake progressed by looping its body as it slithered away.
“It’s a sidewinder all right,” Burt remarked.
There was a discussion as to how the snake had gotten into the car. All four young people agreed it could not have crawled inside by itself.
“Someone put it here,” Nancy declared. “But who?”
Ned recalled that he had not locked the car, so it would have been easy for anyone to open the door.
George said, “If someone at camp was playing a joke, it was a mean one. Do you think Archie could be responsible?”
“No,” Nancy replied. “Archie’s a nuisance but he isn’t bad. Besides, if the snake was in the car when we left camp, we would have seen it sooner.”
Burt was more inclined to think that one of their enemies had done it. “Don’t forget that man on the street. Nancy thought he was a buddy of Fleetfoot’s.”
“And he had plenty of time to put the snake in,” Ned said. “He might have been watching us all the time and was following us back here, expecting to watch the fun.”
Burt remarked that some people’s idea of fun was warped. “Nancy, I’m glad you weren’t bitten.”
Ned had a new suggestion. “Suppose someone we don’t know played this trick. The snake could have been in a torpid state and just revived in the parking lot.”
When the four friends reached camp, they found Archie giving a dozen of the diggers a lecture on something he had found that afternoon. It was a small pottery bowl, which he had picked up in pieces but had mended nicely.
The bowl, an attractive one, was light tan in color and had a black swastika-like design on it. Archie claimed that this had come from the very earliest civilization of the Moapa Valley.
Nancy and the others joined Bess and Dave. After listening for a while, they looked at one another. All of them knew from their studies and from what they had seen in the museum that this bowl was not that old and probably had been dropped recently where Archie had found it.
“Everything around here is red in color,” Nancy whispered to her friends. “Later civilizations of Indians far to the south of us had the tan clay, but there is none of it in this area.”
She and her friends decided not to spoil Archie’s lecture. As usual he was being eloquent and pompous and having a very good time.
Ned whispered, “I’m sure his listeners will find out the truth sooner or later, so let him have fun.”
Nancy and her friends walked off and she said, “Well good night everybody. See you in the morning. I can’t wait to get out to the Valley of Fire again to make another search.”
By four the next morning the searchers were on their way. When they reached the spot where they always left their car, they were startled to find another automobile there. Mrs. Wabash stepped out.
“What a wonderful surprise!” Nancy said, running up to the Indian woman. “Good morning!”
Mrs. Wabash greeted everyone, then said, “I have some very exciting news for you that you won’t believe!”
“Fleetfoot didn’t escape, did he?” Burt asked.
“No, that’s not my news.” The Indian woman smiled. “What I have to tell you is what you call a bombshell. The police found out where Fleetfoot had been living. In a closet in his bedroom behind his clothes, they found my missing petroglyph dictionary!”
“How wonderful!” Nancy exclaimed. “Now we can deciper what’s on the four stone tablets we have, and get a connected story.”
Again Mrs. Wabash smiled. “I have not told you all my news,” she said quietly. “Crayoned onto the walls of his closet, Fleetfoot had put marks. When the police took me there, I thought at once they might indicate places where Fleetfoot had hidden the rest of the tablets.”
“Do you remember what the marks were?” Nancy asked.
Mrs. Wabash said she had not trusted her memory. She had asked the police to take a photograph of the marks. She opened her purse. “Here is a copy.” She handed it to Nancy.
The girl detective took it eagerly and looked at the various marks.
Suddenly she exclaimed excitedly, “I’m sure this one indicates the place where Wanna and Don found one of the tablets.”
“Which just about proves,” George said, “that the other marks are the rest of Fleetfoot’s hiding places. Let’s start our search!”
Mrs. Wabash said that she did not feel equal to climbing around the rocks. “I’ll wait for you here. With the hope that you find the rest of the tablets, I brought along the ones I have. I also have some magazines to read. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me.”
The young people decided to divide their forces. Wanna stayed with Nancy and Ned. The other two couples each chose one of the other places to hunt. Again it was arranged for them to use whistles at fifteen-minute intervals to signify that everyone was all right.
“Let’s change our signaling a little,” Nancy suggested. “If you’re just telling us you’re all right, give one long blast. If you find a tablet, give two blasts. If you find two, use your whistle three times.”
“This arithmetic is too much for me,” Bess said. “Dave, you remember it.”
The group separated and climbed to their various positions. Nancy, Ned, and Wanna had gone to a rock that looked like a poodle lying down. They hunted assiduously all around the stone animal but found nothing.
Nearly twenty minutes had gone by, and Nancy felt she should start signaling. She blew one long blast on her whistle. A few seconds later George and Burt replied with one blast. Several seconds went by. Then, to everyone’s delight, they heard the third whistle give two long distinct blasts.
“That’s Bess and Dave!” Nancy said. “They’ve found a tablet.”
She assumed that the couple would return to Mrs. Wabash’s car. Burt and George and her own group would continue to search.
Wanna sighed. “Maybe there’s more than one poodle around here,” she said.
With this thought in mind, the three searchers spread out a little and began hunting for another rock formation that resembled the poodle. None of them found one and they were puzzled.
Nancy sat down on a somewhat flat rock to think. “What does a poodle resemble?” she asked herself.
Wanna and Ned came to the girl’s side, and she asked them the same question. While each of them was trying to form a picture in his mind, Nancy realized that it was time for her to blow the whistle again. She gave a loud blast on it, then waited.
The answering signal soon came. To her delight there were two shrill responses.
“George and Burt have found a tablet!” she announced. “Fleetfoot’s directions were perfect!”
Wanna and Ned looked at her and he said, “So we get the booby prize. What’s the matter with us?”
In a flash the answer came to Nancy. “A poodle that hasn’t been clipped could look like a baby mountain lamb that has no horns yet.”
“You’re right!” Ned exclaimed. “And there’s one looking right at me.”
He climbed to a stone figure that had one paw lifted. Under it was the tablet!
Nancy and Wanna quickly joined him and examined the stone plaque.
“It’s one of them all right!” the young Indian student said gleefully.
Nancy checked it with her magnifying glass. “Yes,” she agreed, “and here is another phase of the moon pictured.”
“I’m glad the hunt is over,” Ned said. “I’m tired of hunting for wild animals that aren’t real.”
The three successful searchers hurried down to Mrs. Wabash’s car, Ned waving the plaque in the air.
“You found the last one!” the woman exclaimed. “How wonderful!”
Nancy’s friends were already there and had handed over the tablets they had found.
Tears formed in the Indian woman’s eyes. “I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “Oh you dear, dear people!”
Ned, who disliked tears, said, “Let’s try to arrange these stones in order, Mrs. Wabash. With the help of your dictionary we’ll see if we can piece out the full story about your ancestors and the Forgotten City.”
Everyone helped. With the aid of Nancy’s magnifying glass, they were able to accomplish this by putting the tablets containing the phases of the moon in the correct order.
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