Alright, we’re back to 2 Shadow 2 Ranch The Secret of Shadow Ranch, revamped for the modern times of 1965, with a brand-new plot and a brand-new preposition in the title. The first time we did this story, Nancy uncovered a kidnapping because she was convinced a child was too upper-class to be related to her caretakers. This time, the story is closer to the one we all know from the game: Nancy Drew goes to hang out with Bess and George at their family’s ranch, but accidents keep happening and a SpOoOoKy ghost horse keeps popping up at the scene of the crime. What could be happening?
Our first big change in the book comes on the very first page: Nancy arrives in Arizona via plane, instead of train like in the 1930s. The future is now! Do you think she was flying Pan Am? Upon her arrival, however, Bess and George tell her that they all have to turn around and go home: a mystery is afoot at Shadow Ranch, and “Uncle Ed” and “Aunt Bet” Rawley think it’s not safe for the Clue Crew to be there. They’re probably right, but Bess says that perhaps they can stay if Nancy solves the mystery. She and George already told Uncle Ed about Nancy’s super-sleuthing skillz, but he still thinks that it’s too much danger for a giiiiirl.
Before they leave the airport, the girls stop to have lunch and the ghostwriter stops to advertise the earlier Nancy books to us (bizarrely they kept this, of all things, from the original book):
I love the mention that Carson is famous. For what? Fucking off to Africa when his clients and child need him? Sending an innocent man to jail? Being friends with an arsonist?
The book also takes the time to describe everyone’s outfits: Nancy is “a trim figure in her olive-green knit with matching shoes [and] beige accessories”, while Bess is in “a pale-blue cotton which showed off her deep suntan to advantage.” (No, they don’t specify the actual articles of clothing — although I guess we can assume they’re wearing dresses or some kind of matching top-bottom set.) George is noted to be wearing a dress — specifically one that matches her “brown linen purse.” Uh…styling? I guess?
Bess tells Nancy about the mystery and wails that it has her so upset that her appetite is gone. Then she added, “I’ll have a double chocolate sundae with walnuts.” Haha Bess fat! I know we were all missing those jokes in the original 1931 book. George then explains that the Rawleys acquired the ranch as a payment for a debt — just like in the original book — but unlike the original, decided to take it over because “they always wanted to be ranchers.” As you do. However, the ranch has been experiencing so many accidents that the Rawleys think they’re being sabotaged, not that they’re doing much about it.
Moreover, every time something weird happens, a glowing white horse appears in the distance. One of the ranch hands, a “Shorty Steele”, has told them that it’s the ghost of Dirk Valentine’s horse. Dirk Valentine was an “old-time outlaw” who was dating one Frances Humber, daughter of the local sheriff, who was also the original owner of Shadow Ranch. One night, Dirk showed up to the ranch to see Frances, and Papa Humber shot and killed him. Legend has it that Dirk cursed the ranch so that his horse would haunt it forever. Really, his horse? Maybe Papa Humber didn’t think you were good enough for Frances because you didn’t have a real job and you couldn’t even haunt the damn ranch yourself, Dirk.
Nancy notices a sketchy “gray-haired man in a tan suit” is sitting nearby and appears to be eavesdropping on them. When the girls leave, they also realize that he’s taken Nancy’s bag over to his table and has clearly snooped through it, though he hasn’t taken anything. They then catch the man outside dropping a note through their open car window before running away. Man, you would not leave your car with the window open today, and clearly Nancy shouldn’t have back in 1965 either, since the note is a threat! Of course it is! Sketchy Guy warns them to “Keep away from Shadow Ranch” and Nancy’s like, “What could this mean?!” It…means he wants you not to go to Shadow Ranch? It’s pretty clear.
