The End of the Trail Read online

  “We’re trying to get out of here,” Frank said.

  “People are trying to kill us,” Joe added.

  “And Mr. Lousy Driver here dumped our truck in the water,” Phil Cohen said.

  “People are trying to kill us?” Chet asked. “You mean those guys back on the road who are handcuffed to their cars? Boy, were they yelling at me when I rode past.”

  “Yeah, those guys,” Joe said. “And some of their friends.”

  “So why don’t you help us get the truck out?” Frank asked.

  “Sure,” Chet said, jumping off the horse and scrambling down the riverbank.

  “Actually, it’s the help of your horse that we’d like,” Joe said.

  Chet stopped and looked back up the slope. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Formby’s pretty strong. He could probably get that truck right out of there.”

  Chet went back up and led the horse into the water. The cold stream didn’t seem to bother Formby.

  Jack Mason grabbed the ropes from off the bags of money, and Frank and Joe lashed three of them around the truck. Then they connected the other ends to Formby’s harness. The horse stood calmly next to the truck, on the opposite side from the others.

  “Now, everybody,” Frank said, “we’ll push while Formby pulls.”

  They stooped down and grabbed the roof of the truck. Chet mounted the horse and yelled, “Giddyap!”

  All at once the horse began to strain against the ropes. The others began to lift as hard as they could. This time the truck began to rise more quickly out of the water: one foot, two feet, three feet...

  Finally, with an extra burst of effort, the truck was out of the water and standing on its wheels again. Everyone cheered.

  “Let’s see if it works,” Frank said, jumping into the cab. The ignition made a rumbling sound, but the engine wouldn’t turn over.

  “It must be flooded,” Joe said.

  “Literally,” Phil added.

  “Floor it, Frank,” Joe said. “That’ll get gasoline back into the engine.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Frank replied.

  Finally the engine did turn over and roar to life. Everybody cheered.

  Rhonda walked up to Frank’s side of the cab, where the door was still open. She reached inside and, before Frank was aware of what she was doing, turned the engine off and pulled the keys out of the ignition. She clutched them tightly in one hand and threw them far off into the bushes.

  “Hey, what was that about?” Frank yelled, startled.

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “We were almost out of here. For real, this time.”

  “Sorry, guys,” she said, pulling a gun from the pocket of her pants. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re waiting here for Bill McSavage and Sheriff Brickfield—and then you’re all going back to Morgan’s Quarry, where you belong.”

  16 A Friend in Need

  Frank desperately looked around for the guns they had taken from the sheriff and the others. Then he saw them—underwater and useless.

  Biff grabbed his crutches and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Rhonda!” he exclaimed. “What are you talking about? You’re supposed to be on our side!”

  “The key phrase there is ‘supposed to be,’” Rhonda said cryptically. “Unfortunately, you ‘supposed’ wrong. I was in on the plans for the robbery from the very beginning. In fact, I’m the one who suggested it, after I found out that the Brookburn boys knew somebody who drove an armored truck for a large bank.”

  “Then... then why have you been helping us?” Frank asked.

  “You brought me someone who was injured,” Rhonda said. “I’m a nurse. I swore a long time ago to heal the wounded, and that’s what I did.”

  “But why did you pretend to help us escape?” Joe asked. “Why were you locked in that room with Biff back at the McSavage mansion?”

  “Bill McSavage came to me before you even arrived at my house,” Rhonda said. “He told me what had happened, that you boys had seen the money, and that I should pretend to be on your side so I could keep my eyes on you in case you tried to get out of town.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Biff said. “I really thought we were friends.”

  “I... I was just pretending,” Rhonda said, looking away from Biff as she spoke. “It was all a ruse, you understand. Just a ruse to keep you in town.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Biff said. “I really enjoyed chatting with you.”

  “Well, I like telling old war stories,” Rhonda said. “Hard to shut me up some times. That’s all.”

  Joe cleared his throat loudly. The others turned toward him, expectantly. A conspiratorial smile crossed his face.

  “Hey, Rhonda!” he said. “You didn’t think we were actually going to turn this money over to the police, did you? We just said that because we thought you wouldn’t help us otherwise. Frank and I were going to ditch you, take the money, and split it with our friends. Isn’t that right, guys?”

  Slowly Frank and Phil nodded agreement. Even Jack and Loraleigh joined in, though reluctantly. Only Biff seemed oblivious to Joe’s scheme. He kept staring at Rhonda.

  “But now that we know you were in on the scheme,” Joe went on, “we’ll split it with you, too. In fact, since you were the mastermind, we’ll give you half. I bet your friends back in town wouldn’t let you have that much. Now they’ll be cut out completely. And they can’t go to the authorities because they’d all end up in jail for aiding and abetting.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Rhonda said. “You seem like a nice bunch of kids. You wouldn’t get involved in anything like that.”

  “You seem pretty nice, too,” Joe said. “But, hey, it turns out that you’re as scuzzy as the rest of us.”

  “So are you inviting me to come with you?” she asked. “And split the money when we get out of town?”

  “You bet,” Joe said. “We’re all friends here. And friends share things with their friends, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Phil Cohen said unenthusiastically.

  “Sure thing,” Frank added.

  “So how about it?” Joe said. “Why don’t you put that gun away and hop back in the truck. We’ll be out of this stream in no time.”

