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 Graf-ton.

Helpless below the cliff, Frank and Joe heard

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176 Mystery of the Desert Giant

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

Treasure! 177

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.

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"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!"

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"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.

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"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. Weth-erby 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. Graf ton 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!"

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"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!"

THE END

MYSTERY OF THE DESERT GIANT

BY FRANKLIN W. DIXON

No. 40 in the Hardy Boys series,

This is the original 1961 text.