The Sky Phantom (10 page)

“This might have been a ceremonial cave, where the Indians had their religious meetings,” Nancy decided. The sandy earth floor seemed to have had fires on it for cooking with the ashes dispersed and trampled. There were no artifacts of any kind, however.

“Probably looters have taken everything away,” Nancy thought.

She descended the steps and beamed her flashlight around. She looked for niches or corridors that might lead out of the cave. The air inside seemed to be fresh and Nancy thought she could feel a slight draft. She concluded there must be another opening.

The young sleuth kept walking. She could not see any side exits large enough for a man to get through.

Suddenly she gave a soft scream. Mice were appearing from everywhere. They scurried across the floor, up the steps, and back toward the entrance. There were hundreds of them!

“I must have scared those mice out of their hiding places,” Nancy thought. She smiled to herself. “Well, I can get along without them. I’m glad they’re going in the opposite direction and not bothering me.”

At this instant she became aware of two other happenings. Larger mice were now appearing. They seemed to be coming out of the rocks! They, too, started to scoot past her. At the same time Nancy thought she felt rain. Was there a leak from the ceiling?

As she looked up, the girl explorer realized that this was not rain dropping down. It was oil!

“I’d better leave,” she decided.

With mice all around her, she began to run toward the steps, but she could not get far. Already the oil shower was becoming heavier, making the floor very slippery.

Nancy slipped several times and fell twice. She did not seem to be able to make any headway.

“I must hurry out of here!” she thought frantically.

At last, by sliding to one side of the cave, she managed to pull herself along and finally get over to the steps. But now she found it impossible to mount them.

The oily rain had stopped abruptly but despite this Nancy found the stone steps too slippery to climb. After several attempts to get partway up and sliding back, she ceased to try this method of escape.

“I’m glad the rain stopped,” she told herself, and beamed the flashlight around to see if there was any possible way to hold onto the wall and climb up. She found none.

Now Nancy glanced at her watch. She had been gone a long time. If Bruce and John Wade had returned, they would certainly wonder where she was.

“I
must
get out of here!” she resolved. The girl detective noticed that the oil seemed to be seeping into the sandy ground fairly rapidly. This gave her hope, even though she knew it would take a while for it to disappear entirely. In the meantime there might be another shower of oil!

Suddenly she smiled. “Those mice are a lot smarter than I am! They knew just when to get out of here. I wonder how soon they’ll come back!”

Nancy concluded she could not wait to find out. She must think of another way to escape from this oil-slick cave.

“I have to tell John Wade about the oil,” she thought. “It seems strange that there is no activity—no drilling—around here. Could it be possible that none of the natives have found out what’s going on?”

An idea came to her. She took off her sweater and doubled it up. Using it as a mop, she partially dried off the stone steps and managed to get to the upper level. When she reached the top, it was easier to walk because the oil had seeped into the earth as if the ground were a sponge. Nancy felt sure the formation of this small hill must be stone and sand.

When she reached the opening and squeezed through, the girl detective looked off into the distance. Bruce’s plane was back! Excited over her find of oil, she hurried forward to tell John Wade about it. When Nancy arrived, she looked around but did not see the prospector. Bruce was seated inside alone.

“Where’s Mr. Wade?” she asked.

“After we found his pony, he rode off.”

“You mean he isn’t coming back?” Nancy queried.

By this time Bruce had climbed out of the plane and stood looking at the girl. Then he began to laugh. “No, John isn’t coming back, but he’ll wish he had. You’re a sight, Nancy! What in the world happened to you?”

He continued to laugh so hard that Nancy began to look at her clothes and to feel her hair. She was covered with oil from head to toe!

“I guess you’re right,” she told the pilot. “Bruce, this is
oil!
I got a shower bath of it in a cave I found.”

Bruce looked skeptical. “You what?”

Nancy told him the whole story and ended by saying the mice had had more sense than she about leaving before the oil shower. Bruce shook his head and burst into laughter again.

“I’m sure sorry I missed that scene,” he said. “Well, hop aboard!”

“Not this way,” Nancy replied. “I’ll ruin the plane with all this icky stuff.”

Bruce said he would soon fix that. He took the oily sweater from her hand and dropped it into a metal container on the plane. Then he pulled out a bag of cloth wipers for her to use. They were all colors of the rainbow and made from all kinds of materials. Nancy found that the rolls of cheesecloth were the most effective.

Bruce helped sop the oil from her hair and back, then he got into the plane and covered the copilot’s seat with a large piece of cloth. Finally he announced that he was ready for her to come aboard.

“I’d better do the flying,” he said. “I think you’ve had enough adventures for one day.”

As Nancy climbed in, she said, “Bruce, instead of going back to Excello, couldn’t we fly in the direction John Wade took? I want so much to tell him about the oil I discovered.”

The pilot agreed. He zoomed down the flat, scrubby field, then took off. First he flew over the spot where he had overtaken the runaway pony.

“John went on from here,” he said. “I think in this direction.”

He banked sharply. Without warning the engine quit. Bruce immediately lowered the nose of the craft to maintain flying speed. “We can’t make a forced landing straight ahead!” he shouted. “The terrain’s too rough.”

“What’ll we do?” Nancy gasped. “We haven’t much altitude!”

Only the rush of the airstream could be heard in the cockpit. It was an ominous sound to the instructor and his student.

“Hold on!” Bruce cried. “I’m going to try something!”

The pilot’s knowledge of the area was to come in handy. He made a shallow turn in a south-easterly course,

“The ground is coming up fast!” Nancy observed anxiously.

