Frustrated, she was about to put the photo away when she noticed a small white spot on the person’s nose. She studied it closely but couldn’t tell what it was. It could just be a speck of dust on the lens of the enlarger.
She slipped the photo into her pocket just as she heard Ned, Jennifer, and Alicia come down the path from the feeding station.
“Welcome to Camp Marmotville,” Alicia called.
“Thanks,” Nancy replied. “How’s it going?”
“We’ve got the packing under control,” Jennifer said. “Hey, you haven’t seen my dad, have you?”
“He left here in a Jeep about forty-five minutes ago,” Bess reported.
Jennifer frowned. “Huh. He was supposed to meet us up the hill, but he never showed up. I think I’ll check the other feeding stations. Maybe a problem came up.” She walked off toward the road.
“Are those maintenance guys around today?” Nancy asked.
“I haven’t seen them,” Ned replied.
“What about Jack?” Nancy went on. “Is he still at the feeding station?”
“No. He came through about an hour ago but said he had paperwork to do,” Ned explained. “I’m sure he’ll show up in a little while.”
“So you guys moved out here just in time for our big cookout,” Alicia said, smiling.
“Cookout?” Bess asked with interest.
“Our farewell dinner,” Alicia explained. “To celebrate the end of stage two of the study. I’m about to make potato salad. Anyone want to help?”
Bess gave Nancy an inquiring look, then said, “Sure, I’m game.”
As they walked away, Nancy told Ned about Richard and Piker’s references. “Can you get away? I want to check those guys out.”
“Sure,” Ned said. “I’ll just take the time.”
“I’m a little concerned about Professor Trainey now, Ned,” Nancy said as she started the car and headed for the western entrance of the park.
She told Ned about the photograph she found in Trainey’s tent. “What if I’ve been wrong about him? If he knew who was in that photo and went to confront him, he could be in danger.”
“Do you think we should go back and look for him?” Ned asked.
Nancy shook her head. “Let’s leave that to Jennifer for now.”
The narrow road led down into a valley and across a railroad track into a town. She turned onto the main street. It was lined with two-story wood frame buildings and resembled the set for a western.
Just past the business district was a white building with a green slate roof. The sign out front identified it as the town hall. Nancy parked, and they walked in.
The Ashland Police Department occupied one big room on the ground floor. A husky man of about thirty was sitting at one of the two desks. The name plate on the desk said Chief Tucker. As Nancy and Ned approached the counter separating the waiting area from the office, he raised his head with a friendly smile. “Hi, folks, can I help you?”
Nancy introduced herself and Ned and explained that they were investigating a poaching scheme in Yellowstone Park. “You can call Chief Ranger Robbins to check us out,” she added.
“Thanks, I’ll do that.” He swiveled to face the telephone and spoke for a couple of minutes, then turned back to them. “Well, now, Nancy and Ned, what can I do for you?”
“We need information about two men named Richard Geismar and Piker Slattery,” Nancy said. “According to their files, they grew up in Ashland.”
Tucker frowned. “Those names don’t ring a bell, but I’ve only been here three years.” He went over to the file cabinets along the back wall. “We’ve got files here that go back pretty far,” he remarked as he flipped through one of the drawers. “If either of these guys were ever involved in anything illegal, it should show in this drawer. Ah, here we go.”
He returned to his desk with two manila folders and began to leaf through them. “Well, well,” he said. “Definitely not model citizens. Vandalism, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, arson. They did time for that one.”
“Wow,” Ned said. “It looks like you were right to suspect them, Nancy.”
Tucker showed her a photo of a much younger Piker. “That’s one of them,” she confirmed.
“You watch your step with these fellows,” Tucker said. “You know who could tell you all about them? Margery Milliken, the principal at the consolidated high school before she retired. Go down to the end of the street and turn right,” he said, gesturing. “It’s a white house. I’ll call to tell her you’re coming.”
Nancy thanked Tucker for his help, and she and Ned returned to the car. They found the house easily. The woman waiting on the porch steps was wearing a dark skirt and a white blouse. Her gray hair was twisted up in a french roll. A pair of reading glasses dangled from her neck.
“Ms. Drew, Mr. Nickerson? I’m Margery Milliken. I understand you want some information about two of my former students. Come in.”
