“In fact,” Bess said hopefully, “maybe we ought to reconsider.” She turned to George. “Haven’t we already had enough excitement for one trip?”

Ned had managed to turn the car around, and the girls got back in. “Well, what now?” he asked.

Nancy looked at the others. “Do you want to go back to Great Falls and take the next plane home? Or do we keep trying to find Lost River?”

“I want to get to the bottom of this thing,” said George. “And I’m stubborn. I don’t want to give up my prize.” She looked around. “But just because I’m crazy, doesn’t mean you all have to stay. I’ll understand if anybody decides to go back home.”

Bess heaved a sigh of resignation. “If George is staying, I guess I will, too.”

Ned reached over and ruffled Nancy’s hair. “I’m in this as long as you are, Nan,” he said.

“In that case,” Nancy said briskly, “we’d better find an alternative route. This road isn’t going anywhere but down.” She pulled a state highway map out of the glove compartment and began to compare it to the map they had been given. “I think I see how to get there,” she reported after several minutes. “Let’s go back to the last fork in the road and take a left. Then it looks like we take two more left turns-we’ll be there in thirty or forty minutes.”

“You’re the detective,” Ned replied cheerfully, and drove back down the mountain.

Thirty minutes later, they pulled up at Lost River Junction, a small cluster of weathered, tired-looking wooden sheds huddled under tall pine trees beside the road. As Nancy got out of the car, she saw that one of the sheds sported a crude sign that said White Water Rafting in crooked letters. The sign looked new, she noticed, in contrast to the old building. Down the hill, behind the building, she glimpsed a group of people standing on the bank of a river, next to two big rubber rafts.

“Looks like we’ve made it-finally,” Ned announced, turning off the ignition.