“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Max shook his head impatiently. “I don’t know,” he said, clicking the switch on and off, “but the power won’t go on.”
“Ohhh,” Bess and Linda chorused nervously.
Max raised his shoulders, heaving a sigh. “Well, Ned, I guess your direction is the one we take.”
“Direction?” Ned said quizzically. “What direction?”
“Up,” Max said grimly, eyeing the steep cliff face. “Straight up.”
Chapter Ten
Paula grabbed the radio away from Max. “What do you mean, it’s not working? Didn’t you check the batteries before we left?”
For a moment, Max looked confused. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I even put new ones in. The radio was working just fine.”
Paula fiddled with the power switch. “Well, it’s not working now,” she said disgustedly. “Great. That’s all we need, to be stranded out here without an operating radio.”
“Here, let me see,” Mike said, reaching for it. He took the batteries out and then put them back in again—that didn’t help. Then he took the back off.
“Check the crystal,” Nancy said suddenly.
Mike looked up. “You know something about radios?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “But I had a case once where a crystal was stolen from a radio. Does this one need a crystal?”
“A tiny one,” Mike said. Intently, he bent over the radio. “Hey! The crystal’s gone!”
Linda pointed at Max. “You were the one who put the radio in the raft,” she said accusingly. “I saw you. You were the last one to touch it. You must have taken the crystal!”
“You have no right to make accusations like that,” Bess retorted. “The person who sabotaged the raft could just as easily have removed the crystal. Right, Nancy?”
Nancy nodded. “Actually, it could have been taken at any time.” She examined the radio case. Even if she had brought her fingerprint kit along, it would have been a hopeless job. The case was made of a roughly grained vinyl that wouldn’t hold a print. And there didn’t seem to be any other clues.
Mike closed up the radio again. “Well, that’s that,” he said.
Nancy looked at him. Whoever had done this had to know what the crystal was and where to look for it. Maybe Mike had destroyed the radio and Tod had destroyed the raft—all as part of some silly prank.
She shook her head. Surely not. But the whole thing was beginning to seem like a hopeless muddle.
Paula glanced at Nancy. “I don’t suppose our girl detective has any ideas about who did it,” she remarked sarcastically.
Nancy shook her head. “Afraid not,” she replied. Then she noticed that Max was staring at Paula, dumbfounded, as if he had suddenly thought of something but wasn’t quite sure whether he ought to believe it.
“So?” Sammy demanded. “Do we just sit here and wait for somebody to raft downriver and spot us?”
“I don’t think anybody will be coming down until the middle of next week,” Paula said. “I checked the schedule board yesterday, just before we left. The next trip downriver doesn’t leave until a week from Wednesday.”
“By that time we could starve to death!” Linda exclaimed.
“Well, we have got another alternative,” Paula said.
Everybody looked at her. “What’s that?” George asked.
Paula pointed to the top of the cliff. “We can hike out,” she replied. “It’s a tough climb, as Ned said, but we could make it. Once we get to the top, there’s a trail, maybe five or six miles back in the woods, that leads to the ranger station, which is another eight or nine miles away. I think I could find the trail.”
“Yes, but that means a fourteen-mile hike!” Sammy exclaimed. She looked at Max. “What do you think?”
Max gave an uncertain shrug. “I’m a good woodsman, but I don’t know anything about the trails in this particular area. We’ll have to rely on Paula.”
Paula’s amber eyes were narrowed to slits. “Maybe some of you don’t want to rely on me,” she said, turning to Nancy. “You’re not afraid of a little walking, are you, Nancy?”
Nancy caught the unpleasant undertone, but answered quietly, “No, I’m not afraid of walking—as long as we’re sure of where we’re going. At least on the river, we know where we are. Once we’re in the wilderness, we could get lost pretty easily.” She sneaked a glance at Max, who was still staring at Paula.