The Mystery of the Mother Wolf

  Contents

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  1 A Nasty Neighbor

  2 Elk River Ranch

  3 Crash!

  4 A Scream in the Night

  5 Blizzard Blindness

  6 Stolen Property

  7 A Telltale Letter

  8 The Hermit of Montrose

  9 Trapped in High Places

  10 The Elk’s Mysterious Message

  11 On the Brink of Disaster

  12 Wolf Alert

  13 Five Small Clues

  14 Danger Comes Calling

  15 Member of the Pack

  1. A Nasty Neighbor

  “Hey, guys, check this out!” George Fayne said. Her

  brown eyes sparkled with excitement as she scanned

  the weather report in the Montrose Courier in the

  baggage claim area of the tiny Montrose airport.

  “There's a blizzard coming in tonight, a foot or two of

  snow. Maybe we'll get snowed in. Awesome, huh?”

  Bess Marvin peered at the newspaper over her

  cousin's shoulder. “Awesome? You've got to be kid-

  ding, George. How am I going to get to a mall? I mean,

  I didn't come to Wyoming just to ski.”

  Nancy Drew laughed. “I don't get it, Bess. Why

  come all this way if you just want to shop? You can

  shop till you drop in River Heights. Plus, I doubt

  Montrose even has a mall. According to Alice Marshall,

  this town is an old-fashioned cowboy town, more like

  it's in the nineteenth century than the twenty-first.”

  “Three guesses why I came to Wyoming,” Bess

  teased, throwing Nancy a sly smile.

  “Here's my guess,” George cut in. “Could it be be-

  cause of those cute cowboy types with great tans from

  riding the range? Those you can't get back home.”

  Bess shot George a withering look. Turning to

  Nancy, she said, “I came here in case you need my

  help, Nan—if you know what I mean.”

  Nancy grinned. She knew exactly what Bess meant.

  Even though she was only eighteen, Nancy was an

  experienced detective who had solved many difficult

  mysteries, and her two best friends, George and Bess,

  were usually there to back her up.

  Smoothing back her shoulder-length reddish blond

  hair, Nancy said, “There's only one problem with that,

  Bess. Alice Marshall has invited us to stay at Elk River

  Ranch for a winter ski vacation. As far as I know, she

  doesn't have a mystery for any of us to solve.”

  “But that's just so far,” Bess countered. “I predict

  that before the day is out, you'll find some mystery at

  the ranch—or it will find you, mark my words.”

  “Mark my words'?” George repeated, hoisting her

  skis from the baggage claim rack. “Where'd you get

  that expression, Bess?”

  “From that fortune-teller at the River Heights fair,”

  Bess said, giggling.

  “You mean the one who was always wrong?” George

  said, playfully punching Bess's arm.

  Nancy smiled as her friends gently kidded each

  other. They were so different that sometimes she could

  hardly believe they were cousins. Tall, dark-haired

  George was definitely the jock of the family, and blond

  Bess liked clothes and tempting desserts much more

  than athletics. Despite their differences, though,

  George and Bess were close friends.

  An attractive red-haired woman hurried into the

  airport. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw the girls.

  “Nancy, Bess, George!” she exclaimed. “Sorry I'm late.

  I was shopping for tonight's dinner and lost track of

  time. Have you been waiting for ages?”

  “Just about five minutes. My suitcase hasn't even

  come out yet,” Nancy replied, giving the woman a

  warm hug. Standing back, Nancy studied Alice Mar-

  shall's pale heart-shaped face and huge green eyes with

  their gentle, almost innocent expression. Nancy was

  struck by her youthful appearance. She couldn't

  believe that Alice was really in her early forties.

  After introducing George and Bess to Alice, Nancy

  added, “Alice Marshall is one of my aunt Eloise's best

  friends from college.”

  “I wish I could see more of Eloise, but she lives in

  New York, and here I am in Wyoming,” Alice said

  regretfully. “I'll have to lure her out to Elk River Ranch

  one of these days. It's been several years since she's

  visited. Anyway, it's so nice to meet you, George and

  Bess. I've heard a lot about you from Nancy. Welcome

  to Wyoming.”

  Fifteen minutes later the three girls were loading

  Alice's teal-colored Jeep with their skis and suitcases.

  Blinking in the bright afternoon sunshine, Nancy

  said, “I can't believe there's supposed to be a blizzard

  tonight. The sky is incredibly blue.”

  “The latest report says the snow may pass us by,”

  Alice said. “Or we may get just a little.” Reading the

  disappointment in George's eyes, Alice added, “Don't

  worry, George. There's still a ton of snow on the

  mountains. The skiing has been excellent this year. And

  who wants such a big storm that we can't even get to

  the slopes?”

  “Well, since you put it that way,” George said,

  brightening, “I guess a little snow is better than too

  much.”

