Chapter 19 The Secret at Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene
The Cliff’s Secret
“Help!” called a feeble voice as Nancy shone her flashlight into the dim room.
“Daddy!” cried Alice and brushed past Nancy. She threw herself beside a thin gray-haired man who was bound hand and foot.
“Uncle Ross!” exclaimed Bess and George.
The older girls swiftly untied his bonds. Crying for joy, Alice helped her father sit up and the two embraced.
After introductions, Mr. Regor explained that he had made the thumping noise by kicking his heels. “My throat was so parched I couldn’t yell out to you.”
Then Alice’s father told his story. “I’ve been a prisoner in the cabin for six months—ever since they kidnapped me at the time of the bank robbery. But this morning the gang intended to go after the Rawley treasure party, so they moved me here, where they thought I wouldn’t be discovered.”
“Why did you go to the bank the night of the robbery, Daddy?” Alice asked.
“To get some important papers I had left there. I was working at home and needed them.” He said he had interrupted the robbery, and the gang took him along to keep him from identifying them.
“They’re Westerners,” he went on, “and have used this cabin hideout before. The idea was to stay here for a cooling-off period.”
“How many are in the gang?” Nancy asked.
“Three. At first Shorty and Sid Brice stayed in the cabin with me while Al Diamond lived in Tumbleweed and brought us supplies.”
“Who’s Sid Brice, Uncle Ross?” Bess asked.
“The gray-haired fellow who looks like me.”
“He calls himself Bursey,” Nancy told him.
“I know,” said Mr. Regor. “One day Diamond came to the cabin all excited. He’d talked to an Indian girl named Mary Deer and learned all about Valentine’s treasure. So Diamond decided that the gang should go after it and sent Shorty to get a job on the ranch. He was supposed to spread the phantom-horse story and drive the Rawleys off.”
Nancy looked troubled. “Mr. Regor, what happened to the bank loot?”
“It was hidden in the cabin until Shorty reported that you girls had spotted the place.
“The next day Diamond and Brice moved the money to the ghost town and made me go along. They had just finished hiding the loot in the old hotel when we heard your horses approaching. Brice hustled me down the hill. All I could do was drop one of my crayons and hope somebody would find it.”
“Oh, we did, Daddy!” exclaimed Alice.
Mr. Regor said Diamond had remained in the ghost town to spy on the girls. “Later he told us he had caused a rockslide.”
Nancy mentioned finding the coffee cups on the table in the cabin.
“Yes. We heard your horses clattering up the slope, so Brice forced me out the window in back and into the little rocky passage. He had the dog on a rope and made him go too. But later he broke loose.”
“We found one of your pictures on the table, Uncle Ross,” said George.
The man smiled. “I’ve been drawing pictures to keep myself busy. Brice has been selling them and keeping the money for himself,” he added.
“Those terrible men! Have they mistreated you, Daddy?”
The bank president said he had not been hurt, but had been underfed and was weak. “I once heard Brice say there was time enough to get rid of me when they left Shadow Mountain.”
While Alice told her father all that had happened so far, Nancy, Bess, and George flashed their lights about Mr. Regor’s prison.
The floor was littered with pieces of broken pottery and rock. Beside the door Nancy noticed a flat-topped boulder. “The Indians probably used it for a table, or a seat,” she thought. Nearby was a large rectangular chunk of stone.
The three girls switched off their lights and stepped outside. With Nancy in the lead, the three friends walked close to the wall of the cliff dwellings. They searched one apartment after another for the treasure, but always found the same thing: shards and crumbled rocks.
As the girls emerged from one of the middle rooms, Nancy noticed a crude wooden ladder resting against the wall and leading to the roof.
“It’s just an old ladder—probably put there by the cliff dwellers,” said Bess.
Nancy did not agree. “There are nails in this. Perhaps Valentine brought it here. I’d like to climb up.”
“Let’s finish searching the rooms,” George said.
“Okay.”
As they neared the end of the row, the young sleuth exclaimed, “Look!” The last doorway was neatly blocked with an enormous stone.
“Valentine’s hideout!” exclaimed George. “He must have put that rock there to keep intruders out!”
“But how did he get in?” Bess asked, puzzled. “The stone’s too big to be moved much on this little ledge.”
“I know!” exclaimed Nancy. “Come on!” She hastened back to the ladder. Swiftly she attached her flashlight to her belt and slipped her arms into her sweater.
By the time Bess and George caught up to Nancy, she had begun to climb. Breathlessly they watched her as she cautiously tested each rung. One splintered before she finally reached the roof.
“Nancy, be careful!” Bess cried fearfully.
Shading her flashlight, Nancy moved toward the end chamber and found a column of ancient footholds to the plateau above.
“Probably there’s another set like them on the other side,” she reasoned. “The ladder was Valentine’s extra escape route.”
Playing her flashlight over the surface, Nancy walked a dozen steps toward the end of the roof. Suddenly she spotted a large hole.
Shining her light into it, Nancy saw a pile of broken rock directly below. She gripped the sides of the opening and lowered herself into the chamber.
“O-oo, it’s musty in here!”
In one corner lay a moldering blanket and saddle. Nearby was a pickax. On the wall above these Nancy found an indistinct carved letter. She brushed away the dust.
V—for Valentine!
Nancy’s pulse pounded with joy and excitement.
But where was the treasure? “It can’t be buried,” she thought. “The floor is solid stone.”
When Nancy lifted the blanket, it fell into shreds at her touch. There was nothing beneath it. Her eyes fell upon a large pottery vase in the corner. The vessel was nearly three feet high and had a wide mouth. Nancy beamed her light into it.
Standing on end and level with the top of the vase was a metal box!
“This might be it!” Nancy exulted. She put down her flashlight, reached in, and lifted out the heavy box. It slipped from her grasp and hit the floor, jolting off a rusted padlock.
Nancy pulled open the lid. Before her lay hundreds of small shining gold hearts!
“Oh!”
Beneath the layer of gold pieces lay stacks of United States bank notes and a chamois bag. It contained an assortment of precious jewels!
“It can’t be real!” Nancy said aloud. “I’m dreaming!”
But Nancy’s mind clicked back to reality. “I can’t get this chest back through the ceiling, that’s for sure.” She eyed the pickax. “Maybe I can pry the rock away from the door.”
Nancy worked the point of the pickax beneath the rock. She pulled hard. The slab moved a trifle! She tried again. This time the rock moved about a foot. Nancy pushed the treasure box through the opening, turned off her flashlight, and squeezed outside.
“George! Bess!” The girls came running and Nancy told of her find. “Take the treasure back to Alice and Mr. Regor,” she directed. “I’ll light the signal fire.”
Cautiously Nancy crawled out onto the jutting rock and took a packet of matches from her pocket. She struck one, shielding it from the wind, and held it to the kindling.
As the smoke arose, a gruff voice behind her suddenly barked, “Put out that firel”