The Secret at Shadow Ranch

Finished The Secret at Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene. It is the fifth book in the series. I read the 1931 reissued edition by Applewood Books. Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym of Mildred Wirt Benson who had written all the previous books in the series. Nancy and her friends Bess, George and Alice travel to Arizona with George's aunt to visit a ranch owned by the aunt. They spend much of the summer there riding, picnicking, having adventures and sleuthing. Nancy solves two different mysteries during the course of the book. One thing that stood out to me was that when the girls went off on their own in the country around the ranch, George's aunt insisted that Nancy take a pistol with her. At one point she uses it to shoot a lynx just as it is about to attack the group girls. The Nancy Drew of my childhood (1960s revisions) never carried or fired a gun. Not that I recall anyway. The idea that a teenage girl would know how to use a gun seems surprising to me, but Nancy is always full of surprises.