Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew by The Kachina Doll Mystery Page B

safe is for me to find out who is pretending to be Ngyun—and why. Once we know that, we’ll all be safe.”
    Riding along the wash in the bright sunlight was far different from the previous night, and Nancy found herself enjoying the fresh, morning air and the glimpses of all the desert creatures that seemed to be busy making their own repairs after the flood. The wash showed the marks of the racing waters, with gouges in the damp earth and the clutter of debris that had been dropped when the rain ended and the runoff slowed to a trickle.
    As they rounded the bend near the end of the wash, Nancy stopped Pepper Pot and stared to her left. “I guess that’s the answer to my ghostly rider’s disappearance,” she said, pointing to the rough trail that led from the floor of the wash to the rim. “In all the rain and confusion, I didn’t even see that last night.”
    “Want to follow it?” George asked.
    “Might as well.” Nancy guided the obedient bay toward the narrow trail, then clung to the saddle as he made a rather bounding climb up it. George and Bess followed, sending a small hail of loose earth into the wash.
    “It must have been someone who knows this area well,” Nancy observed, looking around the open hills. “Whoever it was led me into that ravine on purpose, then got out of it just before the runoff from the surrounding hills turned it into a flood channel.”
    “Now we know why they call them washes,” Bess murmured, looking back.
    “So where do we go from here? George asked.
    Nancy considered, then pointed to a distant clump of trees. “If I’d just come out of that wash in the middle of a storm, I think I’d be looking for shelter,” she said, “and those trees are the closest.”
    George nodded. “Heather says those spring thunderstorms never last long, so whoever it was would know that, too. ”
    The shady ground beneath the trees was soft and still wet, since the strong Arizona sun couldn’t reach it to dry it out as it had the rest of the area. Nancy dismounted at once, handing her reins to Bess. It took her only a moment to locate a set of hoofprints.
    “Looks as if you were right,” George said, joining her on the ground.
    “It’s too bad the area beyond here is so rocky,” Nancy complained. “Otherwise, we could try some of Ngyun’s tracking.”
    “The tracks lead that way,” George said, following them to the edge of the trees and a few yards beyond. “Right into that loose shale.”
    “Now what?” Bess asked.

    Nancy returned to the shade of the trees, walking under the low-hanging boughs till her eyes were caught by a flash of bright red color on the thorny tip of a mesquite bush. She went to pick up the piece of cloth, then smiled. “Now we have two things to look for,” she said triumphantly. “Someone with a pinto horse, and a red shirt or jacket with a big tear in it. ”
    “Wonderful,” George congratulated her. “Once everyone hears about this, Ngyun’s name will be cleared and Maria won’t have to worry about sending him to his mother.”
    Nancy sobered. “He’ll be cleared when we find the person with the pinto horse and the torn clothes,” she corrected, then added, “and maybe then we’ll also find out why he did all these things and arranged it so they’d be blamed on Ngyun.”
    “It does seem strange,” Bess and George agreed as the girls mounted again, and they all turned the horses toward the resort.
    “Maybe Heather will have some answers for us when we get back,” George suggested as they loped along.
    They were feeling very pleased with their discoveries when they turned the horses loose in the corral after unsaddling them. “I hope you can get this settled so you can concentrate on the Kachina ghost,” Bess told Nancy as they walked toward the rear garden.
    To their surprise, no one came out to greet them, and when they entered the kitchen, neither Heather nor Maria even looked up. “Hey, Nancy found some clues,” George called.