bright orange parka.
As the snowmobile drew closer, the driver abruptly
reduced his speed before stopping right next to them
in the middle of the trail.
Even though the driver was wearing a helmet and
goggles, Nancy recognized Ross Minkowski, the
Marshalls' ranch hand, by his good-natured smile.
“Hey, there, Jenny,” he said. “What are you girls
doing out here? It's getting kind of late.”
“I know. I took my friends out snowshoeing this
afternoon, but we lost track of the time. We were just
about to head home,” she said, “when we saw a pack of
wolves.”
“You did?” Ross said. “I know they've been relocated
to these parts, but I haven't seen any yet. I hear them
howling sometimes from way over the mountain.”
“But what are you doing out here, Ross?” Jenny
asked. “Just taking a spin in your snowmobile?”
“Nope, I've got work to do,” Ross answered. “I'm on
my way over to Thunderbird Ranch. See, Bill Ehret's
ranch hand is down with the flu, and Bill asked me to
fill in this evening with the chores. But don't worry—I
haven't forgotten all our animals at Elk River. I'll take
care of them as soon as I get home.”
“Wow, you're working hard,” Jenny said.
“A ranch hand's work is never done, it seems,” Ross
said. “But I'd better be going now. I told Bill I'd be at
Thunderbird at three o'clock, and I'm nearing an hour
late. Anyway, bye for now, and you girls be careful of
those wolves.” After giving the girls a friendly salute,
Ross revved his motor, then took off in a blast of noise
down the trail toward Thunderbird Ranch.
“We are so lucky that Ross came along,” Jenny said.
“But what do you guys want to do now? It's getting
late, and there are wolves around. I don't think we
ought to be out in these woods.”
“How far is Thunderbird Ranch?” Nancy asked.
“About a mile and a half,” Jenny said. “But that wolf
pack is ahead of us. I'd rather not go on.”
“Okay,” Nancy said reluctantly, disappointed that
they were so close. “Then why don't we drive over to
Thunderbird? We were planning to do that at first
anyway.”
“Until I pushed for skiing or snowshoeing or what-
ever,” George said good-naturedly. “But I don't mind
turning back and driving to Thunderbird. I'll just spend
a lot of time outdoors tomorrow.”
Jenny smiled. “Elk Mountain will always be there for
you, George. But I really appreciate you guys making
Rainbow a priority. Anyway, let's go home and drive
over to Thunderbird. We can park about a hundred
yards from Mr. Ehret's house on the edge of some
woods so no one will know we're there.”
Nancy gave Jenny the thumbs-up sign. As soon as
they'd reattached their snowshoes, the four girls
headed back to Elk River Ranch.
About forty-five minutes later, Jenny, George,
Nancy, and Bess were putting their snowshoes away in
the walk-in equipment closet. John stuck his head in
the doorway and said, “There you are, Jenny. Would
you help me prepare dinner, please? I've got a
complicated recipe coming up, and I could use another
pair of hands.”
“Sure, Dad, let me just finish up here.” Turning
back to the girls, Jenny added, “You guys can borrow
my Jeep. It's the old blue one outside.” She removed a
car key from a nail in the closet and handed it to
Nancy. “Just promise me you'll be careful when you get
to Thunderbird.”
Before Nancy could answer, the front door burst
open and Dody and Dexter entered, stomping off snow
on the front doormat. Their faces were flushed from
the bracing winter air as they came into the equipment
closet carrying their skis. “That was a solid day's
exercise,” Dody said appreciatively. “I only wish you'd
joined me in the morning, Dex, instead of going
dogsledding. Although dogsledding sounds like fun.”
“Terrifying is more like it,” Dexter said, rolling his
eyes. “Anyway, I'm ready for some hot chocolate by the
fire and a game of checkers.” His gaze settled eagerly
on Bess. “Are you up for hanging out, Bess?”
Bess's face lit up, then she shot Nancy a questioning
look.
“You stay, Bess,” Nancy said. “George and I can go.
It's no problem.”
“Thanks, Nan—if you're sure,” Bess said. “Well,
Dexter, checkers sounds great—do you want to be
black or red?”
Five minutes later Nancy and George were driving
to Thunderbird Ranch in Jenny's Jeep. Following the
directions that Jenny had given her, Nancy turned right
out of the driveway onto the main road. Almost three
miles later, they came to a small white clapboard
building on their right. On the porch overhang a
painted sign with old-fashioned black lettering
announced the Elk River General Store.
A bright splash of red came into view from behind
the building. “What is that thing?” Nancy asked. “I
don't know why, but it looks familiar.”
She slowed the Jeep to a crawl and peered out of
George's window. A red snowmobile with a yellow
lightning bolt decal on the hood was parked at the foot
of a trail stretching back into the woods.
