The End of the Trail Page 6

  From the direction of the barn door, they could hear the sound of voices. “I think they’re in here,” said the voice of the servant. “I thought I saw them heading in this direction.”

  “I’m not so sure, Quentin,” Bill McSavage said. “I think they may have gone back into the fields. I’m heading up there. You take a look around here. That pitchfork might help. If you don’t find them, join me.”

  “And if I do find them?”

  “You know what to do.” Bill McSavage’s footsteps disappeared quickly into the distance.

  The door creaked open. The servant, Quentin, could be heard walking across the dried hay that littered the floor of the barn.

  Frank shuddered as he remembered what Bill had just said about a pitchfork. Quentin must be about to poke the fork into the haystacks to see if we’re hiding in them. A quick poke with a pitchfork could hurt a lot—or it could be fatal!

  There was the sound of metal scraping against the floor as Quentin picked up the pitchfork, then the sound of the pitchfork being pushed into dry grass. Quentin was poking at a haystack, but it wasn’t the one that Frank and Joe were hiding in. Frank almost sighed with relief, but he didn’t want Quentin to hear him. And it was unlikely that the man would give up after a single poke.

  The sound of the pitchfork came again, this time closer to where Frank was hiding. He kept as still as he could. Then the pitchfork stabbed straight into the large haystack, right between Frank’s legs! Frank willed himself to stay still. He didn’t want to give himself and Joe away. The pitchfork lashed into the hay again, this time inches from Frank’s bicep. If Quentin aimed just a few inches to the right, Frank was a goner!

  But the next stab into the hay sounded slightly farther away, though Quentin was still examining the haystack the Hardys had plunged into. Frank started to relax as Quentin moved away, but then he started worrying about Joe. What if Quentin had stabbed his brother?

  There was another sharp thrust from the pitchfork, but it didn’t seem to touch anything except hay. Another thrust followed, and Frank heard an odd noise, as if the pitchfork had struck metal.

  Metal? Maybe, thought Frank, Quentin had found a needle in a haystack.

  The sound of the metal seemed to distract Quentin. He wandered away and could be heard putting the pitchfork back against the wall. Stable doors creaked as Quentin checked the horse stalls, then the outer door opened. Frank could hear Quentin leave.

  Just to be sure, though, he stood quietly in the hay for another minute. Finally he peeked out. There was no sign of Quentin.

  “I think it’s safe to come out,” Frank whispered. “Are you okay, Joe?”

  “Yeah,” his brother said. “But that pitchfork scared me almost as much as the gun did.”

  Frank crawled out of the hay. Unless Quentin was crouching in a horse stall, the man was gone.

  There was a rustling noise as Joe began to climb out from beneath the hay. Then there was a clanking sound.

  “Ouch!” Joe exclaimed loudly from beneath the hay. Then his face appeared, contorted with pain.

  “Keep your voice down!” Frank whispered. “Do you want those guys to hear us?”

  “I just banged my head on something really hard,” Joe said, trying to keep his voice down. “Wow, does it hurt!”

  “Maybe what you hit was the same thing I heard Quentin hit with the pitchfork,” Frank said. “Was it metal?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “I was too busy feeling pain to do a chemical analysis on it.”

  Frank helped Joe stand up. Then he began digging in the huge stack of hay.

  “What are you looking for?” Joe asked. “A needle in a—”

  “I already thought of that joke,” Frank said. “There’s something under this hay.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Joe said. “Probably just an old plow somebody left lying here in 1888.” But he started digging, too.

  Something very large was under the hay, but it wasn’t a plow. As the brothers began to uncover it, they could see that it was indeed metal and was freshly painted.

  “That’s not from 1888,” Joe said, a baffled expression on his face. “It looks brand-new. A lot newer than anything else in this town.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “It’s a truck. But why would they keep a truck in a haystack?”

  “Maybe they couldn’t afford a garage,” Joe said, and laughed at his joke.

  As they brushed the hay off the truck, Frank stood back to get a good look at it.

  “I think maybe we’ve found the answer to our mystery,” he said.

