Ned thought he had the rocky area pretty well figured out. “I believe there’s a shortcut we can take. It may be rough, but I think we’d better try it.”
The two scrambled off the path, over a series of jagged rocks, and came to another trail. They hurried along this in what they thought was the right direction.
Finally Nancy said, “I have a strange feeling we’re going in the wrong direction.”
“Then let’s turn around,” Ned suggested.
The two hurried on. The trail ended. They looked far below them but could see no sign of the car. Furthermore, they could not see Fleetfoot or anyone else.
“Ned,” said Nancy, “don’t you think we’d better keep going down? Eventually we’ll come to the desert floor, and then maybe we can figure out how to get to the car.”
“All right,” he agreed.
The couple went on, first down, then up, then down again. At last they sat down to rest. They could see nothing around them but jagged red rocks.
Not a word was said for several minutes, but finally Ned spoke. “Nancy, I’m afraid we’re hopelessly lost.”
CHAPTER XIV
Hidden River
AFTER Ned announced that he and Nancy were lost in the Valley of Fire, the two stood up and looked around. They were silent for several minutes. Each was trying to figure out which way would lead them out of this maze, and they began to walk.
Finally, Nancy said, “I wonder if Fleetfoot is still around. He seemed to be familiar with this place and probably wouldn’t get lost.”
“But if he tried to follow us to get back the stone tablet you’re carrying,” Ned said, frowning, “he may not care how far we go. In the end he’ll outwit us.”
The two walked on. Long shadows began to creep across the landscape. The stranded couple did not want to spend the night in the Valley of Fire.
Nancy had just rounded another corner between two huge rock formations when she cried out, “The car! I see it!”
Ned looked too. The car was almost directly below them but far, far down. Both he and Nancy wondered how much they would have to slip and slide down the steep incline to reach it.
The two held hands, dug their heels into the sandy rock, and slowly went down in a zigzag course. They knew this had been the way Indians ascended and descended steep slopes.
“You all right?” Ned asked, as Nancy’s right foot suddenly skidded under her.
He kept her from falling and she declared that the slip had meant nothing. At last, to their relief, they were able to jump down the last few feet to the desert floor.
“Thank goodness!” Ned murmured.
They hurried forward to the car. Nancy wanted to look at the tablet again but thought it might not be wise. Fleetfoot could be spying on the couple, even with binoculars.
“Let’s get back to camp as soon as possible,” Nancy suggested as Ned took the wheel.
“If you don’t mind the bumps I can go over this flat desert as fast as you want. What do you say? One-hundred or one-hundred and fifty miles an hour?”
Nancy laughed and this broke the tension. They stopped worrying about Fleetfoot and realized how lucky they had been to find the tablet.
“Only five more to go,” Nancy said.
Ned groaned. “Only five?”
Barely three minutes had gone by when he and Nancy saw the bobbing lights of a car coming toward them.
“Oh I hope it’s not that thief!” Nancy said, worried.
The other automobile began to blow its horn incessantly. Was this a signal for Nancy and Ned to stop?
“Don’t stop!” Nancy begged.
Ned was debating whether or not he should shoot past the other car when his own headlights picked up the license plate of the oncoming automobile.
“It’s one of the camp cars!” he said.
Nancy was sure it was a rescue party and knew the rescuers must be Bess, George, Burt, and Dave.
“Am I glad to see you’re safe!” Bess exclaimed, as the vehicles pulled up side-by-side. “You had us worried sick!”
“Sorry,” Nancy said. “We got lost!”
The three couples sat and talked from the windows of their cars.
“Did you have any luck?” George asked.
“I’ll say,” Ned replied. “Nancy found one of the missing plaques.”
“Honestly?” George burst out. “Hypers! You’re really getting ahead of that thief Fleetfoot, Nancy.”
“But wait until you hear the rest of the story,” Ned said. He quickly brought the other four up to date on what had happened in the Valley of Fire.
“Some adventure!” Burt remarked. “Well, we’ll follow you back to camp.”
The person most delighted over Nancy’s find was Wanna. She looked at the tablet, trying to decide what the petroglyphs meant.
Presently she said excitedly, “I believe these pictures prove my theory that there is an underground river with gold nuggets on its shores.”
Nancy said she could hardly wait to start a search for the stream.
Dinner that evening had been delayed because of the camp’s worry over Nancy and Ned. But now everyone gathered for the outdoor get-together.
Each camper was given a large metal frying pan with wooden handles, and the delicious hot meal was put into this.
Afterward there was singing and guitar playing. Archie was in the front row, making wise-cracks and telling some corny jokes. Nancy’s group had to admit, nevertheless, that the young man had a very good singing voice.
“He ought to stick to singing,” Burt remarked, “and not try to tell jokes.”
When the concert was over, Bess said to Nancy, “I’m terribly worried about your having the tablet. Suppose Fleetfoot or one of his buddies comes in here and takes it!”
Ned overheard her. He answered the question. “Don’t worry. Several of the boys brought good watchdogs along. They’ll take care of any prowlers.” Bess felt better.
