HARDY BOYS #001 - THE TOWER TREASURE
FRANKLIN W DIXON
CHAPTER I
The Speed Demon
FRANK and Joe Hardy clutched the grips of their motorcycles and stared in
horror at the oncoming car. It was careening from side to side on the narrow
road.
'He'll hit us! We'd better climb this hillside-and fast!' Frank exclaimed, as
the boys brought their motorcycles to a screeching halt and leaped off.
'On the double!' Joe cried out as they started up the steep embankment.
To their amazement, the reckless driver suddenly pulled his car hard to the
right and turned into a side road on two wheels. The boys expected the car to
turn over, but it held the dusty ground and sped off out of sight.
'Wow!' said Joe. 'Let's get away from here before the crazy guy comes
back. That's a dead-end road, you know.'
The boys scrambled back onto their motorcycles and gunned them a bit to get
past the intersecting road in a hurry. They rode in silence for a while, gazing
at the scene ahead.
On their right an embankment of tumbled rocks and boulders sloped steeply
to the water below. From the opposite side rose a jagged cliff. The
little-traveled road was winding, and just wide enough for two cars to pass.
'Boy, I'd hate to fall off the edge of this road,' Frank remarked. 'It's a
hundred-foot drop.'
'That's right,' Joe agreed. 'We'd sure be smashed to bits before we ever
got to the bottom.' Then he smiled. 'Watch your step, Frank, or Dad's
papers won't get delivered.'
Frank reached into his jacket pocket to be sure several important legal
papers which he was to deliver for Mr. Hardy were still there. Relieved to
find them, Frank chuckled and said, 'After the help we gave Dad on his
latest case, he ought to set up the firm of Hardy and Sons.'
'Why not?' Joe replied with a broad grin. 'Isn't he one of the most famous
private detectives in the country? And aren't we bright too?' Then, becoming
serious, he added, 'I wish we could solve a mystery on our own, though.'
Frank and Joe, students at Bayport High, were combining business with
pleasure this Saturday morning by doing the errand for their father. Even
though one boy was dark and the other fair, there was a marked resemblance
between the two brothers. Eighteen-year-old Frank was tall and dark. Joe, a
year younger, was blond with blue eyes. They were the only children of
Fenton and Laura Hardy. The family lived in Bayport, a small but thriving
city of fifty thousand inhabitants, located on Barmet Bay, three miles inland
from the Atlantic Ocean.
The two motorcycles whipped along the narrow road that skirted the bay and
led to Willowville, the brothers' destination. The boys took the next curve
neatly and started up a long, steep slope. Here the road was a mere ribbon
and badly in need of repair.
'Once we get to the top of the hill it won't be so rough,' Frank remarked, as
they jounced over the uneven surface. 'Better road from there into
Willowville.'
Just then, above the sharp put-put of their own motors, the two boys heard
the roar of a car approaching from their rear at great speed. They took a
moment to glance back.
'Looks like that same guy we saw before!' Joe burst out. 'Good night!'
At once the Hardys stopped and pulled as close to the edge as they dared.
Frank and Joe hopped off and stood poised to leap out of danger again if
necessary.
The car hurtled toward them like a shot. Just when it seemed as if it could
not miss them, the driver swung the wheel about viciously and the sedan sped
past.
'Whew! That was close!' Frank gasped.
The car had been traveling at such high speed that the boys had been unable
to get the license number or a glimpse of the driver's features. But they had
noted that he was hatless and had a shock of red hair.
'If I ever meet him again,' Joe muttered, 'I'll -I'll-' The boy was too excited
to finish the threat.
Frank relaxed. 'He must be practicing for some kind of race,' he remarked,
as the dark-blue sedan disappeared from sight around the curve ahead.
The boys resumed their journey. By the time they rounded the curve, and
could see Willowville in a valley along the bay beneath them, there was no
trace of the rash motorist.
'He's probably halfway across the state by this time,' Joe remarked.
'Unless he's in jail or over a cliff,' Frank added.
The boys reached Willowville and Frank delivered the legal papers to a
lawyer while Joe guarded the motorcycles. When his brother returned, Joe
suggested, 'How about taking the other road back to Bayport? I don't crave
going over that bumpy stretch again.'
'Suits me. We can stop off at Chet's.'
Chet Morton, who was a school chum of the Hardy boys, lived on a farm
about a mile out of Bayport. The pride of Chet's life was a bright yellow
jalopy which he had named Queen. He worked on it daily to 'soup up' the
engine.
Frank and Joe retraced their trip for a few miles, then turned onto a country
road which led to the main highway on which the Morton farm was situated.
As they neared Chet's home, Frank suddenly brought his motorcycle to a stop
and peered down into a clump of bushes in a deep ditch at the side of the
road.
'Joe! That crazy driver or somebody else had a crack-up!'
Among the tall bushes was an overturned blue sedan. The car was a total
wreck, and lay wheels upward, a mass of tangled junk.
'We'd better see if there's anyone underneath,' Joe cried out.
The boys made their way down the culvert, their hearts pounding. What
would they find?
A close look into the sedan and in the immediate vicinity proved that there
was no victim around.
'Maybe this happened some time ago,' said Joe, 'and-'
Frank stepped forward and laid his hand on the exposed engine. 'Joe, it's