  Joe nodded. “Yeah, now I think I know what Bill McSavage and his friends have been hiding.”

  The truck was small with a cab designed for two people and a squared-off rear end. On the side it read Pinkerby’s Armored Transport.

  “Looks like the kind of truck banks use to move money,” Joe said.

  “Let’s see what’s inside,” Frank suggested.

  He walked to the back door. It wasn’t locked. He opened the bolt and pulled the door open. Even in the dim light of the barn they could see what the truck contained. Dozens of large sacks, like the one they had seen the Brookburn brothers carrying the day before, were piled up inside. The sacks were stuffed full of something and it was pretty obvious what that something was because it was spilling out of several bags—$100 bills, bound together with paper seals, like those in a bank vault.

  “This thing is full of money!” Joe exclaimed.

  “It sure is,” Frank said. “There must be millions of dollars in here!”

  10 The Lady Vanishes

  “Where did all this come from?” Joe wondered. “Millions of dollars don’t just pop out of thin air.”

  “Especially with a truck conveniently wrapped around them,” Frank said. “Hey, you remember that robbery a few months ago down in Cold Ridge?”

  “Oh, right,” Joe said. “Somebody got away with a truckload of cash. The cops never caught them.”

  “Well, I think we’re looking at that truckload right now,” Frank said.

  “But Cold Ridge is hundreds of miles from here,” Joe said.

  “True,” Frank said. “But whoever stole this would have wanted to move it far from the scene of the crime. They’d want to hide it someplace nobody would think to look.”

  “And nobody would have looked if we hadn’t stumbled into this little town,” Joe said. “I don’t think they were expecting visitors.”

  “And they didn’t like visitors when they got them,” Frank said. “That’s why we’ve felt so unwelcome here.”

  “We have to tell somebody about this,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, but who?” Frank asked. “I bet Sheriff Brickfield is in on this, too.”

  “We can go to Loraleigh,” Joe said. “She seems to be okay.”

  “I think you’re right about Loraleigh,” Frank said. “But how could she help us? We might just be putting her in danger.”

  Joe shivered. “It looks like all of our lives are in danger. Me, you, Chet, Phil—and Biff.”

  “Biff should be okay with Rhonda,” Frank said.

  “True,” Joe said. “She looks pretty tough. But if McSavage and his hired hands come to her place to get Biff, she’ll be outnumbered.”

  “We’d better get out of this barn and off this farm,” Frank said. “Bill and Quentin are probably still looking for us in the fields, but they might not be quite so brazen about trying to kill us if we were back in town.”

  “We can only hope,” Joe said.

  The brothers walked to the door of the barn and peered out. Neither Quentin nor Bill was in sight. The brothers slipped through the wooden doors and headed for the fence that surrounded the farm. It wasn’t hard to get over the fence, but on the other side was thick underbrush. It took them fifteen minutes to fight their way through it and get back to town.

  As they skulked onto Main Street, hoping that nobody from McSavage’s farm would notice them, they were surprised to see Phil Cohen
running toward them, a frightened look on his face.

  “Come quick!” he cried. “You’ve got to see what happened!”

  “Wait till we tell you what happened,” Joe said, but it was clear that Phil was very upset over something. He and Frank followed Phil to Rhonda’s house.

  The front door was wide open. Mrs. Hibley was standing outside, looking as if she was about to faint.

  “Maybe Biff will tell us what happened,” Frank said, stepping inside. “Hey, Biff! Where are you?”

  “That’s the problem,” Phil said. “He isn’t here. Not in the house, anyway.”

  “What?” Joe said. “Then where’s Rhonda.”

  “She’s not here, either,” Phil said. “According to Mrs. Hibley, who saw part of it, these two big guys—I think they were the ones we saw carrying that money yesterday—came here and left with Rhonda and Biff. At gunpoint!”

  “It was terrible!” Mrs. Hibley cried, standing in the doorway. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  “The Brookburn brothers,” Frank said. “They’ve kidnapped Rhonda and Biff!”

