“That’s it, all right,” the stout boy answered without hesitation.
“Then there’s no doubt about it,” Fenton Hardy concluded with a little smile. “You three boys and I have been working on the same case from different angles!”
“Tell me, Dad, have you been down in Mexico lately?”
“I was down in Mexico, Frank—looking for this gang’s printing plant. With some help from the Mexican police I found it, but the ringleaders had vanished. I figured they had fled to the United States, leaving the underlings still working the plant.”
“And did you—or did you not—get Joe and me out of jail down there?” Frank interrogated.
Their father chuckled. “I plead guilty.”
“But how did you know we were in Mexico?” Joe wondered.
“Your friend Leon Armijo, the station agent, notified the police as soon as you left him, and they relayed his information to me immediately. What made me suspicious was the story of the two Americans in pursuit of the other one. Combing the desert around that lonely station with the Mexican police I came upon the gang’s counterfeiting plant.”
“So we helped you break the case without knowing it!” Joe declared.
“Yes. I can’t seem to get along without you two,” their father admitted. “Your method of travel—freight train—even gave me an idea. I thought that might be the way the gang leaders were trying to escape, and I had the border police search all trains.”
“And you told them to release us, when caught, and send us on our way,” Joe chimed in.
The detective nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t have followed the man who escaped unless you were pretty sure he was Willard Grafton. So I went after you, hoping you would find Grafton and he in turn would lead me to the ringleaders.
“The Mexican police are watching the printing plant. They haven’t made any arrests yet, because we want to catch the leaders first. I’ve just had word that a shipment of phony checks is due to go out tonight—to the usual spot in the United States.”
“Well, Dad, it’s lucky you have your sons to turn to,” Joe teased. “We think we’ve found the place—right where we’ll find Mr. Grafton’s kidnapers—on the plateau across the river. We think the three men on it are waiting for that package to be dropped from an airplane!”
Fenton Hardy was greatly encouraged by the unexpected news, and as eager as his sons were to capture the men at the effigy, together with the package of incriminating checks.
Joe, impatient, urged that they turn back now and float downstream on the Arizona side. “I hope everybody’s ready for a scrap,” he said.
“Oh, boy, there are six of us to three,” Chet chortled. “But two of them are real tough.”
“We’ll use the same tactics as last time,” Joe told him. “Give them the old football rush.”
Mr. Hardy asked Jim Weston if the trip along the cliff would be safe.
“I know this river well,” Jim assured the others quietly. “It’s illegal not to use lights, of course, but this is an unusual occasion.”
“It sure is,” Joe agreed. “And a good night to sneak up on those counterfeiters,” he remarked from the darkness.
A few minutes later Jim announced, “All right. I’m taking her to the other side.”
As they approached the Arizona shore, the black outline of the bluff seemed to loom higher and higher against the stars. Presently Jim cut the motor and they started downstream, without power, hugging the jagged cliff.
The boat drifted silently, with no one speaking. Occasionally they heard the gentle splash of a fish breaking the surface.
The pilot steered closer to the high, dark bluffs. Then suddenly he stepped overboard with hardly a splash, steadying the boat so the others could climb out easily.
“Sh!” he warned. “Mustn’t let the bottom scrape. There’s a place here to moor her.”
Cautiously the party waded ashore, and Jim made the boat fast. When their eyes were accustomed to the new surroundings, the sleuths crossed the narrow beach and began the hundred-foot climb up the rocky cliff.
Jim Weston had made the ascent before, so he led the way. Frank and Joe followed. Then came Chet, while Grafton and Mr. Hardy brought up the rear.
The tricky, dangerous climb seemed to take hours. Any loose rock might cause an avalanche. Even heavy breathing might alarm their enemies and ruin the expedition. So the ascent was slow. At last, however, the rim of the bluff was gained.
Warily Frank and Joe raised their heads above the edge. To their great relief, three black figures were visible against the background of stars.
“Okay.” Scarcely breathing the word, Frank reported to the others. By signs, Fenton Hardy indicated that the group should now separate, and take up positions around the edge of the tableland. He himself would give the signal to spring the trap.
Obediently Frank and Joe moved off to the left of their father. When they reached their station, Joe suddenly tapped his brother’s shoulder and pointed. Just below them was a cavelike opening in the rock. Frank nodded. A likely hiding place for loot or even counterfeit checks!
Then, at first from far away, came the drone of an airplane. At that instant the plateau was suddenly illuminated. The smaller desert giant was outlined at intervals by lighted lanterns! Three men stood with their backs to the watchers, gazing upward. One was Purdy, but the other two were unfamiliar to the boys.
