“Hey!” Max said angrily. “You’ve got no right—”
“Yeah, well, you’re the guy with the bad record,” Mike put in.
“Bad record?” Sammy asked.
“That’s right,” Tod replied. “Yesterday’s ‘accident’ at the falls wasn’t the first time Max has been in trouble. He’s responsible for the drownings of two men here last year.”
“Yesterday was an accident!” Bess exclaimed heatedly as everybody stared, horror-stricken, at Max. “Anyway, whatever happened last summer doesn’t have anything to do with last night. Why would Max want to sabotage the raft?”
“Why would anybody want to sabotage the raft?” Mercedes asked quietly. Nancy noticed that her face was very pale, and that her voice sounded flat and hard, as if she were trying to keep it steady.
“Only somebody who’s a little crazy,” Linda answered, her voice going high with terror. She turned to Nancy. “You’re a detective. Can you make any sense out of this?”
“Not so far,” Nancy replied. She looked around the group. “Did anybody see or hear anything out of the ordinary during the night?”
All the heads shook negatively. “Well, then, did anybody see anyone get up in the middle of the night?” More head shaking. “One more question. Who were you sleeping close to?”
“Well, the four of us were sleeping together,” George volunteered. “You, me, Bess under the blanket, and Ned in his sleeping bag.”
“And Linda and I slept side by side,” Ralph said. Linda blushed.
“I slept next to Tod,” Mike volunteered. “And I can guarantee that he didn’t get up.”
“Right,” Sammy muttered. “And I’ll bet he says the same for you.”
“How about you, Sammy?” Nancy asked.
“I slept next to Mercedes, if you have to know,” Sammy said loftily. “And Paula slept on the other side of me.”
Nancy turned to Max. “That leaves you, Max,” she said.
“Yeah, I know where that leaves me,” he replied bitterly. “Under suspicion. I slept by myself.”
“Actually, everybody’s under suspicion,” Nancy said, turning back to the group. “Any of us could have gotten up without the others knowing. I’m proof of that.”
Paula stepped forward. “Well, now that our internationally famous detective has struck out, we’ve got some important decisions to make,” she said.
Nancy looked closely at Paula. She looked almost satisfied.
“Yeah,” Sammy said. “What do we do? Do we hike out downriver?”
“No way,” Max answered firmly. “This gorge goes on for three or four miles with no banks. There’s no way we can walk along the edge of the river.”
Ned looked up the cliff wall. At first it had seemed almost vertical, stretching fifty feet or more straight toward the sky, but he could see places for footholds. “It looks like a tough climb out that way,” he said, “but we might be able to make it.”
“I don’t know . . .” Paula said.
Nancy brightened. “Wait a minute. We’ve got a radio. Right?”
“Right,” Paula answered slowly.
“Then why don’t we radio for help? In fact,” Nancy asked, looking questioningly at Paula, “why didn’t we radio yesterday after the accident?”
“Because,” Paula said almost too quickly. “You—that is I—didn’t think the signal would reach that far.” Her amber eyes blazed at Nancy. “Are you satisfied?”
Nancy wasn’t sure, Paula looked so flustered.
“Hey, I’m almost positive the signal would reach,” Mike put in confidently. “It broadcasts through the repeater tower at the ranger station.”
“Yeah,” Max said, “the tower would boost the signal so that it could be received at ranger headquarters.”
“Then if we send them a message, they’ll come to rescue us?” Linda asked hopefully.
“That’s right,” Mike said, and he and Max suddenly looked sheepish.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Max grumbled. “With everything going on, I didn’t think of the most obvious thing.” His face reddened. “I forgot we even had a radio.”
“Me, too,” Mike admitted. “The way my mind’s been working the past day or so, I was thinking it got dumped when the first raft flipped.”
“Where is the radio?” Bess asked.
Max reached under the platform on the raft. “Right here,” he said, pulling out a small, waterproof box.
The radio was a small, hand-held model with a pull-out antenna, almost like a walkie-talkie. Max flipped on the power switch. Nancy, watching closely, saw his mouth tighten. He flipped the switch again.