Obviously, Nancy refuses to be kept away, and the Clue Crew sets off for the ranch. On the way, Bess and George tell Nancy that Shadow Ranch does seem to be cursed, as bad luck has befallen it ever since Dirk Valentine’s death. Nancy muses that the property must have some kind of value, if someone is sabotaging it for themselves. But let’s not think about that! Instead, Bess and George add that they totally forgot to tell Nancy about their cousin, one Alice Regor. (George, re: forgetting: “Good night! What brains we are!” Indeed.) Alice is fourteen — she was around the Clue Crew’s age in the original book — and her father has recently disappeared. He was last seen going to his place of work, a bank “in a suburb of Chicago.” So…River Heights? Anyway, the bank was then robbed; the police are pretty sure a known gang of robbers did it, but haven’t caught them yet. The gang was recently seen in Phoenix, so Alice thinks that they’re hiding in the area and holding her father hostage, or possibly that her father has amnesia and is wandering around the area with two letters of his last name swapped and also with an extra letter because everyone gets his new fake name wrong anyway. Maybe not that last part.
Bess and George tell Nancy about one of the incidents on the ranch, noting that none of the dogs barked. Nancy says that means the culprit must be someone on the ranch. Honestly, I stared at this paragraph for like five minutes wondering if I should take it out because fucking duh the culprit is someone on the ranch, but I’ll leave it in for completion’s sake.
Just then, the car radiator overheats and they have to stop. Nancy goes to replace the water in the radiator, but — gasp! — the jug that Shorty promised to fill is empty! Could this Shorty fellow be suspicious?
The Clue Crew frets that they’re going to be stranded on the highway in the desert, but fortunately for them, the Rawleys sent one of the ranch hands to look for them. Said ranch hand is one Dave Gregory, who’s all salty and unimpressed that “three little dudes” went out into the desert unprepared and nearly died of exposure. George points out that Shorty told them he filled the jug, and Dave briefly seems suspicious, but then snaps that real rugged westerners check their own gear. I mean…he’s not wrong, to be totally honest, but also, what’s his damage? The Clue Crew wonders the same thing — “[Nancy] had not even reached the ranch and already two people had been mysterious and unfriendly to her!” People disrespecting Nancy Drew? Burn them!
They make it to Shadow Ranch, where they meet the rest of the ranch crew. Nancy immediately identifies two hot cowboys, Tex and Bud, as the ones Bess has a crush on. Bud was written out of the game, but Tex was kept in — he was turned into a cranky middle-aged man who took on book!Dave’s quality of thinking the Clue Crew are useless city girls (not that that stopped anyone from still thinking he was hot). There’s also a foreman, Walt (written out of the game) and the ranch cook, a kindly elderly woman named Mrs. Thurmond (merged into Shorty in the game, which honestly seems like a worse fate than being written out). Speaking of, George confronts Shorty about not filling up the water jug, and he blusters that he never said he’d do that. Nancy thinks he’s protesting too much.
Nancy finds another menacing note along with a snake rattle in her bag. Two attempts at disrespecting Nancy Drew! It’s personal now! She convinces the Rawleys to stay and let her solve the mystery. Of course, she suspects the culprit is one of the ranch hands. The Rawleys tell her that they’re all fairly new to the ranch, but most of them are from the area, with two exceptions: Dave, who’s from Montana, and Shorty, who’s a “drifter.” Hmmm.
Alice wibbles that she wishes Nancy would solve her mystery, too, and Nancy’s like, “Sure, your case is probably conveniently related to the one I’m already working on anyway.”
Nancy hears a noise in the night and sees a mysterious figure outside, but when she follows, she only runs into Mrs. Thurmond. They wake the entire ranch up and Mrs. Thurmond says she also saw a mysterious figure in the kitchen, but no one can figure out where they went. There’s a trap door in the kitchen that leads to a cellar, but there’s nobody there, either.
The next morning, the Clue Crew discovers parts have been taken from the water pump, so now the ranch doesn’t have any running water. “Sabotage!” declares Uncle Ed. Well, someone had to say it, George. Nancy sees some footprints in the mud, and later notices that Dave and Shorty have mud on their boots. Dave claims he was out at the pump house before it was sabotaged and he heard something, but he didn’t see anyone. Or did he? And then Nancy just doesn’t bother to interrogate Shorty at all because this ghost writer doesn’t really know how to do a red herring.
Dave drives George and Nancy into town so that they can visit the sheriff. They show “Sheriff Curtis” the threatening notes, and he promises to watch out for the “hombre” they saw at the airport, but other than that, he’s not gonna do any investigating himself. Keep him posted! Thanks, Sheriff Curtis. (Also, he is incapable of referring to men as anything but “hombres” in case you forgot we were in the Southwest for five seconds.)