She motioned them to the sofa. “Now, what do you want to know about Richard and Piker?”
“Whatever you can tell us,” Nancy replied.
The woman tightened her lips, then shook her head sadly. “Not among my successes, I’m afraid. They both had bad records in school. But I think they might have straightened out if it hadn’t been for Jeff Barnes. He was a year younger than they, but there was no question who was the ringleader, especially at the end.”
“What happened?” Ned asked.
Ms. Milliken clicked her tongue. “One night the three of them stole a car. When it ran low on gas, they broke into a filling station about twenty miles west of here. To cover their tracks, they set the place on fire, but something went wrong. Jeff’s hand was badly burned, and of course they were caught. Richard and Piker went to jail, but Jeff was still a juvenile, so he was given a suspended sentence. The Barnes family moved away right after that, and Richard and Piker have never shown their faces around here since.
“Thank you so much,” Nancy said. They chatted a little while longer. Then Nancy and Ned told Ms. Milliken goodbye and returned to the car. Ned offered to drive.
Nancy was certain now that Richard and Piker were involved in the poaching, but they didn’t sound like the organizers. Who then? If that Jeff Barnes were around, he’d be a perfect candidate.
By the time they got back to camp, the sun was low in the sky. Preparations for the cookout were in full swing.
“Ned?” Alicia asked. “Could you bring that big table from the shed? Jack said he’d do it this morning, but he never showed up.”
“Sure,” Ned said, and headed off.
“Is your father back?” Nancy asked Jennifer.
Jennifer was obviously worried. “No, and I can’t understand it. Where can he be?”
Nancy wanted to say something reassuring, but she was worried herself.
When darkness fell, Nancy helped Ned build a fire while Bess set out plates, napkins, and bowls of cole slaw and potato salad. The hamburgers and franks tasted delicious, but Professor Trainey’s absence spoiled the good time. People kept glancing over their shoulders into the surrounding darkness, then inching closer to the fire.
“Maybe Jack and the professor went off together and had car trouble,” Alicia suggested.
Jennifer shook her head. “Jack has a two-way radio in his car,” she pointed out. “All rangers do. He could have called the station and had somebody come by with a message.”
Nancy’s thoughts spun. What if her original idea, that Trainey was the head of the poachers, was right after all, and Jack had discovered it? Trainey and his gang might be holding Jack captive to keep him from interfering with the last phase of the operation.
As the party broke up, Nancy took Ned and Bess aside. “We have to take turns keeping watch tonight,” she told them, checking her watch. “It’s just eleven. I’ll take the first two hours, then Ned can spell me.”
Bess nodded and quickly ducked into the tent, leaving Nancy and Ned alone in the moonlight.
/> “Should I stay with you?” Ned asked. “It might be safer.”
Nancy put her arms around his neck. “I’d love you to, but you might distract me from my job. Besides, you need to rest before your shift.”
“All right. Be careful, Nan,” Ned whispered. He gave her a lingering kiss, then went to his tent.
Nancy watched him go with a sense of regret and loneliness. She crossed the campground to the spot she had picked out earlier, next to a large lodgepole pine. It gave her a clear view of the campsite but kept her hidden in deep shadows.
The camp grew quiet. In the distance an owl hooted. Somewhere closer, an animal crept stealthily through the underbrush. Nancy shivered and pulled the zipper of her jacket up higher. Ghostly wisps of white fog began to drift by. Nancy shifted her position, folded her arms tight against her chest, and scanned the camp.
As the minutes ticked by, she felt her eyes closing. So she decided to walk around to keep from falling asleep. She circled the campground, 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 stopping to think, she raced down the road, reaching 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 maintenance 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 nearby.
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 hillside.
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 announced.
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 burn 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 keeping 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, apparently glad to have an appreciative audience. “A little later I was sorting the mail at the ranger station when I came across a letter from Trainey about the marmot study. I saw my chance right away and volunteered to serve as liaison to the project.”
“And you managed to get Richard and Piker hired as maintenance men in spite of their forged references,” Nancy guessed.
“You hear that, guys?” Jack said mockingly. “She’s onto you.”
“Come on, enough chitchat,” Richard said. “Let’s pack up and get out of here.”
