The Flying Saucer Mystery (2 page)

“Yes, we are,” Nancy replied. “Not only find it but try to learn something about the craft and where it came from.”

Dave grunted. “That sounds like a big order.”

“But a real challenge,” Ned added.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Bess screamed loudly and jumped to her feet.

“What’s the matter?” George asked her cousin.

Too frightened to answer, Bess merely pointed. A snake was wriggling away from her!

Hal ran to see if the snake was poisonous. He called back, “It won’t hurt us.”

Bess was still shaking. “It cr-crawled r-right across my b-boot!” she stammered. “I thought snakes didn’t like people. I thought they stayed away from them!”

“That’s usually true,” Hal agreed. “But even snakes have an appetite for good home cooking.”

“So you scared off your soul mate!” George teased.

Ignoring the remark, Bess declared that from now on she was going to eat standing up. “And I plan to walk around a lot, too.”

Her friends laughed.

As Bess spoke, her eyes fastened on the slithering reptile. It was crawling toward the horses.

“The snake’s going for my horse!” George gasped. “I must stop it!”

Before she could, however, the snake paused in back of the animal, then slowly wriggled up her rear leg. Instantly it spooked the horse, causing him to throw off the snake and run off at breakneck speed into the dense forest.

“Oh!” George exclaimed. “Burt, come quickly!”

Together they raced after the galloping horse but could not catch it. Meanwhile, the rest of the riders were trying to calm the other agitated animals and keep them from bolting, too. Ned and Dave offered to take their horses and go after the runaway.

Nancy clung to her horse’s bridle and talked gently to the mare. She was having trouble with Susan B, who appeared to be terrified. Finally the horse settled down.

Burt was shamefaced. “It was so stupid of me not to tie the runaway horse when she finished drinking in the stream.”

“She’s so gentle and obedient,” George remarked quietly, almost unaware of Burt’s arm around her shoulder. “I hope she comes back.”

Jan and Hal tried to comfort the distraught girl, too. “Horses hate snakes,” Hal said, “and with a scare like that, yours would have pulled free anyway.”

“What would you do if a snake crawled up your leg?” Jan added.

This made George and the others smile. “I think we’d all run!” she said.

While the campers waited for the two boys to return, they packed up, ready to move on. In twenty minutes Ned and Dave reappeared, leading George’s mount. Excitedly, the girl ran to her horse and got astride.

Once more the group was on the move. Jan led them higher and higher up the mountain.

At one point Bess remarked, “I’ll bet the view from here would be gorgeous if we could see through the trees.”

Jan agreed and said that before dark they would reach an area where they could see for miles. “Hal and I think someone camped at the spot for quite some time, even cleared a little section of the forest and grew a vegetable garden. In any case, it will be a good place for us to camp.”

When the riders arrived at their destination, Jan suggested, “Why doesn’t everyone unpack for the night? I’ll start cooking supper.”

“May I help?” Bess asked eagerly.

“If you like,” Jan said, removing a sack from one of the packhorses.

A few minutes later she cried out, “Oh, we left our cooking utensils at the picnic spot! How could I have been so forgetful and left one of the sacks on the ground?”

Nancy offered to go back.

“Not alone,” Jan answered quickly. “I’ll tell you what: we’ll draw lots. I’ll get four sticks and mark one, then we’ll choose by couples. Whoever gets the marked stick will go.”

Nancy was delighted when she and Ned drew the lucky stick. Instantly she mounted Susan B and Ned mounted Goalpost, and they set off down the narrow trail. The trip, Jan and Hal figured, would take at least an hour.

When two hours had gone by and it was dark, the riders still had not returned. Everyone was worried.

“Nancy and Ned are good horsemen,” Bess said, “but lots of things could have happened.”

A little while later Jan lay down and put her ear to the ground. “I hear horses coming,” she called out.

As she stood up, the campers were startled by eerie screams in the distance.

The campers froze with fear when they heard the screams in the quiet forest.

Bess cried out frantically, “Nancy and Ned must have been attacked by a wild animal! Oh, what’ll we do?”

“We must find them!” George shouted.

“I’m sure,” said Hal, “those screams were coming from the north.”

“I’d say just the opposite,” George countered. “What do you think, Burt?”

“West,” he answered, “and Dave thinks east.”

Everyone felt helpless. Finally Jan spoke up. “I believe those screams were from a wildcat. I’ve heard similar ones before.”

Bess was even more terrified. “Oh, Nancy and Ned may have been clawed to pieces!” she exclaimed.

George looked severely at her cousin. “Don’t say such things!” she flashed back. “Let’s hope Nancy and Ned are nowhere near a wildcat.”

As a matter of fact the couple was not far from the menacing cat. They had found the missing bag of kitchen utensils, fastened it to Ned’s saddle, and started back to camp. Unfortunately, they had taken the wrong branch of a trail which led them away from their destination. Unaware of their mistake at first, they kept riding. Finally, however, the sun set and as darkness came on, the two riders stopped and looked at each other.

“Are you thinking the same thing I am?” Nancy asked. “We’re lost!”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Ned conceded. “We’d better turn around and head for the other trail.”

Susan B and Goalpost started off in the opposite direction. A few feet before they reached the fork, Nancy caught sight of two glowing eyes and the shadowy outline of an animal on a branch of a pine tree.

“Ned!” she called. “Look up there! Some creature is watching us!”

As the boy gazed upward, the animal hissed, then broke the stillness with an unearthly scream. Chills went up and down the riders’ spines. The frightened horses reared and whinnied.

“We’d better run for it,” Ned suggested, urging Goalpost to go fast. “It’s a wildcat!”

