“Fire!” Nancy screamed.
2
A Clue
Flipping the latch, Nancy threw open the stall door. The horse charged out, flattening Nancy against the outside wall, and bolted down the aisle.
Nancy ran into the stall. In the corner she could see that a pile of hay was burning. Lee Anne raced up, carrying an extinguisher. “Bess went to get Security,” she gasped.
She aimed the nozzle of the fire extinguisher at the flames and pressed the lever. Foam spewed onto the fire. Nancy stomped on the edges of the flames to put out the embers.
“What are you doing in here?” a voice demanded. Nancy glanced over her shoulder. A woman wearing riding breeches stood in the doorway. Her face expressed her horror. “Where’s my horse?”
“He ran down the aisle,” Nancy told her. “There was a fire and your horse was frantic. When I opened the door, I couldn’t stop him from running.”
The woman ran in the direction Nancy pointed. Turning off the extinguisher, Lee Anne let out her breath. “Thank goodness you smelled the smoke, Nancy.”
“What’s going on in here?” a deep voice boomed. A huge man wearing a cowboy hat strode into the stall with Bess close behind him. He wore a tan uniform with a gold badge that read Chief of Security. Nancy could see the name R. Texel written on a name tag above the badge.
“There was a fire,” Lee Anne explained. “But it’s out now.”
“A fire?” Texel tipped his hat back and scowled at the girls. “How’d it start? Were you girls smoking in here?”
“No, sir,” Nancy said.
“Humph.” He knelt down by the burned pile, his knees cracking. Eyes narrowed, he studied what was left of the hay.
Lee Anne nervously checked her watch. “Hey, everyone, I’ve got to run and help Michael. His test is in half an hour. You and Bess meet me at Arena One on top of the hill, okay?”
“As soon as we can,” Nancy said. “I want to find out more about this fire.”
Nancy was as curious about the fire as R. Texel. Her first hunch—that someone had dropped a match or a cigarette—didn’t make sense. Would anyone do something so foolish? she wondered.
Texel pointed to the ashes. “Hay doesn’t just catch on fire by itself. Let’s see if anybody knows what happened.” He turned and marched out of the stall.
“What do you think happened, Nancy?” Bess asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s look around and see if we can find anything.” Nancy crouched down and poked through ashes. Finding nothing unusual in the blackened hay, she began to sift through the sawdust that had been used as bedding on this stall floor. Her fingers felt something long and flat.
“Look what I found.” Nancy held up an unlit match torn from a matchbook. The head had several white streaks on it. “I wonder if the person who did this struck this match first. When it didn’t light, he or she dropped it.”
Nancy stood up and spoke, “Either someone was really careless—or this fire was set on purpose.”
The two girls walked out into the aisle. The woman wearing the riding breeches was leading her horse toward them. The horse’s neck was dark with sweat. As it walked, Nancy noticed that it limped slightly on one of its front legs.
“Is your horse all right?” Nancy asked with concern.
The woman shook her head. “No. Secret bruised the sole of his hoof.”
“Tough break,” Bess said.
The woman smoothed the horse’s forelock, tears filling her eyes. “Secret and I have been training all summer for this show. We’re lucky it’s just a bruise and not something worse.”
Turning to Nancy and Bess, she held out her hand. “I’m Valerie Dunn. I want to thank you. Mr. Texel explained that your quick thinking saved Secret’s life and possibly the lives of all the horses in the barn.” She shuddered. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if this place had caught fire.”
“Ms. Dunn, do you have any idea how the hay—” Nancy started to ask.
“Just a second there, young lady.” R. Texel strode up with a guard who was half his size. The name on his badge was A. Brackett.
Texel hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Nancy said with as much politeness as she could summon. She held out the match. “You might be interested in this. I found it in the sawdust.” She dropped it into Texel’s hand.
His bushy eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say a word. Nancy and Bess said goodbye to Valerie Dunn, then headed toward the other end of the barn.
“Well,” Bess said, “Mr. Texel made it clear he didn’t want our help.”
“Fine with me,” Nancy said as they left through the same doors they’d entered earlier. “I want to have fun at the show, not hunt for an arsonist. Besides, Ned should be arriving any minute.”
Stopping outside, Nancy scanned the parking lot. A tall, attractive young man with brown hair and an athletic build was striding toward them.
Nancy waved. “Ned!” she called.
“Hi, you two,” he said as he jogged up. “How’s the competition?”
“We’ve been too busy putting out a fire to see any of it yet,” Bess replied.
“What happened?” Ned asked with concern.
