Chapter 9 The Secret at Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene
Tack Room Prisoner
Keeping a firm grip on the reins, Nancy stuck tight to the saddle. In a few moments her mount steadied himself and began to swim toward Bess’s horse. When they drew close, Nancy seized Choo-Choo’s reins. While the frightened girl clung to the saddle, her horse was towed to shore.
“Oh, Nancy!” she exclaimed. “You were wonderful. You saved us!”
Nancy still looked worried. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “We’re not out of trouble yet. I’m afraid the trail down is going to be slippery and wet.”
George grimaced. “What’s the hurry? We can’t get any wetter than we are.”
The girls looked at one another. Despite the situation, they could not repress giggles. All were drenched and mud-spattered, with water streaming from their hair.
“You’re lucky Bud isn’t here to see you,” George teased Bess as Nancy led the way down the trail.
Bess shivered and made a face at her cousin. “I know I must be a sight,” she said. “I can tell by looking at the rest of you.”
George’s joke had served to relieve the tension and now the girls applied themselves to guiding their horses down the precarious trail. As they reached the bottom, the rain stopped, and the sun emerged hot and bright.
From there on the trip was easier. By the time they reached the big meadow, their clothes were almost dry.
Chief raced ahead to the stable, barking madly. Bess groaned. “Oh, he’s making so much noise he’ll bring out a reception committee and everybody’ ll see us!”
Nancy smiled at the remark, then warned the others to say nothing about the man in the black ten-gallon hat or the other two men to anyone except the Rawleys.
When the girls rode up to the corral, Dave and Tex and Bud were waiting there for them.
“Where did you find Chief?” asked Dave. He surveyed their bedraggled condition but made no comment.
Tex said, “Looks like you girls got caught in a little mountain sprinkle.”
Bud grinned and said, “That was nothing. Wait till you all get caught in a real Western-style rain.”
“No thanks,” Bess retorted.
“We’ll tell you all about the dog later,” Nancy promised. The girls hastily dismounted and fled to the house.
After hot showers they dressed for supper. Nancy wore a powder-blue sweater and skirt, and brushed her titian hair until it gleamed. George wore a smart dark-green linen dress. She was ready long before Bess, who wore a yellow sweater and skirt and changed her hair-do three times.
“I want to look extra nice,” Bess said, “to make up for the extra awful way I looked this afternoon.”
Before supper, the girls sat down in the living room with the Rawleys and told them of their afternoon’s adventures. Nancy passed lightly over the stream-crossing incident, but Bess refused to let the matter drop. When everyone had gathered around the table, she bragged of Nancy’s bravery. Nancy, always embarrassed by praise, changed the subject as soon as possible.
When the meal was over, Dave called Nancy aside on the portico. “I owe you an apology,” he said soberly.
“That was a mighty fine thing you did this afternoon. I see now that you’re not the tenderfoot nuisance I thought you were going to be.”
Nancy smiled. “This is the first time since I arrived that you’ve been friendly. Are you always so gruff to newcomers?”
He flushed. “No, but I—” He hesitated. “Well, I had a special reason.”
Before Nancy could ask him what it was, he said, “I have to go now. We’ll talk again later.”
Dave swung off the portico and headed toward the corral. Nancy watched him disappear into the dusk, puzzled by his remarks. Was he guilty of something or not? She was aware that Ed Rawley trusted him. On the other hand, she had no proof that Dave had been telling the truth about the mud on his shoes.
She reminded herself that he knew about Frances Humber’s watch and therefore had a reason to trick the girls out of their room and later take the old green bottle.
“Did Dave apologize in order to allay my suspicions of him?” she wondered.
As Nancy started toward the living room she met the other girls and Aunt Bet coming out.
“We’re going to a drive-in movie,” said Alice. “Want to come along?”
“I’d love to,” Nancy replied, “but I think I’d better stay at home and keep watch.” Bess and George offered to remain with her, but Nancy urged them to go on.
As Mrs. Rawley and the girls walked toward the ranch wagon, Nancy hurried to her bedroom. She changed into riding clothes, picked up a flashlight, and then headed for the stable. She had decided to saddle her mount and be ready to ride in case the phantom horse should appear. The young sleuth was determined to catch the ghost horse or examine its tracks before they were obscured by other pursuers.
As Nancy reached the stable, Dave came out leading a horse which he mounted at once. He carried a flashlight. “Just checking up,” he said to her. “Snooping again?”
“Yes,” Nancy replied. Quickly she changed the subject by asking whether anyone kept watch in the big meadow at night for the phantom.
“No,” was the reply. “Shorty and I have the first patrol, while Tex keeps watch on the windmill and Bud stands guard at the east meadow. When it’s their turn to ride patrol, Shorty and I will switch jobs with them.”
He added, “The foreman is riding fence in the east meadow—we even have to do it at night now. That way the cattle will be guarded twenty-four hours a day.”
Dave rode off and Nancy went through the stable into the tack room, a long frame building attached to it. She turned on her flashlight and saw rows of saddles hanging from the walls and bundles of blankets stacked on shelves.
After crossing the room, she lifted one of the saddles from the wall. Above it hung a bridle and bit which Nancy also took down, then picked up a saddle blanket. Turning back, she was surprised to see that the door was closed.
Nancy hurried over, put her gear on the ground, and tried the door. It was locked! She remembered having seen a padlock hanging loose in the hasp outside. Had someone locked her in by mistake?
Nancy pounded on the door and shouted, but no one came. Suddenly she realized that under the guard system no one would be within hearing distance of her voice. Grimly Nancy wondered if Dave had locked her in. Had he guessed her plan and done it to foil her?
“I must get out of here!” Nancy thought desperately.
She played her flashlight around the long room and saw one window high in the wall. “I can squeeze through, if I can find a way to reach it.”
At one end of the room Nancy placed a pile of blankets under the window. Then she stacked saddles on top until she was sure of reaching the window.
Nancy climbed the unsteady pile and tried to push up the sash. The window was locked. She found the catch and managed to turn it. Once again she tried to open the window, but it was stuck tight. Disappointed, she made her way down to the floor.
“Maybe I can find a pole and force the window up,” she thought.
“I must get out of here!” Nancy thought desperately
Her flashlight revealed an iron crowbar in one corner. She dragged it back beneath the window, climbed up again, and tried to force the sash open. As she struggled with it she could see the kitchen end of the house and the spring house.
Suddenly the window budged, and at the same moment, Nancy saw a gleam of light through a crack in the spring-house wall. With a gasp of surprise she let the crowbar fall, climbed out the window, hung for a moment from the sill, then dropped several feet to the ground.
As she hit the earth there was a sharp yelp to her left, and Chief ran toward her, barking loudly. “Hush!” Nancy said.
She patted the dog and tried to quiet him. “Stay here,” she ordered, and he sat down obediently while Nancy ran toward the spring house.
When she was halfway there, the light went out. As she reached the door, Mr. Rawley came running from around the kitchen end of the house.
“What is it, Nancy? What’s the matter?” he asked.
Quickly she told him what she had seen. “No one came out,” she concluded.
“Then whoever had a light there must still be inside,” he declared, and pulled open the heavy wooden door.
Nancy shone her flash inside. The spring house was empty!