A Great Shock

Nancy looked around the small room once again, then crossed to the trunk and carefully returned it to its original condition. That done, she assessed the situation, seeking some solution. But none came.

The only hiding place appeared to be beneath one of the cots. The area was tiny, but the blankets, carelessly thrown off, hung to the floor and would give her some protection.

Having decided where she could hide, Nancy returned to the window to watch the men as they dug lazily in the crumbling cliff face. Gold! That had to be the answer.

The mention of Mr. Henry had been a terrible shock. He’d been so friendly to the McGuires, so helpful, according to Heather and Chuck. Yet she did remember that Heather had said he’d once offered to buy the ranch.

An hour dragged by, then another. The men worked without enthusiasm, taking frequent breaks in the shade of an old mesquite tree that grew beside a small spring. Nancy watched longingly as they dipped up the water. She was both hot and thirsty in the dusty cabin.

When the shadows moved across the floor of the canyon, the men stopped working, throwing down their picks and shovels and heading for the cabin. Terrified, Nancy slid into her small hiding place.

Heart pounding, she crouched in the dark space and waited as the two men argued about which cans to open for dinner and what they should tell Mr. Henry about Ngyun. Sam wanted to keep it a secret, while Joe muttered dark predictions of what their boss would do to them if he found out that they hadn’t told him. She was glad when they went back outside to put the grill over their small campfire.

The smell of the heating food soon penetrated the cabin, and Nancy became aware of her own hunger. She couldn’t stay hidden here forever, she realized. But what to do? She couldn’t slip away, even after dark, for the men were cooking only a few feet from the door.

Uncomfortable in the stuffy darkness under the cot, Nancy shifted her weight and tried to stretch her cramped legs. But her riding boot caught in the blanket, which in turn caught around the leg of the unsteady cot. To her horror, the whole frame shifted, tipped a little, then rocked back against the wall with a loud bang.

At once, there were shouts from outside, and the next minute the men burst into the cabin.

Nancy did not dare breathe, but with one man holding the lantern and the other searching the room, they discovered her almost immediately.

“Look what we’ve got here! ” Sam shouted as he pulled the girl from underneath the cot. “A spy! ”

“Just what we need, ” Joe grumbled. “I wonder what—”

He was interrupted by another man who at that moment walked through the door. Mr. Henry!

“Well, if it isn’t the nosy Miss Nancy Drew, ” the rancher said. “You certainly are a stubborn young woman. Anyone with normal good sense would have paid attention to the letter I sent.” He smiled evilly. “Or to the scorpion I put in your suitcase. ”

“You know her, boss? ” Sam asked, his dark eyes bright with curiosity.

“She’s the one you shot the arrow at, you idiot, ” Mr. Henry snapped. “If your aim had been better, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

“Ain’t my fault she moved after I let go of the arrow! ” Sam grumbled.

“How did you get out of the wash before the flood, Miss Drew? ” Mr. Henry asked, ignoring his employee. “Sam said he had a tough time escaping the water with you so close behind him.”

“I got out, ” Nancy said curtly. “And I didn’t get hurt in the station wagon, either, when you forced us off the road the day we arrived.”

Mr. Henry did not deny that he had caused the accident; he just glared at her. “Too bad! ” he sneered.

“What do you want to do with her, boss? ” Joe asked.

Mr. Henry sighed. “I suppose we might as well tie her up till I can think of a convincing accident for her. We certainly can’t let her leaye here since she obviously knows what is going on.”

“What is going on, Mr. Henry? ” Nancy asked, hoping to sound innocent.

“Get some rope, Joe, ” Mr. Henry ordered, then gripped Nancy’s arm tightly.

Nancy drew in a deep breath, waiting till Joe was in the cabin and Sam had his back to her. It was a desperate move, she realized, but her choices were very limited. She lifted one foot and brought the heel of her boot down on Mr. Henry’s instep with all her strength. He bellowed in pain and rage, but most important, he let go of her arm!

Nancy plunged wildly out of the flickering light of the campfire and into the deep shadows of the brush and trees that grew near the small spring. Once in their concealment, she paused, not sure what to do next. She’d escaped for the moment, but she had a terrible feeling that she was only delaying whatever Mr. Henry had planned. There was nowhere to run!

“Block the canyon entrance! ” Mr. Henry was shouting. “Put more wood on the fire. Get torches. We can’t let her escape us now! ”

Nancy moved cautiously in the brush, grateful that the rain had kept it from becoming dry. Any loud crackling of twigs or branches would give her location away. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the rocky hillside ahead and moved toward it, seeking a large rock or depression where she could hide while she tried to decide on her next move.

