The Message in the Hollow Oak

by Carolyn Keene

  There were exclamations of surprise, and a boy named Todd Smith shook his head, saying, “You’ll never do it.”

  Julie Anne came to Nancy’s defense. “There’s no harm in trying,” she remarked. “Anyway, I expect Nancy to find something important right here in this dig.”

  Nancy laughed and said she hoped she would not disappoint anyone.

  “You won’t,” Julie Anne assured her. Presently the boys said good night and went off to their own quarters at another farmhouse. Nancy was placed with five girls who shared a dormitory-type bedroom.

  The only bureau in it stood next to her cot, and was already filled with the other girls’ clothes, so she did not unpack hers. But she opened her suitcase to take out Bess’s cookies which she passed around to her roommates. They set the leftovers in the box on top of the bureau.

  Nancy undressed hurriedly and crawled into bed. She fell asleep instantly, but soon afterward was aroused by a weird voice calling, “Na-an-cy Dr-ew!”

  Before she could force herself wide awake, something hit her on the head.

  CHAPTER IV

  Rough Ride

  THE object which had struck Nancy was not heavy and had not injured her. But the sensation awakened her fully. She looked straight ahead and blinked in disbelief. Two eyes were shining in the darkness. An animal!

  Quickly Nancy felt under her pillow and pulled out a flashlight, which she always kept within reach when camping. She beamed it directly on the two eyes.

  “Na-a-a! Na-a-a!”

  A goat! It had been after the cookies and had knocked the box off the bureau. By this time all the girls were awake and flashlights shone from every cot.

  “Oh!” Julie Anne cried out. “How did he get in here?”

  One of the girls, Susan Miller, lighted a lantern and the whole group began to giggle. Then they asked one another how the goat had managed to enter the house. Though the front and rear doors of the farmhouse had been closed, they were not locked.

  “And our bedroom door is open,” added Julie Anne. “My guess is that some of the boys played a joke on us.”

  Nancy spoke up. “If so, I guess it was meant for me, because just before the box of cookies fell on my head, someone called through the window here, ”Na-an-cy Dr-ew!”

  By this time she was trying to lead the goat from the room. Apparently remembering the cookies, he was reluctant to go.

  Nancy took a couple of them from the box and enticed the animal out of the house. She threw the cookies on the ground. gave him a gentle shove, then shut and locked the front door. Julie Anne had followed her and now decided to lock the rear door also.

  “It must have been the boys’ doings,” she said. “Who else would bother to come way out here to play a joke?”

  Nancy agreed. The girls returned to their cots and all the lights were turned off. Fortunately the disturbance had not awakened others who were in the house.

  In the morning the boys arrived early, and Theresa held a short Sunday religious service before breakfast. As they ate, the boys were questioned about having played a joke on Nancy and the other girls the night before. All of them looked blank and denied having had any part in it.

  Julie Anne did not believe them and tried to get them to admit their guilt. The boys, however, insisted they knew nothing about the trick.

  Nancy had begun to believe them, and this brought a new worry to her mind. Was it possible that Kit Kadle had followed up his announcement that she and Julie Anne would be seeing him? It seemed to Nancy a logical conclusion.

  If the man was determined to find the hollow oak with the message in it, and had learned she had solved many mysteries, it was highly possible he was nearby to spy on her. He would try to intimidate her into leaving the area. She said nothing about it to Julie Anne or the others.

  While Nancy was still speculating about Kadle, a farm truck came rattling into the yard. Everyone rushed outside.

  A tall, slender, slightly-stooped man stepped to the ground. The goat, which had been munching grass and herbs, walked over to him.

  “The man must be his owner,” Nancy thought as the stranger came forward.

  “Howdy, folks. Good mornin’. I see you got my goat.”

  Several of the girls giggled. Art called out, “Did we?”

  The farmer paid no attention to Art’s pun. He said, “I’m Clem Rucker and I live a piece away from here. Somebody opened my goat pen last night and took out Sammy Boy. Did one o’ you fellows do it?”

