Inside illustration.
Synopsis: SPOILERS!
This is utterly different from the revised text and might, if published today, end up being controversial. The local police in the story prove unsympathetic and actually hostile, and the position is taken by Nancy and the others that they may have to take matters into their own hands against the group of crooks and thugs they are dealing with. Vigilante justice, in other words, and that upsets many people.
In this particular case, not me. The thugs deserved everything they got and more, as they are responsible for damaging many people's lives, stealing from people, torturing one person and outright trying to kill at least one other. They are involved in numerous crimes. Nancy blows up a small dam (although what a dam was doing in an areas of far off the beaten trail I'm not sure), and floods an area that the crooks want and destroys all their equipment.
Still, there are people who would probably say Nancy went too far, so it's not surprising the book was totally re-written.
1935 Text
Chapter 1
Nancy is at her father's office. He's talking to Marcus Taylor who has lumber interests. Nancy is interested in broadcasting. (Where this comes from who knows, and there's no other reference to it in the story.) Nancy has won first prize in a radio contest and has won some property in Canada. Mr. Drew suggests Nancy go to look at the property in the company of an older woman, Mrs. Donnelly.
There is a reference to George and 'her desire to be just as boyish looking as she could.'
A guy tricks Nancy out of a suitcase belonging to an old woman.
Chapter 2
Nancy talks to the police. She meets Mrs. Donnelly, the old woman she was holding the suitcase for. Nancy gives chase to the crook in her own car and blocks his. He rabbits but is caught. The thug is Tom Stripe. Nancy takes Mrs. Donnelly to the Taylor home, and finds out that the land she has won might have gold on it.
Chapter 3
Nancy goes home. She had gotten a call from some guy. She bakes a chocolate cake. A guy tries to buy Nancy's property. He sees her and bothers her some more. Bess and George will go with her to Canada. Stripe gets out of jail on bond.
Chapter 4
Nancy meets Ms. Chapelle, a writer. They are on a train and the train wrecks. There's a fire.
Chapter 5
A 'railroad wrecking crew' arrives which was apparently like today's EMT personnel. Mrs. Donnelly and Ms. Chapelle are missing. Raymond Niles and Tom Stripe are both tehre. the girls go to a hotel. For some very odd reason there's a section about Bess going sleep-walking and almost falling from a fire escape.
Chapter 6
Bess is rescued. The deed is missing. A guy takes it and runs. Donnelly and Chapelle are in the hospital. Nancy gets a message to contact some guy. Donnelly is not in bad shape, but Chapelle is. She mentions a message in a hollow oak.
Chapter 7
The girls are chased by a bull on a farm. They are at a farm the message told them to go to. Donnelly will stay at the farm to recover. That doesn't work out, though, when it's revealed that she hates the woman who lives at the farm, a Mrs. Ranny.
Chapter 8
Their fathers were rivals over a tract of lumber. Gold is involved. Mrs. Donnelly warns Nancy about Stripe and Niles. Nancy gets a call from the hospital. Miss Chapelle's condition is worse, and she needs an operation.
Chapter 9
Chapelle wants Nancy to deliver a message to her grandfather, Pierre, in Canada. He lives near Nancy's land. She had used the oak tree to hide messages to her lover; they had planned to elope, but something went wrong. (A fake message). Nancy talks to the woman who hates Mrs. Donnelly.
Chapter 10
Mrs. Donelly wants to leave. They head to Canada. Chapelle lived through her operation. They get to Wellington Lake.
Chapter 11
They get a guide with a boat. There is a footprint of some city guy by a canoe. They spot two men who try to escape them, one of the men being Stripe. Stripe and Niles appears while they are eating lunch on land. They want to buy Nancy's land. Things get nasty quickly.
Chapter 12
Nancy and the others escape. The thugs head through the woods to get to the grandfather first. Nancy meets Norman Ranny, the man who had been Chapelle's lover. He will take them to Pierre Chap's cabin.
Chapter 13
Stripes and Niles attack Norman. They break into Chap's cabin. Nancy and the others get there. The thugs leave. Nancy hears something in the cellar.
Chapter 14
Nancy goes into the basement and finds a cat. Then she finds another cat and finds Norman. Pete, their guide, has disappeared.
Chapter 15
Nancy talks to Norman. She tells him that Chapelle still loves him. Nancy determines that the note in the oak had been changed. They go to a trapper's cabin to spend the night. The son of those people finds Pete, who has been hurt.
Chapter 16
Pete says Stripe hit him. They ride horses to Nancy's property. Norman is their guide now. They pan for gold and find a little bit. Some guy lands in a plane and claims the land is his. Then another plane of thugs lands. Nancy and Norman get in the one of the planes and escape.
Chapter 17
The Yellow Dawn mining company is a scam operation run by the thugs. Nancy sends a telegram to her father. She goes to the hospital to see Chapelle. Norman and Annette Chapelle reunite. Mr. Drew is coming by plane. He gets there and tells Nancy another company claims Nancy has given up her land. Norman visits his parents.
Chapter 18
They go to Wellington Lake. Mr. Drew gets more information for a case against the thugs. They go to Nancy's land. Chap's house is boarded up. Pete has left and gone after Tom Stripe.
Chapter 19
Mr. Drew has arranged for the police to join them, along with a surveyor. A possess of woodsmen are rounded up on horses. They find Pete, who has been shot. (There was no keeping of the bullet and trying to match the bullet with the bullet from any of the guns the thugs had.)
Chapter 20
Stripe almost attacks Nancy. Nancy finds out the grandfather's life is in danger. Nancy asks Norman to take her to the hollow oak.
