Nancy Drew Files – Case 95 – An Instinct for Trouble

from falling asleep. She circled the camp-

ground, then walked halfway down the road

that led to the highway. Stopping just before

the last bend, she saw a truck move by, its

empty rear end rattling.

She tensed. It seemed odd to be traveling

through the park at that hour. Without stop-

ping to think, she raced down the road, reach-

ing the highway just in time to see the truck

turn into the woods about a quarter of a mile

east. It looked to Nancy to be near the spot

where Piker and Richard had been working on

the new trail.

She jogged to the place where the truck had

disappeared, realizing that there was a dirt

access road there. The maintenance men had

probably used it to move supplies into their

work area.

Nancy turned in and kept running. She’d

covered about a half a mile when she saw the

truck parked up ahead. She slowed and made

her way up to it cautiously.

She heard a low voice on the far side of the

cab. It was Richard! A flashlight clicked on,

illuminating the figures of the two mainte-

nance men.

“Hurry up,” Piker said. “We’ve got a lot of

work to do.”

“Yeah,” Richard replied. “I’m not looking

forward to carrying all those cages.”

Nancy’s spine stiffened. That meant the

marmots had to be stashed someplace near-

by.

The two men began moving forward. Nancy

followed at a safe distance. The access road

ended about twenty feet beyond the truck,

dwindling into a path that wound up a hill-

side.

Her calf muscles were feeling the strain of

the climb, and she began to notice that the

trees were thinning out. Nancy spied a cabin to

the right of the trail. Piker unlocked the door

and the two of them went inside.

Nancy circled the cabin and saw a small

window in the back. She crept up to it, pulled

herself up, and peered in through the dusty

pane.

Her breath caught in her throat. Lining the

walls were dozens of cages of marmots. Nancy

could hear Piker. “That tranquilizer is strong.

They’ll be under for a few hours, plenty of

time to get them all into the truck and out of

here.” .

“How much longer do we have to hang

around here?” Richard asked.

Piker shrugged. “Until the boss gets back.

He said he wanted to nose around the camp to

make sure the kiddies were all in bed.”

Nancy let herself down from the window.

Any minute the boss could come back. She had

to get out of sight. She was turning to go when

two strong hands grabbed her and forced her

arms up behind her back!

Chapter Fourteen

Nancy’s captor hustled her around to the

front of the cabin, kicked the door open, and

shoved her through. She stumbled into the

light and fell to the floor. Piker and Richard

spun around, startled.

“We’ve got a visitor,” a familiar voice an-

nounced.

Nancy looked up. Jack Billings was standing

next to the open door, a revolver in his hand

pointed toward her.

She sat up cautiously as he approached. The

gun was about two feet from her face when she

noticed the bum scar on his hand.

Just then everything fell into place.

“Hello, Jeff,” she said as calmly as she

could. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that keep-

ing the same initials when you take an alias is

one of the oldest mistakes in the book?”

“You have been doing some investigating,

haven’t you?” he said.

Nancy swallowed. She desperately needed to

play for time. If she could stall the three of

them, Ned might come searching for her or

one of the patrol cars Martin Robbins had

assigned to the area might check up the access

road.

“Your poaching plan was pretty clever,” she

told Jack. “How did you come up with it?”

Jack leaned back against the doorjamb but

kept the gun pointed at Nancy. “I saw an

article a while back about Randy Dean and his

marmots. It said that people were paying a lot

of money for them.”

Nancy nodded, and he continued, apparent-

ly glad to have an appreciative audience. “A

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