Chapter 11 The Secret at Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene
A Rewarding Search
Dave rose to his feet. “Well, Nancy, you caught me fair and square.”
She noted the spade at his feet. It looked as though her suspicions about Dave had been right. “Are you digging for treasure?” she asked coolly.
“Yes,” he said. “But I’m not pulling the phantom trick or causing the damage around here. Please believe me, Nancy. Let me tell you my story.”
George advised, “It had better be good.”
Dave said, “My brother and sister and I are the only remaining descendants of Frances Humber. I was born in Buffalo, New York, but our family moved to Phoenix when I was ten. We have Valentine’s original will, and had always known the story of his treasure, but never bothered to hunt for it.
“However, since my father’s death two years ago, things have been hard with us. I’ve been working my way through college, but will need more money to help educate my younger brother and sister. So I decided to take a summer job on Shadow Ranch and look for the treasure.”
“How amazing!” Bess murmured.
Dave reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. In the beam of her flashlight Nancy saw that it was a faded photograph of a pretty woman. She also noticed that the corner was torn and the picture was just the right size to fit into the watch case!
“This is Frances Humber,” she announced.
The cowboy looked surprised. “How did you know?”
Instead of replying, Nancy asked him where he had obtained the picture. He explained that after Frances Humber Dale’s death, her friend in Tumbleweed, Miss Phillips, had removed the photograph from the watch and sent it to Frances’ children in the East. “It has been handed down in our family since then.”
Dave turned the picture over and on the back the girls saw the word “cellar,” written in old-fashioned script. He told them that the tradition in his family was that the cellar was the location of the treasure.
Nancy was excited at this new clue, but before telling him about the note in the watch, she asked him why he had not told Ed Rawley what he was doing.
“I was afraid he wouldn’t hire me. He might have figured I’d spend all my time searching.” The cowboy assured Nancy that he had done all his treasure hunting in off-duty hours.
“How did you know of the secret entrance?” Bess asked.
“Stories about that have always been known in my family,” Dave answered. “Originally the trees grew thickly around the spring house, and in times of Indian attack, the occupants would escape by the secret exit into the woods and go to a hideout on the mountain slope.”
Dave confessed that he was the prowler who had alarmed Mrs. Thurmond in the kitchen. He had hoped to search for the treasure in the cellar that night right after his turn on guard duty.
“But you raised such a rumpus,” he said to Nancy with a grin, “that I knew it was no use to go on. I sneaked out through the spring house and came around to the kitchen a little behind the rest of the crowd.”
“I believe you, Dave,” said Nancy. “But you must promise to tell Mr. Rawley first thing in the morning what you have been doing.”
The cowboy assured her that he would. “I’m sorry I was kind of rude to you girls. I just didn’t want you hanging around and getting in the way of my treasure hunt.”
“You were pretty awful,” said George. “But maybe we’ll forgive you.”
“Of course we will,” Bess agreed.
Nancy smiled at Dave and he chuckled. “All along I couldn’t help liking you,” he said.
Nancy reached into her pocket and brought out the antique watch. She showed him how the secret lid opened. The picture of Frances fit perfectly to the torn fragment on the empty side.
“You’re amazing!” he said. “What a detective!”
Next, Nancy removed the picture of Valentine and turned it over, so that Dave could see what was written on the back.
“With the word on your picture, we now have a complete message!” Nancy said excitedly.
“ ‘Green bottle in cellar,’ ” Dave read. “Surely the treasure would be too large for a bottle. But perhaps it’s a clue to the real thing.”
“That’s what Nancy figured,” George said, grinning. “Let’s start digging!”
For half an hour Dave dug and the girls probed the loose dirt for a bottle.
Suddenly Bess cried out. “I’ve found it!”
Nancy hurried to her side and pressed in the earth where Bess showed her. Her fingers touched the neck of a bottle with a cap on it.
Dave came over and spaded carefully around the glass. When it was partly free, Nancy said, “Wait!” She brushed the dirt from the large bottle and shone her light on it. Bess exclaimed in disappointment. The bottle was black.