  “In Wyoming we have to accommodate our lives to

  whatever nature decides to dish out,” Alice remarked.

  “But I do hope we don't get a blizzard.”

  After everyone was comfortably settled in the Jeep,

  with Alice and Bess in the front seat and George and

  Nancy in the back, Alice pulled out of the airport

  driveway onto a narrow road.

  The view on all sides was incredible, Nancy thought.

  For as far as the eye could see, huge snow-covered

  peaks stretched toward the crystal clear sky. The snow

  sparkled on the mountains like sequins on white velvet.

  The sky seemed so close that Nancy felt as if she were

  sailing through an enormous blue lake made of air.

  “Tell us about Elk River Ranch,” Nancy prompted

  Alice, leaning forward. “All I know is that you've got

  about four hundred acres and Aunt Eloise claims

  they're all beautiful.”

  Alice smiled. “That's nice of her to say. My husband,

  John, and I certainly agree that the ranch is lovely.

  We've lived here for twenty years and raised our

  daughter here. We moved to Wyoming from San

  Francisco to get away from crowds and to surround

  ourselves with nature.”

  “Aunt Eloise mentioned that you run the ranch as a

  ski lodge in the winter and a dude ranch in the

  summer,” Nancy continued. “So I guess we'll get to

  experience the ski lodge part.”

  “You sure will,” Alice said, driving down the main

  str
eet of a picturesque village of painted wooden

  buildings and lantern-lined streets. It reminded Nancy

  of gold rush towns she had seen in movies. “There are

  tons of winter sports,” Alice went on. “For instance,

  downhill skiing at Elk Mountain—a nearby resort—

  snowshoeing on our ranch land, and dogsledding

  courtesy of our own husky team. You name it, we've

  got it.”

  “What about that extreme sport, the one where you

  sit in front of a blazing fire and sip hot cocoa?” Bess

  joked.

  Alice laughed. “You'll have plenty of company for

  that, Bess, I promise. My daughter, Genevieve—

  nicknamed Jenny—has just graduated from college.

  She's living at home, and her fiancé, Paul, is also stay-

  ing with us while he works on a zoology project for his

  graduate degree. He's making a fifty-acre wolf

  sanctuary on our land. They both spend a lot of time

  sitting by the fire, planning the project. I'm sure they'll

  be thrilled to have you brainstorm with them.”

  “About wolves?” Bess asked doubtfully. “I'm not

  exactly an expert on the subject.”

  “Well, all of you girls are bound to learn something

  about them after a few days at the ranch,” Alice said,

  navigating a particularly challenging curve on the now

  twisty mountain road. “I don't know whether I

  mentioned this, Nancy, but John and I have a pet wolf

  at the ranch.”

  A thrill went through Nancy. A wolf at Elk River

  Ranch! She had always thought wolves were beautiful

  in zoos and nature movies, but she'd never actually met

  one in captivity.

  “From the moment we bought the ranch, John and I

  have always had lots of animals around—the more, the

  merrier,” Alice went on. “We raise cattle, of course,

  and we own a number of horses for us and our guests

  to ride. We have a pet hawk named Beatrice and a

  favorite husky named Grover. And we enjoy the usual

  assortment of cats and dogs that any self-respecting

  ranch owner keeps.”

  “Including your very own husky team,” Bess re-

  minded her.

  Alice nodded. “Our huskies are lovely, and they're

  such hard workers. They pull the dogsled whenever

  our guests want a ride. But our most interesting pet is

  the tame wolf, Rainbow. We found her as a three-

  week-old pup after her mother and litter mates

  drowned in the Elk River flood four years ago.”

  “Her mother drowned?” Bess exclaimed. “How sad!”

  “You should have seen her, poor thing,” Alice re-

  marked, sounding like a doting mother herself. “She

  was tiny, barely able to walk. Mother wolves usually

  bring their babies out of the den the first time when

  they're three to four weeks old. The puppies can't even

  see until they're about two weeks old. For all I know,

  that might have been Rainbow's first trip into the

  outside world. Losing your entire family at that age

  must have been devastating.”

  “You'd never want to go out of your den again,”

  George commented.

  “You wouldn't,” Alice agreed. “And Rainbow has

  always been kind of skittish. I understand her timid

  behavior is typical of a tame wolfs, but I also wonder if

  her early life traumatized her and made her even more

  scared of the world than most wolves are.”

  “Is she scared of you?” Nancy asked.

  “At first she was,” Alice replied. “But now she loves

  us—myself, John, Jenny, and now Paul. But she's ex-

  tremely shy with other people. Of course, now that she

  has her puppies, she's become especially protective.”

  “Wolf puppies!” Bess exclaimed. “I bet they're cute.”

  Alice's green eyes glowed with pride. “They are to-

  tally adorable,” she declared. “If you girls are really

  quiet and Rainbow doesn't seem too stressed out, it

  might be okay for you to see them.”