  “Good thing,” Phil said. “My feet are about to freeze off.”

  Rhonda pondered Joe’s remarks. “No,” she said finally. “I can’t do it. I can’t betray my friends. We’re going to wait for them to arrive.”

  “I’m your friend, too,” Biff said. “I know I am. How can you betray me?”

  He moved forward, but one of the wet crutches slipped abruptly from his grasp. As his injured foot touched the ground, he let out a yelp and collapsed.

  Rhonda acted instinctively, rushing to help him. Joe reacted just as quickly, running up behind her and grabbing her gun. Rhonda barely seemed to notice, so intent was she on helping Biff.

  “That was a dirty trick,” Rhonda muttered to Biff.

  “It wasn’t a trick,” Biff said. “I really fell.”

  “Why don’t you hang on to this,” Joe said, handing the gun to Jack Mason. “I don’t think we’ll be needing it anymore.”

  • • •

  Brighton wasn’t large, but it looked like a major metropolitan area compared to Morgan’s Quarry. It had a police station run by competent officers. It also had a small but well-staffed hospital, where Frank and Joe sat near the emergency room, waiting for the doctor to report on Biff’s condition. It was late evening and they were extremely tired, but they wanted to find out how Biff was doing before they checked into the local motel. Jack and Loraleigh sat across from them, as Phil Cohen played with a piece of high-tech medical equipment. Chet was off somewhere looking for the snack room.

  “Hey, this is a pretty nice piece of equipment!” Phil said, examining a video monitor that could display a patient’s heart rate, blood oxygen level, and several dozen other things. It wasn’t hooked up to a patient at the moment, so the colored lines that ran from one side of the screen to t
he other were all flat.

  “Couldn’t be too good,” Joe said. “The patient seems to be dead.”

  Phil gave him a dirty look. Jack Mason stood up and walked across to the Hardys.

  “I want to thank you boys again for helping us,” he said.

  “Thank us?” Frank asked. “We’re the ones who ought to be thanking you. You and Loraleigh helped us get out of Morgan’s Quarry alive.”

  “We didn’t help out that much,” Jack said. “But you boys got me to do what I should have done a long time ago: confront Bill McSavage and get him to shut down his illegal operations.”

  “Well, you didn’t know he had any illegal operations anymore,” Joe said.

  “True,” Jack said. “But there were all those years when he ran the casino. And I should have known he’d be up to something again.”

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be out of that town,” Loraleigh said. “I’ve spent my entire life in Morgan’s Quarry, but there are so many people there who frightened me. Like those Brookburn brothers. And I never really liked Bill McSavage, even though he was our biggest customer. There was something evil behind his eyes, even when he was laughing and smiling.”

  “So where will you and your father be going now?” Frank asked.

  “To relatives,” Jack Mason said. “We’ll move in with them for a while. Then we’ll start a new life, a long way from Morgan’s Quarry.”

  Just then an imposing white-haired figure appeared in the door to the emergency room. It was Ron Hansen, police chief of Brighton. The Hardys had met him earlier when they arrived in town with the truck full of cash. They hadn’t wanted to spend any more time hauling the stolen loot around than they had to.

  “Thought you fellas would like to know,” he said. “Bill McSavage and friends have been picked up over in Morgan’s Quarry and are on their way here for questioning.”

  “All right!” Joe said, applauding. “I hope you throw the book at him.”

  “Even better,” Chief Hansen said. “The FBI is coming to town. Turns out that the money was taken over state lines, so now it’s a federal case. Mr. McSavage is probably going to spend the rest of his life in jail.”

  “Where he belongs,” Jack said.

  “Looks like the Hardy Boys have solved another case,” Joe said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. There was a smug look on his face.

  “With a little help from our friends,” Frank said, gesturing toward Jack, Loraleigh, Phil, and Chet, who had just returned with several bags of snacks and two hot dogs.

  “Speaking of your friends,” Chief Hansen asked, “how’s that Biff fella doing?”

  “There’s the man you should ask,” Joe said, pointing to a youngish doctor in a white coat who was standing at the edge of the crowd, not wanting to interrupt the conversation.

  “Why, hello, Dr. Mitchell,” Chief Hansen said. “I should have known you’d be the one taking care of Biff.”

  The doctor nodded shyly. “Anyway, I wanted everybody to know that Biff’s okay.”

  “Thank goodness,” Frank said. “How’s his leg doing?”

  “Pretty well,” the doctor said, “considering what he’s been through. He’ll be off it for six weeks, and it’ll be at least two months before he can play football again, but he shouldn’t have any lasting problems.”

  “That’s good news,” Chet said. “All of Bayport High would be in mourning if we lost our best fullback.”

  “So I guess this means we can go back to the Appalachian Trail and pick up where we left off,” Phil said excitedly.

  Frank, Joe, and Chet all swiveled their heads toward their friend, giving him their most withering looks.

  “You’ll be hiking alone,” Joe said. “I don’t want to be near a trail again for a good long time.”

  “Or until we have another case,” Frank said, “to make you forget about this one.”

  “Which should be just about any time,” Chet said. “You guys have a knack for finding trouble.”

  “Well, don’t lose the knack,” Jack Mason said. “If you can help other people like you helped us, you should keep right on finding trouble.”

  “I think,” Frank said quite sincerely, “that’s one thing that Joe and I can guarantee.”