back to where the boys were working.
“We’re mending a fence,” he told them. Then, looking at Bess, he asked, “How about your getting a pony and riding up there with me?”
The girl’s mood changed completely. In the wink of an eye she had forgotten her discovery and the worry about the words “revolution” and “bomb site.”
She ran back to the ranch house to change her riding pants, which she had torn, and was ready by the time Chuck finished his errand. The two rode off, laughing.
Nancy and George looked at each other and grinned. They would have to continue to decipher the words on the back of the medal without Bess’s assistance!
The two girls continued to puzzle over the rest of the strange symbols, which they believed were also parts of words. They assumed that the balance of the message followed the same pattern—each symbol was the lowest quarter of a letter. There was total silence in the room as Nancy and George used more sheets of scratch paper trying to figure out other words from the marks etched into the medal. Finally Nancy did find one.
“The word below ‘bomb site’ is ‘under,’” she stated.
“Good,” said George. “But ‘under’ what? Now the whole thing is becoming very complicated. Where is the revolution bomb site?”
Nancy happened to glance out of the window. The men were just coming in from their work. Chuck and Bess trailed behind. Pop had already turned his pony over to Pete and was heading toward the ranch house.
“Now’s our chance to talk to him,” Nancy said. “Come on!”
The two girls hurried outside and met Pop as he walked to the house.
Nancy asked, “Did you talk to Bess?”
The rancher shook his head. “Is there any reason why I should have?”
Nancy told him about the words “revolution, bomb site,” and “under” on the back of the silver medal. Pop listened politely, but shrugged off the idea that the medal and message had anything to do with the area near Hamilton Ranch.
George was stunned. “The mystery is getting deeper!” she said.
“There’s absolutely nothing around here to bomb, and not enough people to start a revolution,” he said. “The strange message must refer to some other locale.”
Nancy and George had to admit that there was logic in what he said, but as they walked off, both of them felt he might be wrong. Why had the medal been dropped in this area, perhaps by the person flying Roger Paine’s plane?
“I only hope,” said George, “that the bomb site is a good distance away from the Hamilton Ranch.”
“And the Excello Flying School,” Nancy added.
Both girls believed that if they could decipher more of the strange symbols on the medal, they would be able to pinpoint the exact location.
The three girls had no time to work on the puzzle the following morning. Bess and George had horseback-riding dates, and Nancy was to take a flying lesson.
She met Bruce on schedule and soon was in the pilot’s seat of the Excello craft. As she raced down the runway for a takeoff, the girl detective asked, “Okay if we aim for the mystery spot, Bruce?”
He grinned. “You don’t give up easily, do you? But I admit I’m just as anxious as you to see the kidnapping case solved. So go ahead.”
As they approached the area where the big cloud was, they spotted an oncoming plane.
Bruce said, “Roger’s craft is equipped with a radio that can be tuned to UNICOM. I’ll see if I can raise him.”
He turned to a frequency of 122.8 megacycles. There was no response to his call, but the plane was getting closer.
“You’d better climb!” Bruce said.
Nancy pulled gently on the stick and climbed a hundred feet above the path of the oncoming plane. She asked Bruce to look through the binoculars to see if he could identify the other craft.
He did so and exclaimed, “That’s Roger’s plane all right! But I can’t understand why it doesn’t answer me!”
Nancy replied, “If the mysterious sky phantom is the
Dick Lehr
Ian Morson
Georgette Heyer
Sofia Samatar
Lisa Renée Jones
Lorelai LaBelle
Marco Vassi
Carol Goodman
Sierra Rose
Lori Foster