The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (1931, 1961, 1989) Part 3

The next on the farm one of the cows wanders off near the woods. Nancy decides to go after it herself in hopes that it will wander towards the camp of the Black Snake Colony so she can have a closer look. She finds the cow near the camp and a man from the group urges her to leave immediately and does not buy her story of trying to find the cow. After getting the cow closer towards the farm she returns back to the camp to try and gain more information with no luck. During the night a message arrives from Nancy's father urging her return home right away with no reason as to why.

In the morning the girls agree that it had to of been fake. Mr. Drew would never had done such a thing, he would have called her in an emergency. They decided until it was light enough to make their way back to River Heights to check on Nancy's father to see in fact if everything was okay. They stopped at a diner on the way in for a quick meal. Nancy paid for their meal with a twenty dollar bill. A few minutes later some men in suites arrived after being called by the diner to arrest Nancy for giving them counterfeit money. The girls insist they had no idea they had counterfeit money given to them. The twenty dollar bill Nancy used was given to her by her father. Thankfully one of the staying guests at the farm stopped in and vouched for them. After speaking with the men further they worked with Chief McGinnis, they were never given the of the young lady whom worked with Chief McGinnis on what had been going on out here and apologized once they learned that was Nancy.

They went into town to get some groceries that Joanne's grandma had asked that they bring back with them from their trip. On the way they see the old woman from the woods Nancy had helped earlier. She was needing to deliver a letter, so they took her as far as the post office but refused any help to get a ride back to the Black Snake Colony camp.

Upon returning back to the farm the girls worked vigorously on their costumes in hopes they could attempt to try and sneak in there that night. They were interrupted by Joanne's grandma as it was time for dinner. That evening the one guest that had vouched for them at the diner made his leave as he had business in the morning in town with his father. Joanne's grandma urged the girls to go relax a while down near the swimming hole that was on the farm. They all agreed and went down there for a while. On the way back George was bitten by a snake.

Thinking quickly the girls got some scissors disinfected with the jade perfume they had left, for they hoped it would have small amount of alcohol in it to help. Nancy made a small cut near the bite and some blood came out, they hope they did enough to get any venom out the snake might have left. They made a tourniquet for her leg and they carried her back to the farm. Joanne's grandma called the local doctor and he made a house visit to see George's bite. He inspected it and applauded the girls for their wonderful first aide as he had to do very little to continue some small treatment to it and urged George to rest for the rest of the evening. Later that night Nancy still wanted to venture out to attempt to gain more information about the Black Snake Colony. George was feeling well enough and Joanne went along. They took their finished costumes with them. They saw the group perform their dance outside and move into the cave. Nancy decided they would start going in one by one following everyone's lead. Joanne decided to stay outside in case she had to go get help and she knew the way back to the farm in the dark.

I am noticing that Carolyn Keene is starting to use very small things over again as she has used in previous books. The scenario that someone poses as Mr. Drew urging Nancy to come home due to an emergency and can't explain why. This was also done in the Hidden Window Mystery. This also happened a lot in the television series that aired in the 1970's. Also find this to be very strange that all the mysteries are always away from home, why can't their be mysteries in River Heights that they can look into. Then this eliminates all these strange scenarios of people accusing you of things since you are not from that town.

Now I do have to admit Nancy and her friends do certainly know how to take care of themselves during a medical emergency, at least they don't pose as damsel in distress very often. However they do have a tendency to put themselves in situations that can be preventable, as for example making these costumes and going to this Black Snake Colony to impersonate them to gain information. If they don't get caught through this I would be heavily surprised. If they chose to focus on their goal to bring in more customers for the farm, which is what their main intent was and not push their efforts finding out about this group a lot of things could easily be prevented. I know Nancy is a smart young woman as are her friends, but her thought process and motivation to go through with certain things really puzzle me. Perhaps my next mystery as I am reading more on her, is to solve the mystery of understanding her mindset, and I have more than fifty books to help with this exploration.