There was little choice, but the biggest of the rocky formations did offer a small, cup-shaped hole behind it. Nancy slipped into the hole and snuggled down against the still-warm earth as the cold of the desert night began to seep through her light shirt.

The crashing and shouting from the cabin area continued for quite some time as the men began to spread out to search. Then, suddenly, everything grew very, very quiet. Nancy, who’d been crouching low in fear, lifted her head, sensing at once that something had happened.

She heard the tattoo of approaching hoofbeats, and suddenly the air was full of shouts and shots. Nancy got to her feet, recognizing the voices that were calling her name.

“George, Bess, Heather, Chuck! ” She ran through the brush and into the arms of her friends.

For several minutes, they all talked at once. Then, as the first relief died away, Nancy looked around. She saw that Ward, Chuck, and the sheriff were holding rifles on Mr. Henry and his two men.

“How... how did you get here? ” Nancy asked.

“Ngyun came riding into the resort about an hour ago, shouting that you were in terrible danger, ” Heather replied. “We didn’t know what to think, but he insisted that we call the sheriff. When he calmed down a little, he described Leaning Tree Ravine and Canyon to us, so we knew where to find you.”

“Thank goodness he did, ” Nancy breathed, feeling a little weak with relief now that the danger was over.

The sheriff walked up and addressed Nancy. “Are you going to tell us what is going on here, Miss Drew? Mr. Henry is claiming that you sent for him. He says you had some complaint that his men were trespassing on the McGuire Ranch.”

“This is McGuire land, isn’t it? ” Nancy asked, shocked by the man’s quick lies.

Everyone nodded.

“Well, ” Nancy began, “his men have been doing more here than just trespassing.”

It took nearly an hour of answering questions for the sheriff, helping him to search the cabin so he could examine the contents of the old trunk, and interrogating Mr. Henry before everything was completely explained. The rancher admitted to setting the fires and being responsible for the other incidents that were blamed on Ngyun. The boy was innocent of all the crimes of which he’d been accused.

Finally, Nancy asked, “Is it possible that there really is a valuable gold mine in this canyon, sheriff? ”

“Probably not a mine, ” the sheriff replied. “You see, when we have bad floods like we did last spring, shelves of rock and shale break loose from the sides of the ravines or from cliffs like those over there.” He indicated the end of the canyon where the men had been digging. “When that happens, small pockets or short veins of gold are sometimes uncovered. I suspect that’s what has happened here. ”

“You mean we have gold on our land? ” Heather asked.

“What do you say to that, Henry? ” the sheriff asked.

Mr. Henry glared at them all, then shrugged. “We haven’t found too much yet, but it has to be here in the canyon. I discovered a couple of nuggets late last fall when we were cleaning the debris out of our end of Leaning Tree Ravine. I figured it was coming from somewhere along the ravine itself, so I made you the offer on your land in case I didn’t find it on my property.”

“You would have bought the resort for the gold? ” Heather sounded skeptical.

He shook his head. “If you’d taken my offer, the gold would have been pure profit. The land is worth that much, anyway.”

“But we didn’t take it, ” Chuck reminded him.

“And we didn’t find any gold on our end of the ravine. We went over every inch. These two idiots were supposed to casually check your territory, but they let that sneaky kid catch them digging around in the ravine not far from here.”

“So what? ” Nancy asked.

“So they couldn’t risk having him talk about what he’d seen.” Mr. Henry’s face was cold.

“So that’s when you decided to see to it that Ngyun was sent away? ” Ward looked as though he’d like to hit the handcuffed man.

“He never said a word to us about seeing the men, ” Heather murmured. “I wonder why.”

“He just thought they were prospectors, ” Nancy answered. “He didn’t even know this was your land. He’s seen lots of people prospecting in the mountains. ”

“Well, we all know whose land it is, and now we know what has been going on, ” the sheriff said. “I suggest that we get our horses and head for the resort. It’s a long ride over rough country and it’s getting late. Where is your horse, Miss Drew? ”

“Up there, ” Nancy said, pointing to the side of the canyon. “At least, I hope he still is.”

“If you left the reins trailing, Pepper Pot is still there, ” Heather assured her. “He’s very well trained. ”

“I’ll take you up there, Nancy, ” George offered. “You can ride double with me. Let’s go get him while they finish up everything down here.”

Nancy nodded, suddenly glad to be getting away from the canyon and all the frightening things that had happened to her here. She was proud of having solved one of her mysteries and having cleared Ngyun’s name, but her mind was already returning to the second mystery—that of the Kachina spirits that still haunted the resort!