148 On The Trail Of Trouble

by Carolyn Keene

  your cover work! We have a visitor here—a friend of

  Kincaid's—who'd like to talk to you about the

  illustration. Her name is Nancy Drew. Give us a call

  when you get in, please. Thanks.”

  She hung up and turned back to Nancy. “There you

  go,” she said. “I'm sure he'll call as soon as he gets in.

  I'll let you know. By the way, I talked to Matt about

  setting up a call with Badger Brady so you could check

  out his phone voice. Matt said just call him and he'll

  take care of it.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Nancy said.

  “Let me know if there's anything more I can do,”

  Mrs. Turner said. “I feel so frustrated. We've got to get

  to the bottom of this, Nancy.”

  “We will,” Nancy assured her. She gathered up the

  press kit and headed back to the guest cabin,

  determined to find out who was causing so much

  trouble for the Turners.

  Kincaid was waiting at the cabin when Nancy walked

  in. “I called Sheriff Matt,” Kincaid said. “I told him

  about the hubcaps. He's going to take the one we

  found up to Beauforêt and question Antoinette

  Francoeur himself.”

  “Good,” Nancy said. “I talked to your mom, and she

  thinks the brochure was illustrated by a local artist

  named Jack Allbright. She left a message on his

  answering machine to call us when he gets back. By the

  way, she thinks the buffalo look like Lulu and Justice,

  too.”

  “What if it is, Nancy?” Kincaid asked. “Maybe that's

  proof that Miss Francoeur took them.”

  “Let's wait till we talk to Allbright,” Bess said.

  “Don't get your hopes up.”

  “Bess, we have two more calls to make,” Nancy said,

  “and you have to make one of them. I'm afraid

  Antoinette Francoeur would recognize my voice from

  our confrontation in her auto barn.”

  Nancy reached for the phone. “Kincaid, what's the

  name of a good lunchroom or tearoom in town?” she

  asked. Then she coached Bess on what to say to Ms.

  Francoeur.

  Bess dialed the number printed on the Justice for

  Animals brochure. “Antoinette Francoeur, please,” she

  said into the receiver at last. She listened for a

  moment, then said, “This is Bess Marvin. I'm calling

  about starting a young adult chapter of Justice for

  Animals.”

  She waited for another minute, then smiled at the

  others. “Ah, Ms. Francoeur,” Bess said into the phone.

  “I am so excited about your organization—and about

  the opportunity to speak to you.

  “In fact, a few friends and I are organizing a young

  adult league for the liberation of animals. We plan to

  visit schools and carry our message to students. We've

  also been thinking of affiliating ourselves with Justice

  for Animals. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow at

  RuthAnn's Tea Room to talk.”

  Bess paused to listen, then spoke again. “How about

  lunch? One o'clock would be perfect. We'll meet you

  then. And thank you.”

  “She'll recognize us as soon as she walks in,” George

  said. “She'll be furious.”

  “Maybe,” Nancy said. “But I think she really believes

  in her cause. If we can convince her we do, too, we

  might win her confidence.”

  “And then what?” Kincaid asked.

  “I'm going to question her. Find out about that

  hubcap. Maybe we can get some answers.”

  “But think about what that shelter looked like,

  Nancy,” George said. “Do you really believe she would

  tear it apart like that? It was a mess. She had to have

  help.”

  “I agree,” Nancy said. “All we know is that one of

  her vehicles may have been there. We don't know who

  might have been driving, why they were there, or what

  they did while they were there. That's what we need to

  find out.”

  “I believe that Miss Francoeur took Lulu and

  Justice,” Kincaid said.

  “As Nancy said, we don't have any real proof,” Bess

  said.

  “But don't you see,” Kincaid continued. “I have to

  hope she took them because then at least I know

  they're okay. She wouldn't hurt them.” Kincaid's voice

  dropped as she spoke her next words. “If Badger took

  them, I'll never see them again.”

  Nancy felt sorry for the young woman. She knew

  Kincaid was right. She also agreed with Clayton that

  Brady was the more likely culprit. But if Badger Brady

  is the rustler, she asked herself, what was Antoinette

  Francoeur's hubcap doing near Lulu and Justice's pen?

  “You said you had two more calls, Nancy,” George

  said. “Bess made one. How about the other?”

  “I want to call the sheriff,” Nancy said. “Mrs. Turner

  said she'd have him rig up a phone call between

  Badger Brady and me. I want to see if I recognize his

  phone voice.” She checked her watch. “I think we still

  have time to get it done before Clayton comes to take

  us to Brady's ranch.”

  “By the way,” Kincaid added, “I told my folks you're

  driving out to see the Badlands. I don't think they'd be

  too thrilled to know you were poking around Badger

  Brady's. They'd be worried.”

  “Good idea,” George said.

  “Also,” Kincaid said in a soft voice, “I'm not going

  with you.”

  “What?” Bess said. “Why not, Kincaid?”