Anger flashed across Jack’s handsome face. “I’m the one who makes the decisions around here,” he growled. “Get those cages into the truck. I’ll make our guest comfortable.”
While Piker and Richard started carrying cages out of the cabin, he took some rope and tied Nancy’s wrists behind her back, then tugged her toward a door in the corner of the room.
“Hey, Prof,” he called, shoving it open, “here’s some company for you.”
Trainey was sitting on the floor of the small storeroom, his hands tied behind his back. His face was caked with dried blood from a gash on his forehead. “Are you all right?” she asked as Jack pushed her down beside him.
He nodded. “I’m sorry they got you, too,” he said in a low voice.
“I’m sorry we got either of you,” Jack cut in. “I don’t like complications. I did my best to convince you to stay out of our way. But you wouldn’t listen, so you have to pay the price.”
Keep him talking, Nancy told herself. “How did you manage to steal so many marmots?” she asked.
“Easy!” Jack bragged. “I had Piker and Richard steal some cages, then I got a printout of the transmitter signals. I knew the counts were done in the afternoon, so we started trapping right after dark on Tuesday and worked all night. We hauled them up here and removed the transmitters long before the college crowd was even awake.”
“You missed Spike,” Nancy commented.
“Spike,” Jack spat out. “That friend of yours is really something. She is cute, though, I’ve got to give her that.”
Nancy wanted to punch him.
Just then Piker and Richard returned for more cages. As they gathered up a second load, Professor Trainey asked, “Why did you try to kill Brad?”
Jack scowled. “I didn’t,” he said, rubbing the scar on the back of his hand. “All I wanted to do was discourage him, so I rigged the stove.”
“But you were giving a slide show during the time it was sabotaged,” Nancy said.
Jack gave her a self-satisfied smile. “Hey, that’s right. I guess I didn’t do it after all!”
Nancy thought quickly. “Alicia used the stove to make hot chocolate at about six-thirty, and Brad came on duty at seven-thirty. So the stove had been rigged by then.”
Jack leaned back against the door frame. “You’re pretty good, Nancy. But you should have checked that out more. The narration for the show was taped. I started it, then slipped back to the campsite.”
Nancy nodded.
“Borrowing the professor’s coat and hat was a nice touch, you’ve got to admit,” he went on. “If anyone saw me, they’d suspect it was him.”
“Except for the fact that one of th
e time-lapse cameras caught you leaving the hut,” Trainey said dryly. “The moment I saw it, I realized it was you who had tampered with the stove.”
Nancy turned to Trainey. “How? I found the picture in your tent but couldn’t tell who it was.”
“I had an advantage over you, Nancy,” Trainey explained. “I remembered that Jack had been bitten on the nose by a marmot and wore a bandage for a few days.”
“The white spot!” Nancy gasped. “So that’s what it was.”
There was a loud crash outside, and Jack rushed out the door.
The moment he was out of sight, Nancy started struggling against her rope. Pain shot through her wrists, and she could tell she was getting nowhere. “How did he capture you?” she asked Professor Trainey.
“Sheer stupidity,” he replied. “When I saw that picture, I got mad and rushed off to find him. I met up with him at feeding station two, which is near here. He hit me, and when I came to I was in this cabin.”
Jack returned with Piker. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, and grabbed Trainey by the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. Nancy managed to stand up on her own.
To distract Jack, she asked, “Were you the one who pushed me off the platform and tried to run me off the road?”
“Not guilty,” he replied. “That was Richard. He knocked out your boyfriend, too. Ned walked in while Richard was stealing the tranquilizer.”
“You’re a real bunch of creeps,” Trainey lashed out.
“Calm down, professor,” Jack told him. “I gave you all plenty of warnings. I even put a note on Nancy’s windshield. Why didn’t you pay attention? It’s all your own fault. Okay, Piker, grab that roll of tape and a flashlight.”
“Where are you taking us?” Nancy asked as Jack shoved her and Trainey toward the door.
“I want to show you one of Yellowstone’s natural wonders,” he replied blandly, taking the pistol from his belt.
He and Piker forced them to march up the hill behind the cabin while Richard walked off toward the truck. The fog had thickened. Even with the flashlight, it was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead.