The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Carolyn Keene [25]
“I don’t have to sell and I won’t sell!” Mrs. Byrd said with finality in her tone.
“That’s what you think,” a man said sneeringly. “You’re going to lose this farm and I can buy it cheaper from the bank. Why don’t you sell it to me and make a little profit? Then you can go to the city and take life easy.”
“We don’t want to go to the city,” Joanne spoke up. “We’re getting along all right here. More boarders are coming soon and we are paying off our back mortgage interest. So we don’t have to sell.”
Outside, Nancy, Bess, and George looked at one another. The insistent buyer again! Fervently they hoped that Mrs. Byrd would not weaken in her decision. A moment later they felt relieved.
“I will say good afternoon, Mr. Kent,” Mrs. Byrd said. “Thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept it.”
“You’ll be sorry! You’ll regret this!” the caller stormed. He came out the screen door, slamming it viciously behind him.
Nancy stared in surprise. Mr. Kent certainly was one of the most ill-mannered men she had ever seen! And also, she thought wryly, one of the most tenacious! Why was he so determined to buy the Byrd home?
Mr. Kent, his face red with anger, stepped into his car and sped off, but not before he gave Nancy and her friends a baleful look. “Nice disposition,” George commented sarcastically.
“I hope he never shows up again,” Bess said firmly.
The girls found Mrs. Byrd and Joanne quite shaken. “I can’t understand that man’s persistence,” the woman said.
Nancy was sure the matter was tied in with the cult on the hillside but did not mention this theory. She merely said, “Try not to worry about Mr. Kent. I doubt that he’ll return.”
Soon the incident was forgotten as preparations for supper were started and the farm animals were fed. George elected to take care of gathering eggs from the henhouse. Bess gave the horse hay and water.
“I’ll get the cow,” Nancy offered, and went off toward the pasture to drive Primrose in.
But the cow was not there. Nancy walked around the fence surrounding the field to see if there was any opening through which the animal might have wandered. Finally she found one, and saw hoofprints leading toward a patch of woods.
Nancy dashed off among the trees. She had never been that way before, but there was only one path to follow. Several times she paused to listen and thought she heard the faint tinkling of a cowbell somewhere ahead of her.
It was rapidly growing dusky in the woods and Nancy hurried on. Again she stopped to listen. She could hear the cowbell distinctly now.
“Primrose can’t be far ahead,” she thought in relief, and went in that direction. Nancy finally caught sight of the Jersey contentedly munching grass on the hillside beyond.
Nancy stopped short and gave a gasp of astonishment—the sound of the cowbell had brought her to the mouth of the cave!
“I can hardly believe it!” she almost exclaimed aloud. This must be the other opening near the nature camp Jo told me about!”
Eagerly Nancy rushed toward the cave. But no sooner had she peered into the dark entrance than she was startled by the crackling of a twig behind her. Nancy wheeled to find a man standing not three feet away from her!
He seemed to have risen from the bushes which half hid the opening of the cave. Instantly it flashed through Nancy’s mind that he had been stationed there to see that intruders did not enter.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, his voice as cold as steel.
Nancy recoiled. The man stood in the shadows of the shrubbery so that she could not see his face distinctly. But at the sound of his voice she knew instantly she was in danger.
“I must persuade him I wasn’t spying,” she thought desperately.
“Better speak up!” the man snarled. “What’re you doin’ here, girlie?”
“I was hunting for that cow,” Nancy