The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene Page B

reached the area where the second tree was located. But it was on the other side of a deep creek.
    “I guess we came out of our way,” Nancy remarked.
    “I’m starved!” said Bess. “Let’s sit down here by this nice shady stream and have our lunch.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Dave spoke up.
    The three couples climbed out of the old truck and walked toward the water to wash their hands. Burt was the first to finish. As he turned back toward the truck he saw two little boys peering into the cab. Thinking they might know the best spot to drive across the stream, he hurried toward them. Instead of waiting for Burt, the two ran away as fast as they could.
    “I guess they’re shy of strangers,” he thought with a smile, and waited for the others to join him.
    Nancy, first to get there, reached into the cab for the box of food. The string which had been tied around it was gone. Quickly she took off the lid and looked inside.
    “Oh no! It can’t be!” she exclaimed.

CHAPTER XV
    Strange Row of Stones
    AT Nancy’s outcry Bess looked into the box. She gave a little shriek. “What! No food?”
    “Those little boys I saw running away,” Burt remarked, “must have taken everything.” He dashed off in the direction the children had taken.
    Ned and Dave followed, while Bess sat down on the ground, disconsolate.
    “Oh, don’t be silly!” George chided her cousin. “It wouldn’t hurt you to go without a meal.”
    “You’re a good one to talk,” Bess replied. “You eat all you want and stay slim. I can’t help it if I get hungry.”
    It seemed like a long time before the boys returned. Ned was holding a package of sandwiches which the little boys had dropped. Burt and Dave had their hands filled with luscious raspberries. Streamers of watercress were trailing from their pockets.
    “I see you retrieved some of our lunch,” said Bess. “Did you catch those little monkeys?”
    “No. They had too much of a head start, but if we ration this food, we won’t starve.”
    Dave grinned. “I feel as if I’m on Operation Survival.”
    While they were eating, Nancy and her friends discussed how they were going to get across the water. They did not want to risk being trapped in midstream if the truck stalled.
    “Let’s follow the water upstream,” Ned suggested. “We may come to a shallow place. We could cross there and then drive back to follow the direction of the arrow.”
    They started off but found the going a bit difficult. What had been a wagon road was now overgrown with grass and bushes. The truck was sturdy, however, and finally they came to a shallow part of the stream.
    Nancy laughed. “I wonder if Clem knew about this road, but was in too much of a hurry to take this longer way.”
    She described the spill which she, Julie Anne, and Clem had taken when the farmer’s old car had tipped over in the water.
    When they reached the second hollow oak with the plate, Ned looked skeptically at the terrain due south. “We’d better not try taking this truck through those woods. I’m sure there’s not enough space between the trees.”
    The whole group climbed out and waited for Nancy to lead the way. Everyone kept looking for hollow oaks, but found none. Finally they climbed to the top of a wooded ridge.
    “Isn’t that an old oak tree ahead of us?” George asked.
    “It looks like one,” Nancy replied. The six searchers hurried forward.
    As they neared the tree, Ned remarked, “Somebody has mutilated this.”
    “But why?” Burt queried. “There’s no lead plate on it and the tree looks pretty sturdy to me, not like one with a hollow center.”
    There was no doubt but that someone with a hatchet had hacked at the oak over and over again to get to the middle of it.
    “The man who did this,” said Burt, “must have thought it was the prize one.”
    “What a shame to damage it!” Bess said. “This was a gorgeous tree. Nancy, do you think the person who hacked the trunk has anything to do with the