The Mystery of the Death Trap Mine - M. V. Carey [10]
The boys worked in silence until they heard the hoof beats of Allie’s Appaloosa pounding in the fields between the drive and Wesley Thurgood’s property. As the boys looked up, Allie rode on into the pasture, unsaddled the mare, and rubbed it down with handfuls of straw. Then she disappeared into the ranch house.
Before long the boys heard the sound of a car starting. They looked toward the barn.
“Oh, wow!” Pete said. “What next?” Allie had climbed behind the steering wheel of her uncle’s pickup truck. Gears clashed and Allie and the truck came lurching down the drive.
“Allie, you nut!” yelled Pete. “What are you doing?”
Allie came abreast of the boys and stepped on the brake. The engine coughed and died.
“It’s okay,” said Allie cheerfully. “I can drive it, so long as I don’t take it off the ranch.”
“You’re too young!” protested Bob.
“I’m too young to get a license,” said Allie. “But as long as I can reach the pedals, I’m not too young to drive.”
She tried to start the truck again and failed. “Need more practice, I guess,” said Allie.
“Does your uncle know you do that?” asked Pete.
“Sure!” Allie answered. “He thinks girls should know how to do everything guys can do.”
“I’ll bet,” said Pete. “That’s why you waited until he and Magdalena left.”
Allie leaned out of the cab. Her eyes were dancing. “They’ve gone marketing and they won’t be back for a while. And Wesley Thurgood isn’t home either, and the dog is chained up.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Pete. “You want to explore that mine. Well, you’re on your own.”
Jupe stood holding a machete. He remembered the sound of the shot in the night — a muffled sound that might have come from a tunnel in the mountainside.
“Stick-in-the-muds!” jeered Allie. “Okay! Stay there and forget about the mystery.” The truck engine ground again, and this time it caught.
“Wait a second!” shouted Jupe. “I’ll go with you!”
“Good!” Allie laughed. “Bring your machete along. If Thurgood comes back, we’ll run back to the truck and pretend to be pruning in the field near his place. What about you, Pete? And Bob?”
Pete looked doubtfully at Jupiter. The tallest and most athletic of the Investigators, Pete enjoyed physical adventures — but he hated walking into trouble. Jupe, on the other hand, could not resist investigating any mystery, no matter how slight, no matter what the danger.
And once he had decided to act, he couldn’t be stopped. Shrugging, Pete climbed into the cab next to Allie. Bob, too, realized that Jupiter was on the trail of something, and followed him into the back of the truck.
Allie got the pickup started again, and they went jouncing off through the fields on a rough dirt track that had been bulldozed across Harrison Osborne’s property.
“This is a neat truck!” Allie exclaimed. She was so busy trying to control it that she seemed to be in action from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. She had to slouch low every time she put the clutch in, and push mightily on the gear-shift lever. Her hand flashed out to touch a second lever next to the gear shift. “That’s to convert it to four-wheel drive, in case you go up into the hills and need the extra power,” she said. “And there’s a winch on the front in case you get stuck or go into a ditch. And it’s got four forward speeds.
The diagram for the gear shift is on the lever. You push it up there for first and then pull it toward you for second and …”
“. . . And I only hope we get it back to the barn in one piece!” said Pete as the truck lurched forward.
“You worry too much,” said Allie. She stopped the truck at the edge of the field that abutted Wesley Thurgood’s property. The boys climbed out and stood looking around.
Across a bare stretch of ground they saw the mountainside jut up abruptly. The mine entrance was a dark, threatening hole at the base of it. They could see a few feet into the mine, past the timbers that framed the entrance. There was