The End of the Trail Read online

  THEHARDY BOYS®

  A TOWN OF DEADLY SECRETS—AND NO WAY OUT OF THE WOODS!

  Hiking the Appalachian trail with their friends Chet, Phil, and Biff, the Hardys hit a snag when daredevil Biff gets hurt. The old mining town of Morgan’s Quarry is the nearest place for help. But even the run-down, isolated town turns menacing when two tough locals drop a bag full of money in front of the brothers!

  Joe and Frank are stonewalled when they ask about the money. The roads are washed out, the phones are down, and a crumbling mansion hides a gold mine of secrets. Every fork in the road leads to more danger... and everyone in Morgan’s Quarry seems bent on making sure the boys don’t make it out alive!

  THE END OF THE TRAIL

  ALADDIN

  Simon & Schuster

  Cover art copyright © 2000

  by Jeff Walker

  Ages 8–12

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Look Out Below!

  Frank polished off a cracker and washed it down with a swig from his canteen. “Well, looks like it’s time to hit the road again.”

  “Hey!” said a voice from above. “You really can see water of some sort.”

  Frank, Chet, Joe, and Phil turned to see Biff hanging from a tree limb.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” Biff said. “Great view up here. If I move a little farther out on the limb, I might be able to see all the way back to Bayport.”

  “That’s highly unlikely,” Phil replied. “Bayport’s too far over the horizon. Maybe you could see all the way to—”

  A loud snapping sound interrupted Phil. Biff had shinnied out to the far end of the tree branch, his legs and arms wrapped around it.

  Stunned, they all watched as the branch split in two and Biff plummeted twenty feet to the ground!

  The Hardy Boys

  Mystery Stories

  #109 The Prime-Time Crime

  #110 The Secret of Sigma Seven

  #139 The Search for the Snow Leopard

  #140 Slam Dunk Sabotage

  #141 The Desert Thieves

  #143 The Giant Rat of Sumatra

  #152 Danger in the Extreme

  #153 Eye on Crime

  #154 The Caribbean Cruise Caper

  #156 A Will to Survive

  #159 Daredevils

  #160 A Game Called Chaos

  #161 Training for Trouble

  #162 The End of the Trail

  #163 The Spy That Never Lies

  #164 Skin & Bones

  #165 Crime in the Cards

  #166 Past and Present Danger

  #167 Trouble Times Two

  #168 The Castle Conundrum

  #169 Ghost of a Chance

  #170 Kickoff to Danger

  #171 The Test Case

  The Hardy Boys Ghost Stories

  Available from MINSTREL Books

  and ALADDIN Paperbacks

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition August 2002

  First Minstrel edition July 2000

  Copyright © 2000 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  THE HARDY BOYS and THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-671-04759-7

  ISBN-10: 0-671-04759-0

  ISBN 978-1-44247-227-3 (eBook)

  Contents

  Chapter 1: On the Appalachian Trail

  Chapter 2: Morgan’s Quarry

  Chapter 3: Vietnam Revisited

  Chapter 4: No Exit

  Chapter 5: Shelter from the Storm

  Chapter 6: The Horse Whisperer

  Chapter 7: All Bets Are Off

  Chapter 8: To the Rescue!

  Chapter 9: Hay Ride

  Chapter 10: The Lady Vanishes

  Chapter 11: All Wired Up

  Chapter 12: Smoked Out

  Chapter 13: Road Warriors

  Chapter 14: A Bridge Too Far

  Chapter 15: Stream of Unconsciousness

  Chapter 16: A Friend in Need

  1 On the Appalachian Trail

  “I can see the ocean from here!” Joe Hardy shouted excitedly.

  He was hanging from the lowest branch of a towering pine tree, on top of an even more towering mountain in the Appalachian range. A beautiful summer sky arched above him as the sun rose above the horizon.

  “That’s impossible!” Phil Cohen shouted up at him from twenty feet below. “The ocean’s more than a hundred miles away! You must be seeing a lake!”

  “If you break your neck, I’m going to ask Dad if I can have your room,” Joe’s brother, Frank, yelled, staring up at him along with Phil, Chet Morton, and Biff Hooper.

  “Oh, relax,” Joe said. “Hanging from this limb is no worse than doing the parallel bars in gym class. I could hang here all day.”

  Frank smiled and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. Frank, at eighteen, was a year older than Joe, and sometimes his younger brother drove him a little crazy. When they and their three friends had set out on this 250-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail, he had promised his father, Fenton Hardy, that he would get everybody through in one piece. Joe was doing his best to thwart Frank’s plan.

  “Maybe,” Frank said slyly, “the rest of us will eat breakfast while you’re up there. Won’t be much food left when you get back down.”

  “All right!” Chet exclaimed, raising his eyes from the hand-held game machine where he was playing a game called Bear Hunter. “I thought we’d never eat!”

  “Why do you keep playing a game about hunting bears in the woods?” Biff asked. “You really are in the woods. And you really could bump into a bear or two.”

  “Somehow the game is more fun,” Chet said, not looking up. “If I get eaten by a bear in this game, at least I can hit Start and play again. But if I get eaten by a bear along the trail...”