“Weird!” George exclaimed. “Isn't that Ross's snow-
mobile?”
“I guess so,” Nancy said, “unless lots of other people
around here drive snowmobiles like that one.”
“Well, if it does belong to Ross, I'd sure like to know
what he's doing here,” George said. “Isn't he supposed
to be at Mr. Ehret's?”
“Maybe he's on his way home,” Nancy said.
“I doubt it,” George said. “It's not even five yet.
Feeding a bunch of ranch animals would take longer
than an hour, I think.”
“There's only one way of settling this question,”
Nancy said as she turned into the small parking area in
front of the store. “Let's go see for ourselves.”
Nancy parked the Jeep alongside a pickup truck,
then she and George hopped out. Nancy put a finger to
her lips, signaling George to be quiet. “If it is Ross, it's
better if he doesn't know we're spying on him,” she
explained.
The two girls tiptoed up a small flight of stairs to the
porch, then inched open the door. Inside, a tall dark-
haired man in an orange parka stood at the counter
with his back to them while a teenaged girl rang up his
purchases. The girl was glancing at Ross coyly as he
chatted amiably with her.
“It's Ross, all right,” Nancy whispered. “I'm curious
to hear what he's saying.”
Nancy and George crept inside, careful to stay be-
hind a tall rack filled with snack food and candy, so the
girl wouldn't see them and alert Ross to their presence.
Nancy's gaze fell on
the counter, and she stifled a
gasp. Spread out in front of Ross were five small dog
collars—exactly the number of Rainbows puppies!
14. Danger Comes Calling
Nancy stuck out her arm, signaling George to stay
back. Then, while Ross was busy flirting with the girl,
Nancy and George backed quietly out of the store,
careful not to let the door slam behind them.
Once outside, George whispered, “Wow, Nancy. I'll
bet Ross was buying collars for the puppies! What do
you think?”
“I think we'd better move away from here ASAP,
before Ross comes outside and sees us.”
“Back to the Jeep, then,” George said, moving
toward the porch steps.
“No, George, wait!” Nancy said. Grabbing George's
arm, she guided her down the steps and around to the
back of the store. Then they crouched behind a
woodpile. “It's pretty dark now, so I don't think he'll
see us here when he comes back to his snowmobile,”
Nancy commented. “I want to see what direction he
goes.”
“He'll probably take forever in there, anyway, the
way he was flirting with that girl,” George declared.
“Let's make a plan,” Nancy said. “See, I want to
follow him, but he's on his snowmobile and there's no
way we'll be able to keep up.”
“Then let's get a head start to Thunderbird Ranch in
our Jeep,” George cried. “I'll bet you anything Ross is
taking orders from Bill Ehret. I mean, Ross doesn't
seem bright enough to make up a complicated plan like
taking Rainbow and her puppies. Why would he want
to, anyway?”
“But even if Ross is Mr. Ehret's lackey, that doesn't
mean he's keeping the wolves at Thunderbird,” Nancy
said. “He could be keeping them in the woods
somewhere—like in a cave. Maybe that's why he's
using a snowmobile instead of a car.”
“The Swiss army knife!” George said suddenly.
“Those must be Ross's initials on it, but he pretended
the knife wasn't his so the Marshalls wouldn't find out
he's been sneaking around their house.”
There was a sudden creaking noise behind them.
George started, and Nancy cautiously turned her head
in the direction of the sound. A grizzled old man with
bowed legs and long white hair was sliding open the
door of a shed. As the girls watched him, he flicked on
an overhead light. Nancy's heart leaped. Inside, two
snowmobiles were parked on a thin covering of icy
snow.
George and Nancy traded excited looks.
“Excuse me, sir?” Nancy said as she and George
approached him.
The man jumped. But as his watery gaze focused on
Nancy and George, he said, “You scared me there,
girls. Can I help you?”
“Uh, yes, we'd like to borrow one of your snow-
mobiles,” Nancy began.
“Eh?” the man said, cupping his hand around an ear.
“Speak up, miss. My hearing ain't what it used to be.”
Nancy repeated her question.
The man looked amused. “What do two nice girls
like you want with a snowmobile at this time o' the
evening? It's twilight, the woods are dark, and I've
heard there are wolves about.”
“We'll be fine,” Nancy insisted, “and we won't be
long. We just wanted a chance to ride a snowmobile.
Plus, the noise will scare away the wolves.” What if he
won't agree? she thought tensely.
“Oh, all right,” the man said, looking curiously at
them. “But you got to pay for it. See, I do a side busi-
ness of snowmobile rentals, twenty dollars an hour.
Can you girls manage that?”
Nancy took out some money from her parka pocket
and handed the old man a twenty-dollar bill. After he
pocketed it, he showed them how the snowmobile
worked, then handed them each a pair of clear goggles.
