Where do you hide a 150-pound gorilla?

In the open-and-shut case of King Kong, the 5-foot-tall, fiberglass statue that vanished from Shirley Lou Clifford's yard in South Huntingdon this weekend, the answer was: in a field, about two miles from home.

State police sought the fiberglass beast yesterday after Mrs. Clifford reported it missing from its longtime place in her yard, near the swimming pool. Less than 12 hours later, King Kong returned, shuttled home on the back of a truck by four teenage boys. They told Mrs. Clifford's husband, Gene, they recognized the stoic ape from news reports when they discovered it in a field while spotting deer.

"They just asked me if this was the house with the missing gorilla," Mr. Clifford said last night. "(Mrs. Clifford) is elated."

The discovery marked the end of a worrisome day for Mrs. Clifford, who salvaged the ape 26 years ago from an extinct miniature golf course in Perryopolis, Fayette County, where it hovered over the 13th hole.

Mrs. Clifford strapped the gorilla to the top of her 1974 Volkswagen Beetle and drove it home.

King Kong continues to reign over Mrs. Clifford's concrete jungle in Westmoreland County. But the circumstances of the nighttime heist -- the next chapter in King Kong's storied past -- remain a mystery.

The prized primate might have been lifted by thieves who had long eyed it from the road and were frustrated by Mrs. Clifford's repeated refusals to sell it, she said. For years, motorists would stop at her house on Oden Road and ask if they could buy the gorilla.

"I'd say, 'It's just not for sale,'" Ms. Clifford said. "It was just the talk of the community. Everybody wanted it."

Mr. Clifford offers a simpler theory: "I think was a couple of kids playing a prank," he said.

Either way, the Cliffords are glad to have their gorilla back. "It's an eye-catcher," she said. "It's a sentimental thing."

State police in Belle Vernon had no physical description of the culprit -- or culprits, as Ms. Clifford believes is most likely the case. Troopers offered few glimpses into the nighttime heist in a short police report titled, "Theft of Gorilla."

The report says the gorilla went missing between 11 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. yesterday, when Ms. Clifford stepped onto her deck and realized King Kong was gone.

Thieves, however, spared Baby Kong, the 2-foot cement gorilla who was sheltered under King Kong's legs.

Looters have generally been respectful of the 85 statuary creatures that occupy Ms. Clifford's backyard menagerie, pilfering a couple of squirrels and rabbits here and there, but leaving behind the larger bulls, cows and sheep. Bandits did make off with a large, vinyl replica of the Ten Commandments, also visible from the road, she said.

Despite that theft, Ms. Clifford's yard was not fenced and she did not have a security system, stirring fears that the traffic and train lights that light up her yard at night would be snatched.

But she never thought they'd take King Kong. "That," she said, "was pretty bold."