Free The Sky Phantom by Carolyn G. Keene Page B

in a tight spiral, but her second and third tries yielded excellent spins.
    “Very good,” Bruce commented.
    Nancy, herself, was pleased. After half an hour of practice, however, the girl flier confessed that she was beginning to feel a bit dizzy. “I’ve had enough.”
    Bruce grinned. “I imagine you’d like to go down to terra firma for a while.”
    Nancy would not admit that her pulse was still racing even though she had done the last maneuver very well.
    “Yes, let’s.”
    They had no sooner touched down and Nancy cut off the engine than Bruce lay down and put his ear to the ground. Nancy watched, wondering why he was doing this.
    “Someone’s riding near here,” he announced a moment later.
    While the couple waited, Nancy hoped fervently that the oncoming horseman would not be Ben Rail. She mentioned this to Bruce, who frowned.
    “I hope not also, because I’d sure be tempted to punch him!”
    It turned out that the rider was not Ben Rall. He was a stranger to Nancy and Bruce, who introduced himself as John Wade. He did not wait for them to tell him their names.
    “You folks out for a little jaunt?” he asked pleasantly. He was a sun-tanned, medium-sized, rather stout man, who patted his tummy affectionately. “When I saw you coming down, I thought I’d give Susie gal here a break. She can rest while I talk to you.”
    Wade dismounted and looked at the plane. “Pretty neat little job,” he remarked. “I sometimes use a small craft in my work. But today I felt like getting away alone and chose to ride the pony.”
    The man explained that he was an oil prospector. “There’s probably no oil here, but then, one never knows.”
    Nancy introduced herself and Bruce, then asked John Wade, “Do you live nearby?”
    “Oh, no,” he replied. “I live a long way off. But I flew to a ranch some miles from this territory and borrowed this pony. There’s an old superstition that a man’s horse will lead him to gold. Maybe this one will find some black gold for me.”
    He looked at Nancy. Then, as if she did not understand what he was saying, he added, “Black gold is a nickname for oil.”
    Nancy’s detective instincts were aroused. “You must have some kind of information or clue that there is oil in this area,” she said, and waited eagerly for him to answer.
    The prospector laughed. “Yes, I had a tip. I haven’t much hope that it means a thing, but if there’s any sign at all, I want to try out a new invention of mine. I’ve always thought it was a shame that when men drill for oil a gusher sometimes comes in that can’t be stopped. A lot of oil is wasted before the well can be capped. I hope to change that.
    “With my invention there won’t be any wasted oil. Right now one of my gadgets is tied onto my pony. The device drills a tiny hole, so a small stream of oil can flow out with very little lost.”
    “That sounds great,” Bruce remarked. “I’d like to see it working.”
    John Wade proved to be a continuous and rather tiresome talker. Nancy found it easier to listen than to try thinking of something to say to the man. Presently his comments shifted back to the Excello Flying School plane Nancy and Bruce were using.
    “She’s really a little beauty,” he said, gazing intently at the craft. Turning to Bruce he added, “Would you object if I climb aboard and look her over?”
    Bruce winked at Nancy, then said to Mr. Wade, “Not at all. I’ll join you.”
    As John Wade turned, Nancy smiled at the pilot. She had guessed what he was thinking. He did not want this stranger to disappear suddenly with his plane!
    As the prospector went inside the cabin, Nancy began to wonder if there was any possibility that the man could be connected with Roger Paine’s apparent abduction, or with the sky phantom. Maybe he was out reconnoitering and was not really an oil prospector at all!
    “But I must be fair,” she decided, and tried to erase this suspicious idea from her mind.
    The man seemed to be