“No use bothering with that,” Nancy said. “We’re looking for a green one. This has been lying here for years and gradually became covered with dirt.”
With grim determination the treasure hunters continued to dig and sift the earth. When they had worked over the whole cellar floor, the four stopped, exhausted, and sat down.
Bess expressed the thought that was in all of their minds. “Maybe someone has found it already.”
“Shorty, perhaps,” Dave said. “I’ve caught him snooping.” He told the girls that he suspected the other cowboy of knowing about the secret entrance and of inflicting damage on the ranch. “I’m sure he’s not working alone, either, but who else is in league with him I don’t know.”
Nancy pointed out that if Shorty and his accomplices had found the treasure, they would have left the ranch by this time.
The young detective said, “There’s another person who might have found the bottle—Frances Humber herself. What do you know of her story, Dave?”
“Only that Dirk Valentine and Frances had met only once on Shadow Ranch. He sent her a message that he was coming and Frances slipped out of the house through the secret entrance and met him in the spring house. But the law was after Valentine as usual and he had to leave the territory. He wrote to Frances, however, during the summer of 1880, but her father intercepted the letter and sent Frances to friends in Montana.
“Then Valentine probably hid the bottle in the cellar while Frances was away, and sent her the watch with the location of the bottle written on the backs of the pictures.”
“That’s right,” Bess declared. “The date on the watch is June, 1880.”
Dave went on to say that Frances must have written to Valentine and told him on what day she would return, for that night the outlaw sneaked onto the ranch to see her.
“But the sheriff and the posse suspected that he would come. They were lying in wait and shot Valentine as he entered the spring house. A few minutes later the sheriff went to the living room to tell his daughter. He found her lighting a lamp. When he told her that her sweetheart had been killed, she fainted.”
“Oh, not” cried Bess.
“For many weeks she was ill,” Dave continued. “During this time her father found the watch sent to her by Valentine and took it. When she was well enough to travel, he sent her to stay with relatives in Buffalo. There she married, had two children, and died while still a young woman,” he concluded.
George sighed. “Poor thing! She never had a chance to come back here and hunt for her treasure.”
Suddenly Dave stood up. “I must go now,” he said. “I have to stand watch soon in the east meadow.”
Quietly the foursome left the cellar by the secret entrance and parted outside the spring house. The girls went to shower and change their clothes.
As Nancy dressed, she mulled over the story Dave had told her. She tried to reconstruct the scene at the ranch house on the night of the outlaw’s death.
“If Frances had returned home only that afternoon,” Nancy reasoned, “she may not have had a chance to look in the cellar for the bottle until that night. No doubt she also knew or guessed that her sweetheart would come to see her at the place they had met before. When the shots were fired, Frances would surely have heard them.”
Here Nancy came to the part of the story that puzzled her. Maybe Frances Humber was in the cellar and ran upstairs to light a lamp? But why? It would have been more natural for her to go outside to be with Valentine. But suppose Frances had already found the bottle? At the sound of the shot she dashed upstairs in a panic, then found that she still had the bottle in her hand.
“Of course! She hid it in the lamp!” Nancy said aloud. “Then when her father walked in, Frances lit the lamp to cover her action.”
At the bewildered looks on the faces of Bess and George, Nancy chuckled. Quickly she told them her new theory. “We must ask Aunt Bet if any of the old Humber lamps are still on the premises.”
The girls hurried to the living room and found Mrs. Rawley seated in a rocker, mending her husband’s socks. In response to Nancy’s question, she told her that there was a lot of junk from former owners in a storeroom next to Alice’s bedroom.
The girls hurried down the hall and entered the storeroom. Bess switched on the ceiling light. Amidst old trunks, baskets, and barrels they found a birdcage and a hatstand but no lamp. On the seat of a broken chair lay a ragged quilt with something wrapped in it. Nancy carefully unfolded the bedcover. Revealed was a large oil lamp with a deep ruby glass well.
Bess gave a gasp of excitement, and George said, “If only it’s the right one!”
With anxious fingers Nancy removed the chimney and the wick. She reached into the well and pulled out a slender green glass bottle!