Chapter Two
"What's still not clear to me," Nancy told George and Bess the next day, leaning across the table at Bennie's Ice Cream Parlor, "is whether the phone call I got last night was a warning or a threat. I mean, I couldn't tell from the tone of voice whether the caller meant to threaten me with harm or keep me from getting hurt." She chewed her lip, puzzled. "I couldn't even tell whether the voice was female or male."
George dug into her favorite chocolate-mint ice-cream sundae. "Why in the world would anybody want to keep you from going on the trip?" she demanded. After a moment's hesitation, she turned to Bess. "That phone call . . . it wasn't you, was it?" she asked suspiciously.
Bess looked hurt. "I went to a concert last night and didn't get back until after midnight. Anyway, you know I wouldn't do something that ridiculous. If I wanted to keep you or Nancy from going on the trip, I'd try to convince you in person."
George sighed. "I know. Sorry."
Nancy took the last bite of her banana split, watching George intently. "Are you sure you've told us absolutely everything you know about the contest?"
"All I know is what's in that letter from Paula Hancock. I've tried and tried to remember exactly when I entered the contest, but I can't."
Bess smiled mischievously. "Well, then, maybe it would be better if we didn't go." She pushed her half-finished diet drink away, looking with longing at George's sundae. "The beach is awfully nice at this time of year."
Nancy looked at George. In the back of her mind was the growing conviction that there was something not right about the contest. But the phone call and George's inability to recall entering it were her only clues.
"I don't suppose you'd reconsider your decision to go?" Nancy asked half hopefully. "Maybe we could find another white water rafting trip, if you've got your heart set on that. There must be others that would be just as exciting."
"Yes, but this is a free trip," George reminded.
Nancy and Bess exchanged long looks. "What about it, Bess?" Nancy asked.
"Well," Bess said reluctantly, "I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of spending two whole days hanging on to a raft, getting drenched by icy water, and bouncing from one rock to another. But I hate to think of you out there on the river with some kook who makes weird phone calls." She shrugged. "You can count me in, I guess."
"That settles it, then," Nancy said with a grin, laying her spoon beside her empty dish. She felt good remembering that the three of them had always stuck together, even in tough times. Whatever happened, they weren't going to let George face the trip alone. Besides, it was already shaping up to be a very interesting vacation. "Lost River, here we come!" she exclaimed.
"Where in the world do you suppose we are?" Bess asked from the backseat of the rental car that Ned was driving. She leaned over and took the map out of George's hands. "Here, let me have a look at that map. Maybe I can find us."
Nancy leaned precariously over the front seat. "The road just made another left turn back there," she said, pointing to the small hand-printed map that Bess was holding.
"Well, what do you think, Bess?" Ned asked, braking suddenly and twisting the wheel to avoid a granite boulder that had tumbled off a cliff and lay in fragments in the road. "Are we taking the right route?"
"It looks like we are," Bess said, grabbing frantically for the armrest as the car lurched sideways and threatened to go into a skid. "But who cares? The map doesn't have any route numbers or anything. If this is all we have to go on, Lost River is likely to stay lost." She thrust the map back at George. "You know, it's almost as if whoever drew this map wants us to spend the whole morning wandering around in the mountains."
"I hate to admit it, but Bess may have something there," George said, staring at the map with a puzzled frown. "And another thing. I can't figure out why nobody met us at the airport yesterday, the way the letter promised. You'd think that a company big enough to run a national contest would arrange to meet the grand-prize winner when she got off the plane."
Nancy nodded. "I wondered about that myself. What a start for a vacation!"
Actually, Nancy thought as she settled back into the car seat, it hadn't even begun to feel like a vacation yet. The four of them had rushed to the airport but waited several hours for a flight from Denver that was so bumpy it would have made an eagle airsick. In Great Falls, there was nobody to meet them—only an envelope containing a hand-drawn map. Scrawled on the bottom were unsigned instructions to pick up a rental car and drive to Lost River Junction that night.
But by the time a car was available, it was late. They had spent the night at the only place they could find—a motel next door to the airport, where jets seemed to plow through the bedrooms every hour on the hour. Dragging themselves out of bed, they were on the road by five o'clock—anxious to get to Lost River Junction before the rafts left at nine.
"Well," Ned said, rolling down the window and taking a deep breath, "now that we're here, I'm glad. Smell those pine trees. What a wilderness this is!"
It was a wilderness, Nancy thought. They hadn't seen a sign of civilization for miles. For the last half hour, the narrow two-lane asphalt road had twisted and turned upward into the mountains like a mountain-goat trail. At the moment it was zigzagging precariously across the face of a vertical rock cliff.
Above the cliff and on the other side of the creek, huge pine and spruce trees reached toward the clear blue Montana sky.
Even though it was the middle of July, the breeze was cool and brisk and invigorating, not at all like the steamy, oven-hot summer weather they had left back home.
Nancy stretched and filled her lungs with the clean air. In spite of everything, she was glad they had come. She glanced at Ned's calm profile and his sturdy, capable hands on the steering wheel. She was glad to be with him. With Ned along to help her laugh, the trip hadn't seemed nearly so bad.
Bess looked out the window. "I suppose there are wild animals out there," she said in a worried tone.
"Right," agreed Ned. "Plenty of them." He grinned at Bess in the rearview mirror. "Black bears and cougars and mountain lions and rattlesnakes."
With a little moan, Bess shut her eyes tight and hunched down in the seat.
"You know, I'm really getting worried about how late we are," George said, glancing at her watch. "It's after eight o'clock, and we're scheduled to leave at nine. You don't suppose they'd start the trip without us, do you?"
"I don't think they'd leave without their grand-prize winner," Nancy consoled her. "They wouldn't dare. After all, you are the reason for this trip." She hesitated. If George were the reason for the trip, why had Nancy received the mysterious phone call?
"Anyway, I'm just as glad things got screwed up with the rental car and that we didn't have to drive this road last night," Ned said. "With all these twists and turns, it's dangerous enough in broad daylight. I don't think we—"
"Ned!" Nancy yelled. "Stop!"
Just a few yards ahead of the front bumper, the road vanished into thin air.
Bess gasped.
Ned jammed his foot on the pedal, making the brakes squeal. "Oh, no!" George screamed. "We're going over!"
{u9