Like five minutes later, Nancy and George trip over a burglary in progress in a small jewelry shop. Way to keep an eye on the town, Sheriff Curtis. The thief gets away, and the shop owner, one Mary Deer (a “young Indian girl”, changed to be the older, Tex-infatuated Mary Yazzie in the game), runs over from where she was apparently chilling and having coffee next door and not watching her shop at all. She’s like, “It never occurred to me to lock the shop or stick around to watch it! I never get customers this early!” So…don’t open your shop at all at this hour, then? Whatever.
As a thank-you, Mary gives Nancy an antique watch, which she tells Nancy is connected to the legend of Shadow Ranch — it was a gift from Dirk Valentine to Frances Humber. Mary shows Nancy that there’s a heart engraved on the watch, which was Dirk’s symbol — he allegedly carved hearts everywhere he went and on all his belongings. Because he was a twelve-year-old girl? Was Stacy his favorite member of the Baby-sitters’ Club?
Mary goes on to tell Nancy that local legend has it that Dirk left Frances a treasure, but it’s never been found, though some people think it was buried on Shadow Ranch. Nancy immediately assumes this must be why someone is sabotaging the ranch. Then Dave comes in — informing the Clue Crew that the sheriff did chase the thief, but wasn’t able to catch him because of course not — and seems interested in the watch, though he doesn’t say anything about it. As they leave the shop, a pastel drawing of a landscape catches Nancy’s eye, and she buys it. Mary tells her it’s by an artist who lives in a cabin on the nearby Shadow Mountain. RIP Martha, they wrote you out of the book and they took your house.
On their way out, Nancy notices some dude in a cowboy hat watching them, and he’s also staring at the watch. Er…Nancy, why are you just carrying your obvious clue around like that? Put it in your pocket or something; you can fit farming equipment and stone architecture in there, a watch can’t take up that much space. Nancy also notes that Dave’s truck has the Shadow Ranch name on it, so Creepy Cowboy Hat Guy will know where to find the Clue Crew.
Dave drives Nancy and George back to the ranch; Nancy points out some cliff dwellings and Dave tells her they used to be part of Shadow Ranch back when the Humbers owned it. George mentions searching the dwellings for old artifacts and Dave gets super aggro and snaps at them to stay away. O! Kay! They come back to the ranch to see Bess learning to use a lariat; Bud asks her to rope him, if she’s picking up what he’s putting down, but of course Bess ropes her own horse because LOL Bess incompetent.
The Clue Crew tells Aunt Bet about Dirk Valentine’s treasure; Aunt Bet says Shorty was the one who told them about the legend of Dirk Valentine’s phantom horse, but he never mentioned any treasure. Nancy is suspicious that perhaps Shorty knew about the treasure but kept it to himself.
Alice freaks out when she sees the pastel drawing Nancy bought — her missing dad is an amateur artist, and she’s sure that this is his work. Nancy doesn’t say anything, although she and apparently everyone else “could not help feeling that Alice was clutching at straws.” Heh. You just know that if Nancy had known Papa Alice was an amateur artist beforehand, she would’ve immediately assumed he was the mystery guy on Shadow Mountain and dragged everyone up there to interrogate him, but now she’s all, “IDK, I think you’re being kind of desperate.” Jealousy isn’t cute, Nancy.
That evening, Nancy sees a light in the spring house, but she steps on a twig and alerts whoever’s inside to her presence. That’s so embarrassing. Are you new here, Nancy? The culprit escapes before she can see them, then she hears an odd whistle, and the phantom horse appears. All the cowboys chase after it, but it disappears — as does the ranch dog (“Chief”), who runs after he horse and doesn’t come back. Spooky! The Clue Crew then discovers that, while everyone was distracted by the horse, someone ransacked their room. Nancy assumes that they were after Frances Humber’s watch, but luckily she’s been wearing it the entire time (under her “yellow blouse and skirt with a matching slipover”, the book helpfully notes).
The next day, Nancy discovers a path up the mountain where the horse disappeared. She rounds up Bess and George, and Shorty volunteers to guide them. Up the mountain, they hear a dog barking and see a cabin. Ooh, is there a cranky woman with a suspiciously middle-class child living inside? They want to investigate and see if the dog is Chief, and Shorty tells them he knows a shortcut — but they end up getting lost and have to turn around and go back. Nancy is suspicious that Shorty deliberately led them astray.