  “Some lucky bear will have the best meal of its life,” Frank said, gazing at Chet’s ample girth.

  Joe began working his way along the limb, back toward the tree trunk. “You guys are not going to eat breakfast without me.”

  Frank smiled. Joe knew that he was being tricked into climbing back down, but Chet alone could finish off their daily breakfast ration in five minutes. Chet was known for his voracious appetite, and it was dangerous to leave food unattended when Chet was hungry—which he almost always was.

  Biff, who looked like a weight lifter and wasn’t bothered by the task of lugging seventy-five pounds of gear up mountains, grabbed the backpack full of food that was lying next to his sleeping bag. “Okay, I’ve got the food. Someone divvy it up.”

  “I will,” Chet said.

  “Huh-uh,” Frank said. “I’ll divide up the food. Last time I let you do it, you ate all the beef jerky.”

  “That was an accident,” Chet protested.

  Joe came rushing up, his T-shirt and blue jeans covered with bark and pine needles from the tree he had just climbed down. “Here I am. Nothing like a refreshing climb after spending the night in the woods. So, did you save anything for me?”

  “A drumstick, stuffing, and pumpkin pie,” Frank said. “Knock yourself out.”

  The qui
ntet of teenagers looked down at their meal. Frank had laid out two tins of sardines, five whole grain crackers, and five canteens of water.

  “Sardines again?” Chet moaned. “We’ve had the same thing since we started hiking a week ago. Couldn’t you at least open another tin of sardines? I’m starving to death.”

  “We agreed when we set out that we’d have sardines for breakfast,” Frank said.

  “And trail mix for lunch,” Joe said.

  “And jerky for dinner,” Biff added. “I’m sick of jerky.”

  “Hey,” Frank said to Biff. “If you want to carry a pack filled with two weeks’ worth of gourmet meals, we’ll stop off at the next grocery store.”

  “Er, no thanks,” Biff said. “Even the sardine cans are too heavy.”

  Joe sat down and pulled a small tin plate out of his pack. He piled three sardines on it and began to eat.

  “Remind me again why we’re here,” he said. “I’m having trouble remembering.”

  Phil Cohen popped a sardine in his mouth and stared off wistfully into the trees. “Because we wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail,” he said. “The largest supervised wilderness trail on the East Coast of the United States. Begun in 1921 and completed in 1937.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Joe said. “It was your idea. Remind me to put a snake in your sleeping bag tonight.”

  Chet stuffed three sardines into his mouth at once. “I wonder what a snake would taste like?” he said, gazing at his empty plate as though he expected to find more sardines on it.

  “Probably like chicken,” Frank said.

  “We have chicken?” Chet said, too busy swallowing to catch every word Frank said. “Have you been holding out on me?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “No, we don’t have chicken. Or chalupas. Or quarter-pound burgers. Or Starvin’ Guy microwave dinners. Or any of the other things you’ve been asking for all week.”

  “Boy, I wish we had a microwave,” Chet said. “And something to put in it.”

  Joe polished off his last sardine and leaned back on his elbows. “So, Phil, to get us going tell us one more time why the Appalachian Trail is so cool.”

  Phil Cohen’s face brightened. He loved sharing his vast knowledge. “There are so many reasons,” he said excitedly.

  “Which you’ve told us two hundred times, at least,” Chet said under his breath.

  “The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine,” Phil continued.

  “So does Route 95,” Joe said. “And it starts in Florida.”

  “The Appalachian Trail follows the crest of the Appalachian Mountains,” Phil continued.

  “Which must be why my legs are so sore,” Frank said.

  “There are more than forty thousand different species of insects along the trail,” Phil said.

  Biff picked at a sardine. “I think this is one,” he said, holding up a finger with a black dot on it.

  “Ewwwww,” Chet said. “You mean there are insects on our food?”

  “Don’t worry, Chet,” Frank said. “Insects are protein, like hot dogs.”

  “Really?” Chet asked.

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “We’ll have Aunt Gertrude bake us a cockroach casserole when we get home.”

  “And finally,” Phil said, slightly annoyed at the interruption, “the Appalachian Trail is something that everybody should experience. The American wilderness is vanishing rapidly, and we’re lucky that we still have a chance to explore it.”

  “Let’s have a big round of ‘America the Beautiful,’” Frank said. “‘O beautiful for spacious skies . . .’”

  “Can’t we sing something a little newer?” Biff asked.

  “Do you know any other songs about ‘purple mountain majesties’?” Frank asked. He waved at the view behind the group. Just visible through the trees was another mountain range, grayish blue in the morning sun. “We’ve got our own purple mountain majesties. Looks pretty good.”

  “I want a better look,” Biff said, springing to his feet. “I’m going to climb Joe’s tree.”

  “We have to get moving soon,” Frank said. “We’ve got a schedule to keep.” He was too late. Biff was on his way to the tree Joe had been hanging from just minutes earlier.

  Frank polished off a cracker and washed it down with a swig from his canteen. “Well, looks like it’s time to hit the road again.”

