Mystery Ranch (6 page)
Authors: Gertrude Warner
“Bark all you want to, Watchie!” shouted Benny. “Nobody can hear you, and I’ll yell, too!”
After a few good yells, Benny started toward the barn. All the children followed. Watch ran around the old barn looking for mice. The black horse stood looking at them all.
“What’s our horse’s name?” asked Benny.
“Maggie says he hasn’t any name,” said Jessie. “She just says, ‘Go on, old boy.’”
“Old Boy isn’t a good name,” said Benny. “Let’s call him Snowball.”
Everyone laughed. The thin old horse was black all over! But from then on, Old Boy was called Snowball.
“Come on, Watch,” said Benny at last. “Let’s go upstairs where the hay is. Maybe you’ll find a rat!”
Violet followed Benny and this gave Henry his chance. He winked at Jessie who followed him outside at once.
“Look, Jessie,” whispered Henry. “I don’t like the idea of strange men bothering Aunt Jane.”
“Neither do I,” said Jessie softly. “The men told her the ranch was no good. Just a few chickens and an old horse.”
“That’s it,” cried Henry. “If the ranch is no good, why do they want to buy it? I think I ought to do something about this.”
“Tell Sam,” advised Jessie.
“I’ll do better than that,” said Henry at last. “I’ll tell Sam to tell Mr. Pond. Mr. Pond seems to know everything.”
After they had told their troubles to Sam, the older children felt better. They were pleased when they saw Sam start for Mr. Pond’s house.
In a very short time, Mr. Pond’s car came up the driveway. Sam was with him. They were both very serious.
“Sam and I want to see that hut in the woods,” Mr. Pond said. “Will you take us there?”
“Sure,” said Henry. “We know exactly where it is.”
“Let’s all go,” cried Benny.
Jessie went to the front hall and told Maggie where they were going.
“Don’t tell Aunt Jane that we are going back to that hut. It would worry her. Just say we went for a walk. We will be back in time for dinner.”
Jessie saw the others half way to the chicken house. She hurried to catch up with them. They walked faster this time, because they knew just where they were going. They soon came to the hut.
“Be quiet, now,” whispered Sam, “We want to see if anyone is here.”
The children sat down in the woods.
“Is there anything different about the hut?” whispered Mr. Pond.
“Yes,” whispered Henry. “There is some wood in the fireplace. It wasn’t there the other time.”
They sat very still for a long time. They heard nothing. They saw nothing new.
“Well,” said Mr. Pond at last, “we might sit here all day for nothing. Let’s take a close look at the hut.”
They walked over to the hut. Sam put his hand on the stones of the fireplace.
“Warm!” he said.
They all felt the stones. They were very warm. The fire had not been out very long.
“Well, someone surely stays here,” said Mr. Pond. He seemed worried.
“Do you suppose it’s your Mystery Man?” asked Benny.
“Goodness no!” Jessie answered. “He’s much too nice to live in a hut on somebody else’s land.”
They walked out of the woods and into the field full of rocks.
“Aren’t these rocks funny?” said Violet. “I never saw such yellow rocks. And look at the black lines across them!”
“Like a tiger,” said Benny.
Henry looked again at the rocks. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“Now what is it they make me think of?” he said to himself. “Umm, yellow with black lines. … I have seen something about that somewhere. …”
“Do you know the name of these yellow stones, Mr. Pond?” asked Violet. She picked one up and gave it to him.
“No, I don’t know much about stones,” he said. “This yellowish rock makes a fine powder. I know that Indians long ago used it for their sand paintings.”
“Sand paintings?” asked Benny. “I never heard of sand paintings.”
“They are very interesting,” said Mr. Pond. “They are beautiful, too. The Indians took sand of all colors: blue, green, red, yellow, black, brown. They looked for a nice, flat place, and painted it with colored sand. They put the different colors in the right places. They would make a round sun like this.”
Mr. Pond quickly made a big yellow sun on the ground, to show Benny how it was done.
“Do you think there are any sand paintings in our field now?” Benny asked hopefully.
“No,” answered Mr. Pond, smiling. “There haven’t been any Indians here for many years.”
“I’d rather have Indians here than whoever is living in that hut,” said Jessie.
“I think you’re right,” said Mr. Pond. “But don’t worry about that. we’ll go to Stony Creek tomorrow and tell the sheriff, Mr. Bates, about this.”
He glanced at Henry, and the boy understood that Mr. Pond would tell the sheriff about some other things, too.
E
arly the next morning, the four Alden children climbed into Mr. Pond’s car. He had come to take them to Stony Creek. They were going to see the sheriff, Mr. Bates.
Mr. Pond was very quiet. He was worried about these nice children. He liked them, even though he had only known them a short time. And he was worried about Jane Alden, too. He had known her for many years. He knew well enough that she had always been cross and hard to get along with. But he was very sorry for her. He didn’t want any of them to be upset by these three strange men.
They drove up in front of the courthouse in Stony Creek and Mr. Pond stopped the car.
“Come right in,” called Mr. Bates. “I’m glad you came. I don’t often have so much company.”