The plane, flying without lights, circled once above the effigy and then flew away. A vague, puff-like white shape floated down out of the sky.
“A parachute!” Frank breathed.
The shape collapsed on the ground near the giant’s elbow and the three men converged on it. Instantly the Hardys and their friends rushed to the attack.
But Frank’s and Joe’s forward leaps were checked by strong arms that seized them in strangle holds from behind, and covered their mouths with rough palms. Fighting back desperately, the two boys tumbled over and over, locked in combat with their attackers, clear to the bottom of the steep cliff!
CHAPTER XX
Treasure!
STUNNED momentarily by the surprise attack and the fall down the bluff, Frank and Joe felt the struggle going against them. The assailants tightened their choke holds so that the boys could hardly breathe.
“Now,” snarled a voice that sounded like Ringer’s, “not a sound out of you, if you want to breathe. Listen to what’s going on above us, because if the wrong side wins, you two won’t live to tell about it!”
Up on the plateau, the attack had gone smoothly. Chet had knocked the wind out of one man with a ferocious football tackle, while rangy Jim Weston had kayoed another with two lightning punches. As the third man turned to flee, he was grabbed by Fenton Hardy and Willard Grafton.
Helpless below the cliff, Frank and Joe heard their father call out, “That settles them! This gang of counterfeiters has cheated the United States government for the last time!”
Meanwhile, on the cliff, Chet’s opponent finally recovered his breath. “Oh-h! They’ve got us, boss,” the Hardy brothers heard him say.
“Shut up, you fool!” barked a thin, shrill voice.
“Wetherby!” cried Grafton. “You were the ring leader!”
“Yes—and I still am!” Menacingly the thin voice went on, “That is, unless Mr. Hardy wants to forfeit his sons’ lives in return for my imprisonment.”
Startled, Frank and Joe looked at each other.
“Poor Dad!” Frank thought. “It’s his duty to capture these men!”
Then came the detective’s clear, decisive answer. “You win. I can’t fight those conditions. We’ll have to turn him loose, Mr. Grafton.”
The boys’ captors breathed sighs of relief. For a bare instant, their iron grips relaxed.
“Now, Joe!”
Seeing their chance, Frank drove his elbow backward into the solar plexus of his enemy. As the man doubled up, the youth whirled and finished him with a smashing roundhouse blow. Meantime, Joe flipped his
assailant over his head. Two sledge-hammer punches kayoed the man.
The boys’ escape had taken only seconds. Now, scrambling up the steep cliff, the brothers met one of the gang in the act of stepping down from the rim!
“No, you don’t!” Rising up, the boys flung the man back on the tableland.
“We’re okay, Dad! Don’t let them get away!” Joe cried out.
“Thank goodness for that!” Rushing forward, the detective said their captive was Wetherby and slipped a pair of handcuffs on him. Chet and Jim were guarding Purdy and the stranger.
“The other one looks familiar,” Joe said thoughtfully. “I have it—he’s the guy we trailed in the motorboat. The one with the bad temper!”
“Well,” Frank suggested, “a term in prison should improve his disposition.”
“There are two more men down below—out cold,” announced Joe. “I think they’re Ringer and Caesar.”
Mr. Hardy now opened the well-wrapped package dropped from the plane. Hundreds of counterfeit United States government checks dropped out!
“Now we have the evidence!” he exulted.
“Dad,” Frank spoke up, “Joe and I have something to show you. Bring your light here a minute.”
He guided his father to the cave the boys had noticed earlier. Inside they discovered some digging tools, rope, and another packet of bogus checks.
“We can use this rope,” declared Joe as he seized the coil.
Purdy and the boatman stood sullen while their arms were bound behind them. Then the whole party worked its way slowly down the cliff toward the kayoed men. Presently they revived, and were also bound.
The captors were now confronted with a problem; their boat was too small to hold eleven people at one time!
“I’ll wait here,” Willard Grafton volunteered. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Stay with him then, Frank and Joe,” their father ordered. “You two need a rest after that narrow escape.”
“Just a minute!” It was Wetherby’s thin, nasal voice. “If you’re taking us to the police, you’ve got to take Grafton too. He belongs to our gang.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Hardy. “The man’s been running away from you for weeks!”
“So what? He worked for us—he passed bad checks for me. Ask him yourself!”
Gloomily Grafton answered, “It’s true. I’m ready to face the consequences.”
“But he was forced to do what he did, Dad!” Frank and Joe protested warmly.
“A lot of good that will do him,” sneered Wetherby. “I’m not licked yet. I’ll swear under oath that he and these other guys got me into this thing under force. I’m the innocent one!”