“Goodbye, now, girls. Be careful. And if you don't
return in one hour, I'll get worried. So please don't be
doing that to me. Stress and old age don't mix.” The
man hobbled away to a side door of the store and went
inside, leaving Nancy and George sitting in the
snowmobile with the shed door open and the lights off.
“How much longer do you think Ross'll be?” George
asked.
Nancy had a sudden awful thought. “George—the
Jeep. Ross will recognize it for sure. Won't he think it's
weird that the Jeep is in the parking lot but the
Marshalls aren't around?”
“Probably, but it's too late now,” George whispered,
nudging Nancy in the side as the front door of the store
slammed.
Ross's heavy boots thumped down the porch stairs.
Seconds later he appeared around the corner of the
building and made a beeline for his snowmobile. After
starting it up with a blast of engine power, he revved
the motor and took off, heading up a gentle slope
toward the trail.
Nancy waited a minute before starting up her en-
gine. “Man, this is loud,” George shouted above the
deafening roar of the engine. “I feel as if we're about to
blast off into space or something.”
“At least when you're on a rocket, you're going on
this awesome adventure,” Nancy yelled back. “I don't
know how Ross stands riding one of these things just to
tool around the trails.”
“Still, even though we're not going into space,
speeding through the woods after Ross will definitely
be an adventure,” George said, tightening her scarf
around her throat. “I can feel it in my bones.”
Following the old man's instructions, Nancy
switched on the headlight, adjusted her goggles over
her eyes, and then took off up the trail after Ross.
“I hope he doesn't hear us,” George said above the
engine.
“Me, too,” Nancy said. “I'm hoping he can't because
his snowmobile is so loud, it will drown out ours.”
As twilight deepened into darkness, the cold air cut
into the girls' faces as they zoomed along. With the
headlight illuminating the snowy path ahead, Nancy
detected fresh snowmobile tracks running along it, but
there was no way she could see Ross on the winding,
hilly trail in front of her.
Nancy gritted her teeth, listening for the sound of
another snowmobile, but she heard only the awful
roaring of their own motor.
“He couldn't be that far ahead,” George shouted. “I
can see his tracks.”
Nancy nodded, unwilling to shout too loudly just in
case Ross was closer than they thought. After about a
mile, the trail met another one, and Nancy stopped.
“Now which way?” she asked, peering in both
directions. There were snowmobile tracks to the left
and right on the new trail.
“I think the tracks look a little fresher to the left,”
George said.
“Me, too,” Nancy said, taking the turn. About ten
yard
s later, Nancy added, “Look, George—do you
recognize this place?” The headlight lit up a small
meadow that inclined down an easy hill. “This is where
we saw the wild wolves.”
George sat forward. “Oh, yeah, but I don't see any
critters at all now.”
Nancy dipped into the hollow. Thanks to her pow-
erful headlight, she spotted a wooden footbridge over
the Elk River.
As they zoomed across it, George scanned the dark
canyon below and said, “I know the river is under us,
but I can't see a thing. It's as if we're crossing some
creepy void.”
Moments later they entered a narrow trail through
some pine trees and headed up a steep hill. The pine
forest was so dense that Nancy could barely see to
either side of her, but at the top of the hill, the trees
thinned out, allowing moonlight to illuminate the
landscape. Up ahead, their trail dead-ended into
another one, which ran across theirs like the top of a T.
At the junction two painted wooden signs pointed in
opposite directions.
With her headlight shining on the signs, Nancy said,
“This is weird. The sign pointing left says Thunderbird
Ranch, and the one pointing right says Coyote Corners.
But the snowmobile tracks head toward Coyote
Corners. There aren't any going to Thunderbird
Ranch.”
George gaped at the tracks in the snow. “I can't
believe it. Ross must have gone to Coyote Corners—
that's Paul's grandmother's place, right?”
“Yup,” Nancy said. “Ross must have gone there,
unless there's a cave or something along here where
he's stashed the wolves.”
Nancy revved the motor, eager to find Rainbow and
her puppies. Turning the snowmobile in the direction
of Coyote Corners, she roared off down the trail.
It ran along the crest of a hill through a thin forest of
pines and deciduous trees. As she put on more speed,
Nancy tried not to think about the noisy snowmobile
ripping through such a peaceful place. Instead, she
focused on the shimmering moonlight and the
countless stars in the cobalt blue sky.
After a couple more miles, the trees ended abruptly
at a snowy field that rolled down a long, wide hill in a
series of gentle drifts. In the valley below, a huge
wooden house presided over a remote landscape of
meadows, forests, and snow-covered peaks. Yellow
lamplight poured from its windows, and smoke curled