“Hello, Bates,” said Mr. Pond. “These are the Alden children.”
“I had already guessed that,” said Mr. Bates. He took his guests to a small back room and shut the door.
They all sat down.
“Well, what brings you here?” asked Mr. Bates.
Mr. Pond said, “We came to see you about police business. There is something going on in the Alden woods. It looks as if someone has been living in an old hut there.”
Mr. Bates didn’t look surprised. He just waited for Mr. Pond to go on.
“That isn’t all,” Mr. Pond said. “Three strange men tried to make Miss Jane Alden sell her ranch. They told her it was no good. Say, Bates, you act as if you knew something that I don’t. What do you really think about all this?” Mr. Bates just sat and smiled.
“Maybe you won’t have to worry about those men any longer,” he said. “And I don’t think anyone will be staying in that hut, either. But I’ll wait and let Mr. Carter tell you all about it.”
“Mr. Carter? Who would that be?” asked Benny.
“He is a very important man,” Mr. Bates said, still smiling. “Here he comes now.”
A car stopped just behind Mr. Pond’s. A good-looking young man got out. He was very tall. He had soft brown hair. When he stood in the door, Jessie and Violet looked at him with their mouths open. Then they looked at one another.
Jessie could hardly talk. “Oh, Violet,” she whispered, “Our Mystery Man!”
“Are you surprised?” asked Mr. Carter, laughing.
“We certainly are,” said Benny. “We thought you might be a bad man. That is, Henry thought so, anyway.”
“Benny!” Henry said, blushing. “I didn’t really think that, Mr. Carter. I just thought the police should—I mean—well, you were a stranger, and—”
“That’s all right, Henry,” said the Mystery Man, smiling again. “That was a smart thing to think.”
“But if you’re not a bad man, who are you?” asked Benny.
“Well, I’ve been working for you, but you didn’t know it.”
“Working for us?” asked Benny. “You don’t look like a ranch hand.”
“There are many ways to work,” Mr. Carter said. “And one of them is looking for uranium.”
“Uranium!” Jessie cried. She had finally found her voice again.
“Yes,” said Mr. Carter. “My job is to look for uranium. I found a field of it right on your ranch.”
“Do you mean that all of that Indian dust is really uranium?” asked Violet.
“It certainly is,” Mr. Carter answered, looking at all the surprised faces around him.
“But why were you looking there?” asked Violet. “And who are those three tough men?”
Mr. Carter answered slowly, “I work for a man you may have heard of. Mr. Alden of Greenfield.”
“Grandfather!” the children cried.
“Yes. Mr. Alden hired me to look for uranium for him. There is a lot of it in this part of the country. But when I found it on your ranch, I also found that someone had been there first.”
“That must be those three men!” Henry said.
“Yes. They were looking for uranium, too. But they are not honest. When they found a place that had uranium, they tried to buy the land cheap. They didn’t tell people what they had found.”
“That’s just what they tried to do to us,” Violet said.
“Yes,” Mr. Carter went on, “but Mr. Bates and I caught up with them. You won’t be bothered by them again.”
“Are they the ones who stayed in that hut on our ranch?” asked Jessie.
“Yes. But I had an eye on them. They couldn’t have hurt you,” Mr. Carter said.
Henry spoke slowly, “This means that the ranch is worth a lot of money, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” said Mr. Carter.
“Wait till I tell Aunt Jane!” shouted Benny.
“Can we tell people?” asked Henry.
“I suppose so,” said Mr. Carter. “It is no longer a secret. I’m afraid your ranch will not be quiet much longer. Your place will soon be full of strangers. Maybe some of them will try to take rocks away from your uranium fields.” He looked worried for the first time since he had come in the door.
“What can we do?” asked Jessie. “It would be terrible to upset Aunt Jane just when she is getting better.”
“Can you help them, Mr. Pond?” asked Mr. Carter.
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Pond. “It is too big a job for me. I think the children need a smarter man than I am. And they need someone with enough money to dig a mine.”
Henry said, “I think I know the very man.”
The four children shouted together, “Grandfather!”
M
r. Carter spoke, “I think your grandfather will be glad to help. I can go to Greenfield and tell him the whole story.”
He looked at his watch and got up quickly. “Good-by, children, and the best of luck.”
In one minute he was gone.
Benny said, “Mystery men work fast, don’t they?”
“There’s just one thing wrong,” Henry said. “Aunt Jane didn’t want Grandfather to come to her ranch. Maybe she will be angry if he comes to help us.”
“Well, maybe she will be good and glad!” said Mr. Pond, laughing. “She ought to be thankful if he will come. She won’t like it when people begin to go across her land.”
The children were quiet all the way home. They were wondering how to tell Aunt Jane.
“Let’s not worry,” said Violet at last. “Things always work out all right for us.”
But even Violet was in for a surprise.
Watch met them at the door, barking and wagging his tail. Maggie was smiling in the kitchen. Aunt Jane was laughing at them from the front room! She was sitting in her long chair, all dressed. The children had never seen her in a dress before.