Her thought made Nancy decide to produce a faithful drawing of the petroglyphs on the plaque she had found. Then she asked George to walk with her to the kitchen unit.
“There’s always someone on duty there, and I think they’ll let me hide this tablet behind some of the food, where it won’t be noticed.”
The chef, who was just tidying up, was glad to have his place used for the hidden treasure. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Nancy,” he said. “I’ll be like a watchdog around here.”
It seemed to be no more than a few minutes between the time the girls said good night to one another and the time the alarm went off at five in the morning. Nancy, George, Wanna, and the two Nevada girls yawned but got out of bed. Bess merely turned over.
“Bess Marvin,” said George, “you’ll have to get up. We have work ahead of us.”
Bess merely grunted. “Why do I have to get up so early?”
George told her that if she did not, she would be left alone all day. Did she want that? The thought made Bess climb out of bed instantly.
Professor Maguire, the students from the University of Nevada, and all the Emerson boys except Ned, Burt, and Dave, had already chosen a site at which to start digging. Wanna had received permission to take Nancy’s group to another location. Bess and Dave borrowed a small sports model and would follow the others.
Nancy’s car was crowded, with five people and all their working equipment. “I sure hope we don’t get a flat tire!” Ned said.
Wanna directed the young man straight across the desert, which was only reasonably smooth for driving. The bumps set them all laughing, and made the journey seem shorter.
“We stop here,” the young Indian student said a little later. “We’ll walk down this hill to a water hole, which the Indians say is a spring bubbling up.”
When they reached the spot, Wanna pointed out what appeared to be no more than a pool of water that came out of the mountain and ran back into it on the other side.
Wanna saw the looks of disappointment on the faces of her frien
ds. “You expected more, I know,” she said, smiling. “I believe that at one time this was a tributary of the Muddy River. By the way, now it’s called the Moapa after the tribe of Indians that live nearby.
“I haven’t quite figured out just what happened. Perhaps there was a great landslide, and the only spot where the water bubbled to the surface was right here. But that wouldn’t have been enough for maybe a thousand people. So they moved out.”
Nancy asked, “Do you think the Indians needed water badly and might have tried to tunnel into the river so it wouldn’t stop running?”
“It’s a fascinating idea, Nancy,” Wanna replied. “Maybe someday we can find out. One thing I do know is that the well where the poor young man lost his life is very close.”
“Let’s not stand around talking any longer,” Ned suggested. “Come on, fellows, we’ll bring the tools down from the car and see if we can unearth this stream with the hidden gold plates.”
As work started a few minutes later, Nancy reminded the others that they were not to dig fast and furiously.
“Remember,” she said, “we are to take a shovelful at a time and put it through a sieve.”
There was complete silence for a while. Bess sat down to work with a sieve, since her ankle ached a little, while Dave carried shovelfuls of earth for her to sift.
An hour went by. Each one in the group hoped to find some ancient treasure, but so far nothing had turned up.
Nancy walked over to Bess and dropped to the ground beside her. “Would you rather go back to the car and rest?” she asked.
“No, no,” Bess replied, “but what I think I will do is lie back and relax for a while.”
Nancy stayed there and took up one shovelful after another of the soil. No interesting items showed up. She kept digging deeper. In a little while the young sleuth reached a very wet place. Was this part of an underground river?
She called to Wanna, who came over. The geologist was excited.
“Nancy, I think you’ve figured out the direction of the underground stream. Apparently it wasn’t straight.”
As she was speaking, Nancy dug up another shovelful of sandy dirt. She put it into the sieve and began to shake the contents.
“Oh, I’ve come across something!” she exclaimed.
Nancy picked up a small round object and cleaned it off as best she could in the muddy water.
“It’s a turquoise bead!” she cried out. “Exactly like those in your necklace, Wanna!”
Before Wanna could pick up the gem, Bess screamed. “Nancy, throw that bead away! Throw it away! That’s bad luck!”
CHAPTER XV
Gold!
AT Bess’s frantic request, Nancy laid the turquoise bead on the ground. Now she looked toward Wanna and asked her if she believed the lovely little light-blue gem would harm her.
The young Indian geologist smiled. “No, I think not. Keep it.”
As Nancy slipped the turquoise into her pocket, Bess set her lips primly. She said nothing but Nancy knew she was worried.
“Please don’t panic, Bess,” she said. “At the first sign of my becoming ill or acting strangely, you take the turquoise away from me.”
“I don’t want it!” Bess said firmly.
The others laughed and finally Bess’s dimpled cheeks broke into a grin. “You win,” she said.
The little group of young archaeologists continued to work industriously for some time before anything else was found.
George sighed. “This is becoming monotonous. If I could only find a piece of a bowl or an arrowhead or something, it would be more exciting.”
Wanna looked at her. “Archaeologists must develop an unbelievable amount of patience. They sometimes work for weeks before making a discovery.”
There was silence again for some time. Suddenly it was broken by Bess, who gave a loud squeal of delight. “Here’s a real treasure!” she exclaimed.