Back at the ranch, Alice says she went to town and spoke with Mary, who told her the mystery artist is a “Mr. Bursey,” and he lives in the cabin they saw on the mountain. Alice is still convinced he’s somehow related to her father, so she wants to go investigate. Nancy then manages to open Frances’s watch, wherein they find a torn note saying to look in a green bottle — but the portion of the note saying where the bottle is is missing.
The Clue Crew is interrupted by the sound of a dog whining, but when they search outside, they still can’t find Chief. Nancy realizes it might’ve been a distraction for someone to sneak into their room and find the green bottle clue. The next day, she questions Dave re: his whereabouts last night. He doesn’t act cagey or weird, but he does tell Nancy to be careful. Nancy wonders if that’s a warning or a threat.
The Clue Crew heads up the mountain to investigate the cabin, though Bess has to change horses for reasons. Tex warns Bess that her new horse is okay on the trail, but isn’t suited to fording rivers, you know, should they flood or something. We don’t have to worry about that, though, do we?
On their way to the cabin, Clue Crew ends up in a ghost town on the mountain. They spot some pastels on the ground and Alice gasps that her father must have been here. Then they see a couple of men creeping around and nearly tangle with them but then they don’t. The Clue Crew proceeds to the cabin and finds Chief (“You poor old fellow!” Nancy exclaims). They also find some pastels and a drawing, and Alice gasps that her father must have been here, too. They decide to lie in wait to see if the culprits and Papa Alice come back, but they don’t, and the Clue Crew waits so long that a storm rolls in. Naturally the river floods and naturally Bess and her non-river horse have to cross it, but naturally Nancy manages to drag Bess’s horse to shore while wrangling her own horse and carrying Chief at the same time. Heh. I guess they decided the original scene from the book wasn’t dramatic enough and added a dog to it.
Upon arrival back at the ranch, the book takes a break to detail some outfits again: the Clue Crew changes into a “powder-blue sweater and skirt” (Nancy, who also “brushe[s] her titian hair until it gleam[s]”, because remember, her hair’s not red, it’s titian), a “smart dark-green linen dress” (George), and a “yellow sweater and skirt” (Bess). Just letting you know the important things here. Bess tells everyone how awesome Nancy was earlier that day, and Dave apologizes to Nancy for not realizing that Nancy Drew is better than you. Nancy asks Dave if he’s always such a dick to newcomers, and he starts to explain that he has his reasons, before clamming up and running away.
The rest of the Clue Crew decides to go to a moving picture show drive-in movie, because the future is now. Nancy elects to stay behind and investigate some more; once again she sees a light in the spring house, but once again the culprit escapes without anyone seeing them, just like they did in the cellar. Nancy realizes there must be a passageway connecting the two.
The Clue Crew goes into town so that Uncle Ed can buy some palomino horses, which he’s planning to breed. “It’s a big investment.” He frowned. “I just hope nothing happens to them.” Do you think something is, in fact, going to happen to them? Dave is also there, and he asks Nancy to the “barbecue and square dance” that’s apparently happening this week. At some point, Tex and Bud asked Bess and George* as their dates, and I guess Shorty is too busy being villainous to get himself a GF. Nancy accepts: “Okay. Thank you”, to which Dave says, “Good”, then runs away. Heh. Romance!
*Not respectively, weirdly — the book lists them in this order, but Bud actually asked Bess and Tex asked George.
Nancy stops to watch a horse trainer show off his trick pony’s moves in a way that seems like it should be foreshadowing but it’s not, and it never gets brought up again. Anyway, the Clue Crew then goes to visit Mary’s shop, where they’re shocked to see her chatting with Creepy Cowboy Hat Guy. Mary introduces him as “Mr. Diamond”, one of her best customers.
Mr. Diamond tells the Clue Crew that he’s been trying to get Mary to sell him Frances Humber’s watch for ages, and gosh, he must congratulate Nancy on owning it, he’s totally not seething in rage. Oh, and his hobbies include collecting “momentos of the Old West” and hanging around in the mountains. Not suspicious at all!
Nancy watches Dave ride a horse and hopes he’s not involved in the mystery, since she’s starting to think he’s kinda hot (not in so many words). Cut to: the Clue Crew investigating the spring house passageway and immediately finding Dave in the cellar. Oops. Dave protests his innocence, explaining he and his siblings are Frances Humber’s only remaining descendants. He used to not really care about the treasure rumor, but his family has fallen on hard times, so now he’s looking for it to put himself and his siblings through school. Heartwarming, no? He tells the Clue Crew that he was only a jerk because he didn’t want them getting in the way of his treasure hunt. Everyone’s like, “Understandable!” and has a hearty chuckle and now they’re all friends. Sure, whatever.
Dave shows Nancy that he has the other half of the “green bottle” note, revealing that said bottle is supposedly in the cellar. They hunt for the bottle, but aren’t able to find it. Bess wonders if someone has found it already, and Dave mentions that he’s seen Shorty snooping around, too. He thinks Shorty might be behind the ranch sabotage, but everyone’s just kind of like, “Whatever” and moves on from that. Guys? Seeing as you’ve suspected him of almost every single thing that’s gone wrong so far, perhaps it’s time to like…talk to him? The ghostwriter is clearly trying to do a thing where they mislead us into thinking Dave is the culprit, but it falls totally flat because they keep being like, “Don’t forget Shorty is also suspicious! But we’re going to try and trick you into thinking it’s not him by putting all the focus on Dave and never investigating Shorty, even though the characters keep thinking he’s sus every time something happens!”
Anyway, instead of being like, “Well, I had two main suspects and I’ve cleared one of them, time to investigate the other,” Nancy’s like, “You know what the best way to solve this mystery would be? Try to find a missing treasure that nobody’s found in a century and see if that coincidentally leads me to the culprit!” Accordingly, she sets about continuing to look for the mysterious green bottle while Dave is off doing ranch stuff. Before he goes, he tells her the bit of the legend that was passed down to him, about the night Papa Humber shot Dirk. Apparently after killing him, Papa Humber went to tell Frances that Dirk was dead, and he found her “lighting a lamp.” Nancy twigs that perhaps Frances had found the bottle Dirk left for her, and had been in the process of hiding it in the lamp when her father found her. Wow, it’s convenient that that one random detail managed to be handed down in the story a hundred years later.
The Clue Crew manages to find the old lamp in the ranch storeroom, and the green bottle is indeed inside it. Inside the bottle is a letter from Dirk, telling Frances that he’s hidden instructions in the bottle to find his treasure. Before they can read any further, though, the power goes out. Nancy realizes the phone lines have also been cut, and everyone worries that the culprits are coming to do…something. This part is pretty genuinely creepy! The culprits sneak onto the ranch, cut the fences, and scare off the new palominos, who run off into the mountains. The Rawleys fret that they’ll be ruined if they can’t recover all the horses.
After the culprits have wreaked havoc and left, Clue Crew reads the rest of Dirk’s letter, which says that his treasure is buried in “the oldest dwelling on the ranch.” Aunt Bet says that the ranch house is the oldest building here, but the Clue Crew doesn’t find anything upon searching it. Hmm, could the treasure be somewhere else? (I bet every nine-year-old who read this book and noticed the specific use of the word dwelling felt super smart.)
Aunt Bet tells the Clue Crew they should relax and have a day off in town. George makes sure they have plenty of water for the drive, and Dave teases them over finally being proper westerners. All the girls nudge Nancy over how Dave liiiiikes her, to which George asks, “And what’ll poor Ned do?” Excuse me? I just searched and this is literally the first mention of Ned in the entire book. Imagine if you’d never read a Nancy Drew book before and you’re just like, “Who the fuck is Ned?” Anyway, as ever, Nancy’s like, “Eh, he’s in Europe, he’ll never find out about me cheating on him.” What? Why is Ned in Europe? Oh my God, whatever.
They all express excitement over their upcoming rodeo dates, and Alice sighs, “I wish that there was somebody to take me.” Bess suggests that she knows someone who might, in fact, be able to take Alice to the rodeo — which seems weird because Alice is 14 and every other character in this book is at least 20 years old. Please, God, don’t let Bess hook Alice up with Shorty. (Although, cutely: “What have you got up your sleeve?” George demanded. “Just my arm,” replied Bess, but she grinned. Heh.)