  “So soon?” Chet said. “Hey, how about a second helping of sardines?”

  “If we take a second helping,” Joe said, rising from his sitting position and stretching his arms, “we’ll be out of food before we get to the end of the trail.”

  “Hey!” said a voice from far above. “You really can see water of some sort from here.”

  All heads turned to see Biff hanging from Joe’s tree limb.

  “Okay, Biff,” Frank said. “Come on down. We’ve got some hiking to do.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” Biff said. “Great view up here. If I move a little farther out on the limb, I might be able to see all the way back to Bayport.”

  “That’s highly unlikely,” Phil replied. “Bayport’s too far over the horizon. Maybe you could see all the way to—”

  A loud snapping sound interrupted Phil. Biff had shinnied out to the far end of the tree branch, his legs and arms wrapped around it.

  Stunned, they all watched as the branch split in two and Biff plummeted twenty feet to the ground!

  2 Morgan’s Quarry

  “Biff!” Joe cried, rushing forward. But he was too late. Biff hit the ground with his knees and crumpled into a heap.

  Frank ran up to where his friend lay. Biff wasn’t moving. He seemed to be unconscious.

  “He’s hurt,” Frank said. “Let’s check him out, Joe.”

  Joe crouched next to Biff and gently lifted his wrist, placing his thumb on Biff’s pulse.

  Biff moaned. “Hey, what’re you doing? Let go of my hand.”

  “Glad to see you’re alive,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, I’m alive,” Biff said. “Why shouldn’t I be? The last thing I remember was ... I was looking at a great view. What happened?”

  “You fell out of the tree,” Chet told him.

  “No wonder I feel so awful,” Biff said, putting a hand on his head. “How did I get this headache?”

  “Could be a concussion,” Frank said. “We’d better get you to a hospital.”

  Joe leaned over and stared deeply into Biff’s eyes.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Biff said. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “I’m checking your eyes to see if you have a concussion, Biff,” Joe said. “Your pupils are the same size and don’t appear to be dilated. I think you’re okay.”

  “Hey, I’m terrific,” Biff said. “I work out every day. A little fall out of a tree isn’t going to hurt me.”

  “That wasn’t exactly a little fall,” Joe said. “You fell twenty feet. You could have been killed.”

  “I’m made of iron,” Biff said. “Just give me a hand to help me stand up.”

  “If you’re made out of iron,” Frank said, “how come you need help standing up?”

  Frank held out his hand. Biff grabbed it and began pulling himself up. Suddenly he screamed in pain and fell back.

  “Yow!” Biff exclaimed. “I think I broke my leg.”

  “Oh, great,” Joe said. “You’re injured and we’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Does this mean I can have his sardines?” Chet asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “No,” Frank said firmly. “It means Biff will probably get your sardines. And we have got to get Biff to a doctor—fast.”

  “A doctor?” Joe asked. “Then we’ll need to locate the nearest town.”

  Phil grabbed his backpack and opened a flap. “I’ve got the map right here. We’ll find a town and carry Biff there.”

  “Carry Biff?” Chet said jokingly. “How much do you weigh, Biff?”

  “Never mind that,” Joe said. “We’ll carry him to
gether. We can make a travois out of some tree branches and those bungie cords we brought with us.”

  “A travois?” Chet asked.

  “It’s kind of a like a stretcher,” Frank said. “Native Americans used them for transporting food.”

  “Here it is,” Phil said, stabbing a finger at the map. “There’s a town called Morgan’s Quarry that can’t be too far from here. I’d say it’s about ten miles away.”

  “Ten miles?” Frank said. “We won’t get there until afternoon.”

  “Well,” Phil said, “the second nearest town is Brighton, which is about seventy-five miles away.”

  “On second thought,” Frank said, “maybe Morgan’s Quarry isn’t so far away after all. How do we get there?”

  “There’s a side path about two or three miles from here,” Phil said. “We head straight down it and we’ll end up on the east edge of Morgan’s Quarry.”

  “Okay,” Frank said. “Let’s make that travois and get moving.”

  Biff made a sour face, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to be walking for a while. Joe and Chet gathered branches while Phil and Frank pulled the cords from their backpacks. First they placed two bundles of branches side by side and laced the cords between them, strapping them tightly to the branches at both ends. Then Frank and Joe grabbed Biff by the shoulders and midsection and laid him on top of the contraption.

  “Hey, guys, take it easy,” Biff complained. “You aren’t carrying food on this thing!”

  “Be careful with his leg,” Frank told Joe. “It might hurt when we set it down.”

  “Cool,” Joe said. “Maybe we can break a few extra bones for good measure.”

  “Very funny,” Biff said, but he lay still as the two brothers gently made him comfortable on the makeshift stretcher.

  “Done,” Frank said. “Now let’s drag and carry him to, um ...”

  “Morgan’s Quarry,” Phil answered.

  “Yeah, that’s the place,” Frank said. He lifted one pole of the travois, and Joe took the other. Together they would pull Biff on the travois while Chet and Phil walked beside it to protect Biff from branches and rocks. Chet and Phil would take the second shift at pulling.