Her shovel had brought up a small clay doll, which had broken into several pieces.
“You’re lucky,” Dave remarked. “If you like I’ll help you put it together.”
“Thanks a million,” Bess told him.
The two carefully worked on the doll as if it were a jigsaw puzzle. Finally they figured out exactly how to put it together. Only one small piece was missing.
“Suppose you hunt for that little piece,” said Dave, “while I go for the cement. It’s up in the car.”
While he scrambled up the hill, Bess took a sieve and carefully put the remaining dirt from the shovel into it. The missing piece was not there.
“Too bad,” Wanna remarked. Then she smiled. “Maybe it will make the clay doll look more authentic.”
Dave returned in a little while with a tube of statuary cement and half an hour later the ancient doll had been repaired.
Nancy had been looking on. Now she said, “Since the doll was not buried very deep, it probably belongs to the fourth, or top, layer of civilization here—the people who lived in pit houses.”
Wanna nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. Bess, you may have the honor of presenting it to the museum. The curator and the state will certainly be thrilled.”
Bess would have liked to keep her interesting souvenir, but she knew this was against the rules. She must turn it in.
Meanwhile the other searchers had been concentrating on digging straight down, with the hope of eventually finding the underground river. By now the hole was fairly deep.
Nancy looked at her watch. “Time for a mid-morning snack,” she called out.
Everyone was glad to stop work in the terrific heat. At that moment Ned and Burt, suspended on ropes, were down in the hole, working.
“It’s much cooler down here,” Ned called up. “How about sending something down?”
“No,” Nancy said. “Our instructions were to stop work at a certain time. We must eat and rest a while.”
Reluctantly the two boys pulled themselves up. Everyone sat down while Nancy passed around the food the chef had packed for them.
George served the cold drinks. As she walked around, she began chanting:
Time to rest and eat
In 102 degrees,
Oh where is there a place
Where I can slowly freeze?
The others laughed, and Burt suggested that the next archaeological dig she went on had better be at the North Pole.
All of them found that the ground was getting hotter, and they wondered how long they could stand it. While they were discussing this, the group suddenly became aware of a low roaring sound.
“What is that?” Bess asked quickly. It was evident she was nervous.
The sound grew louder. Then, before anyone had a chance to run, a geyser of water gushed from the hole where the boys had been digging! The force of the water soaked the young people and knocked some of them down. The others scattered.
The water continued to squirt from the hole. Everyone was wet but uninjured.
As suddenly as it had shot up, the stream subsided. Not another drop came from the big hole.
“Thank goodness Nancy made us come topside,” Ned remarked to Burt.
“Yes, we’d have shot into the air like a couple of rubber clowns,” Burt replied.
“That geyser was the strangest thing I ever saw,” George commented. “Wanna, what’s the explanation for such a phenomenon?”
The geologist said there could be several explanations, but the one she favored was that the geyser had come from the underground river. Something had given it great impetus. The stream must have found an opening, and the force behind it had sent the water shooting into the air.
“Now that force is gone,” she said. “It’s my guess the river is continuing to run along peacefully.”
Nancy wondered if such a geyser had ever erupted down at the water hole. Perhaps this was how it had been formed in the first place. Everyone in the group continued to talk for some time about the strange phenomenon.
Then George remarked, “You know I was
singing about giving me a place to freeze. That geyser was like ice water, but it sure felt good.”
In the heat not only their clothes but the terrain dried up in a very short time.
“I’d like to go down to the bottom of that hole and investigate,” Ned said.
There was a short discussion about this. Some thought it was too dangerous. There might be a cave-in, or another geyser might shoot up.
Ned laughed. “Let’s take a vote! Everybody in favor of my going, put up a hand!”
Bess and Dave did not raise theirs, but they were the only ones who were opposed. Ned was tied securely, and the other boys held the rope to help him descend slowly. George grabbed the end of it to lend extra strength if necessary.
Ned reported that while the sides of the hole were muddy and it grew narrower, he could see the bottom with his strong flashlight.
“It looks like water down there all right,” he said.
For several minutes there was no report, and the two holding the rope began to wonder if everything was all right.
Finally Burt called down, “You okay?”
There was a muffled answer of “Yes, I’m okay. This is some hole.”
Less than a minute later, there was a tug on the rope, and slowly Dave and George pulled Ned to the surface. He was a sight, and the others began to laugh. Ned was covered from head to foot with mud.
He ignored the laughter and said, “He who laughs last laughs best. This time I have the last laugh. Look here!”
Ned held up a gold nugget.
Now everyone became excited. Ned said he was sure that he had reached the underground river. “Digging along its banks may reveal an ancient Indian village—the Forgotten City.”
Nancy’s eyes were shining with excitement as she added, “And eventually the golden sheets!”
Wanna was happy too. But she was less demonstrative.
“We mustn’t allow ourselves to be disappointed if we’re wrong,” she said, “even though I want to believe this fairy tale as much as you do.”
Nancy advised that the group keep the whole matter a secret. “I’m afraid if the story leaks out, we’ll be overrun with gold seekers!”
The others agreed.