  The boys shook their heads. Nancy now explained what little she knew about the episode. Clem shrugged. “Some mysteries just ain’t goin’ to be solved.”

  His remark gave Nancy an idea. “Mr. Rucker, maybe you—”

  “Oh, call me Clem,” the farmer said. “I ain’t used to this mister stuff.”

  Nancy grinned. “All right. I have a map showing where there’s a certain oak tree I’d like to see. Will you wait a moment while I get the map?”

  She hurried into the farmhouse and was back in a couple of minutes. Nancy unfolded the sketch which the New York detective had made and showed it to Clem. He smiled.

  “I know all about this,” he said. “You’re lookin’ for the secret message in the oak tree, same as them city detectives who were up here on their vacation. Sure,” he added, “be glad to take you around. That is, if you don’t mind ridin’ in an old car.”

  “I don’t mind,” Nancy replied. “Of course I’ll pay you for the trip.”

  The two arranged a price and then Nancy turned to Julie Anne. “Could you get permission to go with me?”

  “I think so. Wait until I ask Theresa.” While she was asking, Nancy inquired when Clem could pick them up.

  He gave a wide grin. “Soon as I get Sammy Boy home, I’ll bring my car over and away we’ll go.”

  Nancy was delighted that she could start work at once on the hollow oak mystery. She was glad, too, when Julie Anne received permission to accompany her.

  Sammy Boy was lifted into the farm truck and Clem drove off. An hour later the old man was back.

  Nancy and Julie Anne found it hard to keep from laughing aloud at the conveyance which was to take them on their detective trip. The car was a very old four-passenger type with no top and had rather narrow wheels.

  Nancy thought, “This should be on exhibit in an antique car museum!”

  The two girls climbed into the back seat and Clem drove off. The old car was amazing. Though the cushions were worn thin and the girls bounced up and down on the rough road, the engine purred along satisfactorily. Clem was a fast driver and did not seem to mind the bumpiness of the ride.

  A few minutes later he turned off the road suddenly and started across a plowed field. The girls held on tightly. Clem pointed to his left.

  “See that little higher section with corn growin’ on it? That was once a dig and they found plenty o’ old Indian bones there.”

  “It certainly doesn’t look like much now,” Julie Anne remarked.

  “That’s right,” said Clem. “Folks is funny. They make such a to-do about takin’ care o’ cemeteries but they sure ain’t got no respect for the skeletons o’ folks that lived around here three or four hundred years ago.”

  Nancy made no comment. She was deep in thought, recalling how carefully the Egyptians of thousands of years ago preserved their mummies.

  Her reflections were interrupted when Clem made a sharp right turn and drove up a slightly hilly section.

  “Was this an Indian gravesite?” Julie Anne asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clem replied. “So far as I’ve heard, nobody has ever come to dig it up.”

  When he reached the top of the incline which had not been cultivated and was covered with coarse grass, he stopped abruptly.

  “Here’s the stump o’ that oak you’re lookin’ for, Nancy,” he said.

  Both girls hopped out of the car and went over to the stump. Nancy turned to Clem. “Where is the tree trunk?”

  He pointed down the
slope. Among some bushes lay a giant tree. Nancy hurried down to it. Facing her was a small lead plate embedded in the trunk. On the plate had been etched Père François 1675. Underneath the inscription was an arrow.

  The trunk was hollow but the outer part was still in good condition. The tree that had stood at the top of the slope more than three hundred years ago apparently had been blown over recently.

  Nancy remarked, “I understand that when the tree was standing, the arrow pointed east.”

  Clem chuckled. “Now I just might be able to help you figure out that one.”

  The girls watched him as he walked along the side of the tree, then climbed back to the stump. After two such trips he said, “I reckon from the pattern o’ that stump and the bottom o’ this tree that they fitted together so the arrow pointed due east.”

  “Can you drive us in that direction?” Nancy asked.

  “You never get anywhere if you don’t try,” Clem answered with a chuckle.