  “How did they get Biff out of here?” Joe asked. “He couldn’t walk.”

  “He was on crutches,” Mrs. Hibley said.

  “Do you know where they took them?” Frank asked.

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Hibley said. “I didn’t see where they went. I had to go sit down.” She still looked as though she was going to faint.

  “There’s only one thing to do,” Frank said.

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “Ask Loraleigh. I think she knows some things she hasn’t told us.”

  Frank, Joe, and Phil crossed the street to Loraleigh’s store, but the door was locked. Frank knocked five times, then peered in the window.

  “She must have gone home,” he said. “She said she lived right up the block, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “I think that’s her house there.”

  They walked a couple of houses up the street to an old house with a dilapidated front porch. The name Mason was on the mailbox. Frank knocked on the door.

  After a moment Loraleigh opened the door. She was obviously scared of something.

  “I don’t want to speak to you,” she said, starting to close the door in their faces.

  “You’d better speak with us,” Frank said. “Bill McSavage and his farmhands just tried to kill us. And they’ve kidnapped Biff and Rhonda.”

  Loraleigh closed her eyes in anguish. “Oh, no! I wanted to protect all of you from this.”

  “Well, it’s too late now,” Joe said. “We’re in this up to our eyeballs.”

  “Who’s that, Loraleigh?” asked a man’s voice from the living room.

  A middle-aged man with a muscular physique and gray hair appeared behind Loraleigh.

  “It’s nothing, Dad,” Loraleigh said. “You can go back and watch TV.”

  “Actually, Mr. Mason,” Frank said, “we’d like to talk with you, too.”

  Loraleigh’s father eyed them suspiciously. “Who are you young men, anyway?”

  “We’re hikers, Mr. Mason,” Joe explained, telling him about Biff’s accident and how he had been staying at Rhonda’s house.

  “Rhonda Harrison’s a good person,” Mr. Mason said. “If she’s taken you boys in, you’re okay with me.”

  “Unfortunately, something seems to have happened to Rhonda,” Frank said.

  “And Biff, too,” Joe added. “They’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped?” Mr. Mason exclaimed, sharp concern showing on his face. “How did this happen?”

  “We believe it was the Brookburn brothers from the McSavage farm,” Frank said.

  “I’ve never liked those fellows,” Mr. Mason said. “They’re not good people. They’re too much like the people who worked at the McSavage farm in the ... old days.”

  “You mean when the casino was running?” Frank asked.

  Mr. Mason’s face turned white. “How do you know about the casino?”

  “We’ve seen it,” Joe said. “Big as life and twice as full of cobwebs.”

  “I used to work there when I was young,” Mr. Mason said. “I was a blackjack dealer. Bill was a pit boss, working for his father. But I felt dirty, working for an illegal business, so I left.”

  “Well,” Joe said, “it looks like Bill’s behind the kidnapping.”

  Mr. Mason looked startled. “Bill? He’s not a very ethical man, but I’ve never known him to be involved in anything like kidnapping.”

  “Maybe murder, too,” Frank said, “if we’re not careful.”

  “No,” Mr. Mason said. “All of this is impossible!”

  “I’m afraid some things have changed, Dad,” Loraleigh said. “I’ve heard things at the shop.”

  “Things?” Mr. Mason said. “What kind of things?”

  “Bank robbery, for one, Mr. Mason,” Joe said.

  “It’s true, Dad,” Loraleigh said. “I’ve been pretty sure of it for at least a month. Bill and those Brookburn boys stole an armored truck full of cash down in Cold Ridge five months ago. I heard one of the brothers knew a guard at a bank who helped him on the inside. They’ve been keeping the truck hidden up in McSavage’s barn.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Mr. Mason said.

  “I didn’t want to get you in trouble with Bill,” Loraleigh said. “I know he’s an old friend of yours—well, he was a friend of yours years ago—but he’s a dangerous man. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  “We have a pretty good idea,” Joe said. “He and that servant of his came after us with rifles and pitchforks less than an hour ago, and I don’t think they were inviting us to go hunting.”

