Mystery of the Glowing Eye - Carolyn Keene [28]
“Oh, oh!” Burt burst out. “Look ahead! Blockade!”
By now they were about half a mile from the farmhouse. A wall of piled-up stones stretched across the road. Atop the center of it was a red lantern. Attached below was a large sign which read:
DANGER
BLASTING AHEAD
There was no way to get around the wall at this point because trees grew rather solidly along the road.
Bess asked, “What are we going to do?”
Burt said he would drive around via another road and approach the farmhouse from the opposite direction. It took twenty minutes to do this. When they came within half a mile of the far side of the building, they were confronted with a great pile of brush across the road. The sides had high embankments.
“Stymied again!” George remarked.
“What are we going to do?” Bess asked.
Nancy pointed out the fact that there were no trees along the road in this area. “Let’s walk and approach the house through the field,” she proposed.
Bess reminded her that it probably would be rough walking. “What’s the matter with the road? That’s smooth!”
Nancy said it was possible there was some truth in the sign at the stone barrier. The road might be torn up or have unexploded dynamite stored on it. However, she was suspicious that the person who put up the sign and the two barriers had done so to keep visitors away.
“Why not notify the police and let them take care of everything?” Bess suggested.
“But Ned may be a prisoner at the farmhouse,” George reminded her. “Well, I’m ready to start. Who’s willing to go along? I promise an adventure!”
“I’ll wait in the car,” Bess said.
Dave decided to stay with her. “It’s too dangerous for Bess to be alone here.”
The others left them, climbed the embankment on the farmhouse side, and walked through the field. It was bright moonlight, so flashlights were not needed. The rutted ground could be spotted easily, so Burt and the girls had no trouble reaching the farmhouse quickly. They had walked as lightly as possible and not said a word.
The abandoned house was in darkness. As the group skirted a small brook and copse of trees they found themselves approaching the building from the rear.
Suddenly Nancy stopped short and pointed. The others looked ahead. Clearly outlined in the bright moonlight was a helicopter!
Burt whispered to Nancy, “Is it the robot copter?”
“Yes. If Crosson and Ned came in the copter, they must be here!”
The three young people started to run forward, but before they got very far, the rotors of the copter began to whir, and with a roar the craft lifted from the ground.
Nancy could not refrain from shouting, “Ned, are you there? Ned, are you aboard?”
Her friends took up the cry, but there was no answer or signal. Because of the noise, had the person or persons aboard been unable to hear them, or did they not want to answer? Perhaps there was no one in the craft! If so, was the person who had programmed it, on the premises?
Nancy and the others walked to the house. The front door was unlocked, so they entered. Beaming their flashlights, they searched every room thoroughly, watchful not to be captured themselves should an enemy be lurking in the house.
Finally, after hunting everywhere, even in the clothes chute, Nancy said, “Ned isn’t a prisoner here, so I believe he was in that copter. How I wish I knew where he was being taken!”
One thing she was sure of—the helicopter had not been headed for the swamp area, so unless the pilot made a change in direction, he was not going to the cabin. But where was he going?
“We’d better notify the police,” Burt suggested. “Two of the kidnapper’s hiding places will be covered.”
“Which means,” George added, “that sooner or later he and Ned are bound to be found.”
“Unless,” Nancy suggested, “Ned’s red-haired captor has still other hiding places.”
“We may as well go back to the car,” Burt said. He told Bess and Dave what had happened, then suggested they all return to the fraternity house.
On the way he stopped in town at police headquarters and Nancy hurried inside to tell her story.