  They all climbed into his old car and he set off. Clem continued to drive through farms and woods. Once they forded a stream. But he avoided taking any of the roads, although they had crossed several of them.

  “Roads ain’t much better’n the fields,” he explained with a grin. “Besides, they wind around too much. We can go quicker this way. I’m aimin’ for a nice picnic spot.”

  “That’s good,” said Julie Anne. “I’m starved.” Five minutes later Clem stopped near a stream and they all got out. Julie Anne and Nancy had packed enough lunch for all of them. Clem also started to open a package of food.

  “My wife Hortense,” he said, “makes the best beaten biscuits you ever ate. Then she opens ‘em and puts a little fishball inside. I brought along some of ’em.”

  The girls found the stuffed beaten biscuits delicious and said so. “Please tell your wife they’re great,” Nancy added, “and thanks to you both for supplying part of the lunch.”

  While they ate, Clem told one exaggerated story after another and kept the girls laughing all the time.

  “One more and then we got to go,” he said. “Once there was an Indian fishin’ in the Ohio River. That ain’t a long way from here, you know. He was standin’ in the water with a club in his hand gettin’ ready to whack a fish when it swam past. Well, a fish come along all right, but before the Indian had a chance to whack it, the thing jumped right out o’ the water and knocked him over.”

  “What a whopper!” Julie Anne exclaimed.

  “Now that ain’t so much of a whopper as you might think,” Clem replied. “We used to have catfish in the Ohio River as big as seals.”

  Clem said there were no more big fish in the river, then abruptly changed the subject. “Would you like to see my good-luck coin?”

  He drew a coin from his pocket the size of a half dollar and handed it to Nancy. The wording on the coin was so worn that she could not make it out and reached into a pocket of her jeans for a magnifying glass. Nancy held it over the coin.

  A moment later she asked excitedly, “Clem, do you know what it says on here?”

  CHAPTER V

  Air Spy

  JULIE Anne and Clem listened in fascination while Nancy translated what was engraved on the coin. It was in French. At the top were the initials P. F. and underneath a short prayer.

  “Père François!” exclaimed Julie Anne.

  “I’m sure it is,” said Nancy. “He must have dropped it in this area or else the Indians took it away from him and lost it themselves.”

  There was no date on the metal disk but the girls assumed it was over three hundred years old.

  “This isn’t exactly a good-luck piece,” Nancy stated. “It’s much more.”

  Clem looked at her intently. “Whatever it is, it don’t mean nothin’ to me. I bought it from the lad who found it. I’m givin’ it to you, Nancy.”

  “May I pay you something for it?” she asked.

  Clem Rucker laughed. “What would I do with a lot o’ money? I only gave that lad twenty-five cents, so I’m not out much.”

  “Well, this is a fabulous gift,” Nancy said, “and I shall treasure it.”

  “Anyway,” said Clem, standing up, “I hope it brings you good luck in solvin’ the mystery o’ the hollow oak. We’d better go on.”

  He followed a course due east and in about half an hour they came to another hollow oak. This one was still standing and from its size they judged it was centuries old. Clem said he thought the tree might have been there as long as four hundred years.

  Nancy walked around the oak and found a rotted-out section. She beamed her flashlight inside and put her face to the edge of the hole to see what was in the cavity. Unfortunately she found nothing.

  No marker was showing but there was definitely a hump at one place in the bark. Clem produced a chisel from his car. He and Nancy took turns chipping and peeling off bark until they uncovered part of a lead plate.

  A short time later the three searchers became aware of a helicopter circling overhead. As they glanced up, Nancy detected someone with binoculars looking at them.

  “He’s spying on us!”

  The copter suddenly flew off and disappeared. But not before Nancy had opened her purse and written down the license number on a pad. She suspected that Kit Kadle might be a passenger in the helicopter and she meant to find out.

  “Have you ever seen that copter before?” Nancy asked Clem.

  “Oh yes,” the farmer replied. “Guess he’s one o’ them free-lance pilots. Takes folks up to give ‘em a bird’s-eye view of the burial mounds and the river.”

