(#15) The Haunted Bridge Read Online Free PDF Page A

curious to know what’s inside,” George interjected. “Any ideas, Nancy?”
    “Maybe something valuable. The thing that interests me is, how did it get here—so close to the haunted bridge?”
    “Perhaps the scarecrow put it there on his off-duty hours!” Bess suggested with a grin.
    “Ha-ha. Very funny,” her cousin answered. “Sounds like your brain has gone off duty.”
    Bess ignored the comment and remarked, “I’ll bet the water washed it down here. The creek evidently was much higher at one time than it is now.”
    “I wonder,” said Nancy, “if someone deliberately buried the chest—possibly the person who set up the scarecrow.”
    “Well, it’s too deep a mystery for me,” Bess declared as the girls climbed out of the ravine with their treasure. “Nancy, if you can find the answer to this riddle you’ll be good!”
    “I mean to try at least,” the young detective replied with a laugh.
    The three girls soon emerged from the woods. They met no one as they cut across the golf course. But as they approached Deer Mountain Hotel they saw Martin Bartescue on the terrace. He sat sipping a cool drink under an umbrella at a table. He quickly arose and came toward the girls.
    Nancy was annoyed. “That pest will be certain to see the chest and ask a million questions about it!” she murmured.
    Bess, who was carrying a sweater, carefully tossed it over Nancy’s arm so the object was concealed completely.
    Before Bartescue could speak, Nancy said hastily, “Thank you for the beautiful flowers.”
    “You liked the roses?” He beamed. “I ordered the best I could get. Of course the florist shop here at Deer Mountain is not like those in New York or Europe. How are you feeling today?”
    “Very well, except for my hand. One finger is still pretty useless,” Nancy replied.
    “Do you plan to play in the tournament?”
    “Yes, if the doctor says I may, and providing I qualify.”
    Bartescue smiled. “Your score was one of the lowest turned in. You qualified easily.”
    “I was hoping to,” she said. “Are you competing in the men’s tournament tomorrow?”
    “Oh yes, and I’m counting on winning the cup !” Bartescue announced. “I went out for a practice round this morning and shot a sixty-nine. I’m just coming into my game,” he boasted. “I doubt if anyone here will be a match for me unless I go into an unexpected slump.”
    The girls found his bragging decidedly distasteful, but listened politely.
    “May I treat you to ice cream?” he said as the four reached the hotel entrance. He seemed offended when Nancy declined.
    When the girls gained the privacy of their adjoining bedrooms, Bess chuckled. “At least he didn’t see the brass chest.”
    Nancy immediately tried to pry open the chest with a nail file but the lid would not budge.
    “We need something with a sharp point,” George declared as she studied the little chest. “If only we had an ice pick or something with a—”
    Nancy sprang to her feet, her eyes full of excitement.
    “Why didn’t I think of it before?”
    Without waiting to explain, she dropped the chest into George’s lap and ran from the room.
    She hurried through the hotel lobby to find a tool with which to pry open the lid. As Nancy passed the flower shop, she paused a moment to admire the beautiful display in the window.
    “It would be nice for me to send Bess and George each a bouquet,” she mused. “They admired mine so much. They should have some of their own.” She grinned.
    Impulsively Nancy entered the shop, where she purchased two bouquets to be delivered immediately to her friends.
    “Shall I include your name?” the clerk inquired politely.
    “No, just write ‘From A Friend.’ ”
    Nancy knew that Bess and George would recognize her handwriting and thought it would be fun to tease them. She watched as the clerk wrote the message on two cards. Nancy picked up one and looked at it curiously.
    “Your handwriting looks familiar,” she