“Why, you dirty double-crosser!” The enraged Purdy turned on his chief. “I’ll spill the whole story myself. Grafton’s innocent. I’ll swear to it, and so will my pals.”
“Good,” said Mr. Hardy. “Tell your story to the police chief in Blythe. Say, you men must have a boat. Where is it?”
“Hidden near here,” Purdy revealed.
Prisoners, sleuths, and their friends crowded into the two boats and the run to Blythe was made. Taxis took the group to police headquarters where the amazed chief listened to the charges.
The detective suggested that Wetherby tell a straight story of the whole counterfeiting project. When he refused, Purdy grudgingly began, “Four months ago me and Wetherby flew over the desert and saw the giants. Wetherby once heard a story that possibly the left arm or leg of one of the figures pointed to treasure, so we started digging. We dug all around in the desert, then on the Arizona bluff. Finally we found gold.”
“Gold!” echoed Frank and Joe. “Where?”
“In that little cave you saw tonight. The small giant’s leg pointed right to it.”
“What kind of gold?” Fenton Hardy asked.
“Old Indian stuff, it was. We were scared to sell it here, so we took it to Mexico. I wanted to split up the money we got, but then Wetherby got a bright idea.”
“Which was?” Mr. Hardy prodded.
“To buy a printing press and other equipment and start the racket. The Arizona bluff was a nice out-of-the-way spot, so we decided to have our counterfeit checks dropped there at night. Wetherby rigged up some electric lanterns to outline the giant so our pilot could spot the right place.”
“Were you testing the lights tonight a little while before the plane arrived?” Joe asked. “I thought I saw some.”
“Yeah. We always did that. We kept the lanterns and battery hid in the cave when we weren’t using ’em.”
Frank asked, “How did Mr. Grafton happen to come into the picture?”
“Another bright idea of Wetherby’s.” Purdy snorted in disgust. “He wanted a nice, innocent-looking front man and thought this Grafton would be a sucker to join us. But he wasn’t—not even after Wetherby tried to frame Grafton by making him pass some bad checks.
“Then Grafton got away from us,” Purdy went on, “and we had to shut him up. That’s how I went to Bayport. We thought he’d gone to his uncle’s. Then we found out his uncle was calling in you Hardys to find him.”
“But somebody tried to warn us on the telephone,” Frank reminded him.
Purdy nodded grimly. “One of our boys trying a double cross. I took care of him.”
“And then you slugged Chet!”
“That’s right.” Purdy seemed proud of his work. “I followed you to Chicago in a chartered plane. Got the F.A.A. after you from there, and I was the one who put that note in Grafton’s plane. I sneaked in late one night.”
“We chased some freight thieves down in Mexico near your plant,” Frank said. “Were they in your gang?”
“Nah. We kept our number as small as we could. The Yuma police caught the three Mexicans we had trailing you two, though.”
“I suppose you were in the plane that bombed us tonight, too!” Joe accused him.
“That was Caesar,” Purdy replied contemptuously. “He made a mess of it—the way this gang made a mess of everything. I should have done the job myself. I was the one that found your cabin. Asked a Mexican farm worker near Ripley. I wish I’d never got into this racket!”
“It was a good racket, you fool,” Wetherby burst out, “until it was spoiled by these confounded Hardys!”
“Save it for your trial,” the police chief commanded. After he had booked the prisoners, they were untied and led away to cells. The chief now notified the Mexican authorities to close in on the gang who were still in Sonora.
Frank and Joe sighed. Their exciting case was over. But they were soon to plunge into another:THE CLUE OF THE SCREECHING OWL.
The Hardys, Chet, Weston, and several policemen stood around in embarrassed silence while Willard Grafton spoke to his wife and two young sons on the telephone. “Yes! Yes!” the happy man assured them eagerly. “I’ll fly home tonight in my own plane. I’ll leave in less than an hour!
“Now,” he told the others after hanging up, “I have one more call to make. Operator, give me Bayport. Mr. Clement Brownlee.”
After a pause he said, “Uncle Clement? ... This is Willard.... Yes, I’m all right. I’m not in any trouble—not now. I just called to thank you for one thing: you got the Hardy family interested in finding me!”
As the grateful man turned away from the telephone to thank Frank, Joe, and Chet, his voice was breaking with emotion. “Boys,” he said, “you did more than a great detective job. You educated me. Living with you for these past few days has taught me that there are still plenty of wonderful people in the world.
“I promise you, if I ever get sour on life again, all I’ll need to keep up my spirits will be to remind myself of Frank and Joe Hardy and Chet Morton—three swell fellows!”
with friends
Mystery of the Desert Giant Page 12