Anyway. What shall they do on their day off? “I know,” exclaimed Bess. “Let’s all buy Indian costumes!” Ohhhh boy. They quickly get over their worries about the ranch by trying on “colorful squaw dresses”, then having a lunch of tacos, which is italicized because it’s such a strange foreign word, amirite? Amazing. (I’d actually never heard of a “squaw dress” before and for a moment I thought Nancy might be having her very own early 2010s hipster headdress moment — but it turns out it’s an old name for this style of dress, which is now apparently called a “patio” or “fiesta” dress. I’ve seen these sorts of dresses before, but I didn’t know they had names at all. This book is educational!)
The Clue Crew then goes to an art gallery, where they see more artwork by presumably Papa Alice, and they think they might find him there but they don’t.
Back at the ranch, Aunt Bet says they have to make a cake to bring to the barbecue. Bess volunteers Nancy, because Nancy makes “scrumptious” cakes. Sandwiches, on the other hand…Anyway, I really only bring this up because Dave tries to convince Nancy to give him some cake by saying, “Come on, cookie.” Er…yeah. I’m glad I was never a Dave girl. (Ned would never!) (He embarrasses me in other ways, admittedly.)
The next day, Nancy and Alice go up to the mountains to look at the cabin again. Nancy’s horse mysteriously has a burr under its blanket, causing it to freak out when Nancy gets into the saddle. Tex notes that Shorty was the one who brought Nancy’s horse out, but Shorty says the horse was already saddled when he found it. Even Alice is like, “Idk, I’m starting to think Shorty isn’t telling the truth.” Guys, is it maybe time to investigate Shorty? Nah, let’s just move on.
They find the cabin, and Nancy is shocked to find that the creepy guy from the airport is the one living there. He claims to be Mr. Bursey, the artist, and Nancy quickly lies that she wanted to buy some more pastels. Bursey says he doesn’t have any more paintings and kicks her and Alice out. Alice is devastated that Bursey isn’t just her father with amnesia after all, but Nancy is still suspicious: Bursey didn’t seem to know that a pastelwork isn’t a “painting,” and in fact didn’t even know what a pastel was. (The book calls them “special crayons”, which makes me chuckle because “special crayons” sounds like a euphemism and I’m immature.) She muses that Bursey might just be impersonating Papa Alice, and is holding him captive — and if that’s the case, he might be one of the bank robbers from back in Illinois. And since he was warning Nancy away from the ranch, the bank robbers must also be involved with all the phantom horse sabotage. Wow, how convenient that those two plot threads have intertwined! Even though there’s no reason a gang of thieves from Arizona would be robbing a bank halfway across the country!
Nancy worries that Bursey recognized her and is planning to cause an “accident” before she and Alice get to the ranch. They have to sneak around the trails and hide, and Bursey follows them and nearly catches them but then he doesn’t.
Back at the ranch, again, the Clue Crew calls the sheriff to tell him about Bursey. Sheriff Curtis said, “I’ll go up to the cabin at once with two men and arrest this hombre Bursey and his confederates.” It won’t surprise you to find out, I’m sure, that the sheriff does not manage to arrest that hombre and his confederates. God, why can’t this guy talk like a normal person??
Nancy takes a moment to chill and look at the fireplace. As she does, she recalls that Aunt Bet told her that all the stones in the fireplace came from somewhere on the ranch property — including an “Indian grinding stone” in the center. Nancy realizes that the grinding stone must have come from the cliff dwellings — which were once part of the Humber property and are by far the oldest dwellings, ergo, Dirk Valentine’s treasure must be there! Oh. I mean — valid deduction and all, but also, Dave specifically mentioned the cliff dwellings used to be on the property like ten chapters ago, and Nancy doesn’t twig to that at all. Come on, Nancy.
Everyone prepares to go to the rodeo, and thankfully, Tex reveals that he has a 15-year-old brother who can take Alice as his date. At the rodeo, Nancy is perturbed to see Bursey in the crowd, but the Clue Crew loses him and are like, “Well, a dangerous criminal in our midst is no reason not to have fun!” Bess mentions wanting a hot dog and George cackles, “Eating is really a very fattening hobby, dear cousin.” Bess fat, amirite?