  Mr. Mason slapped a fist angrily into his palm. “It’s my fault. I should have done something about Bill McSavage years ago, when he was running that casino.”

  “It wouldn’t have done you any good,” Loraleigh said. “The authorities knew all about the casino, but Bill had some sort of arrangement with them.”

  “Arrangement spelled M-O-N-E-Y,” Joe said.

  “I want to see Bill McSavage,” Mr. Mason said. “He’s got a lot to answer for!”

  “Well, we’d like to see him, too,” Frank said. “He’s got Rhonda and our friend Biff.”

  As if in answer to their wishes, three familiar faces appeared behind them in the door: Quentin’s and those of the two Brookburn brothers.

  “Mr. McSavage would like to see you two,” Quentin said. “Up at his mansion.” He cocked the barrel of the rifle for dramatic effect. “And he wants to see you right now!”

  11 All Wired Up

  “So it’s you, Quentin,” Mr. Mason snarled.

  “You’ve never much liked me,” Quentin said. “Well, the feeling is mutual. I’ve never much liked you, either.”

  “You’re nothing but a common criminal, Quentin,” Mr. Mason said. “Bill pulled you out of the gutter and put you in charge of all his gambling operations.”

  “I’d love to stick around and chat,” Quentin said, “but I’m afraid the Brookburn brothers and I have been asked to accompany you up to the mansion. So, come along. All of you!”

  At Quentin’s urging, Frank, Joe, Phil, Loraleigh, and Mr. Mason stepped out the front door and into the street. The Brookburn brothers gave Joe a particularly nasty look as he walked past them.

  Frank and Joe headed up the procession, as they walked toward the house on top of the hill. Quentin walked beside the Hardys, just far enough away so they couldn’t grab the rifle from his hand. The Brookburn brothers brought up the rear, guns at the ready.

  The door to the mansion was closed. Frank opened it and walked into the foyer. Quentin stepped forward and led them through the large main room and into a small study. Bill McSavage was sitting in a large overstuffed chair at the far end of the room.

  “What’s this about you stealing an armored truck?” Mr. Mason snapped when he saw his old friend.

  “Quiet, Jack,” McSavage said. “You and me don’t ha
ve anything to talk about anymore.”

  “It sounds like we do,” Mr. Mason said. “I should have turned you in to the law a long time ago. It was only a matter of time before you’d do something as stupid as pull off a robbery. And I hear you’re guilty of kidnapping now, too!”

  McSavage sneered. “That’s true. I’ve just kidnapped you, after all.”

  “Why did you bring us up here?” Joe asked.

  “You know too much,” McSavage said. “It’s dangerous to let you run around loose. I’m going to have to keep you locked up here at the house for a while until I decide what to do with you.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll decide to let us go,” Frank said.

  “That doesn’t seem likely,” McSavage said. “Jack Mason here will blab everything—and I suspect the rest of you will start talking as soon as you’re out of this town. No, I can’t let you go.”

  Loraleigh looked startled. “Then ... that means ...”

  “He won’t get away with kidnapping us,” Frank said. “I won’t let him.”

  “My, you’re a brave young man,” McSavage said with a laugh. “Quentin, why don’t you show these folks to the room where they’ll be spending the night?”

  “I’d be glad to, sir,” the man said, looking at Frank, Joe, and friends with contempt.

  Jack Mason put an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “I’ll protect you, honey. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  Quentin led them back out of the study, the Brookburn brothers once again bringing up the rear. The servant led them to an ornate staircase that took them up to the second floor. Down the long hall were several rooms. Quentin ushered the group into one.

  Two people were already there: Biff and Rhonda. They looked up when the others entered. For a moment they seemed pleased to see the others, until they realized that their friends were captives, too.

  “Hey!” Biff cried. “It’s good to see you guys! I mean, it’s nice to ... er, I was hoping to ...”

  “See us somewhere outside this house?” Joe said. “Yeah, we were trying to rescue you, but it looks like we’ve wound up getting locked up with you.”