  “Nancy, I'm sure you know what you're doing,”

  Kincaid said. “Looking for clues is really important.”

  She sighed. “But I want to find Lulu and Justice first,”

  she continued. “Then I can worry about who took

  them. I want to ride along the perimeter of the ranch

  today. I know Lulu, and in my heart I know there's no

  chance that she just wandered off. But I have to check,

  just in case.”

  “Do you mind if I stay with Kincaid?” Bess asked. “I

  can keep her company and help her look.”

  “Not at all,” Nancy said. “It's a good idea.”

  Nancy dialed the sheriff's number, then asked for

  Matt Switzer. She felt a ripple across her shoulders as

  the deputy spoke. Slowly she hung up the phone and

  turned to the others.

  “Sheriff Switzer is in the hospital,” she reported.

  “He was shot by Badger Brady when Brady escaped

  from jail!”

  10. Bad Times at the Badlands

  “Matt's been shot?” Kincaid said, her face pale. “How

  is he?”

  “He's in surgery right now,” Nancy said.

  “When did it happen?” George asked. “And how?”

  “About an hour ago,” Nancy said. “Brady's brother

  helped him escape. He's the one who actually shot

  Sheriff Switzer.”

  “I told you about his family,” Kincaid reminded

  them. “They're nothing but trouble. I have to tell my

  folks,” she added, racing to the door.

  “I'm still going to Brady's ranch today,” Nancy said.

  She felt a flush of determina
tion surge through her.

  “Actually, it should be pretty safe. It's probably the last

  place he'd go.”

  “Are you sure?” Bess asked, worried. “I don't know,

  Nancy. If he's escaped, he doesn't have much to lose.”

  “I know, but I still want to look around out there,”

  Nancy said.

  Nancy and George gathered up their backpacks and

  headed for the ranch house.

  Clayton arrived a few minutes later. The others

  brought him up to date. He seemed glad that Nancy

  and George still wanted to go to Badger Brady's.

  “Now, you be careful in the Badlands,” Melissa

  Turner said.

  “Oh, we will,” George said sheepishly. Mr. and Mrs.

  Turner left and Kincaid and Bess helped Nancy,

  George, and Clayton load Clayton's car.

  It took them twenty minutes to pack up all the

  provisions Kincaid and Clayton thought they needed.

  They took sandwiches, fruit, sodas, chips, gloves, boots,

  binoculars, flashlights, cameras, a cell phone, rope,

  knives, a first aid kit with snakebite medicine, extra gas,

  and lots of water.

  “By the way,” Clayton said, rearranging the boots.

  “My dad tells me that some young women were

  spotted on the mountain near Lincoln's head last night.

  He asked me if I knew anything about it or them. I told

  him I didn't—and it was the truth. But it sure sounded

  like someone I took up there once,” he added with a

  grin.

  “Shhh,” Kincaid warned him. “It was us, okay?

  Nancy and George will tell you about it on the drive

  out to Badger's. We managed to get back, in last night

  without my parents' finding out about it. Let's keep it

  that way.”

  Bess peeked in the window of Clayton's car. “I don't

  know where you expect anyone to sit,” she said. “This

  car's a mess.”

  Clayton leaned into the backseat and swept papers,

  rocks, and books into a bag. More stuff covered the

  floor and the front seat.

  “Clayton is even more into fossils and prehistoric

  digs than I am,” Kincaid said, “as you can see.”

  “Wow,” George said, picking up a small skull.

  “What's this?”

  “That's a prehistoric miniature camel skull,” Clayton

  answered. “I found it out near where we're going

  today, actually.”

  “In the Badlands?” George asked, turning the skull

  around in her hand.

  “No,” Clayton said. “If I had I couldn't have kept it.

  It's against federal law to take fossils or plants or

  anything out of the Badlands.” He shoved more stuff

  into the corner of the backseat.

  “Old-timers talk of seeing wagonloads of prehistoric

  fossils carted out of there,” he continued. “But it's been

  illegal since it became a national park in 1939. That

  doesn't stop some people, of course. Poachers are

  always being caught in there. It's such a wild area, and

  it's hard to keep track of everyone.”

  He lifted a cooler of sodas into the car. “I dug that

  skull up near the Badlands, though,” he said, “on a

  friend's property.”

  “Hey, what's this? This looks like a whole bag of

  bones,” George added, picking up a large lumpy plastic

  bag from the floor of the backseat. She and Bess

  looked inside the bag.

  “Not camel bones, though,” Bess added with a

  laugh.

  “Nope. These are more from the prehistoric

  rawhide-chew-osaur,” George said. She pulled a dog's

  chew toy from the bag. It was made of rawhide and

  shaped like a thick bone.

  “For Brutus, right?” Kincaid said. “Clayton's got this

  monster Great Dane named Brutus,” she added as

  Clayton nodded. “This huge bag will probably be gone

  in a week.” She threw the bag of chew toys onto the

  floor of the backseat.

  “Okay, pile in,” Clayton said.