Bursey and Mr. Diamond nearly manage to kidnap Nancy but then they don’t. Then the cowboys put on a talent show and Shorty shows off his ability to do animal impressions — which causes Nancy to wonder if Shorty was the one making dog noises to lure them out of the house. I mean…Shorty, why are you showing off your ability that completely gives you away as the culprit here? He also seems surprised to see Nancy in the crowd, and Dave notes that Shorty must have thought that “his pals” had gotten rid of her. Oh, now we think Shorty is evil and in league with the culprits? Because like, he is, but nobody at any point actually drew that conclusion. (Also, it’s interesting that after the past few books, which were adapted much more loosely into their respective games — Whispers in the Fog had a different culprit entirely — we’re back to hewing fairly closely to the original book’s story.)
Anyway, after Nancy and Dave win the square dancing contest (sure), Nancy takes the opportunity to announce to the crowd that she knows where Dirk Valentine’s treasure is and that they’re going to dig it up tomorrow. She reveals her plan to the Clue Crew and the sheriff: the cowboys will pretend to dig around the ranch, while the Clue Crew goes to the dwellings to look for the actual treasure. The culprits should follow the decoy group, and the sheriff should be able to watch the ranch and go after the “varmints” when they arrive. “Should” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, of course.
After the rodeo, Nancy also shows everyone how the glowing horse trick was accomplished: the culprits are painting the horse with phosphorescent paint. The culprits had kept Chief to wash the paint off him when he tangled with the horse, but they neglected to wash his teeth, and Nancy finally found the paint remnants and realized what was up. Somewhat weirdly, she connects this to the light she’s been seeing in the spring house: to make the paint glow, the culprits have been shining a light on the horse before turning it loose. Uh, aren’t spring houses kind of small? How were they fitting an entire horse in there with no one noticing? But everyone’s just like “Whatever” and they all go to bed to prepare for the treasure hunt. It’s kind of anticlimactic.
The next day, the Clue Crew heads to the cliff dwellings, and the ghostwriter starts wrapping up all the other plot threads real fast: they trip over Shorty’s hideout, where they find the phantom horse and Papa Alice. (He’s just named Ross Regor in this version, no fuckery with changing his name or having amnesia.) He tells the Clue Crew that he just went into the bank one evening to pick up some work stuff and randomly got kidnapped, as you do. Shorty’s gang then brought him to their base back here in Arizona — once again, no explanation as to why they were robbing a bank in Illinois to begin with, and I guess it’s just a massive coincidence that Papa Alice’s family owned a ranch nearby.
Nancy follows the heart symbols on the walls and manages to find Dirk Valentine’s treasure, which is just in a random vase in the dwellings. Shorty’s gang shows up to confront her, with Mr. Diamond telling Nancy that he knows she’s found the treasure: “Finally we saw you hurry by, then your friends showed up carrying something heavy. I said to myself, ‘There goes the treasure. How nice to have Nancy Drew do all the work for us!’” HEE! Man, Nancy, you gotta stop doing this.
Anyway blah blah the Clue Crew nearly meets their end at the dastardly hands of the villains but then they don’t blah. Oddly, at no point do the villains ever really explain their motives or how this all went down — there’s no explanation as to what they were doing in Illinois, why they robbed Mary’s store, where they got the horse from, whatever. I have to say, while this book is generally better than the 1931 original, the original’s ending — or at least its pacing — was a lot better? The end reveal in this one drags while somehow not explaining anything at all.
Then Dave and the sheriff show up to save the Clue Crew. Dave offers some of the treasure to Nancy but she declines because she’s already being bankrolled by her dad it would just be gosh-darned wrong to keep the money when Dave needs it. The Rawleys recover the palominos, and everything else is coming up Nancy and Dave and Papa Alice — “Thanks to Nancy Drew,” as Papa Alice says. If you aren’t tired of secrets at places devoted to livestock production, the book urges you to buy Nancy’s next mystery, The Secret of Red Gate Farm, which I guess you can do if you want to.
THE END.
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