Chapter 21
Nancy finds a message in the tree. They find a metal chest buried by the tree and it has money and gold coins and belongs to the grandfather who was leaving it for Annette. (Why didn't they take the chest with them?) Tom Stripe fins Nancy's bracelet by the tree.
Chapter 22
Norman lassos Stripe and ties him to a tree. strip refuses to talk, so Norman puts dry brush around his feet and lights it. (Come dance around Ook Ook.) Stripe confesses to torturing the grandfather and says where he is hidden. Nancy goes to the camp to get a rescue party started and meets Niles who claims he's innocent of any wrong-doing. the thugs try again to buy the land from her. The surveyor tells her that the amount of gold on the land is probably very limited. Nancy gives a plane pilot a letter for Annette. She agrees to sell the property.
Chapter 23
The professor wasn't there; Stripe had lied. (Relight the fire!!) The sheriff is angry at Nancy, refusing to understand that she was lied to and the guilty one is really Stripe. The sheriff and his men ride off to fight a forest fire. Nancy overhears two thugs saying she won't really be given any money for the property.
Chapter 24
Nancy tells the thugs they can have the land for free if they will bring the grandfather back. Mr. Drew had not been told Nancy would say this in advance and he's quite angry. The girls go to the shack where the gold has been hidden and liberate the gold. (The gold is really Nancy's since it had been taken out of the ground before Nancy gave them the property.) Then Nancy heads towards a shack which has dynamite.
Chapter 25
Nancy then dynamites a convenient dam. Mr. Drew and the girls, etc. ride away fast. The water floods Nancy's property, destroying the thug's mining equipment. Later, the chapter says how the thugs were arrested and tried. Annette and Norman will get married. Mrs. Donnelly and Mrs. Ranny become friends after settling their differences. Much of the town turns out to welcome Mr. Drew and the girls back to River Heights.
1972 Text
Chapter 1
Nancy's aunt needs her to come to New York City. A detective named Boyce needs help on a case. (Nancy's mother died when she was three). Nancy's elevator gets stuck. The detective belongs to a mystery club and the group had failed to solve a mystery. They were looking for a message in an oak tree from a French missionary in 1680. The bad guy is Kid Kadle, and he wants the message for himself.
Chapter 2
There is an archaeological dig that Nancy will be working on with the other girls since Mr. Drew won't let Nancy go alone. Ned calls. A female cousin of his is working on the dig. Nancy gets to go but Bess and George have to attend a wedding before they can come. Some male follows Nancy, sits next to her on the plane and asks a lot of questions.
Chapter 3
She gets to the hotel and meets a woman named Julie. The guy on the plane is there and annoys Nancy. Nancy takes a helicopter to the dig.
Chapter 4
A goat wakes Nancy up. An old farmer gives Nancy a ride. He takes her to see the one known hollow oak tree. He shows Nancy an old coin.
Chapter 5
The coin was Pere's, the Frenchman. Nancy and the others find another hollow oak with a lead plate that has his initials on it. Kit uses a helicopter to see what Nancy is doing. She goes to the airport and talks to the chopper pilot.
Chapter 6
Kit in a disguise arrives. Nancy digs at the site and finds a human bone. Kit shows up at the dig to steal stuff, but they chase him away.
Chapter 7
The police are informed. A Native American talks to Nancy about Pere's treasure which was stolen by pirates who then killed him. The treasure was hidden in a cave. The pirates died shortly thereafter. The car Nancy is in overturns in a stream.
Chapter 8
No one was hurt. The car has to be dried out and then it starts working again. Ned and the boys along with Bess and George will be joining Nancy. They are taking a plane and then a helicopter. When Nancy gets back to the camp there's a message from Kit who claims to have found the location of the treasure.
Chapter 9
Kit tries to steal a skeleton that had been unearthed and put together. A guy named Bob was on guard duty but has disappeared.
Chapter 10
They find a piece from Bob's shirt. They call the police. Mr. Drew sends Nancy a letter telling her about another guy who has disappeared.
Chapter 11
Two guys try to kidnap Nancy. A guy named Art is jealous of Ned. Nancy leaves the dig for a bit. Ned and the others arrive. They go to a towboat. Bess is on another diet. They get near the cave and hear a cry for help.
Chapter 12
The cry was a distraction. They get to the cave and find a note from the other missing guy. He his held in Elizabethtown. They talk to a deputy at a very small town and go to check out an abandoned house that is reported to have someone in it. They go up to the attic and hear heavy breathing.
Chapter 13
They find the other missing guy. He was taken by Kit and a henchman. They go back to the towboat where a log breaks through the window and nearly hits them. George falls between the barges.
Chapter 14
George is okay. Art is still jealous of Ned. They go back to the dig. Later they go to check out other oaks. Two young punks steal their food.
Chapter 15
They go back to the second oak, then look for another one. The tree has been hacked on. They find a trail of spearheads. Nancy talks to the police then returns to the dig. Two fake guards demand all their artifacts.
Chapter 16
The thugs leave. Nancy lets the police know. Ned and Nancy find the stolen camper the thugs had used. They go to an abandoned quarry.
Chapter 17
A dog attacks Nancy but is driven off.
Chapter 18
Nancy gets a ransom note for Bob. They take it to the police. Nancy takes a fake sack of stuff to the thugs. Bob and the two thugs are spotted.
Chapter 19
The boys attack the thugs and Bob helps them. Bob tells how he was kidnapped. The prisoners are taken to the police. Nancy checks out another oak tree and finds another directional arrow. They find yet another oak tree near a waterfall. This one has a metal box inside. Kit shows up.
Chapter 20
Kit is there with an armed thug, but two troopers arrive and take them captive. They find a hunting horn, a note, and some other things.
Postscript
It notes that the following summer the excavation continued.
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