  Nancy climbed into the back, and George rode next

  to Clayton in the front as they left for Badger Brady's.

  On the drive Nancy and George caught Clayton up

  on what they'd seen the night before at Beauforêt.

  They told him about finding the truck with the

  matching hubcaps and that the sheriff was going to

  question Antoinette Francoeur.

  George filled him in on the most treacherous part of

  the evening's activities—the ride over Mount

  Rushmore.

  “Kincaid is fearless,” Clayton said, shaking his head.

  “And her mom and dad are really great. We have to

  help them find out who's doing this.”

  “With Nancy in charge, we will,” George said.

  “Well, I hate to say this,” Clayton said, “but I just

  can't figure Antoinette Francoeur for a rustler. Now

  Badger Brady, on the other hand, fits the bill

  perfectly.”

  Nancy studied the map she had taken out of her

  backpack. “Kincaid marked an old road here that she

  thinks leads to Brady's,” she said.

  “This is all the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands,”

  Clayton said, sweeping his arm around. “The Pine

  Ridge Reservation is over there.” He pointed to a spot

  in the distance.

  “I'm going to take the scenic route to Badger

  Brady's and drive through the Badlands,” he said.

  “Good,” George said. “That way we can truthfully

  tell the Turners we were there.”

  “Okay,” Nancy said. “As long as it doesn't take too

  much extra time. I really want to get to Brady's as soon

  as possible.”

  “Actually, it's just as quick to go through the

  Badlands as it is to go around,” Clayton said. “The trick

  is not getting too sidetracked by the beauty and

  weirdness of the place.”

  When they first reached the Badlands, Nancy could

  hardly believe her eyes. Clayton drove onto Sage Creek

  Rim Road and pulled into a vast natural fantasyland—a

  wild, unexpected part of South Dakota.

  “There's no place on earth like this,” Clayton said,

  gesturing with abroad sweep of his arm. Some parts

  looked like the Southwest, with deep, rough-cut

  canyons and gorges. Other areas resembled the surface

  of the moon, with softly rounded craters and pits. Still

  other areas looked like nothing Nancy or George had

  ever seen.

  In the distance, on the upper grasslands, a herd of

  antelope and some prong-horned sheep grazed.

  Overhead, a golden eagle soared from a huge canyon

  up to mountainlike spires and narrow pyramids of rock

  that all ended in rounded-off points.

  “It's almost as if we're seeing the ruins of some

  ancient walled city,” Nancy said. “Only everything is

  made of rock.”

  “And look at the colors,” George added. The rock

  walls were layered in hues of blue, purple, gold, and

  reddish orange.

  As they drove, they passed a huge community of

  prairie dogs that had built a town of their own.

  Hundreds of mounds and humps rose from th
e

  ground. The little animals popped in and out of their

  homes in frantic bursts of activity.

  The landscape was so unreal, Nancy felt as if she

  were in a dream. As she watched out the window, a

  herd of bison came into view. They were grazing in a

  great basin surrounded by domes and pyramids of rock.

  Clayton drove around until they reached an

  unearthly sight—thousands of pointed spires of rock

  that reached sixty feet into the sky.

  “This is so wild,” George said. “Let's stop—just for a

  minute.”

  “This area is called the Pinnacles,” Clayton said as

  the three stepped out of the car at a lookout spot.

  There was only one other vehicle parked there—a

  dusty black pickup truck.

  “Come on,” George said. “Just a short hike. I have to

  see what it feels like to be standing down at the

  bottom.”

  Before anyone could stop her, she had started down

  a rough path that led to the floor of the dense

  formation of huge pointed rocks. Within minutes she

  was out of sight, hidden among the tall spires. Skidding

  and sliding, Nancy and Clayton followed her trail,

  weaving in and out of the tall pointed columns.

  The Pinnacles were so dense, Nancy caught sight of

  George for only a few seconds at a time. Then as soon

  as she appeared, she rounded another column and was

  hidden again. It was almost like being in a huge

  prehistoric maze.

  Nancy felt a little disoriented as they wound around

  and through the Pinnacles. For a second, she

  wondered how they would ever find their way back to

  the car. She tried to find a landmark to help her

  pinpoint a position. But when she looked up, all she

  saw were hundreds of pointed rock spires and small

  patches of blue sky. Ahead and all around was nothing

  but the Pinnacles.

  After twenty minutes of winding and weaving,

  Nancy did spot George. She was sitting on a small

  ledge a few yards up the side of one of the Pinnacles. A

  pair of binoculars hung around her neck. When George

  saw Nancy and Clayton, she put a finger to her lips to

  motion them to be quiet. Then she gestured for Nancy

  to climb up and join her.

  The ledge was small so only Nancy joined George.

  George handed Nancy the binoculars and pointed

  through the Pinnacles.

  From the ledge, Nancy had a better perspective

  than she had at ground level. As soon as she had

  adjusted the binoculars, she ignored George's pointing