The Shattered Helmet by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon [Dixon, Franklin W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101657300
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1973-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

Cheese Bait

“IT’s an earthquake!” Buster Buckles cried out, and dived headlong into his camper. Tail between legs, Teddy slunk in after him.

At first the boys looked at each other in stunned silence. Then Frank exclaimed, “Something’s happened over the hill!”

They raced up the slope toward their campsite. When they reached the brow of the hill, they looked down on a scene of utter devastation!

At the place where the bikes had stood there were now three shallow holes in the ground. The machines had been blown to bits! Parts dangled from the pine trees. A wheel had smashed into a rock, and a handlebar stuck out of the ground. Only the sleeping bags were still intact and lay crumpled on the ground about thirty feet away.

In stunned disbelief, the boys walked down the hill to the site of the demolition.

“This is terrible!” Evan whispered. “We’ve been dynamited!”

“Our enemies are really desperate to get us out of the way,” Joe said.

“Somebody must have been spying on us,” Evan conjectured, “and when we disappeared over the hill, set up the explosives.”

Frank nodded. “Good thing they didn’t go off while we were sleeping!”

The three boys poked around the debris for clues. After searching in vain, Frank said, “Remember what Cole said in the restaurant? ‘The kid’s gone for the big stuff.’ That kid could have been Leon Saffel going for the dynamite!”

The boys made one more round of the area. This time they picked up their sleeping bags and the motorcycle license plates, one of which had become embedded in the trunk of a pine tree.

“I think the police and insurance company will need these for evidence,” Frank remarked as they trudged back over the hill.

Waiting on the other side was Buster Buckles, a rifle on his shoulder.

“Hey, Buster!” Joe called out. “Put the shooting iron away. The varmints are gone!”

“Oh, it ain’t real,” Buster replied, explaining that the gun was an old comedy prop he carried along to scare off snoopers.

The actor plied them with questions about the explosion. Upon hearing the details, he blanched.

“Listen, I’m getting out of here!” he declared.

“But the bad guys are gone!” Frank insisted.

“How do you know they won’t come back? Maybe they’ll blow up my camper next! The whole world’s gone cuckoo. You can’t even find peace in the wilds of Arizony.”

Frank agreed they should leave and report the bombing to the police.

“Could you give us a ride to the next town?” he inquired.

Buster nodded. Then he said, “Hey, what was that you were asking about The Persian Glory?”

“We are looking for a copy of the film,” Joe said. “That’s why we’re here. Do you have one?”

Buster shook his head. As the boys moaned their disappointment, he added brightly, “I think I have an outtake, though.”

“What’s that?” Evan asked.

Buster explained that an outtake was film footage that had been clipped out for one reason or another.

“It might have been a poor shot,” he said, “or cut to tighten the action. Or, perhaps, the film was just too long.

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