Bruce said nothing. He kept descending straight on his selected course. Then Nancy noticed that the ground was beginning to slope away from them. They were entering a small but deep valley.

The pilot coordinated stick and rudder and rolled into a gentle spiral. “There’s a dry riverbed below,” he said. “It’s large enough for us to set down on.”

Nancy fought to remain calm as Bruce continued his descending turn. The walls of the valley seemed to be only inches from the plane’s wing tips.

“Brace yourself!” Bruce cried, as he rolled the craft out of the turn. “We’re coming up on the final approach!”

Nancy could now see the riverbed before them. It appeared to be smooth and long enough for a normal landing. Suddenly, as the plane’s wheels were about to touch earth, the alert girl spotted a fissure stretching across the width of the riverbed.

“Watch out!” Nancy shouted.

Bruce reacted immediately. He pulled back hard on the stick. Luckily, the plane had enough speed to take to the air again and leapfrog the fissure. The craft settled back to earth. The pilot applied brake and brought it to a stop.

The fliers sat in silence for a minute or two. Nancy was the first to speak. “Congratulations,” she said. “That’s what I call doing the impossible.”

Bruce blushed slightly. He climbed out of the plane and opened the cowling.

Nancy glanced at the fuel gauges. “Why do you think the engine quit?” she asked. “Our tanks are more than half full.”

“The reason is pretty clear,” Bruce replied as he examined the plane’s engine. “I picked up a lot of dust and sand, chasing after John Wade’s colt. It clogged the carburetor.”

Nancy helped the pilot make repairs. Soon the engine was running smoothly again and the two fliers lost no time taking off out of the valley.

The search went on. Finally Bruce was heading across a hilltop with a rather steep descent at the bottom. The ground was covered with gravel, stones, and low-growing bushes.

“Oh!” Nancy exclaimed suddenly. “I think I see something!”

She grabbed the binoculars and trained them out the window. “There are John Wade and his pony!” she said. “I hope they’re all right.”

Bruce made a turn, came back, and looked from his window. The man and the animal were lying still at the bottom of the slope. The noise of the plane did not arouse them. They remained motionless.

“Let’s go down and see what the trouble is,” Nancy urged.

Bruce descended but had to land some distance from the foot of the hill. He and Nancy climbed out quickly and ran back.

Bruce began calling out, “John! Are you all right?”

There was no reply.

Bruce and Nancy raced on, fearful that the prospector and his pony might not be alive!

AT
ONCE
Nancy dropped to her knees and felt John Wade’s pulse. It was a little weak but steady.

“He’s only unconscious,” she reported.

In the meantime Bruce had thoroughly examined the pony. “She’s got a nasty bump on the head, probably from a stone. But I think she’ll come around. I’ll run back to the plane and get my first-aid kit.”

When the pilot returned, he took a restorative from the kit, broke it open, and held it under John Wade’s nostrils. Almost at once the man shook his head, then opened his eyes. A bit dazed, he looked up at the couple.

“Thank goodness you’re all right,” Bruce said, and moved over to give the pony the same restorative treatment.

Fifteen seconds later the animal snorted, then started to get up. She did not rise on the first attempt. Apparently she was still weak. It took several tries, but finally she staggered up.

“You’re going to be all right, little gal,” Bruce said, patting the animal’s neck.

“I’m glad of that,” John Wade said.

He did not endeavor to stand up, preferring to regain his strength while still seated. He asked Nancy and Bruce to sit down with him so he could tell them what had happened.

“When my pony and I reached the top of the hill, the earth suddenly gave way. There was a small landslide, which carried us down to the bottom. We banged our heads and passed out. But how did you happen to be here?” he asked Nancy and Bruce.

They told John Wade about their forced landing, then Nancy added, “I have a surprise for you, Mr. Wade.” She smiled. “I’m sure you’re going to be delighted to hear it.”

She related her adventure in the cave, the scurrying of the mice, and the shower of oil, which started and stopped abruptly. “The oil seeped into the ground rather quickly, but left enough on the floor to make it slippery. It’s too bad I didn’t bring a sample to show you.”

During her story John Wade kept staring at her and listening intently. Finally he said, “Oil? I can’t believe it. There must be a most unusual formation in that hillside.”

He stood up, all his vigor restored. The prospector turned to his pony. “Let’s go back and see that place ourselves! Why, there may be a fortune waiting for us!”

Suddenly he stopped and looked at Nancy. “But I don’t deserve this oil. You discovered it.”

Bruce spoke up. “That’s right. Finders keepers.”

Nancy surprised Mr. Wade by saying, “I’m the daughter of a lawyer and I’ve picked up a few ideas from him. The oil I found was not from underground but overground, so to speak. Somebody must own that hill, but I’m sure you could make an arrangement with the person to share the oil. Of course, I believe some of the profit has to go to the government.”

John Wade shook his head. “You’re quite a girl,” he said. “But I still say you’re the finder, not I.”

Nancy immediately set the man’s mind at rest by telling him she was not interested in sharing any profits from her discovery. “It was an exciting adventure, and that’s all I care about.”

Bruce asked the prospector if he really felt well enough to travel. “Your pony seems okay,” he added.

John Wade laughed. “I feel fit as a fiddle.”

Nancy and Bruce decided to leave. They said good-by and wished him luck with his oil venture. The couple walked to their plane and flew back to Excello.

As they went toward the area where Bruce’s car was parked, they saw Hal Calkin coming toward them. He stopped and grinned at Nancy.