  Meanwhile Julie Anne, who had taken the chisel from Clem, had chipped off more of the bark. Suddenly she exclaimed, “Here’s another Père François plate! There’s no date on this one and only the initials P. F., but I can see a faint arrow. This one points directly south.”

  “It may lead to what was once an Indian settlement,” Nancy mused. “We know Père François traveled from village to village trying to convert the Indians.”

  “Could be,” said the farmer, “but I don’t reckon we can find out today. I’m sorry, ladies, but I have to get home now and tend to my chores.”

  “When can you help us again?” Nancy asked him.

  Clem said he would not be able to for another three days and he did not know of anyone else who might take Nancy around on her search.

  “Anyway,” said Julie Anne, “I won’t be able to leave the dig.”

  “He’s spying on us!” Nancy exclaimed

  Nancy was disappointed over the delay. But in the meantime she would try to find out about the helicopter pilot and who his passenger was.

  Clem took a shortcut back to the dig. The girls thanked him for the trip and said they would expect him in three days.

  As Clem drove away, Nancy thought, “I’ll have to figure a way to get to town so I can find out about that copter.”

  It was nearly suppertime and the diggers had stopped work. Nancy and Julie Anne found the other girls preparing a wholesome meal. Meanwhile, the bovs were cleaning the artifacts and fossils which they had discovered at the bottom of a new pit.

  All of them were eager to hear what progress Nancy had made on her case. She related the details, including Clem’s story about the catfish. The others laughed and Art burst into a song from the opera Porgy and Bess about Catfish Row.

  When he finished, Nancy announced, “I’d like to drive some place to make a phone call. I forgot to ask Clem if he has a telephone.”

  Art spoke up. “I have a two-seater motorcycle here,” he told her. “I’ll be glad to take you to town.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Nancy said. “Could we go tomorrow morning?”

  “You bet,” he said. “But it will have to be early. My shift begins at ten A.M.”

  “Where do you think the pilot came from?” Nancy asked him.

  Art said there was a small airfield outside the town of Walmsley, the nearest one to the dig.

  They had a very early breakfast a
nd left the dig site at seven o’clock. Art drove directly to Walmsley and went on to the airfield which was about three miles out of town.

  When they arrived Nancy stepped into the office and asked who owned the helicopter with the license number she had copied on her pad. She showed it to the man in charge.

  “Oh, that’s Roscoe Thompson,” he replied. “Is he around now? I’d like to speak to him,” Nancy said.

  Thompson was at the end of the field checking his helicopter. Nancy and Art walked over to him.

  Roscoe proved to be a very pleasant young man and gladly answered Nancy’s questions. His passenger the day before had been a man named Tom Wilson.

  “Where does he come from?” Nancy questioned.

  “I really don’t know. He didn’t talk much. Said he wanted to make the trip over the site of the various Indian burial mounds. Mr. Wilson was interested to learn their locations because he’s an amateur archaeologist.

  “By the way,” Roscoe went on, “Mr. Wilson was very curious about two girls and a man who were hacking at an oak tree. Was one of them you?”

  “Yes,” Nancy admitted. “Why did your passenger want to know what I was doing?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Roscoe asked Nancy if she would like to speak to Tom Wilson. When she said Yes, the pilot told her he expected the man to arrive at the airfield about midmorning.

  “I’ll introduce you,” he said.

  This was just what Nancy wanted! She turned to Art, “Could you possibly stay a little longer?”

  The archaeology student shook his head. “Sorry, but a promise is a promise. I must be back at the dig by ten. Several of us are working on a certain section and each one of us has a particular task.”

  “I understand,” Nancy said.

  Seeing Nancy’s look of disappointment, Art said, “Maybe this Tom Wilson will get here before ten. I can give you a half hour. In the meantime I’ll run into town and pick up some food supplies.”

  Nancy was grateful. “I’ll make a few phone calls. If Mr. Wilson should arrive, will you let me know?” she asked Roscoe.