Chapter Nine
Noiselessly, Nancy tried to follow, but after a few moments, she had to admit that she had lost whomever it was she had seen and had no choice but to crawl back under the blanket and try to get some sleep.
She was awake as soon as the sun touched the lip of the sheer cliff on the other side of the river. Quietly, trying not to disturb Bess and George, she crept out from under the blanket and pulled on her tennis shoes, which were still damp from the day before.
George stirred reluctantly. "What are you doing up at this hour?" she asked sleepily.
"I heard footsteps last night, and a funny noise," Nancy replied, tugging a comb through her tangled hair. "I'm going to look around and see what I can find."
"I'll come with you," George offered, throwing off the blanket. She had slept in the jeans and sweatshirt she had put on after the dunking, but she was still shivering. "It's cold!" she exclaimed, rummaging in her duffel bag for her red jacket.
The ashes of the previous night's campfire still glowed in the chilly gray dawn. Beyond, the raft was like the shadowy carcass of a beached whale.
"That's odd," Nancy said, staring. "Doesn't the raft look a little lopsided?"
Nancy and George ran forward, then stopped, gasping in horror. The raft had been slashed from end to end, and its rubber walls were soft and deflated. Even though she didn't know much about rafts, Nancy could tell that the rips were much too large to be repaired.
"Well, this was no accident," George said grimly. "Somebody wants to keep us from getting out of here."
"That must have been the noise I heard last night!" Nancy said.
"Remember Tod's threat to get even with Ralph?" George said thoughtfully. "Do you suppose this is how he tried to do it?"
"Boy, you guys sure are up early," Ned said groggily. He appeared behind them, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and shivering in spite of his heavy down vest. "I hope you were warmer last night than I—" His eyes widened as he saw the damaged raft. He whistled softly between his teeth. "Uh-oh! Now we're really up a creek."
"I'll say," Nancy agreed crossly. "And I wish you wouldn't make such awful puns so early in the morning."
"Sorry," Ned said. "But who do you think did it? More important, what do we do now?"
Nancy shrugged. She told him what she had heard the night before. "I got up to investigate, but whoever it was made off into the dark before I could catch him."
"Or her," George added. "You said that the voice you heard might have been a woman's." She shook her head distractedly. "I can't imagine why anybody would do this. I mean, we're all in this mess together, aren't we? Whoever did it is just as stuck as we are."
"Right," Nancy replied. She got down on her hands and knees and examined the damp sand. It was packed hard, and she couldn't see any footprints. Carefully, she went over the entire raft, looking for clues. "Dead end," she concluded, staring at the disabled raft. "Well, I guess Ned's right. We've got a bigger question than 'Who?' It's 'Now what?' I'm afraid we're down to a matter of survival."
"Who would do such a thing?" Sammy cried angrily a short while later as the group stood looking at the raft. Gradually the horrible truth dawned on her. "Hey, it's got to be one of us! One of us did this—and whoever it is, he's got to be crazy!"
"Tod's the one with the knife!" Linda said shrilly. "Remember what he said last night about getting even? And look! He's wearing a bandage. I'll bet he cut himself last night when he was cutting up the raft!"