The gleaming eyes in the tree fascinated Nancy. As she rode past the cat, she wondered if the beast would spring at her and Susan B. Nancy’s heart pounded.

Suddenly she and Ned were startled by the sound of a sharp whistle followed by the soothing voice of a man.

“Now, Kitty, behave yourself!” he said coaxingly. “Stop trying to scare folks!”

At once the glowing eyes sank back. Evidently the animal had jumped out of the tree and disappeared into the dark forest.

“Who’s there?” Ned called, as he and Nancy stopped.

“Old Joe,” came the reply.

A light was shone in the riders’ direction. A couple of minutes later a tall, slender man of about seventy appeared. His hair was gray and he had a beard that was as unkempt as his clothes. Was he one of the “strange creatures” her father had warned her about? Nancy wondered.

The man’s friendly smile, however, and his kindly blue eyes made her dismiss the idea.

“Howdy!” he greeted the couple. “What are you folks doing riding around in the dark? You’re strangers here, aren’t you?”

Quickly Nancy explained, then introduced herself and Ned. “We’re camping with a group of friends a little way up the trail.”

Ned added, “You called yourself Old Joe. Will you tell us what your full name is? And do you live around here?”

“My full name is Joseph Austin. Folks in the village gave me the nickname of Old Joe. I kind of liked it, so I kept it. I rarely use my last name.”

“By the way, many thanks for scaring off that hissing creature,” Nancy said. “What was it? A wildcat?”

“Yes.”

“We were sure he was going to attack us.”

“Oh, Kitty, as I call her, wouldn’t attack unless something bothered her.”

“Well, she sure wasn’t friendly to us,” Nancy grumbled.

Old Joe laughed. “Oh, it had nothing to do with you directly. I have a dog, Trixie. She was teasing Kitty. I suspected that, and came up here to see what was going on. Then I heard Kitty scream, and hurried. I must say it was a surprise to meet you folks.”

“You mentioned a dog,” Ned said.

“Oh, Trixie is too smart to let Kitty get the jump on her,” Old Joe replied. “She likes to tease Kitty but when the wildcat gets enough of it, she hisses and spits at the dog, even screams sometimes. Kitty and I have known each other for a long time. In fact she was just a kitten when we first became acquainted. Her mother must have abandoned her and she kind of brought herself up. I leave food out for her up near my cabin. It’s some distance from here. You must come and visit me there.”

Old Joe explained that he was a naturalist by preference. “I was in business once in the city but I didn’t like it. As soon as I made enough money to retire I came up here where I used to spend my summers as a boy.

“Now all I do is study the behavior of wild animals toward man. Most won’t attack unless they’re extremely hungry, or are protecting their young, or are frightened or threatened by a human being or another animal.

“Of course, this doesn’t apply to tigers,” the naturalist added. “They’ll attack for no reason at all.”

Nancy remarked, “Wildcats and tigers are related, though, aren’t they?”

“They’re distant cousins. I’m glad there aren’t any tigers in the United States. You know,” he went on, “so far as is known, man is not the natural source of food supply for any other creature. I believe that man’s worst enemy is man himself.”

Nancy and Ned liked the elderly gentleman more and more. He was not only a naturalist but a philosopher as well.

“We’re heading for our camp,” Nancy said. “Wouldn’t you like to ride along and meet our friends?”

Old Joe chuckled. “I’d like that very much, but to tell you the truth, I prefer walking.”

He and the riders followed the trail which Nancy and Ned had missed, and shortly they arrived at the camp.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re all right!” Bess said, hugging Nancy.

Everyone was overjoyed to see that she and Ned and the horses were safe. They also were delighted to meet Old Joe, who captured their hearts immediately with his quiet sense of humor and evident love of nature.

The campers had built a fire and now they all sat around it, listening to the comforting crackle, while supper was served to the latecomers.

“I don’t buy much food from the store,” Old Joe said. “I get practically everything I eat from in the woods.”

Bess’s eyes opened wide. “You mean you might eat wildcat meat?”

The man’s eyes twinkled. “No, but I do catch rabbits and groundhogs. One of the best dishes you’d ever want to eat is groundhog stew.”

That did not sound appealing to Bess, but she kept silent. Old Joe said there was good fishing in the mountain streams and all sorts of delicious berries and plants.

“One of my favorite dishes is stewed wild rose leaves.”

Although Bess knew she was being teased, the plumpish girl decided that if she ate some of this natural food, the scale might reflect the benefits. She was always making promises to herself to modify her eating habits, but never actually followed through.

The rest of the campers were more interested in hearing about Old Joe’s adventures in the forest. He entertained them with wildlife stories including one about his rescue of a bear cub.

“Got himself caught in somebody’s makeshift trap. I set him free but you know what? He followed me home! Craziest bear I ever met. Well, I figured he was hungry so I fed him and told him to scat. But next morning he was scratching at the door just like a puppy.”

“Does he still live with you?” Bess asked in amazement.

“Oh, no. He only stayed with me until he was old enough to go out into the forest and forage for himself. Never did see that bear again, so I imagine he survived on his own.”

Now the elderly man stood up and said he must get back to his cabin. “I expect all of you to come over and visit me. My little cabin and everything in it is handmade,” he remarked. “I’m rather proud of my accomplishments and I’d like you to see them. You’ve shared your food with me, so now it’s my turn to feed you.”

The campers thanked Old Joe for the invitation, then said good night. Suddenly George stopped him and asked, “Have you ever seen a flying saucer around here?”

The campers waited breathlessly for an answer.

Old Joe looked at the group, startled. “You’ve heard about the flying saucer?” he asked in surprise. “I thought only a few natives knew about that.”