  “We'll be quiet—I promise,” Nancy said. “It'd be

  great to meet them, but only if that's okay with Rain-

  bow.”

  “We'll play it by ear,” Alice said. “I know Grover

  would be cool about having visitors. He's the father, by

  the way.”

  “Your pet husky?” Nancy asked, surprised that a dog

  and a wolf could have puppies.

  “A lot of people don't realize that dogs and wolves

  are so closely related that they can produce puppies,”

  Alice said. “Wolfdog puppies are really cute, even if

  they can be kind of wild.”

  Just as Nancy was about to ask Alice more about

  Rainbow's puppies, a ramshackle house in the middle

  of a field of rusty junk poking out of the snow appeared

  on their right. Nancy gaped in astonishment. She'd

  never seen a junkyard quite so big. Old refrigerators,

  cars, and tractors half-shrouded in white lay in heaps

  on about five acres of property, while a scattering of

  pigs rooted aimlessly among the piles.

  A wooden sign in front of the driveway warned

  passersby, Keep Out, with red paint that dripped from

  each letter like blood. A skull and crossbones was

  crudely painted underneath the words.

  Before Nancy could ask Alice who lived there, a

  pudgy, hostile-looking man with gray hair, a long

  beard, and wearing a dirty barn jacket leaped in front

  of the Jeep.

  Alice screeched on her brakes as the man stared at

  them, a crazed gleam flickering in his flint gray eyes.

  He raised his arms, aiming a slingshot straight at the

  windshield of their car!

  2. Elk River Ranch

  Alice and Bess ducked, leaving Nancy and George

  exposed in the backseat. The rock inside the slingshots

  elastic pouch glistened.

  “Get down girls!” Alice yelled, her voice muffled by

  the dashboard and front seat. “He's going to shoot that

  thing any second!”

  Bending her head toward her knees, Nancy sneaked

  a peek at the man. He was grinning at them, jumping

  up and down, obviously enjoying every moment of

  discomfort he was causing them. Then, for no apparent

  reason, he lowered his weapon and jogged over to

  Alice's window.

  The man rapped rudely on the glass, and Alice

  raised her head, her eyes wide with fright. The

  sprinkling of freckles on her nose stood out against her

  milk white skin.

  Laughing in an eerie, high-pitched tone, the man

  made a mocking gesture toward the road, as if he were

  kindly allowing them to proceed. Without waiting

  another second, Alice floored the accelerator, and the

  Jeep peeled away.

  “Do you know that guy, Alice?” Bess asked, her blue

  eyes pools of fear as she cautiously raised her head. “I

  hope he's not one of your neighbors.”

  “Unfortunately, Rusty is our nearest neighbor,”

  Alice replied, her voice trembling. “But I wish he lived

  on the other side of the world. He's a hermit, and he

  doesn't want anyone t
o bug him. But he delights in

  bugging everyone else.”

  “Rusty?” Nancy repeated. “His name seems to fit all

  that junk he's got in his yard.”

  Alice laughed hollowly. “Rusty Marconi's nickname

  does come from all that junk. No one around here is

  even sure what his real first name is.”

  “I take it he's kind of a tough character,” George

  said dryly.

  “ Tough' doesn't begin to describe him,” Alice ex-

  plained. “Even though we can't see his property from

  our house, it borders our land on one side and makes

  this approach to Elk River Ranch look pretty awful.”

  “Does it discourage people from staying at the

  lodge?” Bess asked, smoothing her long blond hair.

  “I think it must,” Alice answered. “I mean, we've

  never had a problem keeping the lodge full because it's

  such a nice place to stay and we don't have that many

  guest rooms. Still, I have the feeling that Rusty's junk

  so near the ranch might discourage guests. Most

  people want to come to Wyoming to take in its

  gorgeous untouched beauty, and they have to be

  turned off by Rusty's place. Our guests have been too

  polite to speak negatively about it, but they are shocked

  by how much junk he's collected over the years. The

  place is an environmental disaster.”

  “Have you tried to get him to clean it up?” Nancy

  asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Alice said. “The first few years we lived

  here, we asked him to clean it up several times, and we

  were always very diplomatic. But when a nice approach

  got us nowhere, we went to the Montrose town council

  and asked them to help. Unfortunately, they can do

  very little, because there's no law against keeping junk

  in your yard. And our complaints only made Rusty

  more hostile because he resented being told what to do

  with his property.”

  “But the community has to have some rights, too,

  doesn't it?” Nancy asked. “I mean, it's not fair for one

  crazy guy to be able to hurt everyone's enjoyment of

  the area and make it harder for you to rent out rooms.

  Plus, all that stuff he has probably isn't good for the

  land. Old gasoline from his broken-down cars might