095 An Instinct for Trouble by Carolyn Keene

Alicia sug-
    gested.
    Jennifer shook her head. “Jack has a two-
    way radio in his car,” she pointed out. “All rangers do. He could have called the station and had somebody come by with a message.”
    Nancy’s thoughts spun. What if her original idea, that Trainey was the head of the poach-
    ers, was right after all, and Jack had discovered it? Trainey and his gang might be holding Jack captive to keep him from interfering with the last phase of the operation.
    As the party broke up, Nancy took Ned and Bess aside. “We have to take turns keeping watch tonight,” she told them, checking her watch. “It’s just eleven. I’ll take the first two hours, then Ned can spell me.”
    Bess nodded and quickly ducked into the tent, leaving Nancy and Ned alone in the moonlight.
    “Should I stay with you?” Ned asked. “It might be safer.”
    Nancy put her arms around his neck. “I’d love you to, but you might distract me from my job. Besides, you need to rest before your shift.”
    “All right. Be careful, Nan,” Ned whispered.
    He gave her a lingering kiss, then went to his tent.
    Nancy watched him go with a sense of regret and loneliness. She crossed the campground to the spot she had picked out earlier, next to a large lodgepole pine. It gave her a clear view of the campsite but kept her hidden in deep shadows.
    The camp grew quiet. In the distance an owl hooted. Somewhere closer, an animal crept stealthily through the underbrush. Nancy shiv-
    ered and pulled the zipper of her jacket up higher. Ghostly wisps of white fog began to drift by. Nancy shifted her position, folded her arms tight against her chest, and scanned the camp.
    As the minutes ticked by, she felt her eyes closing. So she decided to walk around to keep from falling asleep. She circled the camp-
    ground, then walked halfway down the road that led to the highway. Stopping just before the last bend, she saw a truck move by, its empty rear end rattling.
    She tensed. It seemed odd to be traveling through the park at that hour. Without stop-
    ping to think, she raced down the road, reach-
    ing the highway just in time to see the truck turn into the woods about a quarter of a mile east. It looked to Nancy to be near the spot where Piker and Richard had been working on the new trail.
    She jogged to the place where the truck had disappeared, realizing that there was a dirt access road there. The maintenance men had probably used it to move supplies into their work area.
    Nancy turned in and kept running. She’d covered about a half a mile when she saw the truck parked up ahead. She slowed and made her way up to it cautiously.
    She heard a low voice on the far side of the cab. It was Richard! A flashlight clicked on, illuminating the figures of the two mainte-
    nance men.
    “Hurry up,” Piker said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
    “Yeah,” Richard replied. “I’m not looking forward to carrying all those cages.”
    Nancy’s spine stiffened. That meant the marmots had to be stashed someplace near-
    by.
    The two men began moving forward. Nancy followed at a safe distance. The access road ended about twenty feet beyond the truck, dwindling into a path that wound up a hill-
    side.
    Her calf muscles were feeling the strain of the climb, and she began to notice that the trees were thinning out. Nancy spied a cabin to the right of the trail. Piker unlocked the door and the two of them went inside.
    Nancy circled the cabin and saw a small window in the back. She crept up to it, pulled herself up, and peered in through the dusty pane.
    Her breath caught in her throat. Lining the walls were dozens of cages of marmots. Nancy could hear Piker. “That tranquilizer is strong.
    They’ll be under for a few hours, plenty of time to get them all into the truck and out of here.” .
    “How much longer do we have to hang around here?” Richard asked.
    Piker shrugged. “Until the boss gets back.
    He said he wanted to nose around the camp to make sure the